welcome to the financial advisory regular board meeting today June 27th at about 10:15 uh first thing is a call to order do we have a quorum we do roll call member chapelier present member seagull is absent member Fidel fidelli member zarelli is absent me Vice chairperson Greenwall present and member cornfeld here and chairperson riyami pres and finance director delini uh pres Delina Delina excuse me okay please stand for the pledge of believe stands na God indivisible withy and justice for all thank you uh first order of business is to welcome our new board member Maggie chapelier thank you Maggie thank you very much um and then um an approval of the agenda is everybody can I have a motion to approve so moved second second all in favor I hi he that's approved any public comments hearing none we'll move on uh approval of the minutes of March 2st 2024 do I have move to approve the minutes second second all in favor okay we don't have any on business so the new business the annual comprehensive uh fiscal report or audited report for 2023 are we doing anything about that or are we just are we just ratifying it or oh good morning oh we're gonna present this okay good morning everyone my name is Susan Matthews I'm the senior accountant here at the town of Highland Beach and I've been with the town for over three years and today I will be presenting giving you a brief overview of the audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended September 30th 2023 uh before I jump into the numbers I would like to thank Our Town manager and finance director for giving me the opportunity to present this report today and so uh the slides WR show okay I guess we're having a little technical difficulty here so um I can I will just run through um the highlights um which are included in the actual Financial the the report that you have in your hands so so overall the town's asset plus theer inflows of resources exceeded its liabilities by over 1.3 six million over last year's 25 million and so 6.5 million of this amount can be used for ongo for meeting the town's ongoing obligations to Citizens and to our creditors is it okay okay so we have the Powerpoints printed so I'll just summarized um I just summarized for the government-wide statements and I'll just drill down a little bit based on the funds so for the governmental side of life which includes the government funds the billing department funds as well as the special Revenue funds the overall activities was 17.8 million and there was an increase of 3 million over last year which was um attributable to the interlocal agreement that we have with Gulfstream for providing Permitting Services as well as the increase in property values um the expenses there was an increase of 3.3 million um over last year and this was because of the costs that were allocated ated for outsourcing of the Permitting Services to or provide our cap government as well as the increase in spending for implementation of our new fire department so at that point we we at by the end of last year we had already purchased or Fire Equipment the the fire vehicle and some of the other um High pric um resources that we needed to implement the fire department so I will'll move on to the business type activities and the business um type or the proprietary funds in includes the water and the sore departments so overall so I'm on page two of our slid and this section deals with or um long-term debt obligations so our as you could see um on the governmental activities side we there was a total of 7 $335,000 for the business activities it was um 7 714 million and overall total for last for that year was for this year was 7.8 Million which was reduced by over a million compared to the prior year um the next slide fund balance represents the residual amount in the particular fund after we deduct our liabilities from our assets um this basically serves as an indicator of the fund's financial Heth and its ability to meet its obligations so for the fiscal year ending September 30 2023 our overall um net position the change was a reduction of over 354,000 and as you can see for the general fund the net change was uh over $3 million and this um negative change was because of the SP spending that we did for the fire department and so while the over the the net position went down our assets which is on the or assets increase by over $3 million um where am I so for the Enterprise funds or the Preparatory funds the um there was an increase of over 699,000 which was 50 15.8% increase over last year and this was as a result of the increase in rates as well as The Debt Service transfers that was made out of the from from the general fund into the into the Enterprise funds the increases there was an increase in expenses as well and that was due to the increase in operating expenses due to inflation as we know and increas in levels of our capital projects as of September 30th 2023 the general funds on assigned balance was a little over 987 th000 and and the funds has been designated for assignments of budget stabilization Disaster Recovery as well as fire rescue that was assigned by the board so just to wrap up we again another year of um we received a clean audit and last year when this presentation was given our finance director um was adamant that we would not have a late report he said he wanted to have the report done by March 31st of this year we were not able to hit that March deadline but the reports were published as of um April 30th which was two months in advance of where we were last year and so with that said um last for last year we had two audit findings and one was that we needed a Debt Service account open to um account for the F FRS loans that we have and we were able to have that implemented and so we got or or our debt service certification for last year and so for this year I am happy to report that we completed our audit on time we cleared out all our prior year audit findings and we have zero audit findings for this year that's a very proud moment for all of us here at the town because zero audit findings are not by they're not by coincidence it is a combined effort of the finance department team which is led by David Delina here we have myself Dedra and we've had help from scander and of course our esteemed Town manager here has been behind us all the way making sure we achieve our goals he's been very supportive and so at times when we felt like we wouldn't be able to get the audit over the hump we were pushed over and so I I I'm very happy to say that we've completed the audit with zero findings and so we look to push on to this fiscal year which we have so many exciting things in this current year including the the the implementation and the opening of our new fire station um so with that said um that's the highlight of our FY 2023 audit any questions yeah so thank you for your presentation and congratulations on the no recommendations and a clean AIT report that's I know not so simple so congratulations on that um having said that do you have any concerns at all that might not have risen to the level of uh official recommendations or anything that we uh should know about no concerns at all I think we at the Town we're a great team we're very collaborative we support each other and we're basically our Mantra in the finance department is to do it right the first time and I think what for this audit for the prior year we had implemented a new software we were trying to get through that as well as we had new Auditors and so for this year it was a little bit easier we tried to improve um or efficiencies in our task and so I think for fy2 24 we're going to be even better because as we go we we we we try to keep our numbers um straight and we try to keep up to make it timely so that our team or manager can make decisions because the information is timely so it's relevant um to making decisions so no other than the fact that I think we're going to be even better for this year no concerns at all so one one specific question how much money can be accumulated in the uh building fund before that starts to raise questions because I know it was brought up in the past that the building fund is a specific fund isn't really allowed to become a h profit Center and that money from that can be spent for money course for the building fund or buildings for the building fund some of it can be used for shared purposes um but that they're not allowed to really function as a uh profit making Center on an ongoing basis and obviously they've been very successful with with their operations and is there an answer to like are they allowed to accumulate a million dollars year over year or is that have to stop at some point yeah but um so you you'll notice that um when we talk about General government they separate out the building fund and you're absolutely right doctor that uh the reason why they separate that out is because uh by Florida statute you can't just accumulate funds in there for for building building permits and whatnot so you can carry uh one year's worth of operating expenditures based on a 4year historical average and so you look back at your fouryear historical average and you say okay this is our average expenditures so I can accumulate this amount of money uh or I can have basically in reserves uh before uh before I have to um before I have to start looking at what we charge for permits and and and whatnot so um yeah we'll look at that and uh we do have that balance we're we're getting close to that what I mean by that is is if I think it's a uh and it's on one of my slides in the budget presentation I think we're at like 2.7 million and so annually if they do if they do uh if they do 2 point uh if they do 2 point you know if they do $2 million you know we're about $700,000 over what we're allowed to have but every year when you're thinking about a four-year average that latest year our operating expenditures were low our our operating expenditures continued to increase and so uh that that fluctuates But to answer your question directly yes staff is watching it uh we look at uh what we can have in there we look at the needs of the uh the governmental funds and uh we allocated uh appropriately so can you project how budget uh the permit income which is very high right now obviously there a lot of homes being built I'm sure the the permit fees are significant yeah but that's not going to last are you allowed to make an argument that that what's going on today and four years will be half what make a number yeah uh yeah you you can you also have to remember that this is a kind of a unique situation right our department has been successful not only in of itself but we've also added on the interlocal agreement through uh uh our partnership with GF stream okay and so we have we basically took on their whole building activity um and so uh to answer your question yes we uh obviously um we do see a little bit of downturn here in Highland Beach as far as uh uh building permits and whatnot but but you also have to understand there's a delay okay like let me give you an example across the road here we've got construction going on on a new property it was just demolished and now they're building it up you know it'll be two years before we get those revenues you know what I mean because uh they have to go through certain phases of construction and certain phases of the permit before we establish what is the the real value of that piece of property so uh even you're right it does fluctuate more than any other government fund the building department fluctuates tremendously but right now it's still strong and when we're down it seems like Gulf Stream continues to improve and so it is a good partnership and so we do we do look at that our predictions for next year are very conservative as far as the amount of Revenue coming in but we have this hybrid method where uh our fixed costs are such that as building increases our variable cost will also increase and as building activity decreases well we Outsource a lot of that inspection work and so therefore our costs will also decrease so it is a good hybrid method and we we look at that very Clos we look at that every month yeah thank you uh so that concludes my presentation thank you so much for thank you and you know I will tell you uh I I couldn't do whatever it is I do I but I I I couldn't be as successful or anything without suie and and other staff uh they keep me on point they do the little things so I can focus on the bigger picture right we're making sure that every bank account is reconciled by the fifth of every month that usually starts our process we once she tells me that she's done recording everything I download it into a spreadsheet look for any holes are we missing anything uh did we get this bill where's this bill uh so uh she's excellent and uh that's what's needed is somebody whose attention to detail no matter what the dollar limit is or how little the dollar limit is she's on everyone for their uh recorded expenditures if they use the credit card where's the receipt so um and and what happens is is that just keeps we we keep marching that ball down to the Finish Line every month um because we're tenacious about it and yeah and the town manager once SE it seems like once October once September 30th hits he's always asking me where's my audit where's my audit so uh he's he's he's pushing in the right direction as well uh and you know it all flows Downstream we got on to our Auditors the reason why is because uh County governments their audited financial statements are due before these municipalities so a lot of these auditing firms they put all their resources in the into working on the countywide uh audited financial statements and they kind of leave us municipalities you know last on their list but uh we close our books by the end of September we're leaving accounts payable open until November to get those last payables in and by December you know we're giving them trial balances ready to audit and uh so it it is it is we will pick up more speed uh but this was a very successful uh Endeavor so I'm thankful for my staff keeping me on track every month out of the 12 months so so that a year end is just another month end close so thank you else thank you very much um it was great obviously the town your department is doing very well and the town's doing very very well Y and I think we could all look forward to a reduction in our property taxes possibly well we we'll go over that lot of prees on maybe maybe not yeah maybe not this month um okay so next is the proposed operating budget for this year obviously we're doing well with the Gulf Stream little side business while they get started and uh kind of figure out how to use a computer um I just want to kick off as I had for the commission uh with the statement that our financial Heth has never been stronger it really hasn't and um it is quite remarkable that we're able to execute and what you'll hear from David as we move through this outside of the accomplishments we made last year the Strategic priorities and projects moving forward David said something to the commission I think is kind of fun to say is we're succeeding because we're working the plan our fiveyear forecast model that we deployed uh two years ago is holding true uh the commission is committed to holding to that which is um and I know I heard Mr Rami say you know lowering taxes but the idea was stabilizing and that was the whole goal of that fiveyear forecast model stabilizing the millage because now we're going to we've made a huge investment in fire we have a a payback period of a little bit short of six years I would venture that if as it's we're going forward it could be a little bit less so this year what you will see from this budget presentation is our ability to One Fund all operations we're going to save over $1.2 million compared to operating through the city of delay Beach which was true to our plan to execute fire that we would recognize these savings those are bearing out we use cash reserves to pay for half the construction station for the station uh construction and the other part of it is is that we're able to put in over $340,000 back into reserves now what that is going to allow us to do is when we looked at that uh forecast over five years is that you will when he David goes through the presentation um the property Valu is while strong again I just got the preliminaries from Dino at the property appraisal we're our growth rate at 8.8% is one of the lower ones in the county so we're starting to see this come down the lowest was Manalapan at 5% growth we're at 88.8% so we're starting to Trend downward on the value of property growth which as David will show you is Approximately 80% of all of our revenues come from property tax so the idea of holding with the forecast is in years like this where we can put money back into Reserve in the short period is going to have help us in the latter years where we're probably not going to be able to generate Enough full Revenue where we could take a few dollars out of reserves so instead of moving millage rates and having all these meetings every year fluctuating the millage rate based on property growth we' kind of go down the midd we kind of trend down the middle so some years we'll be able to add to reserves like what we think was next year other years where will start to fall below that trend line where we can hold millage rates not have to raise to fill the Gap um uh for the revenue revenue side of it so our plan is we're executing it is working well um and that's kind of where we gave the commission and they felt comfortable but again uh they want to hear from the Fab and that's uh why we got it here this year and I'm glad we got it earlier in the process traditionally I know Dr Greenwald had brought this to their attention you know traditionally we don't come to you guys until July and then you know the commission's already had three cracks at the budget so you know they've kind of already set the stage so right now you kind of still have an open canvas uh recommendations are encouraged if you think there's something that they should take a closer look at um we're comfortable with our budget we believe it holds to uh the plans that we we have put in place and funds it the one thing I would tell you as we we look at the budget overall most of our costs for the general fund not any of the Enterprise funds so don't think water sewer building they have their own Revenue stream based on a Feebas structure your tax dollars doesn't support those operations fees do you do pay it in your water you do pay it in the building fees in the general fund you know almost all of our cost really comes from police and fire now we're Standalone Community full service where we have police and fire I will tell you this now and you'll be REM minded by this in latter years when we have budget years that are a little bit skinnier Public Safety costs never go down Public Safety costs never go down okay so their uh Union structures their costs go up you're not going to cut back on police officers we want to maintain that safety uh the ability to cut back and fire rescue can't just start cutting shifts off so basically their costs are we control it but it continues to grow each year your property values come down costs continue to go and that's really the premise for the five-year forecast is when we can add to reserves we're adding an anticipation that there can be years and years out on this model where you know at some point in time we're not going to have all of the revenue and we're going to have to budget by bringing over reserves into uh operations to balance a year until we uh move forward so um I guess I'll I'll start off here again some of the accomplishments again the biggest thing as you all know is fire implementing uh the first uh fire rescue Department in the county in 35 years was no small feat but we executed that starting May one of this year and we completed the construction uh it was an 8.6 million project 8.53 was the original um uh contractor estimate that we executed final project came in at 7.7 million so uh and we delivered it on time and on under budget so that was another great accomplishment uh we passed three um referendum we've got the charter spending limit moved up I put a million it's probably about 940 because if you remember it's 900,000 and then adjusted annually for the MSA C CIP which is how Miami Fort Lauderdale West Palm Beach mov so our $900,000 moves year-to year on CPI adjustments for what we could uh spend in one uh singular capital expenditure or expansion of operation um the ability to uh canvasing uh doesn't seem like the most exotic but it's been kind of frustrating uh for Lena um and because the uh supervisor of elections really is not wanting to work with at this point not wanting to work with local canvasing board so this gives us the ability to work more freely with the county uh when the supervisor of election doesn't want to participate locally um we secured our second state appropriation uh which which is uh which is great uh again special thanks to representative gassett Sidman for helping us push this through for lip station number two so two years in a row we've been able to procure um uh General Appropriations we missed the one on sewer lining we'll talk about that uh what we uh plan to move forward because we did secure Community approval for that uh we approved some uh sea turtle lighting uh beach erosion management Dune study that is out that will be kicked back now over to the natural resource Advisory Board uh is going to help how we communicate that message out because we did a property by property Dune assessment uh I thought it was a great study allows us to take a look and something that we have to execute probably every five to 10 years to kind of keep an eye on it uh but the Natural Resource Board is going to work on rolling that out to the community next David and then um all the capital projects that we're able to do that's another theme that from this year and in next year is we're still staying focused on critical capital projects the infrastructure that we need to fix and repair that have been entrusted to us to manage over time we have the dollars to address so this year you know these are usually not the most exciting you know fence replacement it's a bigger project than you think but we have a new fence along the property line uh media replacement so that's in the scrubber Tower off the treatment plant not a very exciting thing but it's very critical to delivering clean water to the community uh sanitary sewer Rehabilitation for the library there was a belly in the line so we had a lot of backups um rais lift station number two again that's our continual addressing of our climate vulnerability of our assets is those were built too low with the anticipation of sea level rise so we're systematically moving that forward and those are the ones that the legislator and the governor's office has uh graciously agreed to partner in funding with us uh pipe well coding we started the design of the Balo Bridge uh we want an update on the structural engineering on that and then uh next year when you see what our strategic priorities is to make those repairs to the bridge that is the singular Bridge we do have and we have to take care of it Town entry signs you don't see them today we've been wrestling around with fot but we should have them before fiscal year end so I put it as an accomplishment you will see the two signs uh north and south end of town before uh fiscal year end uh water plant uh blower replacement Motorola radios I saw Chief Hartman bouncing around we had the whole new radios we're able to execute that was $300,000 for uh uh emergency communication equipment uh gas pump dispenser uh that thing was falling down and but now we got a new one uh electrical panel upgrade in the one of our other lift stations and uh you wouldn't think a generator muffler replacement would rise to a capital project but that was 100 grand for a muffler on that huge generator we have next so then what are we doing uh again before David gets into all the details with what are we budgeting for or addressing with the new budget that we're uh uh presented to the commission and to you today our 75th anniversaries uh festivities we're going to start working on that um I'm working uh with Madison in my office and the commission we are going to be putting together a little ad hoc committee to start planning uh what that is so Commissioners May reach out to you to ask you to participate uh but we're going to start planning those are some big ideas out there uh one Commissioners said fireworks so we're talking some big stuff here make a real exciting program we're hoping for multiple days of events uh to kind of uh celebrate our diamond anniversary here in Highland Beach uh Marine accessory structure ordinance we've been working through that for years we should have that delivered next year uh ing's working through all those pieces again lift stations another exciting project I have a meeting later today with the Architects is Rehabilitation of the old fire station what are we going to do um if you don't believe me it's bad I'll be more than glad to schedule a walkthrough of how bad that structure is and I'm glad we didn't put anybody in it uh moving forward with our new uh fire operation so we need to do something with that space and what we've been working with the uh Commission on is is demoing the old living quarters and whatnot putting in a couple public restrooms for special events have a little rollup doors on the side of the Baye and then we'd have a community space for food truck events outdoor concerts green markets just normal uh community events that have been over the last five years that we've been seeing a lot of success with now we'll have a venue for that um again bito bdge Bridge repairs uh some resurfacing in the complex we kind of beat it up building the fire station uh Police Department doc design again we have a marine unit but we have no doc thank you to um uh this the condo groups that are allowing us to to dock in their space Ron thank you um but again we're going to be working on building a uh a docking facility behind the library and that also doubles uh with rescue so we can do onw waterer rescues and bring people um onto uh onto the campus so we can get them to a hospital if so be it um water treatment membrane side ports y yada nothing too exciting but we got to take care of the uh water treatment plant again you'll see fart right now you see them rolling out Sil fence folks it's going to get a little bit hairy when season comes along when they're really in the thrs of construction um skate equipment again that's all the software that operates our plant um again I believe this capability is improving um over the years so we can do some other uh remote access to that uh you know annual vehicle repair we're looking at how we're going to address sewer lining you know we didn't get the uh 850,000 in state appropriation um but our lobbyist is uh working feverishly with the D there are other Grant dollars um that we uh have been told by the uh governor's office that is available so we're going to work some of those angles uh get some help from uh representative goset Sidman see if we can't get some grants and if not there is the estate revolving fund which is a low interest Loan program or we we break the project into smaller projects because the community might be fatigued after fop project to have us sitting in the RightWay for another eight months fixing the sewer so maybe we break it into smaller projects those are uh forthcoming degasification system it's rusting out got to take care of that uh Beach vehicles are all beat up the salt just tears those things apart AC repairs just normal wear and tear in the buildings and new entry doors in town hall huge gaps in the doors uh so uh get those going and with that I'm going to turn it over to David to get you into the details question yes sir go um the sewer relining project which we've been talking about for probably at least three or four years now right right and it keeps getting moved I didn't really see much in the in the budget is that going to be like a supplementary in the proposed budget well what because it it gets to the point where I begin to wonder whether when we were told four years ago that this was something that needed to be done whether that assessment was just wrong or whether we're at the point where we're you know starting to take real risks by not actually moving ahead with some some alacrity in actually getting this done yes and yes it's been a a long run run uh once we started getting into the design we spent a lot of money evaluating the system was kind of like the first of those four years second year is kind of developing the cost we went out to bid over our spending cap we didn't get Appropriations we didn't have the money got the community approval we do have the money now we're trying to uh based on that cost do the whole system do we do it in smaller breaks which increases the cost if you have to mobilize multiple times um we've been told there's some Grant dollars that seem very attractive so maybe go get some State dollars but again we're going to start this project one way or another we have to start it um we're open to ideas and I think the commission is listening um you know if we we now have the ability to do it we've been authorized by the voters to do this project one way or another um so we could do the side streets and neighborhoods first during the fot project so we just we're not in the right away to have f mess will just go into the neighborhoods and frustrate them some sorry but um you know fix those parts first then come back and hit A1 there's we're just trying to figure out collectively what options the commission has to authorize us moving forward or we wait till F Dot's done and we just do the whole project I mean that's probably the most cost- effective but is there that Resident fatigue if we get an srf we have to borrow money because we don't want to lay out the cash because the cost of the project could be the three million two to three million we don't really know that's why we picked a big number we might have to borrow some monies and that's why we would were exploring with the state the state revolving fund which is a low interest One two% loan to to to do a project so those things we're trying to figure out we can handle it on a year-to-year basis with cash but we can't do all the project it be smaller but there might be an appetite for that to to keep the congestion down in the right way yeah I mean it's again it seems to me that given the uh residents vote on approving the this whole issue last March you know the images that were presented originally years ago about the potential for sewage starting to Bubble Up in the streets kind of thing I think is a it's real a reasonable impetus to uh that most people are going to want to see this project become accomplished and it's unfortunate obviously the governor line vetoed the 875,000 Bucks that we might have gotten but it's still something that that I think many people would feel should go for I know that's that's a town commission decision but yeah and we we are just looking at it from from the budget standpoint it was like okay so where is this you know expecting to to see it the good thing is you know the only thing is how do we want to do it's already designed it's a Shelf ready project we have the design complete we know what we have to do we have all the measurables we have the engineering specs it's now how do we want to now execute we have authorization from the community I would love to get Grant dollars to buy a down it's always the best way to go or a low interest interest loan to execute a full project um but you're right we we got to do it it's not gotten any better so uh that is a a a project that I would like to get done sooner rather than later because it has been we kind of pushed it we got the art money we thought we would do that it exceeded all of the art money the cost of the project we initially thought it was like a million bucks and we were going to use the the arpa dollars the bids came in at 2.5 only had two biders it looked like collusion more than an open bid environment so um we we needed to go out to bid and come up with a new way to approach it um so that's really the the last little touch and we hope to address that soon so we could do something next year and even if it is just the I see some value and I guess I'll have to let the commission tell me if I'm crazy do we pick up the night neighborhoods and side streets first then we have F dot done and the sides and then we're just hitting 1A and then we can just start to finish progressively the estimated cost is 5 million was that am I uh no we're we're I bet you it's about three three to be comfortable we got authorization to 3.5 I'm hoping it's less okay because when we first bid it out there was a shortage of the polymer for lining so they said oh we can get it but now it's three times the cost than it was last year so that's what drove all the prices up in the contractors really didn't want to come in and they were busy doing other projects so they gave us a we'll do it but you're going to pay us this much so we're hoping now that the the supply chain has stabilized a little bit over the last 18 months last eight months has gotten much better but you know well based on our current cash and and funding funds we have and reserves he's saying we know we can't pull three and a half million doll from somewhere to do it now which is a couple year project obviously probably could but it would wipe out yeah we'll go over yeah we'll go over it would wipe out pretty much all of our reserves and I don't know that that is the best way to do it um if we're going to use cash only as an instead of taking borrowing or getting a grant and we have to do it all ourselves you know there that's where the value of breaking it up into a series of smaller projects now that we can because we were argued before to we can't do it in smaller projects because we were trying to get it people were thinking trying to get around the 350 cap now that we're authorized we have more flexibility too in how we address the project we seem to be very good with utilization of funds the fire department is an example of what we can do and if I'm I'm agreeing what what I'm hearing we were told this has to get done is going to be sers in this garbage in the streets is going to be a a major problem if it is then we should do it and if it if we're as good as we have been up until now to find the funds to do do it and this is not a one-year project May it's some we need to be prepared we need to be prepared quickly so I'm glad it's Shelf ready I am a little nervous with the fop project weight of equipment vibrations things could jostle a few of the weak points during the fot project which is going to force us potentially to act a little bit sooner um I hope not hope it just everything goes smoothly right you always hope for that plan for the worst um so we're ready to go can bid it out tomorrow uh we just you know it's the funds now because if it's a whole thing we got to do cash gets a little bit tricky um and may it'll be a bigger uh action of the commission I mean if we kick the can down and we've already kicked it for we kick it a little more and do it all at once that's a better option financially and then also gives a time to try to get more grant money well the grant money is now is available now srf is now so so uh the only problem with the the uh srf uh as one would imagine when you work with a state federal Cooperative to do these things takes you know 12 to 18 months to finally get shovel ready because of their process the only reason why I know that is is right at you know 25 years ago 26 years ago that's what I did for a different state was work through the srf program so it does take a while to get your hands on the feder dollars and it goes through these groups so if we do that route it'll take longer but uh we do secure really attractive financing sometimes they forgive parts of the loan it's it's pretty attractive um if we decide to do the whole thing if not and those are things that we have to kind of unfold quickly right now we've our our lobbyist is up talking with d as we speak like we're we're doing the the Grant and srf stuff now like is there money what does that look like so we should know more answers over the next several months uh but we're you know we're ready ready to go uh we have some money in in anticipation uh but if we have to say we got to do it all F Do's not going to let us in so we can't do it now during the F FRS during during the uh fot project we can't get in the right away so A1A is shut down to us for at least a year um so that's why I was thinking maybe we could hit the side neighborhoods but they might people in the neighborhoods or the side streets might get upset because man we're already wrestling with you know A1A now you're going to put a big operation it's not that big sewer lining isn't that intrusive but we would be in the neighborhoods working so it's a tricky who because 's not gonna let us in it's not it's not dangerous not to do it right now that's just saying but you really don't know we we don't know there are vulnerabilities in the system that have to be addressed we have two we have two cracks fractures now if we see anything it's going to be in the north side of town for those that live up the north side uh apologize but those are the a couple of spots where we have some disjoint on some of the lines uh if it's going to break the other stuff is just old it's already kind of leak so it's already happening we just need to address it before the collapse and that like and it doesn't have don't think the whole system going collapsing it's going be points then we got to bypass and then fix and then we have to dig up everyone's front it's messy um and expensive doing it that way they do it at you know start doing it at you know two o'clock in the morning yeah it gets gets pricey quickly there are there any any efficiencies are there any efficiencies in in in when you reely a sewer system do you pick up efficiencies in pumping power Hydraulics from an efficiency standpoint because there's there's money is available for energy reduction projects through the invest the the inflation Recovery Act that if you Dro consump if you drop the power consumption on a particular project they now cut a check directly to cities and not for profits versus having to know basically advertise that with somebody else that's interesting we didn't think to that angle I don't know because it's mostly gravity so the pump stations are the energy draw we got those funded from the state um but it's really because it it's basically it's old pipe right tuberculated when you have the cast IR stuff builds up the capacity is reduced Cracks around joints things of that nature so there's clean water getting in which means we're paying for treating rainwater right so that's some of the the cost efficiencies are once we replace the line we don't get clean water in but if those holes get big enough and there's enough weakness and it collapses then sewage stops and goes up that's what we don't want is to to surface or to spread even underground in the aorus environment we we wouldn't want either of those conditions so I was wondering if if you look at the additional infiltration which puts additional pumping capacity into the system which increases the pumping power necessary if we could prove that we knock out that additional capacity in the pipeline and minimize infiltration that might you know again bring efficiency to the pumping power there may be I'm just saying there may be dollars there yeah we'll take a look I mean like that's we're we're turning over everything to see what's available but uh you're right we need to get on it we now fully authorized as of March so we can do what it takes now now we're we can be as creative as we need to be uh to address that project but it is the last I want say the last but it's a major major project that we have to do could I ask about the library not the library the post office what happened with the post off is closing so that was a h a sequence of events over time so I believe the post office just doesn't want to support the community post office system so basically systematically over the years they took away our ability to do services so we used to be just anything you did at the post office you could do here so what they started saying is you couldn't do money orders okay then change of address you can't do change of address here you'd have to go to another you can't send packages that would be tracked they won't allow us to do tracking packages then they said you we no we're taking our credit card machines can't do credit cards when that was 90% of our transactions as the Nelda you know researched for us so we said okay we'll put our own credit card machine in and we'll we'll eat a little bit more cost because it cost us if we were to put in the budget this year it' probably be almost $200,000 to 180,000 to maintain that um we said we put our Co post up we could do it they said well you have to reconcile every day at the end of the day you'd have to reconcile all sales and give us a check at the end of each business not at the end of the week end of the month or quarter every day well if that's to be done under our Charter which is another issue is to write a check at the end of the day it would have to go through like three or four steps through the accounting process because we have a very systematic way in which it goes in so somebody would have to close it reconcile now this is while post office guy is collecting waiting so he's not going to wait forever so we got to do this in like a half hour let's say we'd have to enter in all this balance for the day go over to the accounting department have Susie enter it in then it has to have dual authentication authorized to pay it so David and I have to approve that transaction then we have to go through another system to generate the checks then I have to sign the check and we have to get a commissioner in here every day to sign so it just effectively wasn't there and they didn't want to support it they weren't interested in being flexible they said all you could do is cash only and they were considering other removals of certain we just it came to a point where obviously they didn't want us to do it so um from a fiscal and just a point of view that it was time to to move forward from that again since we've closed uh we still get a lot of foot traffic no one's from town it was basically because it's still on Google everybody comes here it's beautiful spot why why wouldn't you want to come to Highland Beach to do your postal work so we're not getting it's not a lot of residents that use it majority of the users are non-residents so it was a tough call um you know I called our uh legislator and they're like you know all the things we're working on chasing down a a post office in a small town isn't high on their priority list so that's how we got to having to close it and uh B was retiring and she had been here for 25 years and uh John was close to it wasn't the next group to learn so it just it just came to a point where it wasn't a good way to go so a lot of people have asked me so I'm just yeah it just the post office just wasn't uh an a willing and eager partner to maintain the community just weren't didn't weren't interested okay okay thank you so uh thank you uh yeah the the sewer project is uh obviously uh the next on next uh major project uh you know but you know we we've had a lot go on and uh one of the things here's what I want you to look at right so between n 2019 and 2020 right property values grew by like four and a half percent okay from 20 to 21 they grew by 2.3% 21 to 22 3.3 then we have 23 to 24 we have the Skyrocket right 133% over 133% another year over 133% now we start to come down now look at what happened with inflation right inflation kind of followed the same curve here okay so at the end of the day uh what what staff is is recommending is let's stick to the plan because here's why we know based on historical experience right we know these are coming back the property values will continue to increase but they're not going to increase at 13 at at at Double Digit uh increases right we're still hopeful that here's the other thing too back in back in these days here remember inflation how high inflation was people were setting their prices for the uh sewer lining project they had so much work out there they knew they knew how much arpa funds each municipality received so guess what their bid was y $3 million how much arpa did you get $3 million yep we want all that but here's what's gonna happen I think right so I think what we're going to see is we're going to see a little bit more competitiveness right as the economy starts to slow down a little bit we're going to start to see those companies start being a little bit more competitive I'm not saying that prices won't continue to in increase because they they will but I think the inflationary time frame hopefully is uh is is behind us but anyway this right here is is is just a a precursor of what what our taxable values look like and remember you know it's a 77% of our general funds Revenue okay so here's what we're here's what we're uh proposing we're proposing that the millage the operating millage be at 3.44% The Debt Service millage this is just the fire in past years our millage was the operating millage plus the water well now since we're paying down the debt on the water we no longer need that that millage uh to get transferred over to the water side so when you combine those two millages we maintain as part of our plan to to in good times and in bad to maintain a 35875 millage rate so what does that look like going forward well you can see here back in 2001 operating millage this right here was our debt service millage right here and all that went to the water fund 2022 same idea 2023 same idea 2024 if you recall we started up the fire department we took out a small loan right to uh to to build the the fire department so now it was operating it was our our fire department right here right uh fire department uh millage in there and we also had water now what we're looking to do in 2025 is get rid of the water millage put the debt put the fire department Debt Service millage on on our existing millage but while maintaining that's what this line is while maintaining the same rate all right let's go let's take uh so now what we're going to do is we're going to look at the general fund big overview general fund as we said before 76% of our of our Revenue comes from property taxes you have all these other other ancillary things that we get from the state of Florida franchise fees you know when you pay your electric bill you know you'll see a tax in there you know that that's part of the electric company's franchise fees in there sales and use tax investment earnings so on and so forth but the biggest draw here is what I wanted to try to show you in this slide is let's take out the fire department and all that activity that happened so if I did that our 2024 general fund budget was about 16.1 million okay then what we had to do is we did obviously the fire department law we did the major construction that brought that budget up to about 22.9 million then if I look at okay the fire department's done and complete we're ready to we're ready to move forward operations as normal we're looking at our budget to be about $17.5 million for 2025 now what's changed now what you're looking at is you're looking at here this right here we're still on the revenue side so what's changed well here you can see that property taxes are obviously uh the main driver okay but you can also see that look at we're not we're not bringing into our sources of revenue we're not bringing in the bank loan and we're not moving money from our reserves so you can see that th this went up a little bit these items here went up a little bit but the main driver here is we're not we're not accounting for uh the bank loan here and we're not uh pulling money from reserves all right we looked at the revenue that's the revenue we need to have a balanced budget okay so here is what the main the main drivers are we have we we we estimated 5% for for general cost of living uh uh increases in salaries probably around seven 7 to 10% maybe in health insurance and whatnot but when we put all those numbers together look at what's switched here operating expenditures went down Personnel went up well the operating expenditures that's Delray that's the delr contract right so that's where our delr contract the majority that there is our delway contract and we switched it with our own our own fire fire staff and so at the end of the day those are kind of the switches but here's the other thing too I think that I want you to notice we're anticipating I added about $300,000 to this year's budget as a contingency this will be the first year that we will be running a fully staff fully service fire department okay I know everything is brand new right but I want to just hedge on the on the side of cons of being conservative and say you know what I want to add a little bit of money in there for contingency if we don't use that that just drops to the bottom line okay but here's the other thing too that we're anticipating to do and as part of our plan of maintaining the millage in good time and in bad we're remember we pulled out $4 million from our reserves $4 million we pulled out to build that fire department so this year we're anticipating adding adding $642,000 to replenish back our reserves from the savings account that we pulled money down we're going to add money back into it with this budget and that's our plan so when you look at departments what are the biggest departments here well we know that police uh police and fire right here these right here are your big Public Safety by far in any Community those are are your main cost drivers right now the reason why this went down so much is because included in the fire rescue was a lot of construction costs okay so that's why that number there went down but look at what's going up I'm adding again I'm adding money to uh for contingencies and I'm also adding funds back to our reserves and so at the end of the day all the other departments seem relatively good you know you see the library remember the post office that we just talked about that's no longer there okay we also moved legal expenditures we moved that under the town manager that's why that's zero you know he's got a more direct relationship with legal and so we thought that you know what let's just put that under your under your purview everything is under his perview but we just figured that accounting wise it just made sense to move that other thing here look at Public Works we put a million dollars in there so see how see we put a $1 million as a as a reserve place to consider what are we doing with the old fire station what do you want to do with the old fire station do you want to rehab it do you want to add the bathrooms do you want to knock it down right but we think that's a community is going to want to develop it we still have to keep the the fire station Shell there pretty much because we have to we have our backup vehicles in there as well but so what we did is as as the town manager said we're working with our Architects we're working with our Engineers to come up with a plan at where we can do that well that falls under public works when you see Public Works Public Works is your staff and dollars maintaining the general governmental uh assets here let's talk about money now you want to talk about money okay cash balances this right here is our beginning balance here for 2024 uh this right here is our ending balance in 2023 if you remember excuse me can we go back to the expenses a second absolutely you have one line retirement contribution for the fire a million dollarars for the year where I'm sorry what what line are you on uh retirement contributions for the fire rescue Department yeah it's a million dollars yeah um prior year it's hard to tell because the prior year was yeah allocated right the prior year was allocated to the was um was uh yeah Del right yeah well he's showing expenses for salaries for the fire department 2.7 yep and a million dollar of retirement contributions yep there's a relationship between those two yes a million dollars on one on 2 million s yep it's about a third right it's going to cost us at least a million dollars a year every year for retirement yeah uh to right and we're still going to save a million one eventually saving it right now we're saving it right look look at what I'm putting into I'm just want to make sure I'm yeah of amazing right even at those numbers we're saving yeah okay yep yep yep sir yes sir I was going to be saving more if we're talking about specifics like that if you look at the police department budget yep from 2122 to the proposed budget yep it's gone from roughly 2.67 million to 4.35 million which is an increase of 60% over four years um and when you break that number down at least as I'm looking at it a lot of that has to do with retirement benefits and uh health benefits and so on and Marine unit we added a marine we did we did this is not to be at all critical to the police department who I think is great I'm just looking at the at the numbers yep any kinds of projections going forward because if you average that out to 15% a year over the last four years I mean I the town's in great shape finan EV I get all that but those aren't normally sustainable Kinds of Kinds of numbers yes and no right um what you'll see in there too is we uh got into a three-year contract with the police benevolence Association when we negotiated the three-year contract with fire I mean with police we were markedly under Market conditions for pay like well under you know our starting pay was like 52 Grand nobody we weren't recruit we had to get to what is the average not bokeh no one can pay like bokeh right I mean they're just that that's that Community um and some of these other to the South it gets more expensive precipitously as you go south cost of everything goes up you go to the north it calms a little bit so we looked at what everyone's doing so these costs are going up FS um they're starting to stabilize um which is good news but that's we're F FRS uh community so our pension system is provided it's compulsory everybody but me is in the F FRS and those numbers are for Public Safety was that 32% so for every dollar and salary it's 32% we have to send to the state for pension and then you add the healthcare this and that our multipliers is a little bit High probably running I wouldn't say high it's lower than surrounding communities but was it 1.6 probably we're running about 1.6 I think a sweet spots about 1.4 1.45 but we're up to one point but that's driven mostly by F FRS because we've done great on the healthc care side as you all recall we've been doing really good holding healthc care costs in line um but this year the the F FRS only went up you know like 3% or not even it just it was pretty flat so that's good news so F FRS is stabilizing but again as a state retirement fund you know if you look around the Florida's fund is well funded if you will lack of better words they're at 80 after has them like 85% 88% which is great and that was some of the problem as we recall from with delr they had some problems with their pension where they underfunded it for multiple years where they're funded at you know 60% that's not good if everyone starts retiring so it seems like it's a lot and is it unsustainable I think that's what most communities wrestle with and we're now we're now embracing it right we have our own fire we have our own police as a city manager I'll tell you that's that's cost number one Public Safety like I said it doesn't go down it never goes down I've never seen a community where I mean outside of the Great Recession yeah everybody everybody took a haircut at that point but in normal operating Public Safety you know they're on step program so every year they get their Merit and steps until they get to the end the cost of it it just we're that's what we're going to you know and that's all of our cost on the general fund is pretty much you know yeah I mean it's what 80 70 70% 75% is Public Safety out of our out of your tax dollars you know seven of 10 you know 70 cents out of every dollar goes to Public Safety no and all that's fine and I was certainly in favor of getting our community up to standards with other neighboring communities and so on and so forth but again when you look at the numbers that's yeah yeah percentage wise at least is a right pretty significant increase over a period of four years and that's why we we're not anticipating we had to play a little catchup because of as as the town manager mentioned we were a little bit behind the scale behind the pay scale okay and so we we had to play a little bit of catchup with their with their step plan but that kind of levels out a little bit but this is why this is so important in the good times to start putting money back into reserves uh you know that's that's been our Mantra Hey listen let's you have a coner fire department and police department topnotch no other community has that and at the end of the day uh you know that's why anticipating those increases especially in the general fund not so we'll get to the wall water sewer and building department and whatnot but the general fund uh yeah it's definitely I'll put a sh a Shameless plug in you know we caught up but again we have still have the third lowest tax rate so there's other communities like us but their tax you know we're talking 3.58 a lot of these communities like Juno Beach 5.5 taquesta 6.8 so I mean we're like half of the operating that those communities are carrying so you know good for us that we have good strong tax base but again we're also managing by keeping our tax rate really low I think Manalapan and town of Palm Beach are we I just can't catch them for you um they just keep it just below but they're not you know Palm Beach is hard to compete with they're a little bit bigger 30,000 people billionaires row I mean that's that's it's a little daunting task but they're always the lowest manalan but they don't you know they're 400 people it's a small town so um we do keep our tax rate really low for the county and can do what David was saying is provide that coner kind of service and be prepared moving forward to provide that service directly to the residents and again like you know now that we have a fire department condos aren't paying the annual inspection fees anymore those are free we're just going to come out and work with you so that's that touch that Community touch that we're allowed or AB have the ability to provide yeah all good yep I would it is is sort of ironic I think that a few years ago both on this board and at the uh commission level there was an argument being made that we had way too much money in our reserves and that we should start spending the money in our reserves and now we're at the point where I think financially it's like starting to make people feel a little bit better if we have a little bit more money back in our reserves yeah and so it's interesting to see how things cycle obviously yeah no absolutely and and listen no other municipality has done what you have done there is no other municipality that has its has what you have here which I believe just goes to protect your property values I I mean it's it's phenomenal what you have here and so at the end of the day but but not that though but remember we had to meet a dead line of transitioning our fire department we had to get that building done we had to bring on 24 uh firemen and women and we had to get that thing up and running by May one and so uh we did it so by bringing on our own fire department our own our own employees there we inherit the Legacy cost on the retirement correct no uh not no Legacy cost no no so when they join when they become employees of the town of Highland Beach uh right they the they they come to on on our they they start day one on ours there's no Legacy behind it no no no past fire uh pension costs needed right they're all double dipping anyway but the uh I mean I you know it was a good idea to spend the reserves I mean there was a good good reasons for it and also and also this whole the fire the public safety thing you know thank you 911 because after after 911 yeah just it just went through the roof but again has and has every year since yeah no you're absolutely right but but we are so many years ahead of schedule if we would have stayed if we would have stayed you know what if we would have stayed we would have got done with the sewer lining yeah you're you're you're right we we would have but the cost that that contract would have placed on this town is is unfathomable and we'll show you that's what allows us to not only run a better fire department a more efficient not only to give all the condos a break on on fire inspection fees not only give more staff to protect you and your property but as we see here we're dropping money back into our Reserves for when those property values start to grow at 2% okay so anyway so so here's what we're looking at so look it so if you were to go to your your uh your audited financial statements you would see the general fund uh fund balance at $ 7.05 four million we're adding $250,000 in this fiscal year to uh to that balance so that brings us to $7.3 million now what we're proposing here is that number there goes up to here as the beginning balance we're proposing that we continue to add money to our reserves to bring it to continue to grow this is what your allocation of that balance would be we have per hour uh resolution by the board we have money put away for Budget stabilization money put away for disaster we have a fire rescue we started to put that away you know why because down the road we're going to have to be replacing some very expensive equipment so you know what we're going to do in Good Times we're going to squirrel money away so that when we have to do that we're not taking out loans we're not leasing things we're buying them and so and so this right here becomes your unassigned balance when we put that $642,000 and 25 into that that's what your balance will be this right here is is a nice this right here just represents uh what your balances what your excess Reserve funds how they're allocated and so it is it is very strong it's what the gfoa recommends and uh we're we're in good shape now let's go to so now what we're going to do is we're going to leave the general fund okay so now we're going into discretionary sales tax discretionary sales tax fund the reason why it's a separate fund is because it's restricted right I can't use these dollars to pay the electric bill right I can't use it to pay lawnmowing services things like that so this right here is a fund that the State of Florida set up it's uh it's an additional 1% tax on the first $5,000 okay that comes that is allocated to all the municipalities in uh Palm Beach County and so but this right here is the revenue side of life this right here is 7 point uh $711,000 we're expecting to get $415,000 this year historically we've gotten 422 we already are at four uh 241 I'm anticipating I'm estimating that we're going to be at $413,000 so I estimated that you know what in 2025 we'll be at 415 here's the catch with this fund it expires December 31st 1 2026 so these monies here uh the the faucet gets turned off right so so but at the end of the day here's what we're going to spend those monies on and this is what we do with the discretionary sales tax dollars right uh AC improvements for Town Hall and Library some PLC switch gears front entrance for for for the doors Road and Bridge work um we're going to look at had a I guess a Gator allterrain vehicle that goes back and forth on the beach uh replace some older vehicles you remember the axon body cameras that all the police have well that's a that's a that's like a fiveyear agreement well we use this money here to pay for that for that year same thing with flock police related a Beach utility vehicle so that's what we're going to do with that money so here's what's going to happen let me go back one so we're going to get we're anticipating that we're going to get $415,000 from the state of Florida I'm assuming that we're gonna we're going to get about $117,000 of interest income okay and I'm G to pull $270,000 from this fund's reserves which are right in here see 672 they have $671,000 of excess reserves I'm pulling that I'm pulling 200 $179,000 to pay for these Capital Equipment and so at the end of the day I'm sorry at the end of the day we'll have after we do that I'm anticipating that our balance will be $392,000 at the end of fy2 still healthy but keep in mind it ends December 26 now we don't have to spend it all by that day but the the the valve that that that that keeps on filling this bucket ends on that day and wasn't our decision it was more West Palm Beach is decision when they enacted this discretionary sales tax fund they put a date to end of September 30th sept I'm sorry December 31st 2026 so I think they can renew it you extend it so they just uh so when David refers to West Palm Beach you meant the county so so we uh the local communities requested the county put it back on the ballot to keep it going County said that's really nice but no we're not going to do that so we're not moving forward at all and the schools went ahead on their own because the schools were included in this too to pay for their Capital Needs school decided we're going to go out on our own the county doesn't want to do this and have the this type of sharing with local government they're going to do their own thing to address Transportation it's over they've already made that decision that they're not going to bring it forward so it does end in 26 there's no interest on the county to move forward with it because the county has to move forward with it not us locally so they basically cut us out and said no more so bad decision I'll put it out there but that's what they decided so a so after this date right after this date all these F all these uh uh let me say all these kind of expenditures which are which are general fund expenditures in the future right will come out of our general fund and not the discretionary fund again another reason why we look forward maintain our millage in good times and bad so that we have reserves there to replace needed equipment so are they going to lower the sales tax rate by 1% ah you think so yeah you that's what that's what they said all our residents of the county as a whole need to we need to take that tax burden off them but the school is going to impose theirs and then they're going to come up with their own and put it back in to address roads so it won't change just we don't get any money the local governments the we're we represent pretty much all of the wealth and the people the population where all this work is but uh they chose to move in this other but you I I wouldn't anticipate seeing a a sales tax rate back at around 7% or six and a half I think uh they're going to replace it with their own the school replace it with theirs so again gonna stop spending yeah so so again so we have that on our radar we realize that going forward and so this this went into our Five-Year Plan of saying hey this this well dries up uh let's let's just start let's let's being proactive about it now we're going to jump after that one so we looked at the general fund we looked at the discretionary sales tax now we're looking at the building fund separate fund again it's it's it's doing extremely well right the interlocal agreement with Gulfstream continues to benefit this fund the fund transfers money back to the general fund uh for to cover its overhead okay uh General Insurance uh our time staff's time lenel this yeah commission all those costs we allocate and and and so this right here is our our estimated revenues now this fund here as as Dr Greenwald had mentioned right they can only have so much in their reserves so that's why what we're starting to do here is we're starting to pull some money from their excess reserves right in 2025 what will that what so I'll get to that in the next slide but here is their expenditures we've got you know some per uh Personnel operating expenditures Capital outlay will go into that next that 500,000 that's what they transfer back into the general fund uh but it's very well proportionate it's proportionate with the fluctuations of building uh permits as they go up as they go down because we have a lot of contractual Services there operating expenses uh that's that's where that cap gov invoices will be now what are they doing this right here I'm anticipating that by the end of 2024 they're going to have 200 uh $2.9 million in excess funds that represents about 562 days of operating expenditures that's a little bit that's a little bit much right so what we're going to do is our plan is we're going to pull $400,000 out of that fund and this is the improvements that they need as well as what uh that area needs so we got they're going to do some office improvements repaving you know a lot of construction trucks drive in and out of the town and so we're repaving we're looking at repaving not only this strip here but behind the the the uh the town hall here as well as the library a lot of heavy equipment comes in here uh construction related so we thought that was reasonable they have a little bit of uh software upgrades out what they want to do and they also have some of their own specialized uh CAD type of system software that that they're gonna that they're going to anticipate but we're watching this it's healthy uh and uh again you're right we have to maintain a building department in good times and bad and so having this excess money to draw from when construction remodeling starts to slow down a little bit uh is a wise thing so gstream is doing very well yeah now the these reports it says calculated as of 93024 yeah so that just means we we what period of time is it says activity through up about three weeks ago yeah I mean as of when as of three weeks ago so it was some time in June of May yeah May yeah end of May y so so you projected next year a drop off of somewhat with Gold Stream yeah yeah we're and we're and we're we're actually seeing it here as well right but there's always this delay okay because even though we have two major projects going on here almost diagonally from town hall you see the they tore down the structure and they're going to start being rebuilding it uh to determine uh the uh permit value of that it comes in phases and so uh it it it comes in sporadically um but we cover a lot of our fixed costs and a lot of the variable costs in the Peaks and The Valleys we Outsource that to capg which does all the inspection services and permits and whatnot well I'm looking at the expense side that's a it's about $800,000 of Revenue and the only thing that's brought out in the building departments expenses I could see is the sub subcontract inspections for Bill stream is running I'd say about $130,000 a year is there anything other in the expense side that you could point to that's directly related to Gulf Stream uh no the the what would be directly related to Gulf Stream would be that I I think we have I think we broke out the GL by subcontract Inspection Services D dgs yeah I see that that's the only line yeah and we really didn't have to as we said in the past we had didn't have to hire any new employees nothing so right the net goes right to the bottom line which is about $600,000 as well which which isn't totally clear but it's it's I don't want to say baked in there but is there's the administrative cost to to doing it for them that we don't yeah specifically call out in any one something else there it's very that's time the same thing that the building department pce us we got to have legal review things I have to participate commission works on things staff that full that fixed cost is working on GF stream too but we don't call out what percentage and stuff so it's in there so there's another set of costs that are associated with that contract and again I think you guys were talking I had stepped out but you know you pull a permit today but you could be doing inspections for them 18 months from now into a different fiscal year that you have to be cognizant of hard dollars other than the subcontract that we had too right right so I mean it was it was it was good they like the relationship it's easy for them it's easy works well for us to to fill that void and capacity issue uh we could expand easily to them we had been asked by other communities to to to to do that um we were a little bit reluctant at this point um just because we don't want to get ourselves into other jurisdictions and political structures you know it has to be pretty stable and calm golf stream asked it's easy it's simple they were already in a delr environment so coming to us made sense we could go faster quicker we're used to working in a small environment most of our staff and cap is coming from the north so it was easy to uh to bring them in uh other communities could be tricky for their distances politics things of that nature good thank you so now what we're going to do is right yeah that your your building fund is is pretty simple you know what I mean mean you have the revenues that that that come in and and they're going to pull money from their excess reserves to do some right here is capital outlay that's where that money is going to go uh right there this right here as as the town manager said that's their contribution to cover Town overhead every year uh as part of the audit I've got to substantiate that that value and so what we do is we take a proportion of of all the administrative Comm over uh overhead cost and we allocate it uh to this department which is all reasonable so now what we're gonna do is we're going to go to the water fund okay so here you can see as you as you're aware the water fund we have baked in here uh part of our Five-Year Plan was to get these funds Water and Sewer self- sustaining we wanted to the the goal was to get it off of the General funds uh dole per se okay and so that's what we're doing in 2025 we're able to successfully do that and here's why this is the second year that uh I'm sorry this is the first year that you see this intergovernmental we are not contributing the general fund is not contributing to the water fund from ad Valor tax dollars you remember in the very first slide I said hey part of your ad vorum tax dollars included uh Debt Service funds that were collected in the general fund and then transferred over to the water fund we're not doing that anymore so you can see that source of Revenue went down by $415,000 we're pulling a little bit of money here from from reserves to bridge the gap but the reason why we're able to do that is let's let me go to one slide real quick look what's happened to our debt service our debt service here as you recall in 2024 our debt service went down by $370,000 in 2025 it goes down by another $375,000 so we maintain our debt Services about 800 $830,000 per year probably until I think uh 202 uh uh I can't see that far 203 37 maybe uh but look at these interest rates that we have on these loans 2.8 1.1 2 point 3.4 these right here are those State revolving loan funds that local governments were able to capitalize on to lower to to to lower that cost so that's a good thing currently as of FY 25 we're anticipating that the total outstanding loans will be about a little bit over $5 million but let me let me go back here so here's what's happening with our Revenue these are gallons this is how many gallons we're selling you can see like in certain times here there are obviously Peaks and valleys uh because of uh you know people coming into our town leaving a lot of seasonality but it's doing very well this right here when I convert those so right here we're about almost 8% are people are using approximately 8% more water water and about a little bit over 1% more irrigation these days when you compare it to 2023 remember I'm in 2024 right now I have actual data through the first three Cycles I'm forecasting what I think the next three Cycles will be to get us to the year end but right now that's that's what it's looking like so these right here you're looking at gallons now when I look at the this is what it translates into right we're anticipating about 10.9% through the first uh three cycles of 2024 remember you know we we raised we raised rates by 8% plus you had the increase in consumption and so that's that's what we're seeing here and so when we look at the expenditure side of life we have obviously operating expenses uh chemicals to to uh for for the water we have Capital outlay here uh we're increasing that a little bit but you know look at where the dollar goes to it's pretty well allocated you know you have you have your Personnel Services here you have your operating expenditures here you got your Capital Outlet you got your debt service and then you got your in fund and contingency obviously I add I we've always added a little bit of contingency uh to this fund but why this fund is doing well is because you can see The Debt Service right another $379,000 reduced that's not going to the bottom line our conservation program well well well it it does the what we did is if we recall when we went through that process was it about three four years ago because we you know those high-end users are going to really pay the premium when you get over a certain volume that doesn't deter the use you know they just kept on everything stayed the same but that's where the conservation is is the hitting the checkbook but it hasn't had a real big grip on the use so yeah and and and not that though but you know we are proactively like every utility should be doing changing out older outdated uh meters getting a little bit more accuracy on that and so uh it is it is very very successful but right now our budget our preliminary budget anticipates as planned another 8% rate increase why well because this one's almost there right so we're we're we're throwing money into Capital needs that are needed in a water plant but at the end of the day it's almost able to sustain itself we think one more cycle of an 8% rate increase and we'll get to that we'll get to that that that cross line where we're not having to pull from reserves okay well hold on let's go ahead and look at the reserves let's go ahead and look at what this fund has in excess dollars that's accumulated so right now at the end of and I'm sorry I didn't change that that there should be 24 at the beginning of fy2 24 we had $2.8 million of cash right we anticipated that we're going to be pulling $375,000 out of that to to to to break even that gave us about 214 days of cash typically you want to be at about 150 now what does this calculation mean this calculation means that if we stop bringing in money totally stop bringing in money we have enough cash to last us 214 days same so what we're looking at here is these right here are the Capital Improvements that we have to do $560,000 garage door membrane you have ports and seals that have to be replaced skate a software uh replace the decalcifier things are things obviously any asset the town owns there's constant maintenance and so at the end of the day what we're looking at is is by the end of fy2 even though we're pulling money out of reserves we'll still have about 131 days of cash on hand and that way and and again what this is benefiting from is a lower Debt Service so that's that that's good news now let's go to the Sewer fund question yes sir maybe I looked at this too closely I'm sorry uh you have a diff a shift differential pay $325,000 prior years was 30,000 yep what just explain to me what that is sure so what that is so we in the past if you work in the second or third shift okay so we have our our water plant uh operates 24 hours if you work that second shift then you got a three% increase in your pay if you worked the night shift you got a 6% increase in pay the way we used to account for it was we used to just put that additional three and 6% into that column called differential now what we're doing is we're looking and we're trying to say well wait a second what does it cost us to run the second shift what does it cost us to run the third shift so we're putting all of their salaries in in that line idem so instead of the differential you have all of their labor going into that so you should see on the top regular salaries and wage going down uh yeah yeah a little bit Yeah okay yep just good but I mean overall you can see here charges uh let me go let me see uh the expenditures so right here you can see Personnel Services right that's your retirement that's your health insurance that's your compensation that is all of your shift differential right it went up at health insurance so it looks like it's going to go up about a little bit over 10% that's what we're anticipa 5% of that is uh salaries and related the department is fully staffed we're not anticipating having to add any more staff so last fund is uh the sewer fund as you can see uh what do I have here I've got Grant dollars right you remember we have a 250,000 I think it's going to be closer to 270 to 275,000 ,000 that we're going to get from uh Appropriations from the state of Florida plus we have to use the remaining arpa funds so that's what we did here we pulled the remaining arpa funds plus the $250,000 I'm $250,000 State Grant into this account so we we record that as Revenue then you have your charges for service and then you have your investment earnings so there they're at about $2.45 million in fy2 again matching the sewer side of life we see a constant increase if you recall water was at about a 10 a little bit over 10% sewers is at about 99.7% when I convert that to Dollars it's at about almost a 12% increase these right here are the expenditure side of life okay so we have operating uh our operating expenditures for the sewer side remember we have no labor in the sewer side right because we do all of the pumping and we send it to delway Beach right is that the million dollar charge yeah what is that exactly for uh for the operating expenses yeah yeah well sorage treatment yeah million dollars yep yeah they they treat all of your sewer we pay them million dollars yeah oh yeah yeah okay yep and so yeah and so and so that's that that's what that is we are anticipating obviously an annual increase from them as well uh so we we bake that in there uh the other thing too is what I did is I added here's the capital outlay we'll go over the the the the capital that we're anticipating to spend this year but I also added another $125,000 for contingency they bill has a rate that they charge as times the X and Y yeah abely and it's reasonable believe that they're not my favorite people obviously so yeah that contract it spells out all the details how much it can increase year-over-year to anticipate cost of and basically Del Ray we're basically moving through their system it's the whatever the Southeast Regional treatment facility it's like Del r point and Border area so it treats multiple communities we're just using their if you will passing through if you will so um it's all baked into it and we have a huge uh lift station with a meter at the end and it counts everything out so but the the contract strong and very specific so it doesn't get into maybe some of the issues we saw with how often does it renew is there a it goes through 2030 I believe 2029 something like that so we're in good shape now but eventually we're going to have to you know that contct will probably be renegotiated or be renewed okay some other comments but I'll leave them to myself okay so with water and sewer and this is following the plan that the consultants and everybody laid out several years ago but it's my understanding that and I don't remember the exact numbers but roughly over that period both water and sewage rates are going to go up by like or will have gone up by like 40% or something like that in order to make all these accounts balance which they should do by the end of next year or the is that about right just for yes yes people who may have forgotten what the history of this was yeah yeah I mean it and again this is what it it uh an Enterprise fund Water and Sewer to run properly should be self- sustaining it it it just it it's designed that way the reason why is the amount of water you use and what you're charged versus the amount of water this person used as a charge it it's there to be fair right and so that's why it's it's based on a gallon and and a base charge so yes yeah well there's fixed costs and variable cost and you're trying your best to make that work so but the point is I think for everybody that they're you're following the plan and all that sort of thing yes yes yes yep so we're almost done so you can see this fund here right it has a healthy fund balance 3 million ion doll right $3 million well we're getting close to it but what we're anticipating is well are we going to take this account to zero is that you know so we're balancing all that right we're so there are a lot of things that we have to try to balance and uh we're doing that but right now other than the $3 million sewer lining these right here are the projects that we have anticipated $450,000 we have healthy healthy cash and we're accumulating it uh for that Big Sewer sewer project that we have to do here's the rest of the calendar and uh that's that's it in in a nutshell I know our okay sorry okay needs to see you sign okay but but but at the end of the day um you know so to recap Big Picture staff's idea is in good times let's go ahead and let's keep the millage rate the same okay that way we can replenish some of the reserves in the general fund because in the next couple years we see that discretionary sales tax dries up that's out of here remember we pulled $4 million to build something that's extraordinary we are still able to put a million dollars squired away remember my first slide I had $300,000 as a contingency I got $600,000 as uh going to our reserves well if we don't use that contingency all that goes back to our reserves to replenish it we want to maintain the course of the water and sewer fund rate increases for this last year because we're saving money on The Debt Service side of life and we need to accumulate a little bit more money to be able to pay for the sewer lining proc projects so in a nutshell that's the goal for for 2025 can I make a comment sure I'm new here and I the the gentlemen that are here are very very knowledgeable I'm very green here my only comment is if I were running this as like my condo association I would make that sewer lining the number one thing to worry about as opposed to rehabbing the fire The Old Firehouse that's what I would do if I ran this as a like I do my condo association I'm more concerned about that than having a a venue that's my only comment yep and in governmental accounting I've got to make sure that fire fire that's general fund sewer that's SE separate right that's that's uh that that's that's the Enterprise fund you know but again we're working on that it is on our top priority with no doubt in may we just did an extraordinary thing here and I think we're going to do an extraordinary thing with the sewer uh we're just trying to plan it out with the A1A so you was GNA say you have kind of a logistical a logistical mess on your hands with that one right now it's uh but there's no way they could Trail f that I mean I was going to say it's like you know when we do when we do projects in my world I mean while we're while we have things tore up we try to do as much as when things are tore up as we can it's it working with f doots a little bit different a little tricky uh not that what you're explaining isn't either uh generally they just don't like people in their work zone or near them no it's all public yeah liing company would be private Y and they would have to have a a permit with f doot I mean they could I mean it's something if um you know say if the grant dollars really jump up or srf moves quickly we want to start tackling it we could Trail it a bit um especially in the offseason I think we have that ability I think in season putting another project out there I don't know if I want to take those phone calls maybe Lena will just kidding [Laughter] it's going yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be a little bit of a headache and um and imagine doing that on the side streets as well I mean when when people start to see a construction truck they're gonna go crazy I mean the calls have already started just on the sil fence so once we start construction and they stop stopping traffic and then our our seasonal family comes back then it's gonna some upset folks you know and we'll have to work our way through it and we'll direct them directly to fott but you know we really delayed it seems like they were supposed to start in April yeah oh yeah well that's F dot um I mean I I mean Sil fense I I mean it's gonna take them another two weeks to get that done then they're going to start all the way back up at Linton start doing that part of the project so it's gonna my fear is that they're not even going to get to us until it's throws of season and then they're going to start tearing apart A1A in front of us I mean Linton will create a enough of a headache but we can generally get folks to the Spanish River a bit but that gets stacked too so we're hopefully you know we asked fot to work with bokeh and the signal to extend that movements uh to get folks out but the sidewalks will sort of be open I mean it's it's just gonna be it's gonna be they're trying to put that at the right away just to kind of like set like you know the slope Stak line like you can't go any further in construction than those fencing anything in between is is fair game um but again they they they just they still haven't even mobilized to start doing the nasty stuff yet I again that's probably not till August so I'm guessing like when they start really getting into it it's gonna come you know like October November and that's when everyone shows up and and we'll have our seasonal maybe we'll close the road down and it'll be like we could do a parade you know if traffic's backed up anyway just closed A1A down for a couple days for our anniversary celebrations and you know we'll have a street fair we'll just walk through a construction zone I think you guys did a great job I mean it was very very informative I mean you guys run a tight ship I mean the numbers are good yeah I mean uh I just appreciate everything you guys do for us as as a res well you know like like anything in government there's uh if you pull something from this one you gota you know what I mean so there's this constant balancing and and uh so I mean yeah it's it's a good year uh we're able to to again work the plans as I said at the beginning our next step just let everyone know is July 23rd the commission will establish the maximum millage rate which will be the 38575 all that does is we can't go any higher right so that sets the top end as we move forward if things change or whatever the commission can move it all the way till the second public Hearing in September which should be September 18th can't do the 17th because the county set their second public hearing on that date so it'll be the 18th of September so from now till that date we'll we'll see a few things um we may call you in in haste uh with uh Healthcare or something if one of those numbers comes it's really peculiar and odd well to have you guys come back in and get some recommendations on that if everything kind of holds you know we'll see how some of the the summer unfolds and some of the pricing Insurance we've got some preliminary numbers so we've got those in there so like all of the workers comp property Auto all that stuff is already kind of contemplated in there blood insurance so really the last big one is Health we've been um knam would have been doing well and tracking pretty safely on those numbers I'm again anticipating an increase can't imagine we'll get yet another zero zeroy year lift um so we'll see those type of minor increases uh ours yeah we went up about everybody was saying they were up 200% in some of these condos um we were up 40 50% but we saved it on workers comp we had large percent yeah it's 600,000 you know you know excluding health insurance you know Beach property assets lift stations Vehicles yep I mean we you know we go out that's my point yeah we're we're we're part of a government yeah we we're pooled agency so basically we we share our cost with 40 other municipalities in the State of Florida so we kind of and they kind of hedge the premiums over time so one Community could get a spike in workers comp but the rest of us don't kind of keeps the systemwide cost down in uh so we've but we've done pretty well through that right and you guys should look at a consern there probably is but you guys condo folks I I feel you're getting battered last couple years you've been getting battered from insurance research reserves then you're finding you know uh just to kind of give you a Prelude to the final kiss you know we're starting to go out look at fire systems that aren't operable in a lot of these condos that's going to be the last little piece to you're gonna have to fix fire pumps and Hydra yeah yes seate seate you guys have been getting it good I you know I wish I could help you on that but uh yeah so we're almost I think everything's coming to as David kind of alluded to is see I think we're getting over that major hurdle where all that pain of Assessments and cost increase I think it should start to slow and calm a bit uh because I just don't see it being as sustainable to being these triple digit in just it can't it's gota well at some point I mean it it's it's it's we're seeing this other things especially you know insurability if once you go through the research program and your electrical systems that's where the insurance is going to start looking okay you're building safe you're putting money away we're not going to have to take a whole building and take all the liability hits that a surfice side that scared the insurance company and again the insurance Market that reinsurance market uh that's really because the reinsurers have insurance too so it's like it's it's a three level pie and that's where you used to have all your Pension funds where the reinsurers insurer and they started pulling out because they just kept on getting battered by the the hits on claims so that's starting to look better they're seeing out in the marketplace but again it's across I know we want to say it's a state issue this is a national issue really so all states are dealing with this insurance is just not bad in Florida it's hitting California it's hitting Texas it's hitting the Midwest it's hting the plains everybody's it's a nationwide uh issue not the company but you know the insurance itself is across I didn't realize that Ron was going to have to leave before the end um but before we adjourn again thanks for excellent presentations uh uh very helpful as as usual to our understanding before we adjourn are there any actual recommendations that this group wants to make to the commission I know historically some some if not all the Commissioners watch these meetings you know like online eventually and they'll be able to see the discussion um as everybody serving here knows we don't make any decisions but we can make recommendations to the commission so before we adjourn and since we still have a quorum does anybody feel that we should be making any formal recommendations there two potential things that I can think of I don't know that we want to proceed one was several people mentioned a making relining the sew is a priority however the logistics were going to be in terms of financing it whether it be with cash or with a state loan or however it was going to work to be determined but to move that up the priority list and then the second thing that the commission might find helpful I think if we feel like we know enough and are willing to make the recommendation uh would have to do with you know the proposed budget and the proposed potential millage rate and whether anybody has any significant either endorsements or criticisms or whatever that might be to help uh again give our input to the commission on a more formal basis so anybody interested in furthering that if not we can just leave it and have no official report and they can you know glean it from whatever Marshall says and so on and so forth any thoughts well the uh budget to me is strictly I focus on reserves and I look at at generating more money for the reserves it's like any other financial statement I've ever seen for 40 years is uh cash flow and everything on it seems to be in order I've asked a few questions and some line items it makes sense it's it seems to be uh reasonable in almost everything I've seen my few comments were just for me understanding what it means wasn't uh meant to be other than that uh so if the budget as I see it hits with a plus at the end and 400,000 got increasing the reserves it's a it's a number uh I've been on this board for a long time in every meeting I've said cash reserves don't go make sure it's good we're down to five million we're at 10 million we know we spent it very well is five million enough hopefully it is I can't see why it shouldn't be and uh I was going to make a comical comment that if we want to increase the mil rate would go right into increaseing the reserves that's the way I look at it so it's a that's the only reason I would I would it's a thought process which maybe there one person believe and that's me but I would not increase uh the millage rate at this at this point not at all but the reserves at five million and way we allocated is that we change the way we allocated a couple years ago great idea it works it's based on the operation it's it's fine so I don't have any reason to make we want to bless the budget I'm not so sure we should do that because there's still going to be work being done until June what date did you say is July 23rd is that July 23rd is statutorily July 23rd we set the maximum rate we have two public hearings in September okay fine so that I those are my comments which means no comment maybe it's a good idea to put on ourselves on record regarding the sewer project I think it's up to the group again we don't decide anything for the you know from a legal standpoint we recommend we can do either that in the form of taking votes and having formal recommendations or it can just be gleaned from there watching uh you know the meeting Andor uh Marshall typically or David will comment on the financial advisory board's meeting and some of the informal if you will uh comments that were made during the meeting so I'm not pushing for it I'm just asking it's one of the things we can do we certainly don't have to do really a little reluctant to do too much in the sense that you know I wasn't sure I didn't realize that Ron was going to be uh that he had a flight to catch before the end of the meeting well one of the things that I I just actually had a conversation with a client about this when you look at some of these spending issues in and we talked about it earlier a lot of organizations a lot of Industries out there right now money's tight but what you do is you look at to say okay what's the risk assessment on spending so you take your spending and you take your spending based upon the need and you put a risk factor on that need I look at the sewer relining project and say okay what is the risk on that well the risk on that is we have a failure which creates a syo which creates another problem another problem another problem so it's like delaying it could compound the cost of it because we're actually creating another issue by doing it it's like the weakest link right and you start playing you start playing whacka to get to get all these things fixed so if there is a way to coordinate it um and uh for those of you who are watching I'm sorry it's like if there's going to be an inconvenience to this to the township you know you rip you rip the scab off you say okay let's just get get get this done because you're gon to have one season of complaints already about A1A they're going to call you so why not just rip the scab off get it done and then this the next season you could actually exhale and say okay at least this disrup ition of things in the road are gone and I think the amount of disruption you're going to have on these side streets on the arteries coming off A1A is going to be minimal anyway based upon relying you're not digging up you're not trenching you're not doing what they're doing at A1A so I would my opinion which is only my opinion I would accelerate the sewer relining is to avoid future risk and actually get it just get it done because I because the the disruption on A1A is going to take away from the disruption in the neighborhoods people are going to look at it as the same we have to get the sewers done you're doing water drainage and everything on A1A why not take care of the sanitary situation at the same time my opinion I just want to say that since the cracks are at the North End and the construction for the road is going to be at Linton which is the South End other way around I'm sorry okay let's start at the south end because the constructions at the North End and get it started to that point or maybe no no go go ahead well no you bring up I'm very concerned about those cracks environmentally and we're having sewage problems we on B Air Drive as well I've noticed that so I'm saying the South End definitely should start well it was brought up earli saying the vibration and the disruption from the fot project could actually cause a fracture or an issue with the sewers so why not start on the South Side start where where we're yeah like he said there's gonna be a mess anyways who's going to know the difference that's why I said I know it's a different fund I'm learning I'm new at this board but rehabbing a building as opposed to fixing our sewer lines I would put sewer lines as the number one priority item right now in terms of what this board should be thinking about yeah every repair of a crack is 10 times greater it would cost if you were putting a new line in at that point so it's it's very disruptive to ever quck and it's infrastructure infrastructure I think the community here we have a you know a very smart community and I think if they understand it you're putting your your best foot forward on infrastructure to assure sound infrastructure for everybody I think they would say okay if we if we have a uh a food truck venue that's pushed off a season to make sure our infrastructure for services is solid I think that's PR okay I think you know to make it simple in the absence of any sort of a formal recommendation perhaps it can be passed on that the consensus of the people remaining at the end of the meeting certainly was that we should be mooved forward expeditiously we don't want to define the logistics for anybody because we don't know enough but that the sewer reigning project should move forward expeditiously uh and be placed in this year's budget and move forward is in a manner to be devised I think we can also you can come out of it again without any formal recommendations that correct me if I'm wrong there were no serious disagreement certainly with anything that was presented in the preliminary uh draft budget uh as as we looked at it today and also that the group was uh happy to see that there were uh no blemishes on last year's uh financial report is that fair we good any other comments before we adjourn if not let's consider ourselves adjourned at 1223 thank you thank you all