--------- Let's get going. Uh, welcome to our budget workshop meeting of uh, July 24, 2025, 8:30 a.m. Uh, we'll call the meeting to order. We will start with the invocation and we will be having the regular town council meeting immediately following
this meeting after a comfort break, of course. Uh, so um, Councilman Carol, the invocation, please. We're thankful for this town and its residents. We are grateful for all who work for the betterment of our community and all who serve on its behalf. Let
those who work here and those who serve here be ever mindful of the town's vision and mission statement. Grant this council the wisdom to govern amid the conflicting interest and issues of our times, the ability to work together in harmony, even when there is honest
disagreement, a sense of the welfare and true needs of our people, personal peace in our lives, and joy in our task. Amen. Muhammad allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and
to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Can we call the roll, please? Mayor Foley, here. Vice Mayor here. Council member Carol here. Council member Dayne
here. Let the record show all members are present with the exception of council member Alieri. All right. Good morning everyone. Um why don't we have an introduction by the town manager if you want to just give a an an overview. I know uh first of all I want to thank the staff council members
for all the hard work that they put into this. Uh the reason why I think ours goes so smoothly is because everybody does do their job, does do their work, does file papers on time, does the due diligence that's necessary in order to uh perform a competent job. Um like to
thank the finance committee too if I forgot to do that. And um we we had a work in progress. We have some changes since some of the drafts we've seen before, but I will let Mr. Harpering give an overview and then turn it over to our most capable town treasurer.
Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, council, just to highlight or amplify the mayor's comments, it's um it's always gratifying to work closely uh specifically with the council and with staff uh to prepare the budget uh annually in a manner that is
uh most consistent with the uh strategic uh goals that we lay out, which is, you know, extremely high customer service uh at the lowest tax rates possible. And in brief, um, without belaboring it, I'll I'll note that our our proposed budget,
uh, does include a reduction in the millage rate from 1.3349 to 1.2810. Uh, we'll go over some of the details and try to answer any questions. Um, but I'll turn it over right now uh to uh Heather Christmas and she can discuss some of the details.
Good morning. Um before you we present the 2025 2026 um budget for with just some highlights and we'll try to co go high overview. If you have any specific questions please feel free to ask me and I will answer to
the best of my ability. This budget includes as Jim mentioned a mill rate reduction from 1.3349 to 1.2810. The total budgeted expenditures are budgeted at $10.5 million. This is a
decrease from the 2025 current budget. This decline is not a result of cuts. This is a result of one-time projects that are being wrapped up in this fiscal year. It's worth emphasizing that this budget
does not rely on reserves to fund ongoing operating costs. Even with the reduction where I want to start is our largest revenue stream. This is how we primarily
fund our general fund which is through property value and property taxes in Indian River Shores. Our property values went up on average 8.73% from last year. However, we have decided
not to pass this full rate increase on to our taxpayers. We are lowering the millage rate to 1.2810 as I've mentioned previously and so this will limit the average tax increase to 4.2%.
Um we'll return to the impact of this on the individual homeowners and in some later slides I just wanted to emphasize this is our main revenue stream and this is how we fund our government for expenditures. The total proposed budget across all
funds, like I said previously, is $10.5 million. This is a reduction from 12.8 million. And this is all funds, all capital, all road, our general fund, our ARPA fund. This reduction is, as I said previously, a production of completion
of projects like roads and the public safety building, the comprehensive plan, and within the general fund proposed budget, we are decreasing expenditures
from 8.3 to 81 8.1 million. This reflects a normalization of activity levels but we are still covering increased costs i.e. salary increases inflation and meeting all our
contractual obligations with this the this slide helps to show some of the the seven top changes in the departments in the general fund. As you can see, only two departments actually increase
in expenditures. Our public safety fund and our general administration fund. This year, salary increases were done as a pool and are located in general administration. And the public safety compensation has
been budgeted based on the current status of negotiations with final adjustments, if any, which will be aligned. We'll make sure it aligns with the contract. As I mentioned previously, this is about we are returning to a baseline. There
are still several outstanding projects that are ongoing in 2025. We were budgeted to complete the beach comr and pebble lane projects. More likely than not, we will not. The public safety building remodel it was projected to be done this fiscal year. the
comprehensive plan. These projects were completed to be budgeted fully budgeted to be done this fiscal year. However, if they're not, we will do a carry forward into next fiscal year's budget via a budget amendment. But this will not
increase our need for reserve because they are fully funded. So, we will not need to change our millage rate or change our current operating plan for 2026. We will just roll the re remaining balances that have not been spent into the next year's
budget from reserves. With that in mind, our projected reserves as of September 30th, 2026 are about approximately $6.2 million. This is an increase over last year and
includes $5 million in unrestricted unassigned funds. These are include our emergency reserves. Say we get hit by a hurricane. This is how we will fund ongoing operations. We have seven months worth
of for operating revenues. Also included is approximately $900,000 for infrastructure improvements. This includes our road. We were able with this millage rate to increase to add over $250,000
to our infrastructure amounts and we were even able to add over $100,000 to our unassigned reserves to make sure the town is stable and can be prepared in case of emergencies.
As I mentioned previously, this is the impact on the estimated for our homeowners in 2025. If your home was fi was valued and property tax value was about $500,000
with the 8.7% increase, we would estimate that your property tax value would be about $453,000 in 2026. If we had maintained the rate at um 1.3349, your estimated tax would be about $700.
The this is for the town only. And with this, we are able to roll that back and it would be about 670. The savings of about it's only $30, but it was only an increase of 60. And this is also the impact for
Homestead. As you can see on homestead ated homes, you're going to see slight or maybe even a decrease. I'm not I I don't want to speak specifically because of how changes work, but it you should see moderate change or if any if you are
homesteaded in the town. In closing, our millage rate is being reduced. We're trying to ease the tax burden on our residents. Total expenditures are down not because of cutting costs. We will maintain our
high level of service that our residents expect, but we are completing up several major projects. We also remain in a strong financial position with no reliance on reserves to fund our ongoing operations.
I want to thank Jim and all the staff members for helping me in preparation for this and being so flexible on making sure that we can provide the service that the town needs at but also being fiscally responsible. That's it.
Thank you uh Miss Christmas. Um we'll start with any questions or comments uh from right to left. Council member Dayne. All right. Thank you very much. Um very very brief comments. My first observation is that it's it's it's very
interesting how uh sparsely attended a budget meeting is when there's a proposed reduction in the millage rate and how the attendance goes up when there's going to be a substantial tax increase. So um I think I think no attendance is good news to borrow from
another similar phrase. Um the first first comment I have is uh thank you for working so hard to reduce the tax burden on our um on our residents. Um it it bears pointing out for anybody watching this that we have responsibility only
for our town tax rate that we can't speak to the county and the respective special taxing districts. They have their own taxing power. So uh while we can uh control our own house, we can't control uh those those entities. So, uh,
the lion share of those, um, uh, those tax bills are are, um, beyond our control. Um, second thing I'd like to point out is that, um, I I can I know I can speak for all of us up here that we all agree there's no more solemn
obligation and duty as an elected official than to be good stewards of the taxpayers's money. And one thing we always have to remember is that we serve at the pleasure of our constituents and the taxpayers. It's not our money, it's
their money. And so we always have to bear that in mind that, you know, we're we're being entrusted with the wise use of their money, not ours. Um, with that, I have a question uh just on reserves. And I note that, you know, we're in
pretty good shape based upon, you know, the model guidelines. Are the model guidelines the same for beachside communities or do they do they increase them because of the the greater threat? There is the GFOA has not taken a stance on what the reserves for beachside
communities should be but we should have based because we are able to get impact we should have um stronger reserves than a normal community. Okay, thank you. Um I thought that was the answer. I just I get that question
from time to time. Um so we're going to um be asked at the following meeting to set the mill rate at 1.2810. Um sometimes in the past we've set a higher mill rate just to give us some breathing room. We've gotten so comfortable with your work that we
generally set the mill rate at what we think it's going to be in the final budget. Are you comfortable with us not fudging it on the upside and just setting it at 1.2810? I am comfortable setting it at 1.2810. All right. And again, heartfelt thanks for all your hard work. Um, it's it is
greatly appreciated and I I don't know that people really appreciate how much work goes into this, but thank you. We you know, it's it's interesting regardless of whether you're the city of Orlando or whether you're the town of Orchid, you know, the smallest community and uh municipality in our community,
uh, a lot of the work is the same. So, um, it's greatly appreciated. And, you know, you don't have a staff of 20 accountants. You you do an amazing job on your own. So, thank you for all the good work. Uh, Vice Mayor, uh, first of all, I want to echo the,
uh, mayor, you know, thanks to the town manager and to Heather and and to the staff in terms of going over over this. I know from the financial perspective, you do the the heavy lifting. You and I have a lot of discussions offline and
uh, I can at times ask some fairly proven questions. you can always answer my question which I I uh deeply appreciate. Uh you know ju just so this came up in a discussion in the Indian River uh county uh budget discussions
where they kept the millage rate the uh same and the county manager did point out it's a tax increase because values go up. So, we're lowering the millage rate, but for people it is still some people is still a tax increase, but it's a it's it's a lot lot less. And, you
know, we're still dealing with the same inflation uh aspects that every other uh municipality across the United States is is is dealing. But, you know, you know, like I I I tell my neighbors, other people I uh come into contact with about
about the town, and I'm proud financially how well we do. We're a lean mean fighting machine in terms of way we spend the money. We'll also want to point out and you have and thank you for having that on the chart. If you are homesteaded, you know, you're going to
stay about the same or get a get a few dollars back. And uh echoing what the mayor said, you know, it's your money. It's not not our money. I've I've heard sometimes in sitting in other meetings, people say, "Well, you know, it's only a couple hundred bucks. I went to a a
meeting uh last night where we said, "Well, well, we got to if we want to raise the military, it's going to be an extra 85 bucks that that wasn't the the the city's uh money." So, I I appreciate that. Uh also
to the the comment about the reserves. Yeah, we are a beachside community. What those reserves give us is in the event that we do have a hurricane, a tornado, or some other natural event, we don't have to try to run to a bank in a period
of chaos to try to get our a draw down our line of credit. We got cash on hand. We we can go out and get equipment right away to get things uh moving. I went to a Florida League of Cities meeting where uh there was the uh town or city manager
of Panama Beach and he talked about how important was when uh I believe was Hurricane Michael came through to have that flexibility to get equipment where when everybody else is attempting to get it. So I think it's important to have that uh have that flexibility. I do just
have uh one question in terms of how you budgeted pension contributions for the coming fiscal year. Are you at this point you given that the uh negotiations with the public safety union is still in a state of uh flux are you just are you
assuming that we're under the old system of uh of the way it's currently set up under the contract the way the pension contributions were and not our proposal that um that one is being done with the 13% that was in the actuarial valuation
as of that we received in January. Yes. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you very much. Uh, Councilman Carol, I have no questions. Only compliments. Compliments on the thoroughess with which you have assembled
uh this information. Uh, and even more so uh the way that you've presented it to us this morning. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. And to Jim and the members of the staff. All right. Excellent. Um, we'll move to
public comment. Is there anybody who does not want a reduction in the mill rate? Okay, seeing none, seeing none, I think we can um close public comment. Uh as for recommendations, uh we're going to have a recommendation uh before council
um to to um tenatively approve the budget, which will be done at the U meeting immediately following this and then to set the millage rate. And my recollection is we don't need a vote on this. We just need a consensus to move forward because this is a workshop and it would be inappropriate to take a
vote. So, do we have consensus? Yes, sir. We do. All right. Wonderful. Um, we are going to adjourn for about 5 minutes to as they used to say in the old days to lawyers, change the tape and u we'll reconvene in 5 minutes. Let's say when
the clock says 8:53, we'll be back. Does that give you enough time to change the tape? Great. All right. So, Part: 2
This is the regular town council meeting of Thursday, July 24, 2025. Uh it was noticed to immediately follow the budget workshop. So that's why we are proceeding 6 minutes early. Uh we'll call the meeting to order. Uh we will
without objection uh incorporate the invocation and pledge of allegiance from the prior meeting. And we will now call the role for this meeting. >> Mayor Foley >> here. Vice Mayor Alwater >> here. >> Council member Carol >> here. >> Council member Dayne >> here. >> Let the record show all members are
present with the exception of council member Alieri. >> Are there any requests to reorder items in the agenda, delete items from the agenda or any emergency additions? If there are none, motion to approve and a second. >> So move second.
>> All in favor? I. >> Any opposed? All right. Very well. There are no presentations or proclamations today. Uh so item three um is concluded. We will move on to item number four which are comments from the
public regarding the agenda items. Any comments? Seeing none, we will move to the consent agenda. Uh we have uh approval of the regular town council meeting minutes and approval of the voting delegate. Uh neither of which requires a roll call
vote. Is there a motion to approve the consent? >> Second. All in favor? I. >> Any opposed? All right. Carries unanimously. And um in case we forget, thank you Vice Mayor Alwater for attending the as the delegate the Florida League of Cities uh
annual meeting. Uh greatly appreciate you're taking time out of your schedule to do that. Uh for the mayor's report, just a couple of items. All right. The first item is the um I refer to it as a roll back of the
mill rate. So uh I I'm pleased to announce for those who weren't either watching this uh streaming or were here in attendance that uh we have rolled the mill rate back 1.3349 to 1.2810. Thanks again for all all of the hard
work. As the vice mayor pointed out, um, for some it does result in a in an increase, but for those who are homesteaded, the way I read it is mostly, you know, very small increase, for some maybe no increase. Is that kind of how we read that chart? So, you know, in these days and age, in this day and
age, you know, pretty good. Um, collective bargaining, we're we're in the process of uh the collective bargaining process with the public safety officers union. I think we made what can only be described as a highly competitive
uh wage package presented to the public safety uh union uh under the opaces of the vice mayor's good work. We did also propose a reform um to the pension package repurposing
the 1751 185 funds. Uh it was you know great work by the vice mayor. That's uh that's my understanding is that's still under consideration. >> Uh yes, Mr. Mayor, Council. >> All right. Um we certainly appreciate our public safety officers, you know,
two of whom are here. Uh we thank you for the hard work and the job you do. We hope that you understand that our um our our package um is a reflection of that appreciation for the hard work that you do and the safety that you guarantee for us on so many ways. Um we hope that the
union will look favorably upon both aspects of the uh proposal in the in the um u collective bargaining agreement u meaning the wage package and then uh potentially the uh uh the reforms to the
pension. So thank you vice mayor for the hard work that you put into that uh and greatly appreciate it. Um I have a little bit of a bridal around my neck. um constrained by u our our town attorney and our town manager because there are uh nicities that pre prevent
us from going into too much detail about this at this stage of the process. So I guess I can throw my three pages of notes on this away. Um thank you, Mr. Mayor. >> Okay. All right. I take that as a yes. Uh all right. The last the last item. Uh
I I believe I mentioned this in the in the last uh regular town council meeting that um the governor had had vetoed house bill 11 and in the memorandum house bill 11 was a reform to uh the
setting of uh utility rates for customers that reside outside uh a municipality outside the municipality that owns the utility. Much in the same way we are with the city of beach. The governor in the memorandum
vetoing the bill noted that the way it was crafted, it essentially covered only one municipality and he thought that that was not a proper solution for what is really a statewide problem. We agree or at least I agree. So we are
preparing a letter which will be tightened up a bit and then circulated to council for any further comments. uh that will go to the governor and the uh legislative leadership. Uh pointing out that we agree with the reasoning behind the governor's veto and that there is
still a fairly substantial problem uh regarding uh discrimination against customers and utilities where they don't have a vote in the municipality and they're not governed by the public u public services um commission. Uh this is something that also became apparent
to me in a meeting that our um clerk and um uh Lucy attended with me. uh we had a talk by the uh I believe it was the president of the Florida Association of Counties and
he said well you know if there's if there's this tax reform where we're going to either eliminate adorum property taxes something I still think is highly unlikely um or you know there's a compromise where we increase homestead exemptions
or put limitations on how much local municipalities can tax. we're just going to use our other sources of revenue to make up those funds. So, the scenario that that concerned me after hearing that was, you know, enterprise funds like uh a water utility, an airport
authority, um any of a number of special taxing districts. It's it it and I'm going to parrot the words of some of the legislators that have had some concern about this proposed ad valerum tax reform. it could turn into a shell game where we're paying higher higher rates
for one thing, but we're getting relief in, you know, property taxes. So, uh, we're going to we're going to make that point in, uh, in the letter hopefully, and that will be circulated to council. We will be asking for the governor and the legislature. I know it's a tall
order to ask them to work together, but we're going to ask them to work together and also volunteer our our experience in terms of u crafting legislation that provides some some resolution statewide for this problem. And it's not just us. There are a number of municipalities
that are facing this. And I do think if there's a there's a continued trend towards reducing uh uh ad valerum tax increases uh ad valerum tax revenues rather um either through increased homestead exemptions um or just
increased exemptions that are given to property taxpayers. We we are going to see a shift to uh higher utility revenues. Um it's just you know common sense. So we need we need to make sure that we're not borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. Sorry for the long-winded explanation. Um, the letter will
hopefully be self-explanatory and I'm sure any comments will go through Mr. Harper as they have to under the sunshine law and then um you can get it out at at your convenience by close of business Friday. Yeah. Um, just kidding, you know. Um, anyway,
that's it. Any questions for me from council? None. All right. Are there any council member items? >> Yes, sir. No from Mr. Dayne. Vice Mayor. >> Well, uh, at the risk of adding to long- windedness, I I want to follow up on
your comments about the, uh, electric utility, and I made this uh, comment uh, before to not not in this council chamber, others. Imagine a situation
where you live on a block where a municipal government line border ran down between your house and your next door uh neighbor's house and
would you tolerate allowing an investor owned utility say like Florida Power and Light to charge you 10% more than your neighbor, of course you wouldn't, but this this is the nonsense we have to deal with on on the uh municipal uh side. So to your
point is completely intolerable. So the Florida League of Cities has advocacy committees. So it was a couple years back I signed up for the utilities one specifically to fight this issue. I get to the first meeting which is up in Orlando and it's
separate from the Florida League of Cities meeting. I said, 'I want to discuss this. Oh, we switched it over to the Finance and Taxation Committee. Well, guess what? I'm signing up for the Finance and Taxation Committee this time around and and and pushed this point.
You you have some of the big utilities, notably OU, you know, formerly known as Orlando Utilities uh company or commission where they make a tremendous amount of money. when back when FPNL was uh getting ready
to uh purchase the city of Vero Beach, I had done some research. If I remember the number correctly, Orlando was pulling in a profit of $67 million off of their utility. And uh I mean, it's just things that we wouldn't tolerate on
the on the public utility side occur. So, I I think this this letter is is great. and uh I'll try to fight the good fight and get people angry at me. I won't use a P word. Angry at me at this other uh comm committee meeting. So
that's all I have. >> Great. Thank you very much. And just just to reiterate, we're not going to just send a letter and forget about it. We're going to be, you know, working um diligently to provide solutions. Um proposed legislation. We we we started
working on that a couple of years ago and um um we're prepared. We just need to dust it off and refine it and um you know see what see what we can do to to help the legislators and if it requires going up to Tallahassee, we'll go up to Tallahassee. So, you know, we'll we'll do our best on that. Thank you. Uh
Councilman Carol, >> nothing to add. >> Nothing to add. Thank you very much. All right. Item 8A. Um these are discussion with possible or probable action items. Item 8A is to set the maximum tentative millage rate for
fiscal year 25 to 26. Uh we discussed this at our prior budget meeting immediately follow uh prior to this one. Is there any further discussion that council wishes to have? No. Um no no public any public comment.
I'll ask for public comment now on that. All right. There seeing none. Is there a motion to set the maximum tentative millage rate to 1.2810? >> So move second. >> Roll call vote.
>> Mayor Foley. >> I. >> Vice Mayor Outwwater. >> I. >> Council member Carol. >> I. >> Council member Dayne. >> I. >> Let the record show the motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you very much. Item 8B is the approval of the tenative budget for
fiscal year 2526. Um I would ask council if there's any further discussion at this point. And if there isn't, is there a motion to approve the tenative budget? >> So move. >> Uh second.
>> And let's do a roll call vote on this so everybody's on record. >> May I? >> Sorry about that. Council, uh, Vice Mayor Atwater, >> I, >> Council Member Carroll, >> I, >> Council Member Dayne, >> I, >> Let the record show, the motion passes
unanimously. >> Fantastic. >> Um, before we move on, because I may forget if we go to a little bit later in the meeting, uh, Councilman Carol made an excellent point. The the way you presented the information was fantastic.
those three or four um and I'm not intending to be denigrating. I'm I'm giving a great compliment. The C-spot run slides. Um I I think it'd be really it would behoove us uh to, you know, make those available, post those uh send it out
with the newsletter, have it as a separate separate item so our our public can see exactly how it works out for them. And without objection, I would ask that that be included in our our weekly mailing and um really highlight really highlight what it what it means for them. So without objection,
>> we'll take care of it. >> All right. Good. Thank you. All right. Staff updates. Item 9A, building official report and statistics. Mr. Held. >> Good morning, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council. I don't have anything additional to add regarding the
submitted report. Anything for Mr. Held? Any question? >> I I I'll just note you I'm looking at your your activities particularly on the permit side fiscal year to date. Uh we got additions allerations down 22% uh
other permits down 22 inspections down 27 plan review is down 7 and a half. Guess more evidence of a real estate market that is uh starting to slow down. So >> yes sir. >> Yeah. And uh our collected fees for fiscal year to date are uh reflect that
we're down 21%. So I know Heather checks the on an ongoing basis. So our target is what 75 that our uh surplus for lack of reserve is the is we look to target what 75%
of our operating expenses for a year. Is that correct? Okay. All right. Just a couple of things and you know one one is our jurisdiction one isn't. Um from time to time we get questions you know quote what's going on with the buildings behind the 7-Eleven. It looks
like the the construction has been stalled. I know that's not us. I know the reason why. Um I don't want to repeat it. Um I'm just wondering if you're getting inquiries about that or >> uh we are not. No sir. >> Okay. And then uh blue um folks are
wondering if that's proceeding a pace or is um is there any completion date with with that in in mind? >> Right now I believe they have u two other units that need to be completed. Uh so I would say probably within the
next uh 6 months for a co on those two additional units. >> Okay. Terrific. Thank you very much. It's >> Thank you. you know, it's it's a good sign when people have questions that um are not born out of outrage, but out of curiosity, you know, so it's it's good
for us. So, um all good questions. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. >> Item 9B, code enforcement report. >> Good morning. Other than the five items listed on the monthly report, um I do
have one update to item two for the sea turtle lighting survey. Uh it was completed on the 22nd. Have not received the report yet, but other than that have no updates, any questions,
>> vice mayor? uh that came up in the uh beach insurers uh advisory committee meeting which I'm chair uh on Monday and uh I pointed out that uh you've been very viligent in terms of doing these surveys and and chasing after people. It
was appreciated by the uh the county staff. So I want to pass that along to you. The uh second thing is uh some of you may recall in uh Vero Beach Street 32963 there was discussion about uh trying to
get into a building and supposedly uh a fire safety people not in our community and others had difficulty getting in and it was related to a knockbox knbox which uh for those of you who don't know
that's that's a box with a key that has keys to get around through the building if there is an emergency. So, that prompted me to send a number of questions to the the town manager in terms of how often we do inspections
uh and and some other related uh questions. And I felt really great about the answers. I want to pass along to you folks that were on top of that in terms of making sure there isn't a problem in the event of an an emergency because as we all know, every minute matters if if
I'm laying on my well, I don't live in that type of community, but somebody's laying on their kitchen floor that. So, I just want to say uh well well done on the on the responses by the town manager and and and the staff being on top of that. So,
>> terrific. Thank you. >> Public works. Uh Mr. Harper. Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council. Um other than the report, I do want to highlight um just a couple things. I want to um particularly thank um uh Janice, excuse me, and our public works employee, uh
Max Wilt has done a great job on the cemetery, uh headstone realignment, which was a follow-up to the uh ground penetrating radar piece. So, um that was great work. And excuse me, since Lucy's here, I want to thank her uh and Max as well. We have ongoing reporting
requirements anytime there's a rain event for our um municipal storm water system and they just do a great job. Um it's kind of documented paperwork heavy um because of the reporting and they just do a great job keeping it organized and and being out in the field. So um other than that I'm happy to answer any
uh questions regarding public works. Anything for Mr. Harping on public works related issues? There being none. Town treasurer report. Uh this this has got to be the shortest town treasurer report after all the stuff we've done. But uh what do you have for us?
>> Um the only thing I have nothing new to add to my report in the packet. I did put on the dis the pension balances as of the quarter June 30th year ended. There was a pension board meeting this past um week but I think Mr. would pro
council member will probably talk about it under his matters. >> All right. anything for Heather other than uh the vice mayor's report. Do you want to do that now on the um just report on the pension board meeting?
>> Well, there there there was a general discussion about returns. Uh I did a presentation which maybe you know now that I presented it uh in the in the public to have you folks see it where you in this meeting previously I had
concerns about how they invest in real estates through private real estate funds. So I did a detailed analysis going back six and a half years and found out that if instead of buying these funds these private funds which
have a very high expense ratio 1.1% of assets and if instead they had bought a Vanguard REIT index fund it could have been the same for a Fidelity or a SWAB that that portion of the portfolio uh would return 42.4%
4% more just on that part of the portfolio. Now, can you think of a situation where you're investing money and you have two alternatives and one underperformed by 42% versus the other? I mean, you'd want to you'd want to fire that that manager.
I mean, it was so stunning that when I first came up with the numbers, I I had to input the numbers and I had to create a couple spreadsheets to do it. I went back, I figured I had to make a mistake. I put it aside. I waited another couple days to clear my head. Went back and looked at it again. Couldn't find an
error. And then finally I uh a couple days later I uh got my wife to verbally read all the inputs while I checked and checked my formulas again. I mean it's just stunning how much money was lost not only for or or or an opportunity
return relative uh that that that cost the officers money and cost the taxpayers money. So I recommended that uh they they use the re fund going forward. Unfortunately we only there was only three pe uh
people uh there at the uh meeting. our two town employees were absent. So, they're going to table it to next time and I'm going to take another shot at it. So, but uh if maybe Janice uh if you could fire it out to people, I I I would
would appreciate it. So, I think I think it was reasonably comprehensive. So, that's all I have to say about that. >> Thank you, Vice Mayor. So, for informationational purposes, we're uh since he's already given the presentation, Pete, we're um Mr. town attorney, we we can have a look at that
memorandum if um so if it's circulated to us for ourformational purposes, we'll we'll have a look at it. And um I guess I guess um if there's good news in that um at least it's tabled for the next meeting for consideration by by a fuller committee. Uh just to reiterate, we
don't other than appointing the two town appointees, we don't have the ability to hire fire the the fund managers or really influence it at all other than by making comments. So, >> and and and I'm sorry, just to that point, when I started my presentation, I
know that these were my comments and recommendations alone and did not reflect the views of town council or the town administration. So, I made that very clear. >> Um I I appreciate that uh particularly since I probably wouldn't have understood much of what you were presenting anyway. So, uh um I'm sure it
was a pretty detailed analysis. Um but we'll look forward to looking at it. Um item 10, town attorney report. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council. Um, just as a brief followup to the request from last meeting to provide the update of
Gohead of all the uh legislative updates from the state uh last night, our town clerk provided the uh summary of the 228 bills that have been signed by the governor into law today. Just keep in mind, it's very comprehensive. I wanted to make sure I covered all of them. Many of them were not pertinent to the town,
but it'll give you a good flavor, especially as you interact with other municipal officials throughout the state of Florida to see, you know, again, a house bill that was vetoed by the governor, but what was the purpose and intent behind it, much like other uh legislation. If you have any questions, please let me know. And uh there continues to be followup on some bills
that haven't even been presented to the governor. Um so again, any questions, please reach out to me individually. Other than that, I have nothing else to report. >> All right. Anything for our town attorney? Um thank you. It was it's an excellent synopsis and um I haven't gotten through all of it because I
started looking at it last night, but it uh it's really well done. So, thank you very much. >> Town manager report. Mr. Hartbring. >> Um Mr. Mayor, if I uh may uh yield my time to the uh gentleman from uh Florida, the public safety director for his report.
>> I'm sorry I skipped you. Um my my fault. Um if you if you if you'd like to come up and give the public safety department report, I did it. I did a check on my item on my agenda list before uh before we moved on. So, >> and this is council. This is assistant
chief uh Ed Ryer. He's uh assistant chief for law enforcement operations. >> Good morning, Chief Ryer. >> Mr. Mayor, what's your question? >> If if it had been, you know, Chief Stone, I wouldn't have forgotten, but you know. So, >> yeah, it's on behalf of Chief Stone and the public safety department. Um just to
add to the report, something I want to highlight. Last week, our patrol officers took part in a southern slowdown initiative to um enforce speeding violations. Uh as a result of that, we we conducted 25 enforcement details between July 14th and the 19th.
Uh we had 35 traffic stops during that time period and issued 37 total warning citations. Um as a result, I think um I know that traffic crashes are down. The last um other than a couple fender
benders that um took place, one in the 7-Eleven, one in the beach access, the last crash on a roadway we had wasn't uh was back in April, April 21st. The last crash we had with minor injuries was back in December, December 1st of last
year. So, I think um we've had a nice focus on the uh traffic safety with the department. Uh other than that, we're about 90 days out for completion of the construction project on the public safety building and Chief Stone is also
in contact with the county emergency management for hurricane recovery restoration in talks with them. So that's all I have. If we have any questions, anything for Chief Frier? >> All right. Thank you very much. Uh better late than never. Um do apologize
again. Sorry about that. So >> all right, where were we? We are a town manager. After the the gentleman yields back, I take it to the town manager. >> Well, he he used up all my time, so in in light of expediency uh and the budget presentation, I don't have
anything additional for the for the council. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. All right. Item 12, our council committee reports. Um we don't have any non-action items, so we we'll do reports again. It's the summer. Many of the committees, intergovernmental committees don't meet. Um
the League of Cities meeting and they have a wonderful program. I didn't get to attend though. I'm I'm I had uh been told that the mayor may have attended or maybe >> I I did. Um so the the joint league of
cities uh treasure coast um council of local governments uh had their meeting. Uh we did have a presentation um it was in Okachobee and uh was accompanied by uh Miss Rutan
and Miss Shite uh which was you know terrific because it's an opportunity once a year for however many members of staff want to come and attend it and I I trust you had a good time. It's a great networking um opportunity. the um presentation I
alluded to earlier in a meeting was by the um a county commissioner from I'm remembering correctly Okachobee who was the who's on the Florida Association of Counties who did make the remarks about county services and uh looking for
revenues and uh I'll I'll leave the packet here but um the the point that is worth considering is the public really needs to understand what services municipal governments do provide counties and cities and towns
with adalarum revenue and if they were put to a referendum to take them away uh or to continue to pay taxes for those services you know what would most people decide? So not saying that inefficiency should be rewarded or that um you know
there aren't ways to make government more efficient but there are there are essential services that are provided through adalarum taxes and we need to keep that in mind. Um there was a uh a barbecue afterwards that again is just
terrific. The uh our friends from Okachobee have asked me to remind everyone that Florida does not end at I95. Uh Okachobee has great uh you know great cultural things of interest. There's a
lifesize bronze statue of uh in tribute to Florida cattleman. Uh there are some local shops and restaurants. So if you're adventurous and you want to go west of 95, go down to Route 70, take a
ride for about 45 minutes and uh it it's it's quite a nice uh quite a nice area. Uh other than that, there was uh no other no other committee reports and we will not be meeting in August. We will be meeting in September for the next time. So, uh, vice mayor,
>> you you you brought up about the, uh, situation with with the state and there is their their own doge department has been asking for a lot of information. And so I forgot to mention that uh that
uh our town manager and town treasurer deputy manager on short notice got a fairly concrete uh fairly extensive uh request for information to turn around in less than a week. every municipality
and Heather and and Jim really uh had to go full boore on that to get that done and get it uh uh turned around on time. And you know there's things that go on like that that we don't hear hear about that have to get done. I looked at it boy there was a lot of stuff to to uh
dig out. You know it's just like getting an audit done on time unlike the community just south of us you know being focused on getting things done. So, I just want to say thank you to both of those as well. >> Thank you, Councilman Carol. >> Nothing to report.
>> Nothing to report. All right. Thank you. Uh call to the audience. Anyone in the audience have any any comments, questions, observations. All right. Uh thank you everyone for your attention today and the efficiency with which these two meetings proceeded.
So, we are adjourned until the end of August. So,