We'll be starting in just a moment once Commissioner Cruz and Vice Mayor Turkin join us. Good morning and welcome to the city of Boon Beach city commission budget workshop and meeting. Today is Tuesday, June 30th, 2026 and the time is now 9:01
a.m. We will now turn to the interim city clerk for the roll call, please. >> Commissioner McCrae >> here. Commissioner Cruz >> present. >> Commissioner Kelly >> here. >> Vice Mayor Turkin >> present. >> Mayor Shelton >> present. >> Mayor, you have a quorum. >> Thank you. Commissioner McRae will lead our invocation and I will lead the
pledge of allegiance. Let's all stand for the invocation. And the pledge, please. >> Let us bow to the creative maker of all mankind. Father, here we are once more again standing in your presence. Father, as we come to deliberate this morning on the budget for the city of Bon, we ask
that you will lead us and guide us. Let us make decisions that will not only affect our city now, but for the future. All these blessings we ask in your name. Why? Because you live. Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you everyone. We are now moving on to the agenda. Approval, additions,
deletions, and corrections. Let's begin on my left. Commissioner McCrae, >> I have none. >> Commissioner Kelly, >> no. Thank you, Mayor. >> Vice Mayor Turkin, >> and Commissioner Cruz. >> No for me. Thank you. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> We have a motion to approve the agenda. And we have a second. All those in favor
say I. >> I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. The first item is a discussion about changing the final budget hearing in September. Can we please have staff start the discussion, explain the reason why it needs to be changed? Good evening, mayor, commission, vice
mayor, commissioners, Andrew M. Morning. Sorry. >> It seems like they're evening. So, we've been burning the midnight oil, the staff. So, appreciate it. So, we do have a conflict with our second meeting um for the bud final budget adoption. The
county has their budget hearing on the 15th. So, we have to move ours by statute. So, we provided the four dates that would work. Um, basically any one of those days that week would be acceptable. So, uh, we just need a consensus on what day you'd like.
>> Wednesday after or the 16th. >> Yeah, I was going to say 14th or 16th. >> 14th or 16th work for me, too. >> I have make it I have to make it work. Do we have um
>> No, I on the 18th I have maybe it's an old hold, but I have a second budget public hearing final adoption on September 18th already. >> Got it. >> That just a hold. >> I got a hold for the senior prom that day tenatively.
>> Um I mean I'm fine. Monday's fine or >> the Wednesday's fine. Wednesdays would be better for us just because we Yeah, there's a day between the weekend if there's something that comes up. >> Wednesday's fine for me. >> Okay.
>> Okay. Excellent. Thank you. >> From time 6 p.m. >> Yes. Correct. >> There's nothing else. Do we have a motion to approve the date change for the first meeting? >> Second. We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor say I.
>> I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. We will now move on to the budget presentation. Staff, would you kindly begin? Thank you. Good morning, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners. Alan Lawson, CFO, city of
Boon Beach. Uh 16 months ago, actually almost to the day, uh I was hired. Love my job. But there were five things that were given to me during the interview as well as walk in the halls as I began to introduce myself. Uh the big one was budget, budget, budget, budget. You got
to fix the budget. The second thing was ERP. The other one was policy enhancements for both investment, financial, travel, PECARD and then actually fixing the investments that we have within the city to grow are just residual income. And
then the last thing which is probably the most important that ties it all together is begin to develop transparency with the finance department to instill trust and communication amongst the departments as well as the commission between the finance department.
Then on February 4th, we had our first ever uh strategic meeting to talk about continuous improvement. From there, we developed what's called an AOP, which is an annual operating planning process. No more will the city be doing budgets from
March to June. It is an October to September activity. With that, we instilled for the first time a zerobased budgeting, a ZBSB process where budgets are now flat from last year and that will continue to be going forward. That is the goal. What that has done is that
has create that has continued into what's called continuous improvement which with the leaders here, directors, PD, public safety, all of everybody has worked together to find ways to provide the services that the city need.
With this strategic foundation, we've been able to simplify the budgeting process. I think it's been the easiest it's been so far. When your budget is flat, it becomes very apparent what you need to be doing from there. What that does is we look to ways to
secure fiscal sustainability, maintain a balanced budget while preserving adequate reserves. That has been the charge that I have been given from the CM. From there, when you do a ZBB, you have to find ways to optimize resource
allocations. It has created action amongst all the directors to find a way to continue to support the economic development and improve operational efficiencies. From there, you'll be able to address the equity in the community needs. You
can't do that without that. Ensure that there's equitable distribution of resources across our neighborhoods. Ultimately, we have to invest back in the infrastructure. And then this is no longer a one-year
plan or a three-year plan. It is a 5year to 10-year plan with what's we're facing today. So, we have to strengthen our long-term planning process. And that's what an annual operating plan does, which is our new foundation changing this culture.
Today, we're going to go through um the budget process. Fabio will walk you through that. There will still be some changes. What's been happening is we've been having some very uh energized discussions and activities with all departments looking
at different ways about the funds availability and being able to do things that we can still you know operate the city efficiency. So we'll go through that. Some things will come up in September but there will be no impact to our
overall fund balance. We are committing a zero impact to the fund balance and that's what we are charged with today and that's what we will go through first with we will I will transition to Fabio then public safety will come up leisure services public works utilities and then
CIP and now I'll transition over to Fabio. >> Excuse me. I'm I'm sorry. Before we transition I need to deal with this book first. Okay. I looked at your um
what you all call a >> organizational chart. This is wrong. And the reason I'm going to tell you that is wrong because we have combined the CRA along with >> the commission and we given the city manager some tasks to do and that's not
reflected on this flowchart. >> Understood. >> So if you all can just kind of straighten that out. That's first. Second, I've been asking ever since I've been here that I need a um list of uh the phone numbers and the emails of
senior staff. So, now that I have a list, it shouldn't be hard to get me one. Thank you. >> I'll take care of that. >> Sure. Uh good morning, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners. Um Fabio Baka, I'm the
division director of um budget. Uh the goal of the rest of the presentation is to give you uh an overview of the changes in the general fund and in the rest of the fund. So I'd like to draw your attention to uh the next slide which uh displays
uh a decrease in the proposed budget for the general fund when compared uh to last year's uh to the 2526 amended budget. Uh this decrease is mainly driven by items that were removed from
when the from the budget when we rolled it uh to the proposed budget. These items are uh mainly found in the capital outlay category that you see in the presentation. Those are items that um uh are one-time purchases that the city
does not have to make every year such as buying vehicles, buying computers, and buying pieces of equipment. You know, we don't buy those. So, they were removed from the budget um as it's displayed there. So, that's why you're showing a
decrease of $1.1 million or 0.8%. 8%. So this is virtually more than a flat budget. It's a budget that has actually decreased. Um the next uh slide um shows you the the different budget drivers of of this
decrease and like I mentioned before these are driven by the items that were removed from from the budget when we rolled it. However, I'd like to highlight some uh line items. It did increase and did have an impact in the budget such as health insurance. Um it
increased about half a million dollars and the pension uh contributions increased um a million dollars but these increases were offset by the items I already described. Uh the next slide it gives you a perspective of uh the expenditures in
the general fund going back to 2122. Uh back then uh the budget for the general fund was $104 million and the when compared to today's budget or the proposed budget of $139 million, you see
a difference of $34 million. And this this tells you, you know, that of course the the budget has grown, but also reveals the reasons why. When you look at the different expenditures uh throughout the years, you realize that uh $25 million of this increase have to
do with with personnel. So I mean it's not a mystery. We are aware that our budget is driven by personnel cost. And this slide reveals it. why uh the general fund budget has increased $34 million. >> Excuse me if I may.
>> Sure. >> Um of that personnel, >> can we just go over what that personnel is and do we have an because I think it's important for the public to know that to identify what that personnel is because if we're just someone could look
at that and say well you're just hiring people to hire people whereas is this an investment in public safety, firefighters, police. I think that's important. I don't want that to be misconstrued amongst the public. This is recorded. So, I don't want people to look at this and say, "All right, this is 35 million increase." You know, what
is that for? >> Thank Thank you, Commissioner. Absolutely. And I was intending on elaborating on that, but we'll go there right away. That's >> important. Yes. >> It's brought up, it needs to be identified as to why right afterwards because it will get easily misconstrued.
>> Absolutely. I agree. Thank you. And I agree with Vice Mayor Turkin. >> All right. So, um this particular slide uh shows the headcount uh throughout the years starting in fiscal year 2122. Back then the headcount was 854 FTEES.
Today's count is 1,02. That shows uh an increase of 148 FTEEs in all your funds. Um and to highlight uh or to break down this increase out of this these 148
positions 94 of them uh were in the general fund. So out of these 94 uh 30 are found in fire department and 24 in uh in police. So pretty much 50% of the increase in uh
that we see in this slide uh within uh the 148 positions about 54 of them are found in public safety and then the others will found you'll find them in in utilities, sanitation and golf your your business funds and
then other funds. Abio um there's a shift so there's a is there so in addition to there being some additional employees there's also just a shift between funds and moving employees
to the general fund. Is that my understanding? >> That is correct. That also takes that is correct. uh in in in this year's budget uh even though the headcount did not increase it actually it decreased there's movement between divisions and also between funds and to be more
specific um this year uh nine FTs were moved out of the traffic fund to the general fund that is reflected in the budget the headcount did not increase it was just a shift and just to note as well we currently have I think almost 90 positions or
vacancies I think our headcount right now, we will be we are on trajectory with the current hiring freeze to probably be somewhere between 940 and 950 employees. That's a trajectory that we're currently on right now the end of year. >> So, so this is just showing what if
every position was filled what our employment what our employees would where we would sit in all of our funds. But that's not actually where we're sitting as far as staff on payroll. Correct. >> That is correct.
>> I have a question as well in regards to vacancies. When you all get to your departments, I I would like to see I'm just saying if you got a say number two or something like this is not filled, not going to be filled, let me know so I could put a X so I could watch this and see what's
going just in case something comes up and say that this look like they're overly. I'm just saying show me where those employees are not working because I know some have left and I'm looking at your list that you all gave us and they're still listed. So, I'm I'm just trying to make sure I'm on the same page you all are on.
>> What I can do is uh Danielle Wfield, HR director, she's provided a very comprehensive vacancy report. What I can do is after this meeting, we'll sync that up and update that chart so you guys can see where those vacancies are currently sitting. >> Thank you. I'll go back. Thank you.
Next. Yep. Okay. All right. Um, moving on to the next slide. Uh, this particular display shows you uh all the budgets for all the funds in in this year's proposed uh budget. Overall, when you account for
every single fund, the the proposed budget went down $100 million. And I like to um draw your attention to specific areas of the budget that explain why that's the case. Uh the biggest driver of this decrease is found
in in the CIP um funds uh which are in the general fund, in the utilities fund, and also in Gulf. there's a decrease of $77 million because the way these funds behave, we don't we don't budget the same every year for CIP. And in this particular year,
there's less projects that are funded in in your CIP. Um, and there's more multiple reasons for that. one in the general fund, the funding for your S tax um dollars uh is has sunset or is about to sunset and therefore we cannot fund
um the all the projects that we wanted uh to fund. >> Hold right there because I have some questions cuz when I came back up here as a commissioner, >> the CIP budget was I they was zero and I'm like saying what happened? Okay. Is that mandated by the state of Florida
that we do not have a CIP budget or what? We have a CIB budget. What what has happened is we received the sir tax dollars from the county as a flow down through the state. That program has is sunseted. Well, we'll sunset December 31st, 2026.
>> That's my birthday. Go ahead. >> Um but the actual dollars it was it was either or it was certain dollar threshold or by this date is when the funding stopped. So we received our last check probably in May. So, we are no longer receiving any sir tax dollars
from the county or state. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Just to put that in perspective, that's about a $4.5 million loss to the city in reference to uh capital improvements and that's on an annualized basis.
All right. Um and again as this this slide uh shows you um all all the funds from a historical perspective. Um back in 2122 uh the budget for the entire city
general fund and every other fund was $226 million. The proposed budget today is $353 million. Uh this this reveals um um an increase of $127 million. Out of
out of this 127, $59 million have gone to capital improvements. $52 million have gone into personnel and the rest has gone into your operations, the operational budgets. Um, and again, this is the slide I showed you earlier that shows the um the
changes in in personnel. >> Give me an example of what's in other funds. >> Absolutely. the other funds. Uh um you're going to find uh impact fee funds. Uh you're going to
find uh your special revenue funds. Uh you're going to find an example of those would be building fund. Um I I can give you the whole listing if you like right now. >> All right. >> I need to know. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Ready?
Uh the next slide is gonna display the risk opportunities and different items that have been already executed. Uh there's different budgetary risks that I would like to highlight uh this morning. Uh and the first of them is that there's a a 1 million revenue increase in in the
traffic fund. Um and we see it as um as a risk because this may not fully realize. Uh another risk is that adhering to a hiring freeze uh it is it is sometimes a challenge. Uh, this proposed budget includes a six-month
hiring freeze and I, you know, like I already said it, this this may become sometimes difficult. Another risk that we have identified is a $5 million fire budget increase that we may have to include in the proposed budget um if
there's no mer merger of the fire department. And if I may interject, I think right now we have already been aggressively working these risks and they're moving towards to the right of the page to where it's more or less being executed. We're working with fire to mitigate the $5 million, working with
PD on the million dollar. So my confidence level from that from a risk perspective is getting very low. And as I said earlier, as we continue to look at uh adhering to this hiring freeze, we if we can end the year at roughly 940, 950 employees, there's been a long time
since the city's been there. That'll that'll change some of the discussions and resource allocations and and look at kind of reorgan what we need to do here in the city. Uh we also have identified an opportunity to uh increase the revenues for the city and that is to um uh
increase the fire assessment at a minimum of five $55 that will cover uh multiple needs uh within uh the city. Uh >> I have a question on this. Will that be for everybody in this city?
I'm just saying like VRG etc. those who retired. I'm just saying I represent district 2 and they're already complaining about what they're paying nine fire assessment. I'm just saying. So this is going to be a hard pill. You know, something that wants to sell to the public. I'm sorry.
So just to clarify, this budget does not include an increase to the fire assessment. This is just if the fire merger doesn't go forward and we have to absorb that additional cost, then we would have to look at that in the future potentially as an offset. that that's what that's it's just an opportunity.
>> I hope we don't have to do that because it's gonna be bad. Thank you. >> But that proposal is in anticipation for the ballot referendum in November. So I I just don't like I don't want that. I don't want to give the public the idea
that there's a shortfall or that or that there's an unknown expense that we need to cover. That is contingent on what happens in November. And that's just one proposal that is increasing revenue versus decreasing needs and decreasing
wants. So I just I just want to correct that. Um so people aren't thinking that hey it's an opportunity. Here's an opport the way this is being communicated. Here's an opportunity for us to take more of your tax dollars. And that with all due respect I don't think that's appropriate given all the
language that we're seeing in this time. And so what we need to be talking about as far as opportunities is cuts. And so I just want to make sure that this is communicated that this is a contingency and an idea that staff has, not
something that the com that the board here is looking to do. That's ultimately our decision. And so you know this should be last case scenario in my opinion. This should be last case scenario. And when we talk about public
safety, you know, the most important thing is personnel. How do we get that personnel? We approved a contract a couple years ago to go 2472 for the firefighters. Maybe that needs to be looked at. I'm not saying that is, but I think there's a lot of different things that we need to do before we get to the
point where we're going to raise uh the fire assessment. And again, this is contingent on ballot passing in November. If it doesn't pass, then this is a whole different conversation. And so I just don't want I don't want the sentiment to go out there that the city
of Buon Beach is saying, "Hey, you know, we're we're not going to listen to what the residents want. We're going to increase your you know, this is my opinion at least. we're going to increase X Y and Z because that's not that's not my prerogative and that
should not be staff's prerogative first and foremost because I think that essentially that that kind of it's almost like you're not listening to you know what people are saying and so I I
just want to make sure that as we move forward with today that we're communicating this appropriately with multifaceted options not hey we're going to increase X, Y, and Z. No, it needs to be a conversation of we're going to reallocate resources
or we're going to cut X, Y, and Z and and not just focus on an increase to make things easier because that's not unfortunately we have to make decisions and um you know, a lot of a lot of this is just the communication which I think we need a little we need to fine-tune a
little bit. Yeah, when Fabio is done going over all the funds and the expenditures and revenues, I'll give a more lay approach for everyone to digest as far as like what we're looking at as the overall city. But you're exactly right. There is no plan to increase the fire assessment this year at all. We
kept the budget status quo with the exception of one thing that we're needing uh commission direction on. We as of right now, none of your public safety pay raises that are to be adhered to through the CBA are built into this
budget which represent about $2.6 million. In addition, I froze all general employee pay raises. Now, obviously, none of us up here have a crystal ball and we have to navigate this property tax uh referendum item the best we can, same as every other
municipality. So that's the only thing that we uh we don't have built into the budget. So that would change in the event that the commission would like to see public safety payraises implemented. And if that is the case, I would also
like to see a 3% cola for general employees because I I I can't have the the discrepancy that gap of public safety getting six and 7% pay raises and general employees stay static. So that is the only thing not built in here and there is no fire assessment
increase. I believe the only increase you guys are going to see today are some CPI adjustments in is it solid waste and did we do a CPI on parking? >> No, we did not. And then there's going to be a utility presentation that you guys will have to give us direction on.
So, and that's going to be a fairly substantial increase as far as from a percentage standpoint, but from a uh dollar denomination amount, it's probably going to equate to about a 15 to 16 average dollar increase monthly for the utility uh bills that the uh
residents are going to see. And that is for that's twofold. One, you have to anticipate that your infrastructure is coming to end of life over at your utility uh plant. The other is the fact that you need to
if we're not doing a fire assessment increase in the event the property tax legislation does pass, you have to give staff time to build out a strategy that we can actually get to without um looking at looking down the barrel of a $10 million shortfall next year in next
year's budget. And that's what we're uh we're outlining as far as right now. So I'll give a more uh as elementary breakdown as far as like the city's uh funding mechanisms that we have what we've been facing because what's not
being talked about is the fact that if you look at your general fund 35% of your general front fund is being absorbed by inflation from 2122. If you this board remembers in 2021
because of COVID you have you had a 9% CPI. The following year it was 7%. That's 16% right there. And so the government is essentially built off of the free market in the private sector. That's where you
get all your utility chemicals from. That's where you get all your vendors whenever we're doing HVAC repairs. That's where you get your fleet services from the private sector. So that's going that that those inflationary costs are going to be passed on to the government and that's not being talked about enough. So if you look at how your
general fund is built like there there's been some very efficient efficient work with how we fund the city overall and I'll go into a little bit more in depth. Fabio I don't want to Fabio I don't want to
steal your thunder so continue sir. I'm and I'm pretty much >> hold on before you continue. >> I want to tell you thank you because the first of all being human the only thing we remember is an increase. We don't remember savings. So I'm glad you said it like you did. Thank you. Now you can
continue. >> And real quick uh vice mayor uh just so you know been working with Chief Brutder. Honestly half the time I think my office is his office because we've been working so hard. So we've been very creative. So, like I said before, the $5 million impact, he's working, he's
looking at things, being very creative on this continuous improvement to come down from a budget perspective. So, very aggressive. So, it's it's been very interesting to see what has unraveled over the last couple of weeks. >> That's great to hear. Again, I think the thing is communication, you know, and when you when you look at opport when I
think of opportunities, I think of revenue growth from a business perspective. And what's that revenue? That's the taxpayer, right? And so it's just with all this stuff going on and you know it's split, you know, there's people that are one way, people in another. I just think that the language of like here's an opportunity, we're
going to we're going to charge you more. It just is not the best way to communicate a budget during this time. That is my that is that is my uh that's my soap box. So I would just think about that because people are going to they're going to look at this. They're going to
run with it. they're going to take it and then, you know, then we're gonna have Sheila, you know, getting blown up by every news outlet out there. >> Vice Mayor, that's excellent way to look at it. Honestly, you have to turn a blind eye to revenue growth and that's why you focus on the ZBB making things
flat. If you ignore what's happening at the top line, focus in the middle where you can squeeze. >> Acronym CBB. Can you tell the public what that means? >> Zerobased budgeting. >> Thank you. All right. So, I'll I'd like to wrap it up just by highlighting items that have
already been executed in in the budget. Uh, as we just mentioned, this is a ZBB budget. Uh, it's been executed. Uh, also, the police department has identified additional revenues of about half a million dollars that have been built into the budget. Uh, health insurance, the RFP has been executed and
there's no cola reflected into all um the budgets. Uh, so those four items have been executed. Uh so what's next? Uh the next step is for us to come back in September for our first budget hearing and then to ratify it uh in the second budget hearing that has been set
for se September 16th. So there's a correction to be made in this slide and that is the end of my presentation. Is there any additional questions? So, with that being said, currently, uh, Avalorum is projected at right around $82 million. You guys should probably
have those figures. Um, of that 17.4 million is going to transfer over to, uh, the CRA. Uh, 17.4 will be met with the county's contribution as well. It should come up to right around $28 million, which is an increase to the CRA
funding side. So you lose those monies and whatever is left out of your Avalorum revenue uh is going to go fund the general fund for the most part. So when you look at the general fund and the departments it's comprised of public works, parks and wreck, uh police, fire,
they make up the uh vast majority of it. So when you remove the 17 million, you're left with about $65 million. Your police department overall's budget is right around 56 to 58 million. So, what do you do to fund the city? You
do it through transfer fees. And you do it through transfer fees from your utility department. Get a share uh sales tax share with the state and overall that comprises your 138 $139 million general fund. I'm oversimplifying it,
but the comprehensive breakdowns in your uh your budget workbook. So of that I said that about 35% of your general fund is directly correlated and built in with that overall CPI increase we've seen
over the last 5 years. We have pending state legislation and I've given a presentation to you guys before. You guys know the economic impact since that presentation. The numbers have changed. Originally, the property appraiser sent us a uh breakdown uh saying that it was
a $32 million shortfall in October 2829. That's that has changed recently to where now we're going to be facing probably about a $16 million shortfall. So, the $16 million shortfall, as far as like putting that in perspective, you
could eliminate your entire parks and recreation division, every event in the city, and including the library, children's schoolhouse, museum subsidies, you still only get to about $10 million. You still have a $6 million shortfall. So, we're we're we're trying
to navigate those perils by being responsible and keeping your budget flat. And I I can't say enough about Allan and my staff. They have they have busted their butts to try to present a budget to you guys. And I know uh public safety's in the room.
They obviously have their CBA agreements. We can make that happen. I will be very clear. In the event that we do have to make substantial movements next year, then those individuals, the city's going to
face a financial urgency situation to where we can do the payraises this year, build them in, but we will not be able to do that next year in the event it is a yes vote unless certain things happen during this budget workshop. and we're
going to have to have the foresight to navigate those challenges next year. Uh we're not really doing a fire assessment increase because the fire assessment increase, even if you do move to $45 next year, uh what that's going to do is
that's essentially going to get us to survivability mode to where we can just float for two or three years until the uh 250,000 is built in. And to put the the homestead exemption aspect into perspective for you guys, currently we
have about 17,500 homesteaded um homes within the city of Boon Beach. So all the residents you have, you have 17,500 that are homesteaded. Of those 17,500, about 12,500
are valued at $250,000 or less. That represents twofold. one, the value of the home is $250,000 or less, or two, those are your long-term residents that have been here the longest. They homesteaded originally and it kind of locked in their price. And to give you a
little bit of perspective on that, my home valued at $500,000. So, in the event that this passes and I have $250,000 taken off of my home, it stands to um reason that I'm going to experience about a 4 to $5,000 a year
savings in property taxes. So, it's substantial. Overall, I pay about 11,000 when you um cook in homeowners insurance and some of the different assessments and how the county breaks everything down on their end. But in the city, it is substantial. you're going to be left
with a probably about 5,000 homes paying some sort of abalorum. So, if you don't transfer the cost of um the quality of services in the city next year in the event this passes, you're not going to have a funding mechanism. And I spoke about this pro close to four years ago now to
where you have to start moving away from a valorum taxes like you just have to because it's it's it's not a stable income source to provide the services. Now, I'm not up here to get on a soap box and rah rah rah saying don't pass
property tax legislation. Ultimately, it's up to the residents if they want to see the size of government shrink and do cuts and reduction in personnel and not see payraises and things of that nature. But you're going to have other cities do
that and you're going to have cities like Boca Raton that are going to essentially raise their fire assessment from $140 to $224. You're going to see cities like Delray Beach who do not even have a fire assessment. They're going to be looking to go to an MSTU to where they enter
into an ILA with the county for a share and implement a a different funding ne mechanism for their fire department. They're going to look at implementing a fire assessment. Every single city this year is going to be looking at ways
to navigate the challenges that are in front of you with the least amount of impact. I can assure you what we've plugged into um the budget this year with the the utility increases and things of that nature, it's going to help us navigate these challenges and
provide staff the necessary am ammunition to avoid cutting whole departments. Because when I tell you guys the city can't withstand a $10 million haircut without eliminating your library, eliminating the uh the
children's schoolhouse museum subsidies, the arts and cultural center, every single event July 4th, 250 years celebrating. That's going to be the last time that the city's going to celebrate as far as using public funds to do such. So that's the perspective. It is again
uh we we we definitely have some challenges like I said your general fund 17.5 million of that going to the CRA. Uh we we we have a very large substantial library. It's about 2.8 $3 million. Uh and this isn't me
undercutting the work that those specific items do. I'm just trying to put into um perspective that you realize these are quality of life departments. They're not core essential services. Core essential services, fire, police,
uh public works, paving roads, uh fixing potholes, utilities, making sure your uh waterers running, your toilets are flushing, and whether or not there's a revenue um there's a there there's a revenue opportunity.
That's a key word today, opportunity. uh with what we can do with our utility then we were exploring a lot of different options before this came about. The county has since frozen a lot of those uh opportunities that we had
understandably so. I would do the same thing if I was on their side until I can do a proper assessment. But like we're we're navigating a lot of challenges as is as the city because you just don't have the property values of Bokeh. You don't have the property values of West Palm. they don't have the property val
values of Jupiter. So you're we're we're running about 10.1 billion in um Avalor value of that. I just told you about 12,000 of those properties are valued at $250,000 or less. Delray has about double that value and Boca Raton has
about probably five times the value that we have. >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you. You know, I'm glad department heads are sitting here this morning and hearing what we're saying, you know, about we have challenges, but we're not talking about elimination. So, when you go back to your staff and they start
talking, you know, we're looking for you all to take the right message back, you know, because they start getting phone calls. I'm going to start saying, "Dan, you're you didn't explain something right to your staff." So, I'm I'm making sure that department's heads are sitting here. Please listen to what we're
saying. We have challenges, but we're not looking at elimination. So, make sure you tell your employees that. Thank you. >> Yeah. The way we've strategized some of these uh specifically uh the utility increases andor a fire
assessment increase. This is all um the fire assessment is predicated on next year, utility increases are predicated on this year. So, essentially, we're going to be looking at direction from the commission. Obviously, it's your guys's uh um authority to like dictate
whether or not you want cuts here, add-ons there, but we we we we do have a framework that we want to operate in. Uh and I'm just giving you guys the the option that if we were to increase uh a
rate or something, then there may be an appetite to decrease something somewhere else. that way it can be a fairly commiserate. So, >> mayor, >> um, thank you, Dan. I, um, to get back
to, you had mentioned, you know, I I understand I appreciate the zero base budget. I feel like we've been talking about that for a long time. It's kind of starting fresh. And so, thank you. I appreciate that. I feel like it's disingenuous to our staff to come into a
zerobased budget not considering them and their efforts and their time and their um their household requirements as well. I mean, we're all um living through these
times and we depend on um you know, our salaries, you know, to live. Um and just like everyone else, everyone's feeling the crutch as well as our employees. And so I um I appreciate that. Although I feel like
it's not realistic to go into a budget cycle not um including some sort of cola because our employees are also faced and some of our employees are some of you know are
barely making above um you know minimum wage or making very small wages. And so to think that we're going into a zero budget and coming in um without really you know having that I can I it's easier to work down or it's easier to go okay
well what's what's a you know do we do a smaller percentage or we do that to make it to make it work. that, you know, I just I when I look at um you know, when you're looking at pay increases, when you're looking at colas, you're not
looking at performance-based. This is truly just, you know, sustainable um and to keep them um here and employed and in their homes um and being able to, you know, we have to take care of them. And
I think that when we go into looking at budgets, I feel like it is it is easier to find the money and it's easier to cut other things out when you've accounted for those increases
when you've you've put the line item in there that says we're going to um you know, let's see what the budget's going to where can we cut if we're if we're including a 3% cola as opposed to coming and saying, "Okay, we've given you and
presented you with a zerobased budget and hasn't changed a little bit. It's changed and now we're having to go, well shoot, we didn't think, you know, how what are we going to cut now?" because now we're going into having to have more conversations about
what the budget's going to look like when we if we decide to add a 3% cola for our employees who show up every day at work and keep the city running and keep our roads clean and keep our roads
going. I I struggle with starting out there as opposed to including it and then and then we can we can work from there. But to start at a zero base and now we're going to have to have further conversations about what the budget
looks like or where we're going to cut in order to make up that difference. um PD and fire and our SEIU. I know SEIU is out of contract and we can talk about that at another time, but you know, these are contracts that we approved as
a commission. Um and I I struggle with right now when we're not in a budget crisis, per se, um stripping all of that and saying we can't figure out where to make that up. We can figure out where to make that up. We have figured out how to
make it a zerobased budget. We can and you just Dan, you just sat here and said we'll figure it out and we'll we'll make it happen. I know that these department heads that are sitting here can figure out how to make it happen. There's a training budget here. There's a
car allowance here. There's a this here. There's there's a way to make it happen. And I feel like if we if we talk about eliminations and then have to add it in and figure out where to eliminate, then we're we're
extending our our our budget hearings as opposed to saying, "Okay, we have factored it in and this is what it looks like and we need to find this money." Because now we're sitting here like, "How where where is this going to come from? What are what are we going to do?" And I know
Dan, you and I have had conversations. I've had conversations with with various people from the departments. So that is my struggle is that now we're sitting here like, well, we could do it. Okay, but where are we doing that from? Because I don't want to see our contract
employees that we've agreed. I mean, how do we go back on our word? We've we've hon, you know, how do we not honor um a contract when we're not in a budget crisis? Next year, that's a whole different ballgame. then then we're having different conversations if that's what we're looking at. But I feel like
right now having a conversation starting out and going, "Yep, sorry guys. We appreciate you showing up every day, but we don't appreciate you that much." And so I struggle um with that. And that's my position on that that I feel like um you know you know I feel like we we
should have had them in the and then we can figure out how to how to manage the budget but to to start now having to try and figure out where that money is going to come from. I just feel like it's not transparent for the public or for the employees. So
>> thank you. I do want to say um a couple things. I want to thank city leadership and the finance team as well as every single department that's been I know you guys have been working real hard to trim the fat and find opportunities to
cut cost and try to keep cost the same. Um I think I while I appreciate the comments um and and yes there's absolutely truth to those. I do want to commend staff for doing a zerobased budgeting this year
because if you hear what's going on on the news in Tallahassee, we're talking government efficiency, transparency, accountability, all the key words for trying to function um and do more with less, right? We understand inflation. We
understand that as as Dan said, you know, we purchase um materials, chemicals from the private sector. you know, that's why a lot of the costs have gone up. I would love to see uh you know, if we could afford it and if if it would make
sense um honoring our word um and and honoring, you know, and treating employees the same whether you know it's a CBA employee or it's a a city hall employee, right? Um so I I I do agree with those sentiments. At the same time,
I think that we need to have some sort of a change. We need to find um opportunities to trim the fat. We need to find opportunities to reduce cost. Um as vice mayor said earlier, very good points. Like, you know, it's not just about increasing revenue, but it's also
about finding ways to to reduce cost. So one thing that I I would like to see going forward with the presentations as every department comes up um you know specifically you know noncba is uh I would like to know you know not only how
many full-time employees are in your staff but also you know if we have a position that is manager or director or anything above that I would like to see how many staff members are directly reporting to you for those position.
positions and and what the pay is for that position. Thank you. And I I do have some thoughts, but you know, I might not be ready to say them yet. Um but we have a challenge in front of us,
right? there's there is a potential where we could have a pretty catastrophic situation, you know, for local governments as a whole come November if if if the ballot initiative, you know, were to pass. So, I I appreciate, you know, our
our leadership and our staff looking for opportunities to allow the city to to survive and and to continue. Um, but I do have concerns, right? Um, and I think everybody in this room and you know probably has the same concerns. You
know what what is going to happen come November and how are we going to continue to function. So yes, it would be great to be able to give everyone salary increases and and and all of that and you know that's definitely in our hearts. Um, and although we're not in a
crisis yet, we do have to be proactive and look at the future and the potential and how that would affect. As the city manager stated, the new figures appear to be about $16 million shortfall. So, every time we talk about millions and and increases and things of that
nature, that's only going to increase the shortfall for the future because now we have a different baseline. That's all. Thank you. Give me one second, Alan. So, right now, I we you you guys saw we have
about $139.3 million projected uh general fund. Of that, your public safety represents close to $100 million of that figure. That means every other aspect besides police and fire that's housed in your general fund has $40
million. in two years if you take $16 million off of that figure that's what you're going to be left with to fund everything else. So like and and I've heard the mantra saying that like this isn't going to affect public safety. It may not affect public safety from the
pro like prospect of like overall numbers right now. But through attrition and hiring freezes, it will have a detrimental effect on public safety. And I know I applaud this board. You guys made public safety number one priority and strategic plan. When I came in, I
saw a lot of um there was roofs being put on houses without a without a foundation. There was walls being put up. There was landscaping, but the foundation wasn't there. So, what we went we went back and we put the foundation in place and we built upon
that. And obviously now what we uh what we have going on is you you you got a I want to say it's a a a timing crisis rather than a budget crisis because right now you got probably about three or four months before November 2nd and we have to see whether or not this this
is going to pass. So and we're trying to navigate the best we way we can. So Allan, you got the floor again, sir. >> Sorry you said some of the things I was willing to say. I and honestly I'm not I'm not panicked because the team's already engaged. You talk about trim the
fat but really it's about optimizing what we have and that's what we're doing. I'd be panicked if the teams here were not engaged and doing what is right and you know through attrition right if we can get to that the 930 940 range people you're looking at kind of
restructuring the organization you can take some of those dollars and look to be creative and giving some of that back if necessary it'll be up to the commission a lot things can happen between now and September but we are you know because we started so early and ahead of it even though we we didn't
know what was going on. We are ahead of the game right now and I think everybody else is trying to catch up to us. We're we're in positioned right now. So, I'm not panicked. I think we're good. Whether it's this should happen whether or not there's a yes or no vote. This should have been happening anyway and that's where we are right now.
>> Move forward. >> Okay. Mine just messed up. We're moving on to the department budget presentations. Uh and the first one will be uh PD police department.
Morning, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, city manager's office. Thank you. All right, we'll move to the first slide. Uh something that's important to just highlight on this slide is as you all
know that personnel represents about 87% of our our budget. Um and our personnel cost on this particular item is shows uh a reduction or generally speaking it's probably more even throughout the last
since compared to last year to the amended to what we're proposing. And as you know it doesn't incorporate any of our contractual obligated raises. Um we also see a somewhat flat operating
expenses. Um in fact uh we did have some increases during the amended uh budget year. Um but we're we're back down to the adopted of 9.2 which represents $800,000 uh reduction.
Um our capital outlay um compared to uh last year is reduced by 1.6 6 million. And part of that was u we did we did receive $1.3 million Motorola credit um that we we utilize to offset our radio
expenses. Um so that's the that's what you're seeing in that number right there. Uh and lastly, our non-operating expenses um is a reduction of $500,000. So our total reduction for um last year
versus this year is a reduction of 5.1%. Some of our drivers um our pension obligations for sworn increased 8%. uh general employees increased uh $300,000 uh which I'm sorry that was a reduction
of $300,000 which is a roughly 276% decrease from last year. Our health insurance went up. Uh we also have reimburseable overtime wages of $500,000 partly because our detail rates have increased. Uh and we have also
opportunities where we were getting reimbursible uh grants for uh overtime uh to include uh something that recently came across with um 287G as well as the presidential um uh escorts and
protection in our operating expenses. Uh we we did see an increase um because of some federal funding we received. Um, so in order for us to allocate that funding, we had to increase our operating expenses. So essentially, it is a push.
It's just additional funding into that particular account. Um, and like I mentioned, we are reimburseable wages uh from our police detail. Um, we also saw an increase as well. Moving over to the capital nonoperating
that I highlighted on the first page, uh, a big chunk of that is the uh is our radio expenditure. Um, and partly because of the the Motorola credit that we received uh from our previous RMS system of 1.3 million that we were able
to utilize for our new purchase on our radios. I believe our radio total purchase was $2.1 million, but that was in a prior uh fiscal year. All right. Some of our risks, as we mentioned before, um it doesn't it
doesn't represent any of the contractual obligations uh to our CBA employees. Um we we do have frozen positions. Currently in this budget, we represent three frozen positions. Uh one's a record supervisor, uh one's a police
admin specialist, and one is a police records technician. Um, so that it's frozen positions for six months. And as we all know is the SEI contract negotiations is is something that's due the beginning of the fiscal year. I'm
not sure what the status of, but they're in negotiations right now. So that is also a future risk. Um, some of our opportunities, I think we've done a really good job with our grant opportunities. uh our our grant officer and our and our finance department has brought roughly
in about $1.9 million of grant awarded and received over the last fiscal year. Um which is fantastic to to be creative and to augment our our current budget. Um we also have an opportunity looking at our our our city our city events and
our overtime and how we how we're policing that. And we've we've done really well. So I'm going to knock on wood here. We do have very safe um events and I'd like to keep it that way, but we also have an opportunity to look at how we're staffing it and be a little bit more um fiscally creative. Um and
being that we do have uh more officers out on the road than we've had in previous years is also an opportunity to offset some of the um the details with on duty officers to include our security detail here which we're moving forward what will be an an onduty officer
instead of utilizing overtime. Um just another way to to to be a little bit more uh creative in the way we manage our our city overtime and our events. Another opportunity is freezing positions. Currently uh we have six officer positions that are vacant. Um
and we have nine civilian positions that are vacant. So those are opportunities to freeze those positions. And if we did freeze those positions, it would represent um you know $1.5 million. Some of the things that um we've executed in this contract and it's
mentioned by Fabio is the the um the cola raises in the CBA contractual obligations. Um we also have a capital outlay reduced to $240,000 which is roughly um last year we had $500,000.
Vice Mayor, did you have a question? >> Yes. Yes, Chief. Thank you. Um that cola what what is the amount? Is that that 204,000? What is the amount of the uh the contract obligation for the raises?
>> The um for the officers, sergeants, and captain >> all all together. >> Yeah, it it represents um $1.2 million. >> $1.2 million. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And so the freezing is 1.5, >> correct? >> Okay. That was just for the freezing.
That wasn't all the opportunities together. >> Yes. >> Okay. Chief, I'm going to assess something. Is the freeze in for the six months? >> So, currently in the budget that's proposed to you, there's a six-month freeze for three positions that we've
already worked with with finance. As a future opportunity, we have positions that are um not filled and it represents an opportunity to freeze those positions. Let Let me make sure we My question is
the positions that you frozen now. I'm just saying we freeze them for six months. We're going to save $1.5 million. This is my question. >> That's not That's not what I'm saying. No, the positions that we froze right now is for 6 months and the three positions that those are separate.
They're already included in the budget. The opportunity here is if we chose to do so, we have additional positions that are not filled that we can freeze them throughout the whole entire fiscal year, which it represents six officers and
nine um civilian staff and that would give us the 1.5. >> Let me ask another question. The three positions that's frozen for six months at push come to sh can you freeze them for the rest of the year? Yes or no? >> Yes, sir.
>> Thank you. Also in the executed is the reduction of our capital outlay. Um we had roughly $500,000 coming from the red light camera to fund some CIP projects and we're not going to be doing that
anymore. We we those projects were just we're shelving the projects. Um we also included in there is our radio. we do pay $288,000 to the building department for the remaining amount of the the radios that
we owe. Um so that's that's the $248,000 reduction in our capital outlay. And we've also uh eliminated three positions in our budget. One was a police major, one was legal adviser, and one was DE division director of public sa division
director of public safety communication. And that is the the conclusion of my presentation. >> Thank you. >> I'm going to say, you know, first look like you already built in some savings. I'm just saying, you know, so we come back and said that we need you to do a little bit better. Do you still see
opportunity where you could do a little bit better >> there? There are opportunities. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> You answer my question. Thank you. >> Anybody have any questions or comments for the chief? Okay, moving on. Thank you, sir.
>> Next up is fire and chief brutder. >> Do what? >> Yeah, they're healthy >> if we really were. >> If you guys >> I'm good. >> If you need some chairs, let us >> As long as I can lean. If I can lean, I'm good to go. >> Yeah. Or you can sit there. Don't want you standing all day like that.
Possible. Uh, good morning everyone. Mayor, vice mayor, commissioner, staff. Hugh Brutder, your fire chief. Um, let's wait till we get that first slide up. Let me hit this little thing forward for you. Uh, so what you'll see for the fire department for next year's budget,
essentially we're coming in just a little under $200,000 under flat. Uh that was uh for making some reductions in paramedic equipment in some facilities uh repairs that we can put off to the following year and then some
other purchases that we can go ahead and wait on. Um uh if we go to the next slide in terms of budget drivers uh one of the things we look at with the vacancies that we're currently holding and so right now we're currently holding nine vacancies within
the fire department of those five of which are uniform vacancies. I have one civilian staff and three lifeguards right now. Uh so the issue in the fire department with holding vacancies is that uh when you have a vacancy we have minimum staffing. So we have to staff
our units. So when we staff our units and we don't have a person filling that spot, we have to fill it with overtime. Uh and then that overtime is pensionable. So actually there could actually when you look at it, you might actually be better off filling those uniform vacancies than than having them
vacant. >> Yes, Chief. Thank you. Uh while we're on the topic of overtime, do we have or do we have access to today to look at the overtime um expenditures from 2022 up until this year? because when we were discussing the switching contract, the
big why was we're going to completely reduce overtime from the former assistant city or city manager Jim Staples. And so I just want to look and see if that actually came to fruition um because that's important. And so I just want to know how much overtime have we
utilized? If we have, is that an issue with um retention or or attrition? And so I I just need to know all the facts um because that was the reason at least for me to move forward in that direction because it was ultimately going to be a
cost savings with that overtime. So I just want to take a deeper dive into that if possible. >> Right. Well, I'm not sure what what the numbers are showing here, but I can tell you that prior to going to the 2472, we were running about a $2 million overtime budget. >> Uh and right now that budget's between
500 and a million. And I think the reason why you're seeing this year it's higher is because we're holding those vacancies. >> And remember, as I mentioned, with minimum staffing, you have to fill those positions with overtime. Not only are you filling them with overtime, but now you're overworking your public safety
individuals because now you're, you know, we put this program in place to do 2472, not not just to cut overtime, but it's also looking at the mental health of your first responders, uh, you know, who suffer from high amounts of post-traumatic stress, suicide, divorce,
addiction. So, this body recognized not only the fiscal impact, but the human impact to to your firefighters >> and I appreciate that. And you know and I was happy to support that. Also to that point I don't want those those are very important object objectively
speaking though I also want to look at the overtime and not masquerade those important things to look at with those issues. Those are extremely important. However we cannot masquerade those issues to what the objectivity of the
overtime spend is and why we did this. And if you look at other departments across the state of Florida, not every department is at a 2472. And and again, let me be very clear. It's not that I'm looking to go back to
that. Is that an option? Maybe. I don't know. What I'm looking for is what has been more costefficient and where is the ROI, you know, for our residents and and the budget for that. Is it justifiable? That's what I'm looking for is, you
know, we went from 2 million, we were told it was going to be almost eliminated completely and now here we are at 500,000 to a million, which you explained why. It's because we have those vacancies. So, I understand. So, it seems like it's almost if if we don't have the vacancies, it runs a little bit
more efficiently than if we do have the vacancies. >> If I may. Yeah. So, yes, to answer your question. So if if we were if we were fully staffed from a uniform perspective, you would see overtime costs come down. >> You would see your pension obligation come down over the long term. So but
every fire department in the state of Florida has a certain systemic overtime built into the budget. You're never going to be able to eliminate 100% of the overtime. But keeping Boon Beach Fire Rescue at around a half a million dollars in overtime would be the goal. >> That's the goal. >> And that would be my goal because it's
systemic. You're going to have overtime because of the nature of how fire departments operate, which is minimum staffing on the units. See, in other departments within the city, if someone's not there, you don't necessarily have to put a person on that unit. >> Correct. 100% agree. The the
conversation with public safety is completely with all due respect to general employees, completely different conversation. We're talking about the absolute standard and and the the human right to safety. And so, you know, I just I just want to make like I'm just
trying to understand. So, if we're op the total cost is less if we're fully staffed compared to that gap of that overtime is and and the pension liability. Is that what you're saying? >> That is one of the driver long term.
That is one of the drivers. It's the major driver because if you're fully staffed, you're not you're not back filling with overtime and then you're not paying because the the overtime rate plus the pension obligation drives that from a time and a half perspective to almost a double time perspective. So it
it compounds for the city. But but if I may, I just something that you had said earlier that I really want to key in on which is the fact that when this body did put public safety as a number one concern, it isn't it isn't just about the 2472 for the fiscal nature of it or
for the mental health. It's it's for ensuring as a body that you have um the best fire rescue services that you can provide for your constituents. Prior to the 2472, we were having difficulties keeping staff. We had a high turnover rate. People were leaving to go to other
fire departments. So in and with the assistance of senior city leadership to be able to and you and the board to be able to increase salaries so that they're competitive. Right now I have probably half of my department has less than seven years on those younger firefighters. They cannot afford to buy
a house in Palm Beach County. And so so how do they live? How do they survive? So, not only did we set up this 2472 for the aforementioned reasons, but we also set it up so that we have a sustainable fire rescue department, one that you're going to be able to have and maintain
into the future that's not only fully staffed, but as we've said in the past, a destination fire department, one that people want to come and work for because they know that the elected body and city leadership are behind them and behind their pay and their benefits to keep them whole. So, that that in in a
nutshell, that's the picture. Thank you, Chief. And the the nine vacancies, is that through attrition or is that through the inability to recruit or do we see a slowdown in being competitive? >> No, we have no issues recruiting with what we have set up together, all of us.
Um, we have a very solid foundation in place. So, um, there are vacancies that were created through attrition, through retirements. We had a few, we had one person that left with, uh, within the last year that decided to go to Colorado. Um, and we have some vacancies within the ocean rescue department. Um,
I feel that we'll be able to fill those vacancies quickly if we get approval to to do so, >> which will then help with the overall cost. >> I believe it will. >> Yeah, that's that's my that's my whole thing is to justify filling these positions because long-term you mitigate
that overtime and pension cost. >> Well, and and there's other ways as well. As I mentioned, those were the couple of drivers in the beginning, but I think you heard the finance director say that he spent quite a bit of time with me recently. Yeah. >> And and the reason for that is is because we're going back and and you'll
see one of my things here at the end in terms of going back and looking at our operational efficiency. How can we look within ourselves, not only contractually, but as an organization? Um, and one of the things I was going to mention at the end that I'll mention now and and Commissioner Cruz had asked, I
have 187 employees. I have six uniform staff in my executive staff and three civilians, one of which is vacant. I have a vacant admin position. Um, and I have one out having surgery. So, for 187 employees, I had one admin until I just got a a temp. Um, but the point I'm
trying to bring out is if you compare Boon Beach Fire Rescue's executive staff and administration to every neighboring fire department, we are at 50% of the staff. Bokeh 16. Del Rey 17. West Palm a
little bit bigger. They have 20. So we are essentially half the size in terms of your white shirts. Your fire administration is half the size. And we've done that to help the city gain not only two two twofold. One, to be fiscally responsible and show that we're
going to work hard for you and staff and the citizens, but that at the same time that we do that, um, every one of my people is doing two jobs, and that's okay. A lot of people in this good a lot of people in the city are working two jobs because where we need those firefighters, we need them out in
operations. Yes. So if if I could, which I did when I was here and I first became the fire chief, we eliminated the second deputy fire chief position. It was something I felt was not needed. We were able to put four firefighters into operations by eliminating that deputy fire chief. But keep in mind, we are
running 50% admin executive staff than every other fire department. >> That means you're doing the right thing. It means you're being you're doing the right thing in consideration of what you actually need versus what you actually want. And if I was West Palm,
Del Rey, etc., I'd call you for advice. >> Do you find it harder to staff the ocean positions than you do? >> No. just due to the nature of the salaries in those positions. If if you and we've done a great job together collectively to increase those salaries
since I've been here, but when you see what Ocean Rescue has to do every day out down on that beach and we do have some rough waters and they do a fantastic job, but we lost one to uh to death who passed away. um and we lost two who left to go to other departments
because they're getting paid a significant amount of more money uh you know at those other agencies. Now, one of the things we did two years ago or three years ago when we took over Ocean Rescue and subsequently a year later, we started a program that allowed our
firefighters who are watermen to work for detail pay, not overtime pay. That was something that we worked with labor. It's very very important that any municipality, any public safety director works very closely with labor handinand because it isn't about how much can we
get. It's it's what can we do? How can we operate as effectively and as inexpensively as possible and be a a highranking professional organization. So unfortunately, mayor, to your to your point, um the money just isn't there and it's a lower it's a lower level
position. and it's very hard to to fill those positions. So, having my firefighters work part-time has helped. Uh, but we're we're we're at the tipping point right now with vacancies there where it's becoming operationally difficult for me. >> You're welcome, sir. Yes, sir.
>> I have a question. Are are we still uh offering services like the ocean bridge like we used to do before? Are we still offering those? >> Yes, sir. If I if Yes, sir. If I may. We have four service areas. Tell me. Uh so we have a town of Hypoxuxo, we have
Briney Breezes, we have Village of Golf, uh and we have Ocean Ridge. One of the things again on this second slide I was going to allude to is that one of the one of the things that we're looking at is that um they have pretty sweetheart deals right now. Uh and I believe that
we have room even though some of those contracts have already been renewed. I don't think that our city is getting a good fair shake for the buck that we're putting in. um they're they're getting way better rate than our citizens are getting for fire rescue services. So, we're going to be taking a hard look
legal, myself, the city manager, and assistant city manager, we're going to be looking very hard at this at these four contracts. Um and it is going to be my opinion and my recommendation that we're actually going to go back um and look at increasing those contracts. Currently, it's about 2.7 million, I
believe, give or take. I mean, you can look at the number 2.6 6 2.7 million for the four contract cities. Um, not to freak the public out out there in those municipalities, but we could literally double those contracts and still be under what would be a fair rate. And
that's an additional $2.5 million for this city. So, yes, sir, we are looking at that and many other things to try to bring in revenue. >> Okay. I'm glad you're looking at it because we're talking about cutting. So, that's one avenue we need to be looking
at. But I'm saying the Avalorum tax, you know, the increase if it passes, how will we how will that affect our bottom line? I'm I'm just saying, you know, they don't want to they can't pay it. I'm just saying we're going to explain that to me.
>> Well, they're not going to have much of a choice. They're they're going to have to pay it because they don't really have much of a choice. So, it's not as a municipality and as a professional organization, we're not going to be looking to gouge anyone. What we want is a fair rate of return for the services
we're providing. And Buen Beach Fire Rescue provides world-class fire rescue services. And we deserve to get paid because we're out there using our trucks, our fuel, our our man and women power. So, we are going to go back and take serious look at that contract, sir. We are. And I and I'll allude to a few
other things as I continue with my presentation. >> Thank you. Sure. >> So, so if I may, um, so we talked about the vacancies. So, in terms of operating
expenses, uh, and this is something that the, uh, finance director CFO extraordinaire had mentioned earlier, um, which which is that um, so what what we what we're looking at is every aspect of how we spend money. And
one of the things that we recognize is fleet is a tremendous tremendous uh source of expense for us. So we are looking right now and this is going to be part of what you're going to see as we come forward because when you ask for how are we going to pay for these payraises, we've identified how we're
going to pay for them. They'll be coming to you later. Just that all of this kind of came to fruition kind of quickly. So it it's not that the team didn't present you properly. Um, Commissioner Kelly, it's that all of these things kind of came to fruition as the budget was coming together. Uh, and I think there's
plenty of time for us to address this, but I will tell you that in looking at uh, you know, our fleet, uh, you know, we've got eight or nine million dollars worth of fleet coming in, if we lease those vehicles instead of buying them, which is is tenfold the best thing to
do. You see fire departments all over the country that are now leasing their vehicles because number one, you're going to reduce maintenance costs. If you look at the maintenance cost on this budget, it's ridiculous. Uh, and it last year was a tremendous amount of money. In this year's budget, we've reduced it
and but we have a lot more vehicles that newer vehicles. So, one of the strategies is any high dollar uh equipment item within our particular budget, and I would recommend it citywide, go to leasing. So, let's look at a firetruck. A firet truck that costs
$1.2 million in cash. You don't want to give up your cash. You're giving up 1.2 2 million for about $96,000 a year in a lease for 11 years. Turn it back in at the end, you get a new one. Yes, sir. >> Chief, just real quick, I think it's important for the public to know this. >> Yes, sir.
>> Prior to CO, during CO, what was the average cost of a firet truck? >> About $800,000. 78 or 800 point. So, like is a 50% increase. >> Absolutely. And I think that's important to know. >> A rescue truck is $588,000 for the ambulance rescue trucks. they
were 250 or 300 prior to co um there is lawsuits out there now that your legal team is looking at for us to jump on that may bear some fruit in the future >> price gouging >> price gouging but it's you know I mean we we can engage in that and I suggest that we do u but the bottom line for
this board is to know that your uh your fire department and your police department and other and other departments are trying to look at alternative strategies to save money and I think we've identified one that's going to bear are some some pretty major fruit. Um, unfortunately, safety clothing and equipment is an ongoing
expense. Our firefighters need to have safety clothing to do their job. Not only that, I believe they need to have the best equipment to do their job. Um, as I said before, and I've said it this day, as for the last six years that I've been here, uh, my job is to protect the men and women who serve first. Um, if I
can't protect them, they can't protect the public. So, they they must have adequate gear. That gear has a cost and it's ridiculously expensive. It's about $5,000 for one set of gear per firefighter. Uh that's expensive. Um uh Commissioner
McCrae, you had asked me about the contract city. So when we look at that last item on this slide, uh you know, an annual review of all revenue generating ordinance structures, contracts. Let's let's make sure that our fee structures with respect to fire prevention are adequate. Uh are we in the top twothirds
of the county? Again, we don't want to be the top charging. We don't we don't want to do that to our citizens. But again, we provide a good fire prevention service. Uh if you look at the number of fires over the last 5 years, they're down. Why are they down? They're down because we have a an extremely well
functioning fire prevention division with a uh with a worldclass uh fire marshal and a staff who are making sure that our they're getting inspected and reinspected. and it may be ownorous for some of our businesses, but it's to make them and and to make their customers
safer. So, by by going back and looking at these ordinance structures to make sure that we're charging properly for what we should be getting for our services. Um, and that's kind of what we're looking at. Um, now budgetary risks. Now, I I know um Commissioner Turkin, I know that I I I didn't like
that opportunities thing on there. No disc to the finance director. I didn't like that opportunities with respect to the fire assessment, but the city manager said it very very plainly and clearly. Adalorum tax revenue to fund public safety is a huge it's like it's
terrible. It it it's just to put it plainly. Um you cannot if you cannot properly fund your fire rescue agency then people are going to suffer. Not only the citizens but the firefighters themselves. And I and I mentioned also the um you know holding the vacancies
and what that means you know as a long-term perspective. Um so opportunities we're going to continue to look at grants. Um the last eight or nine months for us we've been kind of in limbo uh you know with the potential merger and so you know we're continuing to operate. We're continuing to um be
fiscally responsible and look at every aspect of how we how we do business. Um but that that has kind of affected us. Um, so when I when I talk about increasing the fire assessment, um, commissioner, I'm I'm doing it from a place of solidifying funding. I'm not
looking at it as we have to tax you more money. I'm looking at it as what is a life worth and we have to make sure that we provide that service. The the the flip side benefit to that is a potential to lower the millage. If you increase your fire assessment to cover your your
cost, there is a potential to lower the millillage to offset as the city manager indicated. Now, there's a fine line there, but that's up to you and the city manager to decide. So, I think that um but we have to look at increasing that fire assessment. Every fire department
throughout this state that doesn't have one is looking into it. Everyone that has it is looking to increase it. And that's not a spending free-for-all. As you can see, just the way we operate our command staff, we run lean. We're going to continue to run lean, and we're going to continue to be fiscally responsible.
Um, and that really just answered the last thing on that slide. So, at this point, um, that does conclude my presentation. Um, if any of you have any additional questions, >> anyone have any questions before we move on? >> I wanted to add one thing that he was
talking about leasing vehicles. It's not just about firearm PD. we were looking at all departments. So that has transitioned. It's one of the things that kind of came out of the whole zerobased budgeting and the kind of the creative financing. So like already working with Kevin, the fleet team, every vehicle that comes in here, we
should be leasing. Save that cash because cash is king. >> Got it. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for the opportunity. Have a good day. Okay, >> moving on to recreation and cultural services department. Come on down,
Craig. Good morning everyone. I'm going to first start off my presentation with uh the general fund uh leisure services departments which include recreation and cultural services administration
arts and cultural center women's club special events oh sorry special events library museum recreation and parking services which includes our park ranger program. Later on, we'll come golf, which is an enterprise fund.
And for the public that may not know what an enterprise fund is, it's a it's a department that raises its own revenue and pays its own expenses. So, it doesn't come from general fund. Just to give you um an an overview uh
our general fund FTEES for all these divisions except golf are 81.5 FTEES um which is plus then 35.6 for golf that's 11.6% of the city staff just to
kind of give you a a overview. Um starting with um our overall budget, personnel services for these divisions have uh been reduced by 3.1%.
Operating expenses went up 2.1%. Capital outlay minus 43.8%. There are a lot of one-time uh purchases that are not going to be in next year's budget and nonoperating. So it's an overall
reduction of 1.7%. Budget drivers for these division. Just pressed the wrong button. Okay. Uh personnel services, there's a decrease in the library pension minus 60,000. That's due to retirement and drop participant. Um vacant positions
uh across all the divisions. A hiring freeze is a savings of $170,000. operating expenses uh for fiscal year 2526 special events uh had an amended budget. Um they added
120 uh,000 for an additional FTE. There were three and that was not enough to put on all these events. So there are four now. Special event expenses for entertainment and activities and logistics 1.585 million.
uh non uh capital and non-operating women's club had a onetime expense removed. They had um bees in the roof. They had that repaired. So that's minus 22,000 for next fiscal year. And recreation had a onetime expense removed
of 33,000. It was a utility vehicle for Hester Center. >> Craig, I I have a question. Since we have this hiring freeze across all divisions, services is not going down. Am I correct?
>> Well, no. I I think that staff are working really hard to keep up with, you know, all the programs and and everything that they provide. But it it is a strain on staff at times, to be honest with you. >> Okay, it might be a strain on staff, but
let me say this. From what I've been seeing staff doing, they've been topnotch. >> Thank you. >> And I want to give them credit. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Risks and opportunities or possibilities I could say um and executed recreation
budgetary risk. There's increased expectation to find dollars in existing budget to cover emergency repairs such as playground equipment. Many of you are getting phone calls about playgrounds that need repair or replacement. It's very much a struggle to look into our
current budgets to find dollars to do that. Um, >> I'm going to stop you because I do need to let everybody know the castle that one of the playgrounds. I'm just saying it was talking about something was wrong. You know, people need to read the history of that. You know, they had
citizens that built that and there's nothing wrong with that. They gave their time and their labor and and they need to go back and really really read and understand how we got that castle built because it was taken from off a city property over here and taken to where it is now. And I don't see anything wrong
with it. I'm just saying I have to say it on my mind. Go ahead. >> Thank you. Um and there's other maintenance needs that unexpectedly occur that we constantly have to find dollars for that in our current budget. So if we use
money for one thing, we can't do the other thing. Arts and cultural center and recreation. Um budgetary risk, rising cost of performers, instructors and production services. Revenue fluctuates due to attendance and rental
attendance of programs and rental demands. Special event rising event costs and library increased print materials and database costs. um opportunities or possibilities, increase revenues with event and program
sponsorships, something Sheila is currently working on, and increased vendor fees, possible event mergers, which we're going to talk about in just a couple minutes, and uh de possibly developing a VIP ticketed package for signature events. Consider charging
admission to special events. Um that's always a possibility. in a future parks bond as a possibility, you know, at your uh if that's the direction the commission would like to go down the road. Um executed obviously there's no cost of living.
So for special events um we we uh need commission direction on something. Um, so there's uh considerate we need you to considerate uh uh consider if you want
to take over the two CR events the bow parade which costs approximately 30,000 and the night market which is approximately 140,000 for a total of 170,000. It's been suggestion uh suggested by Amanda and our events um division
director consider the merger of the holiday parade which has low attendance with the holiday tree event lighting which has a high attendance >> and um we could add a stage and have performances there that would save $105,000.
Another consideration is to possibly cancel four lowattended first Fridays at five concert series for a savings of $70,200 leaving um a savings of 175200 which would be would be budget neutral to add those two CRA events to our budget. So
if we could have direction that'd be appreciated. >> Thank you mayor. Um for the boat parade have we looked is that our just a quick question because I don't know if I've asked this before. Does that incorporate when we do the boat parade? Because I know we'll have members from other
cities attend. Are they are those cities paying into this? Because I know you typically runs from like Lantana down to Delray and so they don't. So maybe maybe we go to Lantana, Delray, Hypoxua and say, "Hey, can you chip in seven eight grand for this?" Right. And then because
we always I think we even advertise these other cities as well. And so I think that's that's fair. Um, I like your suggestion, but I'm sure they're that they're scraping for dollars just like we are as well. >> Well, I think Del Re can afford it. >> I thought they did, though, because I
know Del Rey didn't do it one year for funding reasons and then they got a lot of flack and then they put it back. So, I think they'll double check. I think there's an opportunity there, >> but yeah, >> to where we can just kind of, >> you know, >> could definitely ask. It doesn't hurt to
ask. >> Thank you, >> Craig. There would be an existent ILA for that if they're funding that. There would have to be an ILA in existence. So, it' probably be a legal question. >> CRA. >> Yeah, maybe C >> would know. Yeah. >> Um, I have a question. Sorry. Go ahead.
>> No, go ahead. >> Uh, with regard to the four potential cancellations, what months are we looking at? And is it because of rain there? I know that a lot of times a lot of rain and >> yeah, we've used uh we use player AI um to um and maybe Amanda can come up and
answer that. We use play your AI to identify approximately how many people are attending these and it's probably the lowest four. >> Yeah, it tends to be January and February due to weather and rain and then also November and August tend to be the four that have the lowest
attendance. So you would still host a first Friday quarterly >> August this time. Well, and it's also the end of >> and you think November comes in because of the holiday Thanksgiving Thanksgiving that was kind of low attended as well. >> Okay. And then it's right on then we come up what the following weekend is the holiday.
>> Exactly. Then you have the tree lighting. >> Okay. >> Amanda, while you're up here, >> sorry, real quick, Craig. Um, on the Amanda, since you're up here, on the consideration of the the merger between the parade and the tree lighting, they
did that one year. it's was maybe an 1819 and I'd be curious to know why we went back to having them separate back in the day because there was a point and I it may have to do with because there were two entities that were doing it
that it was cumbersome and it wasn't it also I think it even had to do with maybe the businesses along ocean. there was a an issue where we did do it um as a combined um and then it was immediately not done again like that. So
I would I would want to go down that maybe I don't know if you've had conversations with CRA staff to figure out what um Mercedes may know as far as logistics. I think it was a logistical issue. So, I'd be curious to see how that would um would play out because,
you know, of the timing of the two events and um and all that. So, um but I I would want to to know what that, you know, how that looks. But I agree. I think if we can combine those two, it financially makes sense. And I think we
it would it would then we would have more attendance I think with the parade and and then we know the attendance is fantastic at the tree lighting but I think um I think fiscally it makes sense to combine those two um into one but I
just we had done it that way once and so at least once and I' I'd be curious to see why that changed. >> I believe it was due to logistics. I can get more information about that. Um but our idea is instead of actually doing the physical parade and closing down the road and putting out barricades and
having all that police um presence needed that what we noticed last year everybody just enjoyed the performances right in front of the stage. We really had no one lined up. So therefore we add a secondary stage. We'll invite everyone properly. They can do all their performances
um and just expand the tree lighting. >> Kind of like a hybrid. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Without the actual parade part. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. >> So, do we have consensus? >> I I I um I I'm okay with moving forward with your suggestions and thank you for
bringing these up and um you know, looking to making everything flat and neutral. Thank you. >> I think I support as well. >> Yeah. And Amanda, moving forward with like event sponsorships and and ticketing certain things and um you know, we can talk offline too about some
of your thoughts on that, but you know, I think any right I think there's a huge for sponsorship. I know there's a huge opportunity. I know that um before you came in, it was one of those things that we were just starting to really get on board with and doing and I think that there is a a large opportunity to really
um you know sponsor um get that sponsorship. So I'm, you know, happy to to see your ideas and in moving that forward and how we can keep our events um because it is a um you know we we have come to um to a point where um
everyone is you know loves the events and loves uh you know coming and and being part of it's what makes Boon um beach point beach and so I think um you know the community aspect of it. So I don't want to see any of that go. So,
whatever we can do to shift um you know, financial feasibility, you know, I'm I'm all for that. So, thank you. >> Absolutely. >> And Amanda, excuse me. I know this is a budget, but I wanted to say since you've been here, there has been an increase, and I want to tell you, keep up the
works of what you're doing. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you. >> Okay. I do have a question quickly. Um if we were to combine it, would it still be on a Friday or would we do it all on a Saturday? Because I'm thinking some of those acts were kids. That's what we were hoping to move it to the Saturday
and add maybe an extra hour or two to the evening. >> Okay. Just because I know to get somebody a kid home from school, get them ready to come and do it. That's going to be chaos. But okay, I think that's a great idea. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Thank you for that direction. >> Okay, moving to uh the golf course. I
have to tell you, Bo is doing an amazing job at the golf course raising revenue. I've never we've never seen it go so well and he's he's just doing a bangup job over there and I can't thank him enough and all the staff
you know that we work together I work together with are just amazing. I just thank I want to thank them publicly. >> Excuse me. I wanted to tell since the golf course is doing so well and taking care of itself. When I was here for years back and everything, golf course
was always a problem. I'm glad to know that you know you all are doing what you all need to do. Thank you. >> Yes. The golf course is now giving back 8% of their gross revenue to the general fund. >> Good news. Thank you. >> So that's that's an amazing
feat. >> Yeah. No, I mean it in 23 24 they transferred 80,000 to the general fund and now they're exceeding like 300,000 plus to the general fund. So I, you know, to be able to sustain themselves and still contribute to the general fund, um,
>> it's a big winner. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> I'm very proud of that. >> Sign of a good operator. >> Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, uh, their personal services at the golf course, they went up 6.5%. Um, he was able to add a few positions to
streamline his operations and to raise more revenue. So, um I can't tell you exactly the number, but their their revenue in the pro shop has gone from maybe 60,000 from when both started into
the $200 and some thousand. So, that's how well they're doing in the pro shop alone. Uh operating expenses were reduced by 0.2 2 million or 21.3% due to the purchase. They purchased the golf carts
in 2526 instead of leasing them. Uh which moving to capital nonoperating. Um we're we have minus $1 million in in operating because the the golf carts almost cost a million dollars, but there
were I want to say 120 125. Yeah. So we we own them now. >> Right. Let me ask a question. Since we're talking about renting, do we own those golf carts? >> We own them. Yes. >> Okay. Maybe next time we could probably
look at the possibility of renting since we're looking at it. Was that is it feasible? >> Yeah, we leased them before and it was cheaper to buy them. >> Well, that's this particular situation. >> That's why it went down under me. Thank you. And then um a one-time equipment
purchase of a mower and a boom spray rig uh minus $300,000. >> Budgetary risks. Uh there is a need for additional draining in certain areas throughout the golf course. Um updated technology is needed to maximize revenue and improve customer service which he's
working on right now. and the driving range needs some improvements as well to ensure quality hitting areas throughout the season. Opportunities or possibilities acquire autonomous maintenance units that could allow reallocation of labor to work on special projects in other
areas that need attention. Bo is explaining to me that there are lawnmowers that power themselves and mow the lawns themselves. though that could, you know, alter the the maintenance to other areas that are needed. So, there's some really
cool uh technology out there for golf courses. Now, um acquire a new tea time reservation system, which will allow for increased online bookings, allow improved customer service at check-in, and increase sales to pro shop. Rerouting golf course to improve pace of
play during busy times so people don't get jammed up so much. Um what we done already uh we purchased a new golf course as we mentioned there has been some new drainage completed uh the purchase of new maintenance
equipment has been completed and the updated organ organizational chart to improve services and revenue >> slide >> and that's the end of my presentation. Oh, I'm sorry.
>> It happens to everyone. >> Which one did you want to see? >> The next. >> The next one. Okay. >> Okay. So, that pretty much sums up the uh presentation. Does anyone have any additional questions?
>> No, just a quick comment on the on technology and autonomous. you know, when we're I you know, look I I think it's always interesting to look up the you know, doing more for for less. And when you when you ask um AI how to do
more with less, it's um or for less, it's autonomous and technology and and utilizing those in order to you know decrease u revenue in other places. So um you know any anytime we can look at you know at restructuring
and and autonomous uh vehicles or opportunities I think that's that's how we do more uh with less so to speak. So >> yes and >> and once again I'm so proud of everyone I work with. I'm honored to work with them. Tiffany is doing a great job at at
the library. Um, Marvelous, Fabian, Amanda, uh, Bo, they're just all wonderful. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, moving on to public works. Good morning, mayor, vice mayor,
commission. Um, Kevin Ramsey, public works director. All right. Uh, this morning I have uh multiple accounts for covers different departments. So first one go through 001 which covers facilities beautifification and streets
for grounds construction services and PW admin. Okay. All right. On this sheet here you'll see that we have had in personal services uh reduction 3.8% $200,000 and we'll go
into why in the next slide over. Um, operating expenses are down five and a half percent, $400,000. And capital outlay is down $300,000, 100% because we didn't do a transfer, but I'll get to that. And, uh, non-operating transfers,
we have none. Okay. Budget drivers and personal services. The salaries went down uh $200,000 because we have CRA picking up some of our CIP uh PM project manager cost and we have also have CRA
picking up two individuals in our beautifification streets department um replacement we're replacing hiring replacements at a lower cost than what their existing positions have left in and we have expanded our in-house custodial team for PD headquarters and
fire department. We've done that for their 24-hour service. So, we have in-house staff actually doing that work. Operating expenses, um, contractual services are down $300,000. We have done that by doing in-house service through our foring grounds department. Um, we
took away some areas which we get into that after this presentation of a few things that we've done. Um, janitori stays flat at 1.8 million and our capital nonoperating capital outlay is $300,000. All vehicles, equipment, and technology purchase have been deferred
and nonoperating flat at $4,000. Mandatory transfers are unchanged. Okay. Risk and opportunities. Okay. The risk with a zero flat what we have right now for facilities would be no funding for emergency repairs, HVAC's, major
roof leaks, uh tinting for terminate uh termites. Um beautification streets would be limited on enhancement projects. We will still do some but we won't be able to do like we have been doing uh forestry and grounds uh reduce in uh in-house landscape projects
similar to the one in meadows. Uh we just finished that one I think this past Thursday. Um finally opportunities uh we will use in-house staff to do energy efficient retrofits through our uh buildings. um in-house sports lighting retrofits as we've done in the tennis center, uh
streetscape and cord uh c corridor uh revitalization. We're actually doing some right now in federal highway and uh plan on doing little projects like that. Um inhouse street reservicing designs um we plan on even if we don't pay we are going to design all the other
neighborhoods that we can get done have it ready to go for exhibits for bidding it whenever such time comes that we can afford to do those. Uh what we have executed, we have executed the Inca Street lighting project. Um we went out for bid. They had bids between 300 and
$700,000 and our in-house staff did it for $37,000. Um tennis center court lighting, we had a price for $11,000 from a vendor to do 17 lights. We did 128 for about $60,000.
Um EO Hester Center scoreboard, we have a two-part. We have a vendor doing the work and we're doing the electrical part to it and in-house resurfacing projects exhibits our our construction services guys will be designing all those and they have in the past.
>> All right. Fleet man, >> can I ask a question about lighting real quick? >> Yes, ma'am. >> The Ocean Avenue when we were getting the the Broadway light complaints that it was has that been resolved? Are we still waiting on FPNL for that or >> I believe that Liti our engineer is working on that project.
>> Perfect. Thank you. know what you're talking about, though. I was there. >> You can't win. No lights, too bright lights. But you got to figure it out. >> Plenty of them. All right. Um I'm risking Oh, I'm pissed. This is fleet.
Let me go back one. No, fleet management. That's where we are. Okay. Fleet. So, in this department, we had a personnel reduction of $100,000.
Operating expenses are plus 3% um are actually 0%. That one capital outlay is negative 68.3%. I'll tell you why that happened. And uh nonoperating is flat at zero.
Sorry, I missed the slide. Everyone does that. Go to the next one. Okay. Budget drivers replacement. We're hiring people lower than what uh we the ones have left before them. Uh fuel and parts are staying flat in operating expenses and
capital non-operating capital outlay is down 10.4 million because this year we had to come to pay for a whole bunch of fire trucks. Chief um so that's that's let down and we now we return to a standard $4.8 million
vehicle uh annual expense. Okay. So risk we've deferred to tire shop. We are we would like to have a a new safe tire shop with the proper things. Um that's that's one of our risk opportunities. We are exploring possibilities of providing services to neighboring towns such as
Barney Breezes, town of Hyperlux, town of Lantana and town of Oceanfront. We should be we should be able to provide them fleet services and they're small enough that they may be enticed. So Dave Prasad is um talking with them now to see if we can do that and there's been
no co- applied for execution. I'm Kevin. I'm sorry, but what kind of services are we providing? Because your voice is up and down. Oh, >> is it? >> Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. >> Well, we want to we want to offer them what we do for our fleet as far as like their police their police department.
They have police cars. We can service their oil tires um things like that. Instead of them going to Good for tires and all that, they can come to us. We're trying to see if they want to entertain that. >> Well, see, that's the part I didn't get. But I thought you wanted us to go and take over the police department. >> No, no, no. We just want to fix their
cars and get some money. >> Okay. >> Okay. All right. >> I'm good. >> We're in a zero flat budget. We're trying to find some money, right? And that company, we could do that. Uh we have the proper fleet to do that, >> right? >> Dave has him in shape.
Uh risking opportunities. Sorry, guys. Cemetery. All right. Now, I'm watching TV. Oh my god. Cemetery. Sorry guys, my papers are sticking together.
>> Now for the dead news. Go ahead. >> The dead news. All right. >> Cemetery. >> The dead news. All right. Cemetery. >> All right. Here we go. So, the cemeteries, uh, personal services are down 1.3%.
Um, operating expenses are down 5.2%. Capital outlay is down 100%. I'll explain that one. And non-operating is down 89%. This is what happened. So in replacement, we we've had a few retire, one person retire, and we've hired a
replacements at a a lower grade. Obviously, um operating expenses um flat at $300,000 variance driven by internal budget transfers. Capital non-operating reduction uh reflects elimination of
one-time mid-year CIP transfer on budget maintained operating budget maintained uh capital outlay is minus 100% improvements of grounds and equipment all deferred uh remaining non-operating transfers at 85,000.
So, this is a good one. Risk, equipment breakdowns and deferred maintenance, irrigation system failures, tree and canopy management. These are a risk, but we can manage these with in-house staff. Um, but they are a risk that could happen. Um, opportunities, additional
plot sales from Sarah Sim Cemetery, which should be coming online early fall. Um, digitizing all and plot mapping, repaving of the Boon Beach Memorial Park. That is actually we have the quotes in for that and we'll be doing that shortly before the end of this
fiscal year. Uh replacement of mausoleium roof. Those bids are in and uh we're going to be uh speaking of those in the next few weeks. Executed no coal applied capital improvement transfer eliminated increased cemetery fees which this board has done. Uh
transitioned from contractor to in-house grounds maintenance which we are making a much better run at it than what it has been. uh enforcement of cemetery rules and in-house facelift of cemetery exterior and entrances. Okay,
there sanitary. >> Wait, before you go there, let's go back to the cemetery. You flipping too fast. >> All right. All right. When can uh the citizens start purchasing plots for Sarah Sims? >> That's a good question. Um I can tell you when I'll be done building. Um I
think we have a few things to do with the >> That's one thing they want to know. That's first. Okay. The second thing they want to know is can they get them and pay on time because a lot of cemeteries do that. So that's something else you all need to look at two. >> Okay, that's two. Okay, we we'll get
together. >> Okay. All right. >> Sanitation. Okay. Thank you. >> Sanitation. Okay. And sanitation, personal services are down 2.4%.
Um, operating expenses are flat. Capital outlay is uh down 42.2%. That's being that one. And nonoperating is uh increased by 13.2% or $300,000. A transfer is what that is.
>> Excuse me. Is Personnel service down because you cannot find somebody to work or you all just keeping it down? >> Personal services are down only because um we have less overtime because we became more efficient. >> Okay.
It's not that we're lacking people. It's a constant hire in that position at department there. Okay. Budget drivers regular salaries nearly flat. Car lounes have been eliminated. Operating expenses. Current budget assumes flat service levels with no growth factor.
Waste disposal and vehicle service represent 62% of operating, both held flat. Uh vehicle purchases are down $700,000. This year we're going to pay we're going to buy a million dollars worth of vehicles, not $1.7 million worth of vehicles. Um
transfers to general fund is $300,000. risks, fleet capacity and scheduling conflicts, uh equipment damage and operator injuries opportunities or expand services to include construction site grappling. We've just started that this year. We have all these highrises being built. They don't have the
capacity of putting six or seven dumpsters. So, we entertain putting in a 40-yard dumpster and and starting our own grappling service uh using equipment that we had and staff that we had. Uh we started just now and uh we are on board to do the one across the street from on
on Federal between Boy Beach Boulevard and Ocean Avenue. We're in talks with them and we're just pushing out the competition and it's a a great thing to be in sanitation right now. Um uh we started to provide a grappling service, put out legal notices through our legal
team help. Thank you very much to all the invaders within our territory in Boon Beach. We are the ones who takes the refues. Okay. And we noticed there's one, two, five, six. So, we reached out to uh our legal team. They sent out
letters and we've been responded to and they are leaving our city and giving us the names of who they had business with and what service they provided and that will be increase of our revenue. Okay. >> Um >> Evan, >> yes ma'am. Do you mean so for instance
um the businesses on Hypoxuo and Lawrence when they use Coastal to empty their dumpsters? Is that what you're talking about that they shouldn't be using Coastal and they should be going? >> You can use you can use Coastal and one of those if it's recycling recycling
only. >> But what we saw with with Coastal is they had dumpsters at McDonald's and everywhere peppered around. They were doing grapple service for contractors. Okay. Which is not allowed because it wasn't it wasn't just sole source recycling. It was a mixed that's what we
do. Okay. So that's what started the what's going on here. Okay. >> Okay. >> So >> that's that's where we're at. We're just >> Can you just Can you not today, not right this second, but can you verify what Coastal is um doing behind the
7-Eleven on Hypoxo and >> Lawrence just to so that we know that they're >> because I do see them. >> It's useful >> early in the morning. >> I know you're an early person. I know I get those texts. >> Luckily, I'm up. All right. So now we're going to solid
waste proposed rate increase. Now we're proposing residential multif family rates go from 2345 to 2427. That's a 3.5% increase. That's 82 cents more a month. And what that does, we would like to maintain a sixmonth
operating um fund reserve. Right now we're at 6.5 million. Our budget is 17.6 million. That's $1.4 $4 million a month operating cost we have. That means I should have an $ 8.5 million six-month reserve. So
that would take care of that. Okay. And that would also help offset our fuel increases and all the rest of just the typical inflation that we have. Okay. Um this is the drivers of that request is because of Palm Beach County inflation trends and CPI, fuel disposal and
hauling fees and cost of cart and dumpster replacements. So, we asked for that. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I'm I'm I'm okay with the um the increase. I I see an increase in service, right? And um I would even go
and venture to increase the commercial even more than 3.5%. Um that's that's my opinion. Um keep the resident cost the same at that 3.5. What is it? 18 cents. >> 82 cents. It's 82 cents. >> 82 cents.
So, I'm okay to go move forward with the commercial increase even even larger. I don't know what my colleagues think, but I think 3.5% for residential is fair. I've seen the increase in quality service. >> So, uh and thanks for all you do and in all your departments.
>> Um could I ask legal if that would be something that we can do have different rates for commercial versus residential? >> We need to do a rate study. >> Okay. and you can provide direction for them to do the rates stay or we can look at
the numbers as well. >> Isn't there a state law that states that you like there's if there's any financial impact to a business they could sue the city is that >> you have to provide a business impact statement. >> Okay. >> Um in connection with any ordinance that
we bring but you have to have the legislative support to support that with regard to a rate study or we could see what's already um in place. I I don't know. I'd have to get with Kevin to see when the last rate study was done >> last year. >> I I just want to I just want to be
cautiously, you know. >> Yeah. >> Walking this line. Just make >> Kevin, when was your last >> last year and it's on trend to follow. We had it like a five-year plan. So, it's it's on track. >> Okay. If you could just send that over to Stacy and I will take a look at that and then we can we can get back to the
commission on July uh 7th with that update. Any questions? We're good. Okay. All right. >> I have a question. I'm just kidding. Bye. >> Next up is the
>> Yeah, we were at item B5. So, if there's any other I just want to make sure. Was there any other departments you guys would like to call up? Okay. >> But now now we're going to capital improvement. >> Yeah. >> CIP. >> Yeah.
>> Yep. >> No, I think it's Kevin. CIP first. >> CIP. Sean. >> Oh, Sean. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> You seems he stepped out. I saw him walking.
No, >> Ryan. >> No, we're going to frontload utilities. >> Yeah, do CIP after. He's >> Come on up. >> He can wait until next Gabe.
>> He will wait until after utilities. Good morning, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners. Punam kalut um the utilities director and can we pull up the utilities operational fund 401. It is not ready.
>> It can we pull up utilities 401 budget. While I'm on the podium, I'll just I'll just take the opportunity to really thank um utility staff. I can't say enough about them. They work all kinds of hours. Um and I'm so proud of the
team that we have and we have experience of over 20 30 years and we have fresh trainees coming on board and all of them really really perform. uh we are starting to provide a lot of training on different things so we can uh kind of do
a lot of things inhouse so we don't have to contract out but at the same time we also look at is it more cost beneficial to do things uh contractually than have to train people to for specific kind of uh tasks that are not done all the time.
So um the overview providing you personnel services um we are down by 2.2% 2% and that's by moving some uh either some positions changing some positions maybe I'll give you an example
we had in media services we had a superintendent position so and we had a division director position and we eliminated the super superintendent position created it into more of an assistant director position who would over provide oversight to financial
services and meter services because that's a revenue coming in and customer service and then change the supervisor position made it into a supervisor instead instead of assistant supervisor. So different things that we've done and we continue to look look at how we can uh keep our personnel cost down
operating expenses um is up and that's mainly because of inflation materials and services as well as chemicals for the water treatment and wastewater treatment. That's really is what drives that cost. Capital outlay is down.
That's a one-time equipment purchase. We have purchased two WAC trucks this year. In the future years, we are looking at do we buy a CCTV truck? Do we leave it like uh what um fire chief Prudu was saying or we look at uh doing
contractual services for uh doing CCTV is just doing using TV to look at the pipes because what we if you don't look at the pipes really well then we are the cost that we could defer for either replacement or repair and that's sometimes if you don't do a good condition assessment of the pipes you
won't be doing that. That's prudent way for us to keep cost down. Non-operating cost is mainly our debt service and uh um any u transfers we pay to um general fund. So general fund transfers are 8%
of our revenue. So that's based on that and so that's up but overall we've kept the cost low and kept the um total budget in the black as much as possible. Some of the budget drivers, personnel
services, we talked about the pensions, there's a reduction in that. Um, health insurance went up, cost of living increases and trying to make sure that we have the right kind of people that we hire for the with the right skill sets and experience. That can become a little
bit hard as you know because there's so many utilities and so many municipalities in this area. So people can be living in the same place and be able to go to another municipality without any problems. And we've seen that happen to us. Operating expenses, uh the water treatment plant like I
talked about especially the chemicals, fuel and power cost. That's what the major increase for us is. Same thing for switch treatment at the regional plant. You all have seen their budget and they've really worked hard to keep the budgets flat too. But the increases are
really because of chemical and materials and services. Water distribution went up slightly. Uh we have seen the cost of repairs for some of our water manes really go up. Really it is the materials that is costing us. And then any contractual services that we do that
also has increased um for us. utility administration. Um we have we we've been trying to offset some of those costs so that we don't uh see a large increase in those capital or or non-operating capital outlay like I talked about the
2.1 million that was a one-time purchase uh just like the fire trucks some of these ve trucks and CCTV trucks um you're talking each piece being close to 700 to $900,000 and used to be much cheaper than that a couple of years back just after co it's
been going up. That's the other trend we've seen that when the fuel cost goes up the contractors as you um get those contracts in the price goes up the cost goes up but it never comes down even if the fuel prices come down. So that's that's a trend that we have seen again
and again uh nonoperating um went up 0.6 6 million that is because of any revenue increases we have the transfers uh increase based on that and debt service is flat uh over year over year and you'll have hear our rate
consultant Ryan Smith talk a little bit about how we are going to be our debt that's going to be retiring because we will as you'll see in his presentation that we have two water treatment plants that we really need to it's aging infrastructure but also regulatory
drivers we have a huge um uh regulation that's coming up that's costing treatment wise a lot more. So there is we will have to issue a utility bond in the next two years and that's going to be a pretty big substantial amount for us. So we're working on some of those.
So this debt will retire and we will go into more debt after that uh for the next 30 years. Okay. risks, opportunities and what's been executed. So some of the budgetary risks um operating cost pressures uh from chemicals or utility inflation. Um
these things we cannot control at all. There is also uncertaintity on grant funding availability to help CIP budgets. Um Ryan will talk a little bit about that. We have over the last couple of years gotten almost $30 million in grant funding and we keep going out and
look for as much grant funding as possible. We also going after if there is another thing that we've done and we'll talk about the um opportunities there too but we have been able to recoup some of the cost from sometimes these subcontractors maybe it's a uh FPL
contractor subcontractor that might hit one of our lines and in the past we were not able to recoup that so we've been working very closely with risk and legal to recoup that cost. We're also working very closely with our um uh procurement department to really try to get as
contracts as best as possible so they are tighter and also if we can piggyback some things to save cost we're doing that any kind of uh co-ops kind of things that we can do we're looking at that too. So any which way that we can keep our cost low we are doing that. So
I want you all to know that um aging infrastructure is a big risk for us. Uh as you've seen sometimes one pipe break can really be a huge cost to us depending on the size and where it is. Workforce development as experienced personnel are retiring and we have to
get people in and trained and be ready uh to perform the work that you all expect the level of service that uh we expected to provide day in day out. There's also like I mentioned increase in regulatory compliance requirements that is driving a lot of our costs. It's
also state as well as federal um regulatory requirements that have really gone up in the last couple of years. Some of the opportunities we are doing the rate study to look at what kind of revenue alignment what can what can we get we have I'll give you one more
example for getting kind of looking at increasing our miscellaneous revenue. If somebody has a sewer backup and it's really a private line um that is really the problem the private system inside the house in the past city would provide
that and not be able to recoup that cost. So now we've put a uh put it in place a system a method. So we tell them that it could be this cost if it is your private. So we'll come out we'll we can diagnose it. Most of the times we work
really well with all our customers. So, and if but if it's a repeat customer that it's every few weeks, months that the same pe people are calling then we tell them the next time we come out it'll be a charge. So, we're working closely to continue providing the level of service but also being able to recoup the cost when we have to send w trucks
out and clean up lines that may be private lines. That's just one example. Um water treatment plant upgrades, improved treatment and efficiencies will allow reducing some of our operational cost. some of the automation will allow that with the aging infrastructure and
the aging nature of how our plants are right now. We are running a lot of things in manual. Um so it's a great training ground but it's not practical to continue doing that uh in the long term. We are completing our condition assessments of infrastructure and that should help us defer uh replacement
cost. Give you an example. Sometimes they may be like hey this this pipe is really really old let's go replace it. But when you do the condition assessment, you can either do just do point repairs or you can do lining at less cost or you may not have to do anything. So upfront if you can if you
put that money in the right place then we can save money down the road. Implementation of a customer interface system. It prov it'll provide a more interactive uh dashboard and improved customer service so people can see what what they're using, how much and uh what
can be done conservation tips wise to keep that cost low. Uh we also implementing an asset management system and that should help us with improved RNR planning which is uh repair and replacement planning and mainly some of the things that I was talking about with
condition assessment but also knowing a pump has run so long. So instead of just going and replacing a pump, you know, can you maybe switch and rotate pumps? So you're doing a much much better a more efficient way. Maintenance, making sure that our maintenance costs are kept
low, but we're doing maintenance that's needed instead of just going and replacing things when they break. So those are some of the things that we've been working on in the last couple of years and we are coming closer to implementing most of these. Some of the executed things to um help keep the cost
low is not having a cola and c capital outlay. Like I said, that was a one-time uh cost that we were able to defer. So, that's the operating. Did do you want me to go into RCIP right away and take care of that first? Okay. Can I get the next
uh presentation for the utility CIP budget, please? And our biggest drivers really for most of the cost operation costs efficiencies wise we can keep low. We can do a lot of things with that. Capital cost is very hard for us to contain. Um so just want
everybody to know that that's what's driving most of the things for utilities these days. Uh this is just sort of like an overall broad category of projects and what we are spending for each category. Water supply and treatment projects. uh this year it's we've put it
as 25.1 million that is some of the internal projects as well as the planning and design for the two plants and that is ongoing right now. Neighborhood synerg synergistic projects, which is water, wastewater, and storm water combined. Um, that's
19.7 million. Wastewater collection system improvement projects, 6.3 million. Storm water and drainage improvement projects, 10.3 million. Distribution system improvements, including meter replacements and any other um replacement and repairs and
replacement, 3.0 million. um reclaim system improvements um 100,000 and some of the studies and master planning efforts that we are doing to get some of these things in place and get better efficiencies 0.3 million.
This is just going to go quickly through the number of projects that we are working on right now. Um these are neighborhood projects uh category uh Giewview Harbor we have a $2.5 million projected cost. So what are the uh headings are basically the first column
is the CIP project name and brief description. The second column is total planned project costs uh for the next five years. Then it's a budget for this year. So sometimes you'll see it's already says encumbered. So that's not this year. It's already been encumbered in the year that's there and where the
uh funding sources are for this and what is the current phase which may be in planning in design in construction or something like that. And then when when is the projected completion and commission district. So Gio Harbor we have that's a $2.5 million uh dollar project and it is in planning. We plan
to complete it by 2029. Se Meadows South and we've got two projects in Seam Meadows the south and the north. Um just the south is around 8.5 million. We have completed the design and we are really trying to find some money to help with the construction
cost and keep that construction low, but we still hoping to complete this in the next year or so. Um, Southeast First Central Serest Utility Improvement, that's a $3.1 million project and some of the unforeseen circumstances I'm actually just heard yesterday that that
cost will be higher and that's what's happening to us sometimes. That's why we've got to have a really great GIS system. got to have good condition assessment. You got to have good asset management system because some of those things don't come up after the fact once you've already planned a project because
we don't know what's in the ground. So we were working very very hard to get those gaps filled. Um and we've been working last two years for that. In the next year, year and a half we should have those gaps completed. This has been encumbered and it is in construction.
Completion is slated for 2026. Kakina Cove uh utilities improvements. This is almost completed. We are almost at the finish line in this project. We also worked with the residents to try and get um undergrounding for FPL,
Comcast to try and maximize um whatever the inconvenience that doesn't happen for the uh uh residents and also keeping cost low. So we are really pushing FPL, Comcast, um FPU. So we are almost at the
finish line. Keeping our fingers crossed on daily basis. We've been working and we working very closely with the residents on this project. I'm very proud of this one because I was told when I came in that you will never get this done. They've been promised this long long time and I told the residents we will get it done. So proud that we
are getting to that finish line. Heart of Boon neighborhood improvements. This was an FDM grant. Cookino also was a a resilient Florida grant. Uh and this is we are in the it's out on bid to get a grant management in there and then we're
going to start doing the design. The cons uh completion is 2029. Sand Castle uh improvements. Again, there's a Florida Commerce grant in there and that's a big project, too. It's an $18.6 million project. It is out um on RFQ for
design. Completion is in 2029. I95 and Boon Beach Boulevard interchange. that is an FTO project and because when whenever FTO comes in and has any projects that they have to do, we may have to move our relocate our
lines, do something else, uh change connections and all kinds of things. This one we actually were able to get some FTO funds as reimbursement. So, we're very thankful for that. We got an agreement in place. A lot of times you have to do it on your own dime. So, glad that we were able to negotiate that.
It's a $5.9 million project. you've seen it uh working. So we're working water and sewer and storm water and it is in construction. It the completion is by 2027. Water treatment plant emerging contaminant uh treatment options. This
is the regulatory drivers I was talking about. We are looking at a big price tag of around 300 over 300 uh 25 million. This also has some contingency in it. So hopefully we can drop that number down in the next uh year, two years once we
get the design in place. Right now we only have 5.4 million appropriated. That was an SRF loan that we got. But we will have to just um the design for the U west water treatment plant is around 12 million. So that number has to go up. And then for the east plant, we've got
to do and we're looking at everything. Can we really do just one plant and not have to do the other plant? Can we do a very small plant? Can we do some kind of other options for uh treating the water at the raw water source water um at the wells instead of bringing it in and
treating it? So there are all kind of different things that we are going back to the drawing board every couple of weeks to actually look and that is that can be a little frustrating for the uh our consultants but we've told them that we want to keep our costs as low as possible and what can we do to uh keep
those costs low. So we are in planning and design and completion slated for 2029. It is a regulatory driver. This is going to be very very hard to meet those. So we might have to do some intram uh options uh to look at how we can meet uh
those deadlines. Uh EPA has put out that there's a 2031 deadline that you can go to but that comes with a lot of strings attached. So it's not going to be as simple that you just tell them that we'll finish it in 2031 and we already working on it. It'll require us to do a lot more many more things. So we're looking at what's the most prudent way
to go about this Eastwater treatment plant generator replacement. This has been an ongoing project. It started out just with the generators and as we and this was before my time and as they started doing the generator replacement part of it and this is also has a Florida Commerce grant portion of it. I
want to thank MNA. We you have an phenomenal grants person because she was able to negotiate. They were only going to give us Florida Commerce was only going to give us.7 uh million for this and she was able to negotiate it up to around 1.2 million.
So everybody just I just want you all to know that we have our staff throughout the city who's working on a lot of things to try to keep our cost low and she watches every invoice for grant project like a hawk and if there's somebody is not giving her the right descriptions she will go out and ask
those questions. I'm very proud. We're learning from her as to how to do these better, too. Um, but that project involved a couple of other things that we had to put in. There were some pipelines that were not part of that project that needed to be done before we could do what we needed to do. So, that
cost had gone up and has been one of those projects that was kind of not probably not planned properly. So, we are really taking the time to plan our projects better because when we don't, it comes back and bites us. um that's also supposed to finish this year.
Remodeling of water quality facilities, that's another project that is pretty much done. And if some of you have uh toured the West plant, you saw how bad the lab was and u it was another one of those projects and nobody thought we will get done. So I'm proud of that. Um
the lab lab folks really felt that nobody cared and and they needed to be able to work in a good lab to be able to do analysis. So that project's uh pretty much done and it's final close out. water supply and treatment projects continuing West
Bellefield electrical upgrades. This project is done. Um uh pretty much we are in the final close out. It was just one thing that we needed to work with FPL and that's that was getting done last week. um east water treatment plant high service pumps five and six improvements again to bring efficiencies
and to be able to produce the water that we are um we need to be producing um this project had to be uh completed and we almost almost there with this one. So a number of projects we are finishing up and you'll see them fall off the books in the next um year.
uh wastewater collection system improvement projects. We are doing uh citywide what we call CIP lining which is again instead of replacing a whole pipe. If you can line a pipe sometimes that buys you 30 years most of the times it buys you it's like a new pipe so it's
almost 30 years of uh life cycle life that you can buy for that. And this is we look at everywhere look at the condition and then in this one also we've gotten some appropriations uh funds. So worked very hard to get some appropriations money to help out with some of these projects that are ongoing.
List 801, we are in planning stages for this one. It's a 3.5 million projected cost. Um the and we're looking at how best again this is another one of that that we are going in and looking back at the condition to make sure that the replacement needs to be done or can we
do some point repairs and keep the cost low. Left station 410 and 414. This project is in design and we should be completing it this year or early next year at the late latest and $2.8 million project. Oceanfront Park wastewater
treatment plant. This is for that ocean park. There's a small beach plant is what we call it and we are in the last stages of completing this project too. Master lift station. We have six master lift stations throughout the city. Each of these master lift stations the cost
of rehabbing them can be 10 million or so. This one is a 10 million uh dollar project and uh we are designs pretty much done. We should be starting construction very soon. I just talked to the team last week and they're working on uh starting to do some of the
construction and uh so I think outside this lift station and so we should be getting done in the year or so from now. storm water and drainage improvements, uh storm water, uh repair and replacement. We again, this is another one of those that we are trying to get
some appropriations money whenever we can or any grant funding for helping with these projects, but we appropriate around 1.5 million to continue doing some of these projects to continue finishing our pipelines and keeping them in better way, better um kind of condition. Chapel Hill, we've talked
about this uh a couple of times uh in the past. The design is complete. We are looking for grants. We have identified a couple of grants that we are going to be applying for. We want to at least have maybe two grants. Um, and we want to get uh at least one decent size grant so we
can start moving forward with this project. Um, and that's a $10 million project and we are still hoping to complete it by next year. >> Did we earmark any funds for those? >> Yes, it is budgeted right now. >> Okay. It's all budgeted. >> Yeah. But we're trying to >> get some additional money in so we don't
have to. Okay. >> So we're trying to spread our like really stretch our dollars as much as possible. That's what we're doing. But it is budgeted right now. >> Thank you. >> Studies and master planning. Um you you've already heard me talk about the asset management um getting a work order
system in place. Um a GIS system upgrade CIS system upgrade. Um that is ongoing. We are implementing it right now and we should be completing that implementation early next year. GIS development uh very very important. The other day we had I
got a call that we had a water man that broke and for isolating it initially the GIS had some incomplete information and that took us uh at least an extra hour to try and find that information and get it. So we are really closing that gap.
I'm very proud of the GIS team. They are working so hard and our field crews are bringing information and so it's going to make a huge difference in the next couple of years with some of these things the level of service we can provide because of the ongoing uh effort that everybody is doing. Infra infrastructure risk assessment we are
finishing this study. We are almost at the end of this and that'll give us a desktop analysis of all our horizontal pipes and uh um pumps like that to see what needs to be replaced or not replaced. At least it'll tell us what are the uh highest risks and what what
do we need to uh focus on and then we can do more condition assessment if we don't have that information. Capacity management operation maintenance study. This is to improve our collection system and to reduce chances of any kind of source spills. This is ongoing. We've been working on
this. Some of this was required by D. So we're providing that information. Some things we went out and did over and beyond for for helping our system do better. Hydraulic modeling water and sewer that modeling is almost done. They
are just uh doing some kind of uh checks and balances on that and we have given them some scenarios. Uh for example, you heard me say that we're trying to see if the west plant can produce uh most of the water um for the city. So we don't have to have two separate plants and at
least initially but that needs to we need to see whether hydraulically we can move water from the west to the east because that's not what traditionally we've done. So those are some of some of the scenarios that we've looked at and we've brought forward. Last slide is about couple of things
that we are required to do. One's a climate adaptation plan uh vulnerability assessment and sustainability and resiliency um um studies. The first two, the climate adapt adaptation and vulnerability assessment are grant-f
funed. want to thank Alana and MNA for really working hard for any of these studies that we required to do to try to get funds in so we don't have to spend um our our budget towards those and the sustainability resiliency the green infrastructure trying to see whether when we do storm water projects when we
do water and sewer projects can we do some green infrastructure projects in there to improve um how uh our systems are that's coming from the green building fund that's the last slide I had u I can answer any questions for any projects. Otherwise, I'll call uh Ryan
in for the rates. >> Thank you. Anybody have any questions before we call Ryan? >> Thank you. >> Can we get the Can we get the rates um rate study presentation, please?
Put me to sleep. it. Can we get the rate study for utilities? Okay. Okay. >> Okay. >> Do you want me to briefly introduce you? >> Uh, no. I'm I'll be happy to introduce myself. Mayor, um, commissioners, thank
you very much for having having me. My name is Ryan Smith. I am a a rate consultant. Effectively really what I am is a financial analyst that specializes in municipal enterprise funds, water, wastewater, storm water, uh solid waste,
whatnot. Um I've worked for over 130 different uh municipalities throughout the nation and I've been doing this type of work for over 14 years now. Um over the last four years, we've kind of started on this journey of adjusting
rates with really the long-term goal of focusing on moving forward with the water treatment plant improvements. Now, over those four years, we've had your support to make rate adjustments. That's moved us in the right direction and
really allowed us to move forward with system planning, investing in our infrastructure and technology and really start to refine what those water treatment projects are going to look like. Right now, staff has done an
excellent job of working with your consulting engineer to evaluate over 10 different alternatives for both water treatment facilities. and we've selected at this point the most favorable uh uh alternative that's recognized in your
capital improvement plan. Additionally, over the last four years with your support, we've moved forward with operational and safety efficiencies and staff has worked to secure over 30 million almost $30 million in grant funding. Um, so recognizing that, I
really want to kind of thank y'all for the support that we've received and what we've been able to accomplish over the four years. And it's put us in a really good position to start to move forward with the water treatment facilities. Now, over the last four years and and really
looking historically, uh, our rates have still, uh, even with substantial adjustments over the recent years are still below inflation. And that's kind of what you're seeing on the screen now is a comparison of the city's rate adjustments in the blue line
compared to the water and sewage maintenance index which is an indicy that's published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that really kind of presents the cost of providing water and wastewater service. So historically, even with the rate adjustment in 27, we
still see ourselves at approximately 19% below the average compared to uh the national cost of providing water and sewer. Additionally, when we look at our rates compared to our peer utilities, Coastal
Florida utilities, we can still see that we're approximately $25 below our peer utilities. And this is a comparison of residential water and wastewater service assuming 5,000 gallons per month of
monthly use which is you know very close to your average consumption for the residential customer class. So overall when I see this it tells me that hey we've moved our rates in the right direction and we are still competitive compared to our peers.
And one of the other things that we've done over the last four years if we've continued to monitor our financial metrics, right? And really what we're doing is putting on our rating agency hat and saying, "Hey, what are the rating agencies going to look at when we go to the bond market to fund these
water treatment plant improvements?" Over the last four years, we've seen these metrics improve, which is a really positive thing, right? Because the rating agencies are going to look and say, "Hey, do they have substantial reserves? Is their operating margin
consistent with its peers? Is their total debt outstanding reasonable? Right? How much of our house is mortgaged? And all of these metrics we've seen improve very substantially year-over-year and has put us in a position to work towards securing a
favorable bond rating uh when we do go to market. Now, what are the biggest cost drivers? Um we have seen a small increase in our operating expenses and that's core operating expenses uh from fiscal year
26 to 27 but really the largest driver of the need to adjust rates and adjust our revenues over the coming years is really associated with those two water treatment plants. Now, I do want to mention in total what we see the
combined cost including planning, design, and construction. We're assuming $325 million in total. I do want to mention that includes a contingency, right? And so, we want to include that contingency because we want to be fiscally conservative, right? To make
sure that we're meeting our needs and we're coming up with the plan that is going to allow us to secure bonds. Now the financial forecast is really kind of a balancing act when we develop it, right? That we want to match our
inflows, our sources of revenues, which are primarily from rates, interest, income, the grants. We talked about the $30 million in grants, and then other revenues and capacity fees. We want to balance that with our outflows. And our outflows are generally our operating
expenses, capital and debt funding which is our our largest driver of need to increase rates over the forecast period and then those reserve and compliance targets which are really associated with maintaining those uh improved financial
metrics as we go to the bond market. Now recognizing the need to fund both plants that's the primary driver in our increase in revenue requirements that we see coming over the forecast period
primarily right now we see a larger increase in fiscal year 28 right and that's associated with that debt financing of the water treatment plants and on a totality basis right now when we look at our five-year capital
improvement ment plan, you're almost at half a billion dollars, 500 million or so. However, the majority of that cost, $325 million of it is really associated with those regulatory driven projects at the water treatment facilities.
Now, recognizing our capital plan, we are looking for direction and support from the commission. Uh item number one is we would like to continue to increase our renewal replacement and improvement fund
deposit to $18 million a year. And really that fund allows us to move forward with more uh PIGO or cashf funded capital improvements. It strengthens our financial metrics and shows the rating agencies that going
forward after we utilize debt for the water treatment plant projects, we're setting aside enough to uh mitigate the risk of you using debt in the near future. We want to maintain that strong cash position that you have right now. You all have set yourselves up with a
very strong cash position and we want to maintain that over the next several years. We want to continue to improve our financial metrics. We've seen those metrics improve over the last four years and we want to continue to move forward with that plan of presenting strong
metrics when we go to market. Uh city staff has worked to uh identify a line of credit, right? And we want to make sure that line of credit is secured, which will allow us to provide funding and dollar appropriations for near-term
improvements. And then going forward into fiscal year the end of fiscal year 27 beginning of fiscal year 28 that's been we will be working towards securing those revenue bonds to fund the water treatment plant improvements. Now to do
all these things we are requesting a rate adjustment. Right now we've identified approximately 17 and a4% of a rate adjustment. um and how is that going to impact our customers? Now, what we noted is looking at our
peer utilities, our our total proposed bill would increase to approximately 17 $77.19. I do want to mention that that still puts us approximately $1420 below the average for our peer
utilities. And really, we're not comparing apples to apples here, right? because we're comparing our fiscal year 27 rates to the rates of everyone today, right? And many of these utilities are dealing with the same regulatory PAS PAS
driven requirements that we are, right? So, as we move forward and we go into fiscal year 27, many of these other utilities will be adjusting rates which will further improve our competitiveness compared to our peers. Uh, thank you very much. I would be
happy to answer any questions. >> Anyone have any questions for Mr. >> Yeah, real quick. Can we go back to the rates? >> I just want to point out Palm Beach County is lowest there and that's what you see with economies of scale. Um the other question I have is so this is for
the um for 5,000galon usage. Yes sir. >> What was what was the change that was made? Wasn't there a change that we like a consumption? >> Yes sir, we did change. And and is that do we have comparisons over 5,000? Is this up to 5,000 gallons? >> This is right at 5,000 gallons. Right.
So taking a snapshot, right, of hey, what's what's the average? Um now we did do a rate structure change and we consolidated and reduced the tiers. And what we did is linking them to our our level of service per ERC. Um that was done uh for a two-part prong uh process.
When we looked at the average revenue collection per thousand gallons in between residential normal use and high use customers and then also commercial customers, we noted a drastic difference in revenue collection per thousand gallons. So by consolidating that those
tiers that helped to kind of improve that, make sure that everyone was paying a a consistent cost uh per average. But uh when we talked about making that rate structure change a pro what we did is we took that first tier and we reduced it down to 7,000 gallons. So effectively
all consumption from 0 to 7,000 is charged the same volutric rate. And when we talk about how does that impact our customers approximately I think it was 80 and and don't quote me on this one but I believe it was 85% of our residential bills were issued at 7,000
gallons or below. So if when we made that change, the majority of our residential class were not impacted. The only people that were impacted were higher use residential and commercial customers. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Just just a quick comment. Um I
we we talked briefly about PAS, right? And I understand that there was a settlement, a PAS settlement recently that the city received um funding. How much was that? 12 million. >> Just between 12 and 14 million.
>> What do you mean? Like how much did we receive? >> 12. I believe it's 12.7 million. >> Right. So during our review of the budget, um, one of the questions that I asked was, id like to know where every dollar has been spent with regard to the
PAS settlement money. Uh, we received about 12 point I think you said $6 million. Um, where is that money? What are we using it for? What's the plan? So I I just uh for transparency I I did um send an email and asking for information
um to provide you know what are the legal parameters as to what that funding can be utilized for because sometimes with with settlement funds it's it's limited in scope. So I just want to make sure that we understand what it's supposed to be used for um so that we
can see if maybe we could invest some of that back into um our utilities you know or if that's something that's permissible. So, I think it's important for us to understand that um as we look forward. Thank you. >> Um real quick, Ryan or um Punham, if you
can just briefly talk about um you know, at the state level and the federal level, we're seeing in huge increases in regulations on our utilities. Um and we're talking about um the age of our infrastructure,
how much has changed. And then also um you know, we continue year after year to go out for appropriations at both state and federal levels and most of the time we don't get that funding. So we're really um you know, we we keep holding
out for you know, grants and and holding out and now we're put in you know, we continue to be put in the situation. But if you could just very briefly because I think um it's important to note the regulations that are coming down that
are are being are impacting um cities, municipalities, us in particular and our residents um without providing that funding source to make those updates and those upgrades and leaving it really in the hands of our residents to make those um upgrades with with funding.
Um I can start us off and Ryan if I leave anything off please uh interrupt or add on. Um so yes you're right and there's a lot of regulation coming from state level whether it's for collection systems um asking us to do um
replacement of certain percentage uh of infrastructure every year and do condition assessment. So more and more of programming uh changes that are coming. PAS is a big driver for the treatment and it's not going to just
stay with water treatment. Um it'll go to the wastewater treatment too. So you may be in the next couple of years you may see that uh the wastewater needs to be advanced wastewater treatment um done for that. And so there are those drivers
and that's just right now what EPA did was they reduced two of the com compounds that for PAS that they originally added but that doesn't mean that they've gone off gone away. There's an unregulated contaminant list that is
done every 10 years or so and more things are added to that. So microplastics pharmaceuticals are being added to that. Right now EPA is going to be collecting uh data in the next few years and based on that data will provide some regulatory direction as to what needs to be removed and all of
those things. So what we are asking our consultants is whatever treatment we are putting in place is keeping a track of those uh future regulations coming too. What we don't want to do is be able to meet just these two PAS compound treatment and then three years later
>> two other compounds are added and now this treatment will require something else. So we're trying to really preempt and think it through. Not sure whether we'll be able to think about every single thing but we are really trying hard to do that. So that's one uh issue that's coming up statewide as well as uh
from uh federal level. The other thing is the money is drying up. U we've been told um even some of the grant money that we have say for example we have a grant from FEMA for two phases. So the first phase is funded we are good. The second phase we are we've been told we
should be good but don't count on it for shorty. So it's possible we might be able to finish design of something and not get that money because FEMA is really getting closing up a lot of these either you asked to like provide more information that was not asked before
and said okay this project is not really even though they had said it was okay that no this doesn't meet the criteria that's now in place. So some of those things are also happening to us. So that money is drying up appropriations wise also everybody is looking for the money.
So um your legislators are really trying to spread that which means everybody will get little piece of it not enough to do what you need to do. >> I don't know if nationally you've seen anything else. >> I think that was good. >> Okay.
>> Any other questions? >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Are we going to talk about the rate increase now or are you guys looking for direction? >> We're looking at for direction from the commission. >> So, you know, I don't know if I could
support 17% now, but I would consider that if because one of the things I keep hearing is like our water keeps going up. Everything keeps going up. And so, I don't know if I can support that increase. I think there's alternative
methods that we can look at as far as utilities from a bird's eye view, but what I could consider is an increase if we gather community feedback over the next few months and do a real grassroot
um I don't want to say initiative because that could imply bias, but an educational an educational initiative as to why the city is looking for this increase because not Everyone watches budget meetings. Not everyone, you know,
understands the importance of legislative mandates. They just look at their bill and they see that increase. And so, you know, given that we have a thousand employees almost, I think there's an opportunity here where we can go to the residents and at least acquire
a large enough sample size to get feedback as if this is something that they're okay with knowing the why behind it. Because when I try to talk to residents, you know, all I hear is my rate is increased increase. I try to explain to them, you know, the why. And,
you know, there we don't we don't get, you know, it's it's hard to just increase something and then explain it afterwards. But I think that if we launch this huge init educational initiative and explain the why and
gather feedback on a yes or no, you know, then I think first people are aware before they see the increase, right? Versus just uh, you know, a Facebook post saying, "Hey, here's here's X, Y, and Z. We could do an email campaign. We can do text messaging. We can do mailers. We can apply on the
bill." So that way come September when we talk about this again and we make that final decision people are aware and maybe if they have a better you know understanding of this you know then then you get a larger consensus from the
residents on this and so they understand the why and I think that's something that we should do um before at least that's my opinion you know that way I can I can know you know get a better pulse And I think I think if people have
the ability to understand this on a more comprehensive level and on a more personal level versus just grandwide um I think they would I don't want to say support it but understand you know it's it's it's it's necessary and so we pay thousands and thousands of dollars
of for consultants to come and look at this review. I think part of that scope of work should be public um public engagement and and um like surveying as well, right? Because that's important
and you know we we we have 24 hours a day. We can only do so much, you know, but I think this should be a collaborative effort not just for utilities and not just for us on the dis and the city manager's office but for the city as a whole because this helps
offset the budget elsewhere. And so I would like um I would like to see that. I don't know if there's consensus from my colleagues, but I think that makes it much more easier um to get the conversation going about
these larger increases versus, you know, discussing it up here. Yes. No. And and uh keeping the public out of it. and you know then then they just see their bill increase and they're like hey you know we're going to we're going to fire you
because you know the cost of living is going up. I think also it's important to know when you look at the comparative rates you also have to look at the comparative um local economies cost the cost of living and then also their average income as well. you know, there's a reason that, you know, rates
might be lower in another city because there not might be as much economic opportunity within those cities, right? And so I understand that the the rate here is comparative, but we're leaving out a lot more information for making this decision, right? And there's cities
that are left out of this. I don't want to say intentionally, but probably because they may be lower, maybe they have a better economic opportunity. I I don't know. I just think there's a lot of information um that goes into this that isn't being addressed. And so I think to counter
that is to go to the residents and have them explain or explain this to them and then garner that feedback and then we make that decision. And I think that's fair. Um you know, and it gets everybody involved and most importantly it it's
it's very transparent. The only thing that I I do have a question. Um it's a comment and a question. I think that you're right. The the residents don't understand a lot of the backend stuff of the the state of the the plant and all of these things
for safety and water quality. However, one thing that they do understand is the level of customer service that comes out of the city. And um you know, I was talking to the city manager about this yesterday. I the second year around I don't get complaints on permits and I'm
not getting complaints that there's not enough police. But what I do get are complaints of our customer service level when it comes to dealing with our utilities. And I think that when people see, hey, we have to increase this, they they deserve to have a level of customer
service that is representing them all of the time. And I know it's a hard job, but I I know we talked about this last year, but people call the city from 12 to 1 and want to talk to somebody in water and the whole department's on break and that's the only time that these people can get on their lunch break to make calls. So, what they see
is we're increasing their rate and we're not also leveling up the customer service to their needs or um and I just think that's something that we do need to iron out. I understand we have to make some decisions for safety and quality, but I think along with that should still be making decisions about
providing the best level of customer service um across the board. >> Yeah, I can um address a couple of these points. Uh just comment on it. Um yes, customer service wise we are definitely that's something that we've talked about in the past and we will look at it again
and make sure that we're providing the level of service that's expected. We are doing a customer interface system in place that's going to help a lot because people it'll be more visibility as to how what their bills are, what what do they mean, how what money is being spent and so and so forth like how much their
usage is, what time of day and stuff like that. So you will have a little bit more visibility on that. So that should help um a lot to Commissioner Turkin your point. We have no problems going out and talking. I don't have any problems going out personally to every
neighborhood area that we need to to attend some HOA meetings or other neighborhood meetings and explain. Um I would like to at least make everybody on the DAS understand that we don't have choice on some of this. So even if every
single person says no, we're not going to rate the raise the rates, there is no place I can go for an enterprise fund to get the money for the treatments. You talked about economy of scales. Even with economy of scales, the two plants
will still have to be uh um treatment wise, regulatory wise, we'll have to meet meet those otherwise there'll be violations and we would have to provide what are called point of use filters for every single um resident and maintain
those and there's a huge huge cost in that. So there's not I don't I would love to but I don't have choices at least with what the plants needs are. Everything else we are doing everything to keep the cost low. So I hear you. I will absolutely go out. That's my
personal commitment. But just understand that that driver for what the plant treatment needs are is not something that I can control at all. >> And that right there is what every resident in the city in the city needs to hear. That explanation. >> Okay. and and and because I would I
would argue more mo most people don't know that, you know, and so it's it's a matter of communication and education and that should be I would like that should be part of any increase really. Here's the why, you know, and and the
mayor touched on a great point with customer service. You know, things are so competitive, at least in the private sector nowadays. It businesses and companies focus on customer loyalty because they because customer service is the outlier
nowadays, right? And and customer service builds trust, it builds forgiveness, it builds understanding. to when we have situations like this. Okay, they didn't just increase my rent, for example. They've told me why. And we understand, you know, and so I think
that's huge. And I think that's an opportunity, you know, not just for utilities, I think, but for everything as a whole. You know, when when you look at, for example, when you look at like a lot of the stuff with the state, you know, from the the financial office,
they they do account for inflation for some of these, you know, and a lot of people are saying, okay, well, we didn't know is 20 30% inflation over the course of COVID, you know, for the cost of doing business, you know, in a municipality. people look at CPI you
know or um you know or other indicators and you know they see single-digit percentage increases they don't look at it on a grand scale so when you condense all of that and then you communicate it in a easy way to comprehend right I would say a way for maybe commissioner
Turkin to comprehend like 2020 before he was elected maybe even 2022 you know someone who doesn't have the experience on how governments actually work it's an easier pill to swallow and it's more transparent. So, you know, again, to back to what the mayor was
saying, it provides that customer service of understanding why we're increasing and why we're looking at that. So, then it's not just a increase, no input. It's it's more of an educational component. And I think when you look at rate adjustments like this,
it should be a requirement. And so, that is my ask. I'm not saying yes or no. I'm saying I think it's important to do this and be extremely aggressive with it. So then that way we can come back and we can say, "Hey, we've talked to the
residents. We've explained the why, you know, and whether that's again different methodology of of surveying, educational meetings, whatever that is. I think that just makes it easier down the road to say, "Yeah, we did increase, but here's the why." You know what I mean? for
those who didn't catch up on it or or they're the the neighbors are going to talk. People are going to understand and then it mitigates, you know, misinformation. It mitigates, you know, false narratives about not caring about residents or their feedback or just, you know, increasing costs left and right.
You know, um people, you know, people will appreciate just the simple communication. So that is my ask um from now until September to move um to move those rates up is to >> do do you want are you looking for an
education aspect as far as because a survey if they if if everyone were to say no on a survey. Well, I think the survey I think the sur like I don't want to get too ahead. The survey it all depends on the language of it, right? Like you can you can get different
answers for different questions. And so the same answers for different questions. So I think when you when you ask, hey, do you want your utilities, you know, to meet local standards? You know, yes, probably going to be high, right? If you go, hey, are you okay with
us increasing the cost of your water? Probably no. is you know what I mean? So I think it's how you ask the questions, how you educate is the important piece, but more importantly than the answer is the action that we're taking to
aggressively communicate with these residents and explain to them the why, right? You know, people don't, you know, people don't really come, they don't, you know, um I don't want to say don't contribute, but you know, people are busy. you know, they're not going to spend all their time digging into our
budgets, digging into, you know, year-over-year increases, you know, etc. That's what they trust us to do. But also too, you know, we're five people with a city of over 80,000 residents, you know, and so I think that, you know, they're they're our bosses, right? Like
Commissioner McCrae mentioned with the organizational chart, the residents are the top of that. And so we owe it to them, you know, to, you know, work our our our uh our butts off in order to make sure they understand the why behind
all of these increases. And so that is again that is my ask is, you know, develop a strategy to not just educate. Yeah, I think survey is important, but I think it it's it's how the survey is going to be done. Um, you know, and I
don't know if this is something staff can do internally. I think so. Um, and you know, just get the conversation going so people understand the why. And then I think when people are involved, they'll understand, you know, hey, this is for the safety of my kid. This
grandma, grandpa, whatever, right? And so I just think that's a much better way to conduct than just a, you know, look at an increase, yes or no, and that's it. I know it might take a lot of time and effort, but I just think
it's something that we owe our residents. And again, you know, there's I think a part of this piece, too, is that there wasn't increases for, you know, um, a period of time that's led us to this place. Those are things that people should know, you know, and so I think um if you take the last few years,
I'm sorry, I know I keep talking. If you take the last few years and you look at, you know, the why that we hear and and we get that out to the residents, I think people would absolutely understand the needs for this. >> Yes. >> Um Commissioner Kelly and then you have
M Commissioner. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um Vice Mayor Turkin. Um, I um support the education portion of your sentiment. And I feel like it's very important that we continue to educate when we're looking at something that is truly this is one of those
situations where it's we're past the point of wants and we're to the point of needs and clean water and what we provide the services that we provide to our residents from utilities um is not um should never you know be political
and compromised and it should never be you know and I'm talking 10 years ago when you know it, you know, it it was you know the rates were kept the same or or reduced and I can't say you know the position then but it puts us in a
position now where um you know clean water and the services that our residents get is a is a must. It's a requirement and um I so I think and you know the residents that I you know speak to I've supported you know I
supported the you know the tier structure uh last year um that didn't uh equate to um an increase um but um you know when you when I'm out there and I'm speaking to the residents and having town halls and and and you educate you
know like you said Vice Mayor Turkan when you educate them and they understand the why. Um, it becomes clear and they may not be happy about it, but most of the time they want clean water and they understand it and they say, "Okay, I'm I'm good with that or I understand or maybe I won't flush my
toilet 20 times a day. Maybe I'll flush it five times and I'll be a little bit more conservative in how I use my water in my home so that I I control my rates in my home and what I use and my usage and and we can all be a little bit more
um responsible when it comes to our you our autonomy and and if we use it, we pay for it. Um but I so I think you're right though. I feel like an education component is necessary. I think a survey might open up a can of worms that we
might not um want, but I think resident feedback is always important. Um and and having that, you know, taken into consideration. So, um anything that utilities and the city can do to educate moving forward as to why um you know,
are we see it and it's just like Vice Mayor Turken said, we see it in our meetings. We've seen the pictures. We've had the tours at the water plants. We know what our system looks like. We know I've spoken to staff and the uphill battles that they have on a daily basis
keeping our water clean and our and and everything up, you know, as as good as we can with the infrastructure that we have. Um but that's that's something that we have the the privilege of seeing and it's very difficult for us to to
really um show that to the residents or to explain that to them without saying sorry it's a you know it's a need but you know anything that we can do um sooner rather than later on on educating the residents on what this looks like and why um I think is very important as
we move forward. And also we have to remember that we have many um water service agreements outside of the city. So, you know, we the our residents have to see this, you know, and it's unfortunate that the state continues to
mandate how we can um how we can collect um from our water uh usage agreements outside of the city limits. and um you know but so I think it's important that that that's part of that education component too is that our residents um
you know we continue to get regulated and our residents are are footing the bill um I would say the majority of the bill through taxes and then our utility rates uh to carry u water service to to outside of the city and those are
decisions that were made you know 30 40 years ago that we're um living with and and dealing with now. Um, and so, um, you know, I support this, but I feel like the education component is necessary so that the residents
understand the why. Um, and I I'm happy you have a flyer, I'm happy to hand it out to my neighbors and my and my residents and have it on hand so when they ask a question, I have the facts and I'm not just, you know, throwing it off or send me an email and I'll connect you with the right person. Um, because
it really does come down to education. um when we're talking about this because it is something that's important and unfortunately the can was kicked down the road um for so long that we're having to deal with it over and over again for the last four years. So, and we'll continue to deal with it um moving
forward as well. So, um so thank you and those are those are my comments on that. >> Mayor Mayor, can I answer one thing um to Commissioner or I can wait Commissioner Kelly if if you want me to wait. >> Okay. >> Thank you. I I agree with what both of
my colleagues have said before about the educational component, but I feel like it should be for this entire budget. And the reason I said for this entire budget is because when we go to our constituents, they said, "What are you doing to us?" Now, the fire chief stood up here and gave us a perfect example.
He said he has one of his firemen who said that they can't live in Boon. And I'm just saying that should be a red flag for all of us who sitting up here. I'm just saying when people say that they cannot live here, we should say what can we do to help cut costs to make them look what looks more appropriate
for them. Say I want to go to point because I see what they're doing. They're not taxing the people to them. You all works and know what's going on, but we're the ones that have to deal with the constituents when we go out and they say, "Well, what the hell?" And the reason my water bill went up, I had one lady to tell me, "Shit, water is free.
Well, I got to pay for it." And this is what we have to deal with. And we have to say, you know, then down the road we're looking for your vote. But I'm just saying you all don't have to hear what we have to hear. Sometimes they're not so kind to us. You know, my customer service, they don't treat us like we're customers when we go to them sometime either. But I'm just saying we
all need to work together. Thank you. >> Mayor, just uh two points. Uh one, the conservation piece really is important because not just for what the water bill is for individuals, but also how much water you need to treat. If we don't
have conservation our cap the cost capital cost of keeping so for example we might be producing only 10 million gallons today if we don't conserve it and we're not increasing the as many people but we continue increasing the use of water we might go to 12 million
gallons. So which means we have to treat two more million gallons and each each of those additional costs uh for increasing the capacity at the plant can make a huge difference. So any conservation efforts we can do help us out tremendously. The other thing I just
wanted to mention was as an enterprise fund pretty much all our rate payers pay for everything. So just I just wanted to clarify that point. That's it. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Do we want to break for lunch or how do you want to do this? >> Public audience. public comment.
>> Yeah. Do you want to do you want to do public comment? >> Well, we still have CIP because remember we skipped over CIP. I >> So, if we break, we'd have to come back CIP then public comment or you would have to do CIP and then public comment now and probably you would we wouldn't
get to lunch and depending on dialogue, >> right? >> Yeah. Unilaterally changed it. >> Well, you you wouldn't have public comment on CIP then as far as like the changes. Well, if somebody want I just think if somebody wants to then stay or come back after lunch, but I don't want to take a lunch break and then say you
got to come back for public comment. What if somebody can't stay, but they've been here for 3 hours and they would like an option. >> The only caveat is the fact that CIP is the only um aspect they they wouldn't be getting. >> Can we offer it twice? So, so I would say >> why don't we offer public comment twice? >> Yeah, I'm okay with that. Yeah. Yeah,
>> we can do one now and then if after CIP if there's any wrap up public comment >> or if there's a CP request, you can email me or staff >> and uh we the good news is this is just a workshop, >> right? >> Yep. Yeah. >> Okay. So, we're good with public
comment. If anyone would like to do public comment, now's the time to get up and speak. You'll have an opportunity later this afternoon, too. But fingers. There you go. Cindy Falco de Curado. Um, I have a lot to say. Uh, I noticed on my
bill that it started out with $2 and change for 0 to seven of the gallons and then it went progressively to $5.91. I didn't know we were going to be penalized for using water. You know, when you go to gas station, you see the
price at $2.85. You know what you're paying for. Whether I get zero gallons, five gallons, or 100 gallons, it's the same price. And I was told by the department, I think her name is Anna Lee, uh, and the lady that actually was does the billing, she said basically it
was to train all of us to conserve. When is it the government's job to teach us to conserve? It doesn't cost any more money for the pipe, for the water, or anything else. God gave us the water. I'm very bothered by this. And most people don't even understand what's going on on their house bills, but I hear it from my neighbors. What is
wrong? Why is this bill so expensive now? Now they keep comparing us to Bokeh, Del Rey, Jupiter. Those are affluent places. Why don't they do us to Riviera Beach, which is probably more closer to what our incomes are in this community? And then these smart meters
that they're making everybody put on their uh houses. There's got to be an optout program. I don't want a smart meter. Do you know that she sat there on a computer while I was talking to them looking at my house? I felt like I was being raped and invaded every time I turn on the water. And I'm like, "Oh my
god, somebody's watching me." It's a horrible feeling. It's an invasion and it should not be. And we have to have an opt out program, but it's feasible. Not $55 to have someone come read your meter because they want to cause you not to have an opt out. You are not supposed to
tell us how we are to live our lives. We have a constitution of the United States of America and of Florida that protect our God-given rights. Besides the flock cameras that were going to spend $2.2 $2 million on. Why don't you save money there instead of spying on us, we the
people. It's not just catching criminals. It's taking all of our data, putting it into a base system that anybody can capture. We have no more aminity. We are based on freedom, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I am appalled what is happening,
especially here in Boon Beach, because we count on you guys to keep us from having government encroach upon our life, liberty, and freedoms. It's got to stop. And I think that you all are being used. Boon Beach has been used for a long time to support and to pay for um
Ocean Ridge and all these other places. They're not paying their due taxes. They don't pay city taxes, but yet they reap all the benefits. They don't pay. It's not fair. They have the money. And I know we have a lot of politicians that live over there on that island and they just laugh and mock. H let's just hit
Buenon Beach. You're the redheaded stepchilds. Let's just throw affordable living in there because nobody else wanted to take it. We're the guinea pigs. Aren't you tired of being the end of the conversation? A a joke. It's time, guys. You've got to protect us. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Next, please. >> David Catz, Boon Beach. Um, the idea of customer service, the idea of letting people know that's that should be done. But as an enduser, whether it be public safety or utilities or water or sewage,
I want a Cadillac. I don't want the Chevy. If it means paying $15 more a month or 17% more, I'm ready to do that because the because previous administrations, previous utility directors have kicked this can down the
road and regrettably it's landed on your lap, but you need to bite the bullet. And Commissioner Kelly addressed it. The secret sauce, the secret sauce is the 25% search charge on people that don't live in the city, except for I guess the the people out on the island. I'm talking about people we have water
service agreements with. I'm sure Mr. Lawson has probably figured out how much more money that's going to bring in. And that's where the secret sauce is. And no matter how much you raise our rates, their rates go up 25% more on top of that. And that's going to bring a lot of
money into this city. And I think that um you you need to take care of the system and the system is is starting to age. And if it means an increase in in water rates, whether it be again the 15 or the 17 the $15 or the 17%, you're going to
have to do it. You're going to have to do it because people like their water. They like their garbage picked up. They like the sewage getting cleaned. They like the whole thing. And that's where you got to go for it. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Mary Woodworth, Boon Beach, Florida. Uh
just want to take a second to thank you guys. I've come to these things for about 30 or 40 years. This might be one of the better ones I've been to. Uh the formats are much clearer. There are numbers with the words for a change, which is refreshing. I appreciate the people that do that. Uh the comments on engagement and communication with the
citizens. I really appreciate the bit of a sea change, I think, coming from Point Beach in general for the last few years. So, just wanted to get up here and just say what I'm seeing is probably the best effort that I've seen here in coming to these things for 20, 30, 40 years. So,
thank you all very much. >> Thank you. Anyone else would like to do public comment before we take a short break? >> There's nobody online. >> Okay. And there's no one online. All right. How long are we breaking for, guys?
>> 30 minutes. Okay. With everyone? Okay. We will come back in 30 minutes. Okay, we're going to get started. So, Capital Improvement Fund, if you want to get ready to be coming up for your presentation, whoever's doing that. Getting everybody rounded up.
Welcome, sir. >> Thank you very much. Thank you, mayor. Really appreciate that. All right. Here's my clicker. All right. Going back and forth. Oh, serious. >> Pretty sure they adjusted the air,
right? Kevin in the room. >> I think it's warming up a little bit in here. >> Was it Was it? >> Are you cold? Have you been cold? >> Yeah. Right. Okay. I'm I'm up here
holding my nose. That's what I said. >> Yeah, you're right. Yes. >> Yes. >> Laura is yours, sir. >> Oh, thank you very much. Um, uh, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, city manager, deputy city manager, assistant city manager, city attorney. Thank you so
much. Um, I'm going to be presenting the capital improvement program for the general city fund. Uh my name is Sean Shutton. I'm the newly onboarded division director of capital improvements. And uh the presentation today is going to be pretty straightforward. Going to go over the existing city capital improvement
process in place. Talk about the 2026 2027 fund requests. Go on to the projects that comprise that request and then talk about that sales certex uh suns setting as well as what we have previously historically uh funded the
capital improvement program by. All right. So, the existing city capital improvement program is a five-year look ahead for the renewals and replacements of the city owns owned assets. The city categorizes that into seven different categories. That's the general government, recreation and parks, uh,
information technology, public safety, transportation, utilities, and a golf course. Um, there are, let me click it on here. I can't really see that TV, but there are five CIP accounts uh associated with the capital improvement plan. That's the
general city. They have three accounts, the 302, the 303, and the 412. And the utilities uh capital improvements are housed in accounts number 403 and 404. Uh the utilities already conducted their presentation. They take care of their own uh capital improvement discussion.
So that's not going to be discussed in the general city capital improvement, but I did want to mention that uh the capital improvement program is outlined in administrative policy number 090401 and that's the process by which the city
does do the capital improvement strategizing on an annual basis. It starts in January with the identification of the projects on a department level. It moves throughout the year um through review through budgeting to today uh the budget requests and then through budget adoption and that cycle continues on an
annual basis. Uh over the last 10 years that's the data that I had to review. There have been 13 different funding sources in at least the three accounts that are the general city that's uh account 302 303 and 412. Uh, one thing I did want to mention is
that the the largest funding that we did receive is that uh, penny sales sax that is sun setting December 31st of 2026. So, we'll no longer be seeing that funding. Excuse me. Okay, I had to put that slide forward. Um, and
that had really driven the capital improvement program over the last 10 years. So the uh 2026 2027 budget request does pull from six of those funding sources and the 302 and 303 accounts and the 412 which is the golf account will be uh relying on four of
those funding sources. And the 202627 budget looks budget request looks like this. It's a 6.588 million request across uh the three funding accounts uh 302 303 and 412.
There's 22 separate projects identified and requested this year uh through nine funding sources. That's it says eight, but there's actually nine as there was an additional one in the Gulf that I discovered through review of the presentation. Um and then for the next couple slides, I'm going to go over the actual
individual projects that comprise these budget requests in each account and within each category is defined by the city's administrative policy on conducting the capital improvements. In the general government account or category, we are requesting um uh approximately eight $820,000 across four
projects. Most of those projects pertain to the implementation personnel and salaries required to get the ERP program up and running. In the next category, we have uh uh recreation and parks. There's four projects
identified within this request. The largest being the Mangrove Park boardwalk removal project. Uh followed by the the living shoreline project which is also grant funded. This is going to be seed money to get that project up and running.
>> Excuse me. What was a Jensen pool pump glass replace? >> That's a great question. I don't have that information available. I think we can follow up and get that information. Yeah. >> Thank you. And then RNR that's essentially repairs
and replacements or renewals and replacements on various uh recreation and park projects discretionary throughout the year. So there is some seed funding for that. The next is information technology. This category is uh requesting three projects uh funded in two different accounts. That's 302
has computer replacements. Uh generally the city's uh the IT department's strategy is to replace oneif of the computers every year. So this is oneif of what we'd expect for a phase replacement of a full computer cycle. And we could possibly anticipate this uh
to be an annual occurrence for technology improvements. And the largest cost is the in fund 303 that's replacing the enterprise resource software planning system uh as a onetime cost of $1.7 million.
Uh the next category that we have is public safety. uh three projects, $600,000 being requested. Again, this is going to be uh laptops and workstations as well as a collocation workspace. And the transportation category has Yes,
sir. >> Back up. >> Okay. >> Tell me what is a police workstation? the police workstation. Uh I I may have to rely on the police department. My understanding is that is oh desks, tablet, not not the computer itself, but
actually the tablets, the cubicle of furniture upgrades and replacements. >> So my understanding is some of the replacements are there's some space that was not utilized within the certain areas. So these were not replacements
but additional spaces that they're using. So like in the D bureau, we didn't build out that whole area. >> So and then the collocation I think is not an actual space that's for IT uh services I believe. Correct. >> Hi uh Commissioner um McCrae. The Craig
Clark, director of recreation and cultural services. The pool uh pump has never been replaced and there's a crack in it, so we had to move it up. Um originally it was scheduled for 2028 or 29. we had to bump it up soon because we don't want it to be damaged anymore. So,
thank you. >> Thank you for that. Uh moving forward then to the transportation. This is going to be funded five separate categories. Uh two plans, one is ADA transition plan, another is an engineering assessment of
city bridges. And then three accounts will be supporting uh renewals and replacements to pavement and sidewalks. And finally, the the golf category that's going to be fund 412 has two items associated with it. That's the wet
well and the pump house repair $250,000, excuse me. As well as the golf course uh clubhouse possible renovation, rehabilitation. and it's going to be the feasibility, design, and permitting for the continuation of that project going forward.
So, that being said, those are the seven categories that the city identified this year for the budget cycle. Um, and do want to touch back onto this penny sales certax dollars and fund 303. This is the historical context of what was received
by the city from this program over the last nine years. It's $55 million. It funded 450 projects approximately $6 million per year sun setting by the end of this year. So we are not anticipating any additional funding into the capital
improvements from this valuable resource that we previously had. Um off to the right there is a chart that does show the project categorizations as they are tagged uh within our uh within our system. uh multiple pro park projects that includes uh Hester Park, Sarah Sims
Park, uh KP Park, Oyer Park, Fishing Pier. These are some of the projects that have been um uh renewed or replaced with these dollars. Uh looking at the transportation side, some of the projects are Lake Buon Estates, Southwest 8th Improvement, Meadows Boulevard. It seems like almost the
majority of the project that the city has done over this last 10 years was funded from this account and these dollars. So what the next account that I did want to highlight is the 302 fund. This primarily has been a supplementary account to that 303 account and those
sir tax dollars. It has increased steadily over time. This request this coming year in 2026 and 20 27 will be the highest request that we have within the last 10 years and it's going to be the primary engine to fund the city's uh CIP projects uh for the next year and
possibly going into the future. It is being funded, at least proposed to be funded from six funding sources identified on the side. Uh transfer from the general fund. Uh the gas tax and I do want to point out the gas tax and the tax debt have consistently funded this
account. Um some of the other funding sources within the prior slide have occasionally increased and bumped this up from time to time, but those have been the two consistent factors over the last 10 years. Um so in summary um the
2026 2027 CIP general city request uh is 6.588 million spread across three different accounts 302 303 and 412 um 22 total projects that's down from the 50 that we did see with fund with
the certax dollars funding 50 projects a year on average and uh we will not be seeing that particular funding going in the future. or so that did result in us when we do review these uh projects being requested uh throughout the year
that we had to defer some out to next year the year after the year after. So we are seeing if you did look ahead into the budget higher amounts in the 6.588 million projected over the next four years and possibly into into the future.
And that concludes the presentation. >> Anyone have any questions? >> I have a question. You say that you was new. >> I am new. >> Yes. >> How new are you? >> My seventh week. >> You got You got in under the freeze. >> Well, what's that? >> That's right. You got in right before
the freeze. >> I made it under the freeze. Got it. >> Thank God for that. >> I'm glad to be here. Thank you. >> Okay. Good. >> Thank you.
>> All right. Thank you very much. >> Does anybody want to hear anything else before we move on? >> I I don't want to hear anything else. Excuse me. Uh what are we doing with the fire station three? What's going on?
>> Fire station 3. We used the uh $20 increase from the fire uh fire assessment last year to fund both the uh fire rescue substation at Inter Coastal and Fire Station 3. He's asking for an update where we are on that. >> So right now I believe the design is
complete 30% drawings I believe and that project has been on the shelf pending the fire merger at this point. So depending on what happens here, if the fire merger moves forward or what happens with that, then we'll pick it back up and and look at that project. >> Got it. >> Yeah. And if I if I could just add, so
some of that additional money was also used per our agreement to uh towards the Phoenix uh station alerting system, which was the $800,000 purchase. So some of that money was used for that and about 350,000 was used as indicated by
senior staff uh to prepare for those. Okay. >> Thank you. Um, super quick mayor. On that same point, you don't go far. Um, thank you, Commissioner McCrae, for bringing up fire station 3. Um, so I
know a lot is up in the air and sitting on a shelf. Um, but I just want to make sure that we are um having conversations now at the state and federal level um to start talking about funding sources. um public safety typically takes um the
forefront when it comes to uh appropriations and grants at the federal and state level. So I would like to to look into that now without you know obviously not spending time lots of time and resources but at least look at what
our options are funding wise should we have to you know should the merger not happen we have to go down that road that we're not then starting that up in you know several months down the line um when we have some answers um on the other thing that we're you know we're
not starting from from square one on um you know and on and looking at funding opportunities. >> Yeah, absolutely. And and we had looked into funding sources prior to uh the the choice or the decision to try to raise the fire assessment to cover the debt
service uh which was which was really the only other option at that point because unfortunately uh the city and the financial position that we're in right now uh through the assistance to firefighters grants would not allow us to receive these grants. So
the only that that's the AFG portion. Uh the state appropriations which we've put in for multiple times. Unfortunately, we just found out again that the the promise we were made that we were going to get this year. U we just found out we we weren't successful on that as well. So just thinking outside the box, the
the raise in the $20 was actually to cover the debt service. Um and your CFO had actually secured uh funding for us for lowterest loan to do both the station 6 and the station 3 rebuild. But with the pending merger, obviously everything is just still in in limbo.
But if if if that were not to go through, we would immediately move back to our promise to you, which was to utilize those funds to rebuild three. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Yeah, with the um with the uh marine
unit. So that's on pause for the buildout, but we're still keeping the vessel at Harvey Oyer, right? Is the police vessel over there? >> It is. It is. If if I may. The lifts are done, right? >> The lifts are completed and both boats are there. The fireboat actually went
into service uh last week officially. All the training has been done. And and I just want to reiterate that that the boat was purchased with ARPA funds. Yes. The training, by the way, which was in this year's budget, um was all covered. My assistant chief of training was actually able to cover about 95% of all
the fireboat training, the marine firefighting courses, the command and control courses through grant opportunities. Awesome. So, we we saved, you know, that amount of money. We we will be having a launching ceremony when we'll invite all of you and we'll do kind of a low-key launching ceremony
soon. But what we do need to do on the PD side right now, we have to go back and do a little bit of dredging. And we knew when we got into the project that with all the the shifting sands and and the way things happen from the inlet that on that PD side, it's getting a little shallow draft. So, uh we're
looking into right now utilizing a uh a maintenance permit to go ahead and just we we have to dredge under both boats, >> but uh but right now they're both fully operational. They're they're going to let you guys. So, you're what you're looking for is just do a maintenance uh dredge just under those vessels instead
of like the whole canal. Is that easier to get accomplished versus uh I mean when we dredged Harvey earlier that was that took forever. >> Yeah. So, when they typically do as a maintenance permit with that and so if we can get that covered on that maintenance is something that they can just allow us to do where we don't have
to apply for it. That's that's what we're hoping. >> Can we do like a maintenance too just around in front of the boat ramp also? Yeah, we'll do as much as we can. We can get with you. See what we can do. We're going to have people out there. >> I mean, because that was just dredge and you're saying it's already, >> you know, which is expected. I mean, no, no one thought we were going to dredge
and it was going to be fine for 10 years, right? >> It's going to be a >> Well, too, I think that project was the county was leading it. They had they had their priorities. That area was done later and they had already had their permitting. Yeah. So, it just didn't get >> included. the maintenance. Can we try to
incorporate just to do a little bit of mitigation there uh in front while we have it? >> Yeah, if you show me, we'll get together offline and we can add that. >> Awesome. Thank you. And and just so just so that you're aware as well for your edification. I actually spoke to the vendor who put the lifts in who would be a potential viable source if we want to
have them come back and do the dredging one day. >> They come in and out in one day. That's if they're just dredging under the two public safety vessels. If we incorporate any other areas that are to the east of there, it may be another day or two, but we'll we'll I'll work together with uh, you know, deputy city manager Mac and we'll get we'll get that done.
>> That'd be great. During the week, probably. >> Yeah. >> Another weekend. Yeah. >> Yeah, for sure. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> What PD boat is there? Because I was at the marina and the PD boat was at the marina. >> It's at Marina Village. >> Contender. >> It's at Marina Village. >> It's a contender. >> We moved it to Marina Village. Back to
the Marina Village dock >> temporarily. We get the dredging. can't use it at low tide at all. >> That's correct. >> Okay. Okay. I just wanted for clarification cuz it sounded like it was there, but it's not. So, it's >> there. And then just recently, we decided that it from operational, you
know, reliability to put it back at Marina Village. Um because of the low tie, we won't be able to launch. So, that's where it's at for now, temporarily until we we we work through this. >> And then, so well, I'm just curious because the um so did we not terminate
that lease with Marino Village? I mean, thankfully we didn't. >> We own the slip. >> We own the slip. Oh, okay. Good to know. Good to know. Okay. So, we're we own the slip outright. Oh, good. Good. I was always under the impression that we were leasing that.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Probably good to retain that in case something like this happens again. Okay, that was it. Thanks. >> Well, and and something also that the police chief actually offered me was that second lift over there as a float on. So once we get that uh the police
boat dredged uh we're going to go ahead and move our rigid hall inflatable there. So we'll have a secondary vessel that's that'll be that'll be there >> at the Marina village. >> Correct. >> All also correct. >> Got to use what you got sir. >> Pretty good.
>> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. Next um we have item 5A. Is there a presentation from staff? No, there's no presentation. Uh >> spreadsheet. >> We do have the Excel spreadsheet that
yeah, we can present if you like. >> Perfect. >> Can we pull up uh the military Excel sheet, please? So staff's recommending >> keeping the military the same or or do
We have a little bit of uh >> there cuz I know your go-to is >> that is entirely based on whether or not there's going to be increases in other fees. If there's not increases in other fees, then I highly suggest you do not touch the mill rate. >> Right. >> So, could we decrease it if we are
increasing the other fees? >> There's definitely room to do that. >> Okay. >> Which fees are you talking about? >> Utility. >> Utilities. Yeah. >> Yeah. So that >> because you're going to have commiserate uh utility franchise fees, you're going to have a utility tax rate that's going
to increase as you move monies over to the general fund. So there's going to be an appetite to lower that. >> Um in addition to you're servicing outside residents outside the city. So there could be some uh definite some
room to move that uh military down. >> I like that. >> Yeah. Anybody have any other questions for staff or discuss anything? >> I guess um what what's like the preferred I guess
>> motion and mechanism so that if we do decide after this you know for example with the utilities you know because if the utilities increases then we should lower the millage rate. So I just want to make sure we're not locking in and that people listening know we're not
locking them in. >> Sure. So today you're voting on a preliminary rate, which is what gets sent out to residents as the maximum that the city could impose. You then have your budget hearings in September, at which point in time you'll have public hearings again, and you have the
option to lower that rate, but the rate that is approved today is the maximum rate that this commission can impose next year. >> Perfect. In that um notice, >> can we add language that says like it's max, but also
>> No. Okay. All right. >> So, and and what I >> What do you mean they're locked in? >> The notices. >> It's a form. >> The property appraiser sends out those notes. >> Okay. The property appraiser. Got it. Okay. I thought you said the city was >> I'll just give you guys a For every mill, you're looking at about 10.1 10.2
million. So, for every tenth of a mill, you're looking at about a million dollars. That's essentially the um funding uh from the general fund or from Avalor that we bring in is what would be looked at as us rebalancing the budget whenever we look at doing something
commiserate. But that millage rate decrease is going to direct directly correlate with the savings of our residents. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Go ahead. >> Okay. So I mean historically we've been you
know we've been working on reducing the military and I think we've done it many many times here um on this day and because of the volatility and the potential for significant changes with
regard to the homestead exemption that could pass or fail in November and again we don't know the future. Um, we should be very conservative right now to just be mindful of, you know, because if we
if we go down a road of um of changing the mills, which again I've been a proponent of and we've we've done several times in the past. My concern is that right now we're looking at a $16 million deficit
potentially for next year, right? >> No, that's in two years. October 2028. >> Okay. So for next year >> 9.5 million next year. >> So 9.5 million next year potentially 16 million the year after that. um if we
are considering you know I guess we might want to talk about that ultimately but you know if we're considering um maintaining the CBAs as they are andor looking at you know some sort of a uh an increase for for
staff even if it's you know uh a conservative one maybe reducing it would you know would be challenging in the longer term if this thing in November were to pass. So, it's just something that we have that we should think about. Um, and we also have
to think about, you know, the the rate in itself. It's going to be contingent upon what happens in November. But if we reduce it, the numbers that we're looking at right now of 9.5 million next year and 16 million the year after that, after we
we provide raises or staff salary increases, then that deficit's going to increase, right? Because that will be a new baseline. So, just something to think about. Any other comments or questions? >> Okay. >> What's next?
>> Yeah. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> No, I'm not. I'm just >> Sorry. Is there a motion to approve? >> So, we have a motion. You're the >> We do not have a motion. >> Motion to approve. >> Okay. We have a motion. Do we have a second?
>> Yeah. Motion to approve. uh 5A with the stated millage rate of 7.75 with no increase. >> Second. >> We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed say nay. >> Motion passes unanimously.
U moving on to 5B. staff. >> Anyone? Buer >> glad you guys se little slow on that one. I was saying, is anybody going to else get up here or what? >> It was too quick. Is too quick. >> So, uh, so we're not looking to increase
the fire assessment for you this year. I I think I pretty much laid the groundwork for a possible scenario shift as we move forward in subsequent years based on on what we see uh from the tax legislation, but at this point uh to keep where we are, keep the budget flat,
uh we're asking to maintain the fire assessment fee at 145. >> Okay. Any questions? >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Um do we moving on to 5C? Is there a presentation? >> Motion to approve. >> Yeah, there's a motion. Second, >> we have a motion. We have a second. >> No, no, we don't have a motion.
>> Yes, I >> Oh, Amy, I'm sorry. I thought it was >> Yes. >> Thought it was good. >> Have a motion. And you you gave the second, right, Commissioner Cruz? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed say nay. >> Motion passes unanimously. Any other
final comments for today? >> I before we do the fire, >> I just want to say I want to say one thing. In the event that we do do these increases, whether or not the property tax legislation passes or it doesn't pass, I do want to kind of set a goal
for next budget year of doing some substantial maybe um setting a goal of doing a roll back >> for property taxes. Um in the event we are able to navigate some of these that way they are there is going to be a light for our residents, right? like if
they do see some mild increases in like either utility bills or things like things of that nature. >> Yeah, I would say more than a roll back especially if you look at uh you know almost a 4x increase of a fire assessment next year is what's being proposed. >> Wait, we I'm sorry.
>> No, no, no, no. >> I I I don't want to make assumptions about anything happening next year. We're we're only speaking about the current budget. I think what what the city manager was saying is that, you know, if there were any changes, we would look to lower property taxes,
lower the military, and give a break to the residents, >> right? >> Yeah. Yeah, that's where I was going until you interrupted me. Um, so anyways, because I think it's important, no different than with the millage rate this year. If utilities
increases, we need to offset that cost. >> Moving on to 5C. Okay, moving on to 5C. >> Good afternoon again. Purum Kalat, utilities director. We are not uh the canal. I don't have any presentation for the canal assessment. It's just the cost
of uh doing the business. Uh so what we do is we just look at how many households there are for what's the cost of cleaning up those uh canals and then charging the residents back. That's it. >> Okay. Do we do an assessment of how effective
this is? >> We we do not, but I can tell you that being I live on that specific canal and I'm assessed that those monies, I just sent our deputy city manager a picture of my canal and I as a as a resident, I
made a complaint. So, >> and we we had the vendor out there today, but I I agree in summer months there's not too many things you can do with the the canals getting algae and growth and it's >> well I know the underlying issue is the
culver allegedly >> most of the problem we had where it was floating weeds coming in that seemed to have slowed down a lot. So, we have not gotten a lot of the complaints that we have in the past. So, it seems to be working whatever we're doing. I know there's some isolated areas that like what Dan's talking about.
>> Those are the areas where we're going to have to have them come back and and touch up >> is the Yeah. So maybe it's a matter of just getting the vendor out there more. Is that >> what I'm understanding? >> We don't have So one of the extra things that we're looking at too is just doing a little bit more with um traveling that
area because we don't we don't have a boat that's generally out there all the time. So we do rely on the c customers, but we're going to take a little bit more proactive approach to go out and do some more inspections. >> I Yeah. I mean, we brought this up a while ago about having, you know, um,
uh, some type of vessel to look at the waterways as far as trash, debris, you know, looking at the mangroves, looking at the stuff like this. And so, I'm I'm just we h we haven't gotten that. And I, you know, obviously we have to be mindful of everything that happens, but
from an enterprise fund, you know, I think there's an opportunity there. Um >> I know that uh Adam and I were actually looking at uh something that may come available. So we are working on that for actual >> I can tell you like as far as a covert iss concerned I rep that set on a daily
basis and I walk that turf every single day and I can tell you over the past couple of years with the assessment the covert and the grass buildup that we've um seen in the past has not been an issue at all. It's it's it's been
flowing a whole lot smoother, a whole lot better. I haven't seen how skinny the water gets under the Mission Hill Bridge either. That's improved drastically. And I haven't filled a lot of complaints. I think the last complaint I got from was a guy named Bill Shortley who was seaw wall collapsed for someone else was repairing
theirs and it encroached on his personally received any complaints about that specific canal right there. >> Where who'd you get it from? >> From the city manager. and we we working on it right away. We have the vendor out there today.
>> Thank you. I >> was going to say, did you receive your own complaint? But no, apparently Andrew got it. >> Customer service was superior. >> Okay. Yeah. Does anybody want to make a motion? >> Motion to second. >> We have a motion and we have a second.
All those in favor say I. I. All those post say nay. Motion passes. Any final comments for today? Oh, that was very smooth. Thank you everyone. >> Um, do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Second. >> I have a motion to adjurnn. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All
those >> Thank you, staff. Motion passes and the meeting's adjourned at 1:34 p.m. Thanks for sticking in.