meet every month the world changes four times over uh we've had since our last year assassination attempts presidents drop out of uh the races and the world just continues to get into a a state so with that U vice mayor Carol if you give
the invitation pray not just for us in our town but also for our country we're thankful for this town amen you'll join us in the pledge United States all right thank you everyone I'm always asked to give the
reminder if council is going to speak to please press the green light button so that it's on and then lean into the microphone uh if we could take the roll call for this uh budget Workshop meeting please mayor Foley here vice mayor Carol
here council member aler here council member Al Mary let the record show all members are present with the exception of council member Smith all right terrific let's move to item two the budget overview and discussion um at the outset I first I
know Mike oxer is in the audience I on on behalf of the finance committee um uh I'd like to please convey our thanks uh I know it's a lot of work that you do and um there are some recommendations that were put through we do we do read
the letters we do read the recommendations and we consider them very carefully I know that um um deferring to the to the people with much more extensive Finance backgrounds than than I have I find them particularly helpful um in particular I noted the the
6% salary comment that um okay 4.8% looks to be what the across the board number was in Florida um I did take that that into account um I think um I think on balance the the overall savings uh
the differential where I came out on it Mike is that uh we're we're demanding more and more Excellence from our people and U we want we want retention and we want to reward excellence and um so um I I personally came out comfortably with
the 6% U salary increase uh the next next item I found very interesting was the the notion of annexing the Island Club um now I know I know that's popped up from time to time uh we've had some some discussions about annexing or
exploring the annexation of other areas so um I I think that's something we ought to uh certainly have a discussion about if the people of the Island Club are uh are interested in doing it um I I know that uh if we if we start taking
tax revenue away from one jurisdiction uh sometimes it Ruffles some feathers but at the end of the day it's really up to the people so uh without objection I think um you know it's probably worthwhile for us to have our town manager and our town attorney kind of
explore it and uh put together a process uh yeah sure U so back when Richard Jefferson was Town manager um I came up with this notion about the annexation and I asked him to do
it uh sort of on the down low and he wrote a letter and trashed the sheriff's department as part of that letter and of course everything just blew up and then the at the time we were
involved with litigation with the city and I I met with the uh homeowners association at that time and they thought we were just looking for money to help support our lawsuit against the town or the city and so that's why it
kind of fell apart I mean Richard didn't do what I had asked him to do and uh and of course disparaged the sheriff's department which wasn't the point the point was that they're adjacent it's a if they vote say yes we vote to say yes
they win because they get a great Public Safety department which is closer and their taxes go down I mean it's like a win-win and plus our base expands so I mean that was kind of the motivation anyway no I I think it's something that
that's worth looking into um and um you know these these these ideas of annexation pop up from time to time and not to minimize um you know the scope and the wisdom of this project but given some of the other larger scale annexations that are going on um I can't
imagine uh I can't imagine we'll will'll evoke as much higher from uh potentially the county from from others I think uh I think it's a I I agree with you I think it's a win-win so and the fact that it got included in the letter I had mentioned it sort of
offhand in our meeting and everybody jumped on the idea so that's how it got into the letter that's that's fine so all right thanks so much Mike's your I big your pardon what's your it's the county no no just the county and because
it's contiguous it's it's pretty simple they have to vote Yes as a HOA and then it comes to the town and weote right I I have I have a couple comments first uh Mike has anybody talked to the more
the current owners have any sense of Interest not to my knowledge but when I SC to them way back then yeah they were interested but like I said they had whoops reservations okay all right I you know I think we should do that before we put a a lot effort in it and oh
absolutely yeah and and second of all in terms of ruffling feathers uh it didn't stop the city of viru beach annexing that small piece of ground uh behind 7-Eleven that was unincorporated accy so
I I wouldn't would be concerned about yeah I I think my original request was for Richard Jefferson to go appear at an HOA meeting there and just right take the tempure but instead he wrote this
letter that became sort of a a bombshell sure yeah well why don't why don't we do this I I think councilman Al order raises a u an excellent point as well um why don't we uh have Mr paring uh you know work with uh we can't
delegate as a as a council something to a committee like you but we can delegate the staff temperature read um I you know I think it' be helpful for counc in the public to know from Mr Sweeney just what's involved in the process um what I know about it I remember only from the
bar exam several years ago uh but my recollection is the same we don't have any donnut hole issues it's it's contiguous and it's that really complicated part of the annexation statute uh we don't even need to pay attention to it's just yes yes and then then it's in um I do think you know we
should certainly find out if the HOA is interested before waste a lot of Staff time on it and is um you know they're probably going to have to go through their own process I mean HOA is probably going to have to have a vote I don't know what their declaration says for the homers
Association but I'm sure that there's probably something in there that your lawyers are going to want to want to look at so are we in agreement so one of we um does um September sound reasonable to get back to us with a report as part of the manag report okay great under
State Statute does it require a super majority of the people U my recollection is it does not I believe it's 50% plus one all right thanks so much um since Mr Mayor since you made a comment about the first
bllo uh yeah sure okay uh with regard to your 6% salary uh in increase or push back on the part of the committee I I understand where you're coming from I I looked at that uh in inflation rates going back two or three
years and I see the 6% is certainly lower than the last 12 months inflation rate but it's a bit of a catch up from the previous year when when that wasn't the case so that's why I'm I'm in agreement with doing the 6% this year
next year is is you know is an open B I don't think the push back was so much about the the number the 6% but it was a across the board as opposed to for a 6% pool perhaps and then giv it out on Merit that's that's the difference all right thank you for the clarify right
and and just so we're crystal clear on this that's that's a budget number I mean there's there's discretion within the U you know the town manager to um Ian I I think you know given the standards that we're insisting upon hopefully everybody you know makes the
maximum of their salary increase but there's there's also room there if there isn't good performance to take care of bargain of course so it's a budget number um but the points are well taken so uh uh the Le next um item was not
specifically addressed in the finance committee minutes but I want to raise it because members of the public actually brought it up and that that is uh uh it goes as follows and you know my rule is if three or more people bring something to me given size of our town I bring it I bring it to the council um because
perhaps you've heard heard similar things um and it goes like this gee the rate of inflation's really hit us very hard uh particularly the condominium owners there have been massive Assessments in anticipation of the strategical I'm
sorry the structural Integrity Reserve studies and the anticipated costs there have been uh massive increase in insurance for condominium associations that are hitting people hard in the pocketbook um now we are an eent Community but no community immune from
some people feeling you know a pinch so the question was with the increase in property values and keeping the mill rate the same why wouldn't we do a roll back to give some um well wait a minute I'll let you go but I'm I'm why wouldn't
we do a roll back in order to um uh give some relief so uh in looking at in looking at the numbers um and balancing that against you know putting money in reserves um it's a $600,000 difference if you
kind of put that across all the taxpayers particularly the folks that you know were thinking it's it's it's it's not a hugely significant amount of money to go back into somebody's Pockets it is however a significant amount of money to build up our
reserves um I also took a look at the um sale of land from 2017 um and we're we're starting to draw down on that so um we are um we're we're looking at that that
money eventually running out so uh I think we've we've dodged some bullets with um with weather impact um I think we can be mindful of the fact that uh we'd be well well advised to prepare for
Worse weather impacts Beach erosions about as bad as I've seen it um and I know we have some assistance so for those of us in um in this position um and saying this to the folks in the in the community who asked you know why uh
why not a roll back um I hear you I looked at it uh at least this voice this one vote on the Daya says you know I think as a community we better off keeping uh the mill rate where it is um resisting the temptation to do a roll
back and building up our reserves um that's those are my comments uh on the overall bud so did you want to talk about the rooll back Mike and then we'll turn it over to council yes thanks um so obviously the budget that we reviewed
did not have the increased revenues because we met in May and so that $700,000 roughly increased revenues were I'll say a pleasant surprise but also the fact that it looked like it was all going in reserves uh is a concern
and uh granted that the refund the reduction in millage would make a significant amount in individual's Pockets but the fact is it's their money it's not the town's money and um you know you talk about weather impacts and
I think back to CH and Fran's which was the biggest one we we had we had about a million dollars of out of pocket costs but most of it was reimbursed by insurance and so the the whole notion was that
um you need cash when you need cash but most of it's going to get reimbursed so the the reserve doesn't need to be that big and so at the time when I was on Council we decided that you know two million bucks was pled and so anything beyond that I think
that you know you should just give the to the citizens back regardless that's all right no I I understand there are different perspectives on it um and just in in response to that you know I'm sure many of us up here perhaps you went to these uh conferences where they talk
about feema reimbursements and U the one thing that I always pay attention to is it can be two to three years before you get reimbursement um so that if we underfund reserves we'd be required to go out try to get some some funding in place in place borrow at higher interest
rates now to cover that and then uh the clawback percentage has been fairly astronomical uh for um you know for the disaster agencies that provide m municipalities and uh I you know just in the back of my mind I always keep
thinking you know Mexico Beach Mexico Beach I mean that was a the town that thought that they were uh in pretty good shape with reserves and you know they got obliterated so um I appreciate your comments that's just where I come out so anybody else on any of these
items what you want to go first and left right uh yeah I I I agree with the mayor uh last fall I drove through Fort Meers Beach and uh we all know about the the waves that
came crashing through there and so forth it sort of reminded me of pictures of Tokyo after bombing by b29 bombers there's literally nothing uh there I you I just think we're in an area where there's bigger issues we might have to
deal with there may come to a point in time where we're going to have to town on on Sand I mean you know it's it's a constant struggle to try to uh get the
state to do the right thing we're still not designated as a critically eroded beach in most of the town's beach in spite of in my in my case I started fighting this back when I was a a citizen in
2015 when the then Coastal engineer basically indicated we didn't exist we come a long way with the county and very appreciative with do but I mean I could see a situation we have to dump sand on the beach and some people will say well you're just protecting the ocean front
uh houses well impacts everything in this in this town you don't want to be the ocean front when those houses are are are are wiped away the other thing we made progress on cber security I
think a a lot of progress but there's other things that we have to do obviously I'm not going to talk about those here in a in a in a public setting and in discussions with the town manager just one on one you know he pointed out
that uh we do have some public streets here that uh we're probably going to have to get uh repaved and then in the process tear them up to make sure that we have because there is a state mandate have it done by was it is it 28 or 30 I
30 30 okay and uh now the reality is is everything I've heard is that the St the communities around the state are not going to get that done but we we know we want to get that done and and and move on so I I think for for those reasons
and I I agree with Mike we always have to think about it as it's their money and we taking and hopefully using it for for the right thing but I I think it's you know we've made a lot of good steps you know you look at the sale of of the
land which I which you I pushed and back then the millage rate went down 19% so we did give a lot of money back to the the taxpayers rightfully so because it's their their money so I'm I'm I'm okay
with the reserves uh as as we stand right and also the reality of the situation is most people here in terms of their apprais value are subject to the 2% cap that's that's the you you know some people moved in recently are not Florida
residents you know who knows where their pra value is going to go up but most of us are are subject to that 2% cap so um I'm okay with that we haven't we haven't discussed their third bullet point
motion was made we recommend Town Council consider requiring all all legal fees in excess of a half million dollars charged by one firm on one man uh we have a lot of lawyers up here on this on this day as i' be interested in people
think those people in particular but but but but they they can't determine whether a particular line item is appropriate or not so that's that's a distin without a difference e
for e um I think that the there's a huge difference between um sale of property a few years ago and um increase in assess value of properties in any given year I think it
was entirely appropriate U that Council took the steps they did in the aftermath of the sale of the property I view that as a an extraordinary event a one-off event and I think Council made
the correct decision at that time um with regard to uh the most recent increase in appraise value I don't favor um um a roll back um property
values may we were were blessed U I guess um that the trend has been up um over the last several years but um that's not to say that uh the trend may
not uh it will not last probably uh and it may go in the other direction for a while so I'm in agreement with the mayor and council member AER uh I do not favor a roll back and with regard to the
$500,000 uh the legal fee I agree with the mayor on that as well I don't see any reason to uh spend the time or the money engaging in um in that kind of analysis so those are my
comments I would join in each of the comments from councilman outw Council Carol and mayor and with respect to the audit of newes I in my career the best AIT is the audit at the
beginning of the engagement not the audit at at the end of the engagement the best way to tab in legal Fe is at the onset of an engagement that you think is going to be a serious engagement you require Council to provide a very detailed budget timeline
for the projects that you think are can be anticipated in it and then you're really the best order that happens every month when that when the legal fees come across the trans it's fresh in everybody's mind and I think the town manager does a great job frankly in uh
keeping a r on legal fees and and I think also that the the likelihood that the town um in any matter other than the ones that we've had in connection with the recent litigations the antitrust litigation and raid litigation the
likelihood that the town is going to face legal fees from one law firm in one period uh $500,000 is fairly rare and you when you get caught up in a matter like that you know what you're in and it
really comes down to Day to-day Management working together with Council not on a yearly look back but as you doing it on a monthly basis I think that's probably the most effective way to change to keep
on very much comment is comment not and then the it discussion I'm fine with that I'm fine with it no discussion all right wonderful all right we are
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