##VIDEO ID:VBzlTPyophU## for is please take your seats the meeting is about to begin remember to speak into the microphone as this meeting is being recorded for public record please stand by we are going on air in 5 4 3 2 1 good afternoon and uh Welcome to our budget hearing as we get close to the end of the fiscal year and we have a statutory obligation to finalize our budget which we're well on the way thank you for my colleagues for being here and our budget chair who I'll turn it over to uh momentarily Joe commissioner Joe magazine I've said this before but what you put in the budget where you allocate your funds shows you what you think is important and we're we're heading in that direction we're focused on quality of life issues and we're making improvements in those areas and increasing funding in those areas so um I'm overall pleased with the direction we're going and I'll turn it over to commissioner magazine you cut me off uh too early soono soon thank you Mr Mayor um I'll Echo that sentiment uh it's cliche but show me your budget and I'll show you uh your priorities so very uh proud and excited to be going through this long process with my colleagues it looks like we're coming towards an end here um we're here at I believe what Mr CFO our third budget meeting uh our third public budget meeting and we've had uh various workshops on that uh perhaps just one more remaining um yep so uh let's get started right away we we've all been briefed uh Mr city manager I'll turn it over to you to uh introduce um and we will introduce uh the team here but let's get right into things thank you very much um honorable mayor members of the commission Mr city clerk uh we are here today for the first of two budget hearings um this is the culmination of work that's been done by all the members of the city from the commission all the way down through the the very Frontline workers coming up with a plan for what our fiscal responsibilities and needs will look like during during the coming year uh this budget process kicked off in December of 2024 and today's presentation is a culmination of multiple dozens actually of meetings um including uh number of meetings with each of the Commissioners going back to May 20th when we had our budget Retreat uh following the two furk budget briefings in June and July um all the approved approved recommendations have been incorporated into this proposed budget and these are your commission driven priorities and include enhancements aimed at addressing the concerns of residents and businesses as highlighted in the community satisfaction survey I'd like to extend my personal gratitude to each member of the city commission for their participation in this process as well as the staff who have worked diligently over the past nine months to ensure its success um in particular I'd like to thank Jason our CFO I'd like to thank Tama OT Stewart our budget director I'd like to thank Richard aami our budget officer our Senior Management and budget analysts Ayana dcosta Earl Kyle Taho y Elena eaus our management and budget analyst isidora Gonzalez and our office associate 5 Daniela Martinez excellent work to all of you thank you very much and with that I will hand it over to Jason and Tamika to walk us through all right PJ if you could turn the presentation on I do yes all right so good afternoon everyone um this is the as Eric said the hopefully the end of the budget process between this meeting and the meeting on the 25th uh this slide just shows where we were when we met last on July 12th we had a 99.4% increase in our property values and I'll just react rate that we are increasing at a decreasing rate so good news but we're being tempered down so this slide shows uh I'm sorry hang on too many okay so what we have here on the slide is showing what our proposed uh millage is going to be so we have a combined millage that is not changing the one thing that I want to mention is we have a slight decrease in our voted Debt Service millage and a slight increase in our Capital replacement so this allows the commission to approve uh this the a flat millage for the year uh while dedicating uh the highest dollars this commission or any commission I'm sorry has ever dedicated towards Capital dollars right so oh so what you see what what you see here is kind of along the same lines the important thing I would want to draw here is that light blue line for 2025 of 01886 that's made up of two millages our Capital renewal and replacement and our uh pgo that that millage of 01886 is the highest Capital millage the city has ever had in its history since it started about 20 years ago so I think that's a really important statement to make an important distinction to make and it shows the city's continuing dedication to tackle its uh C program all right so on to the budget balancing so this slide should be familiar when we met with you on July 12th we had a initial surplus of $16.2 million we made a recommendation to transfer $2 million of our interest income which is growing exponentially over to Capital so we could fund more of our Capital needs and to just be more conservative on our recurring costs and then we made some recommendations on enhancement which were primarily approved by the FK and uh had everything been approved as is we would have had an 8.9 million set aside for collective bargaining or Capital funding and we would have had a balanced budget so this slide shows what happened subsequent to July 12th uh we started off with a balanced budget and then we made some adjustments at the July F and we're going to go through the details of each of these totals as you go um to the next couple of slides and then we did some Revenue refinements in the summer and then we finally rebalance the budgets okay so the first slide these are adjustments that made by a commission uh during the juli either the July budget workshops or uh at the July commission meeting so the first one are two items that were brought up on the floor in July so we added you know again we started with the 8.9 million so we started adding subtracting from there so we added the $220,000 enhancement for intensity density Capacity Analysis and $75,000 for the mxc revenue expenditure analysis for a total of $295,000 and then recurring adjustments were uh two additional full-time Detention officers uh these were uh two this was an enhancement that was not in the city manager's original preliminary uh recommended budget um but commission uh requested that to be see if that can be fitted into the preliminary budget and that's in there right now uh the set asde for the Miami new drama of $220,000 and just for the record we are going to recommend adjusting that down to $200,000 uh based on the uh commission resolution that will be heard on October 30th so we'll reduce that recurring dollars down to 200,000 and the commission can make that decision in October uh we made an adjustment where we added money back in by not bringing on a full-time division Chief and fire and just making a reclass uh we adjusted the original city manager recommendation on the area managers to three full-time area managers and uh additional funding for the Normy Fountain was requested on the floor and this added $57,000 in recurring expenditures uh on this these were two two recurring expenditures that were uh not discussed during the budget hearing but were resolutions approved at the July commission meeting uh one was a recurring uh enhancement for the mayor and commission uh budget to add $105,000 funding for uh travel for conferences and community events for elected officials and a recurring $25,000 increase to the grant contribution for Pride Lin Mii Beach Project SAFE so in addition to adjustments that were recommended by perk or the city Commission in July we actually have to balance the budget after everything stops so for example the general fund charges an admid fee to all our Enterprise funds and some of our special Revenue funds and that those numbers change once the budgets are finalized so this is a reduction in our revenues for admin fees as a result of those finalized budgets and then we also refine our Revenue projections as we have more current details so these are some of the balance in numbers that we did in the summer and then also our internal service departments for example Fleet facilities uh risk management their budgets we have to finalize and then we allocate all their costs to all of the Departments including the general fund so these are increased costs um on the general fund well decrease on internal services and then we had some miscellaneous increases and that last number is a balanc in number uh prior to July well after July 12th we had a set aside of $8.9 million for the CBA the collective bargaining agreements because of the adjustments that we made between July and August that number went down by that $1.18 million so now we have a set aside of $7.7 million for collective bargaining Capital so next we're going to go through the list of all of the general fund enhancements uh these are all mostly that you you've all seen before these are ones that were gone through the whole process many going back to the beginning of the fiscal year uh through committees through commissions and things like that so the first group are lump is Public Safety and homeless efforts so we have uh a one-time uh enhancement of $1.9 million to continue uh the police high visibility over overtime detail on the recurring side the ones that are highlighted sorry in in light blue are the ones that I highlighted a little bit lower those were early earlier those were the ones that were added by commission during the July uh budget hearings and the budget commission meeting so they were adjustments from the city manager's preliminary budget so we have the Detention officers recurring uh we have the Real Time Staffing up for the realtime Intelligence Center uh Staffing or the reimburse of to mied County for the County Crime Lab dedicated Staffing uh we have an additional full-time assistant City attorney for the municipal prosecution team uh the health concern Initiative for homeless Services uh the Mii Beach lbtq Outreach initiatives uh reclassing the uh position in Fire Department emergency management Division and adding body cameras for a homeless operations program and then our next category are educational initiatives uh on the one time we have the $394,000 uh for onetime equipment uh as approved recommended by firk and endorsed by commission this is to expand our educ Outreach programs to outside of our our normal area which has been really the public school zones so now we're moving into uh the private and charter schools so this will uh give them their one-time equipment and services and then uh continuing Services is on the recurring side uh we have the contracted bus services through the parks department and then we have the expansion of the rock Ensemble and the preas scholarship uh were approved by commission uh resolution uh as as far as cleanliness is concerned we recommended and this is included in the budget uh pressure washing machines for additional ones for parks and along with those we added four full-time positions to help with the cleanliness of our parks and then there's there was a recommendation by fer at the July 12th meeting to add three area managers which would be helping to get visibility on cleaniness throughout the city so here are here's the intensity densing analysis the feasibility study related to compact sand east of the Dune study that's all one time and then recurring we have the transfer the additional transfer to Pago from the projected interest income which was a new policy initiative it brought forward the commission endorsed and those dollars are now allocated in our Capital program for projects in 2025 and recurring going forward and then we're going to be adding a preventative maintenance program for City's aquatic facilities on a recurring basis and then we have a category for all the others that don't fit into those distinct categories we have small business grants this is onetime and then there's a one-time study for revenues and expenditures in the mxc uh the Miami new drama management contract when we met back in July there was a recommendation to set aside $220,000 for this negotiation uh the contract as of Wednesday's commission meeting was set at 200,000 so we're recommending bringing that 220 down to 200,000 and that would be a savings on the operating general fund side uh the additional funding for conferences a Civic events in the city um commission's office that's a 105 increase that was approved by City commission and then we have some miscellaneous adjustments including funding for additional State Lobby um HR public records technician uh Etc and and then finally this is the last uh list of enhancements on the general fund we added $30,000 to the 60,000 that's already in the budget for normaly Fountain programming uh the additional grant for Pride lines was approved by commission back in July uh sister cities we added 15,000 to the already 25,000 allocated in that budget uh then we added $4,000 for assessments at beach front facilities and then finally we did some adjustments for our internal services that we mentioned earlier so if you look at the end of the chart there's a total of 8.2 almost that was appropriated in the general fund budget for um enhancements that's a combination of one time and recurring costs um I I I've been saying this since May the update on Resort taxes that there is no update U it's been trending just about 6% below what we had budgeted for FY 24 and so for next year we budgeted a 5% um off last year's budget to just be conservative uh we did not recommend a lot of enhancements actually we didn't recommend any uh one enhancement did get approved to be approved using uh the resort resort tax reserves of a million and so what we're showing there is the the $1 million being added for the cultural presenters grants uh commission approved a resolution unanimously I think on uh this past Wednesday and funding that at $493,000 so we're going to be recommending that be adjusted that million dollars be adjusted down to $493,000 I think commissioner bot had a through the through the chair um so when we discussed this at FK it was a couple of months ago and things were a little bit different um the county is actually talking about making cuts of their own in addition to the state um this is not something I suggest that is a an ongoing proposition it is a one time um back stop for our Cultural Arts anchors which not only provide a one of many reasons to come to Miami beach but also provide jobs to our residents and um educate our kids and I would like to actually go forward with the full amount that we had initially discussed um I'm not very Cav I'm not not very I am not Cavalier about this but I think this is the time when it is incumbent upon us as our mayor said when he opened his remarks um to show the world Who We Are by standing by our cultural anchor institution so with the support of my colleagues I'd like to make that recommendation commissioner Fernandez vice mayor Fernandez thank you Mr Mayor and i' second that motion and I just want to make sure I meant to ask this at our last commission meeting but I was under the weather and didn't it didn't just didn't come out um the South Beast uh jazz festival which again an institution a cultural Institution of this community uh just want to make sure that they're included in that because I didn't see them on the list and I realized it afterwards uh and so and so I just want to make sure we don't forget them because they've been a long-standing partner thank you I would need to defer to L arante to answer that question good morning Mr Mayor City commission uh I need to check on their address so all the organizations have to be Miami Beach based so I will check with Lori bacham on where they are registered because that's would be the reason why they're not on this list I would just want to make sure that that they're included because they have been an anchor longstanding part of our of our community and so I just want to make sure if you agree commissioner you've been so pivotal in leading for the Arts and being their voice doing this critical time in our state and County uh and I thank you for that leadership commissioner bot uh and with your permission if if you would allow us to include them uh I think we are all familiar with their decades long um leadership in the Arts especially for individuals with disabilities that perhaps don't have other avenues through which to express themselves thank you Mr Mayor commissioner bot so yeah I without knowing what the ask was and if they're if they're based here and what the legalities are my inclination would be to keep the funding at a million dollars and just find a chunk of money that that is proportionate to what everybody else is getting to um to sort of back stop their most critical needs so that they can go forward without sacrificing anything thank you commissioner Suarez um just to be clear thank you Mr Mayor is this a one you were requesting one time and and but the original 493 is are recurring no no if I may so the original ask was a million dollars um one time based on the cuts um put forth by the the state and I was trying to be overly conservative and we weren't sure where other things were going to net out now um that we have a better sense of where the budget is landing and also the county is considering their version of the state cuts um you know we had earmark this the discussion at FK was generally quite positive it's a one-time only thing which I'm looking at all the cultural anchors out there right like we know this is you know I I think this was a message from people at in different governments um you know shot across the bow that doesn't affect us but so it's one time only full funding including the South Beach trans fful thank you Mr Mayor um and thank you col is this is this where we would discuss this um this this is where we would discuss the budget allocation of who gets what I think is was well that was already decided by commission if there's an adjustment to that because commission weigh on that but budget it's it my understanding is 493 are doubling it would be 986 uh so the question is do we keep the the 493 that the commission approved on Wednesday or we going to adjust the um number to 986 ready discuss right so I don't understand we it was a firk it was approved at 493 and um it it went to the commission I believe also and we also approved at 493 I'm not necessarily posted it just seems um like almost rushed to just do it here at this meeting are we going to have a longer discussion to to to discuss it uh or is this or do we are we making a recommendation here today because it's you know half a million dollars my mind you you know we we have a fire station to find and and we we I want to make sure that it we have just a little bit more of just discussion on on what we can do if I could piggyback actually what commissioner sarez is saying and thank you for bringing the item but this is kind of I think what to add on to what commissioner sarz is saying when we have a commission meeting which we just voted on we have a memo we got a genda review we know exactly coming in what we're voting on here there's no memos there's no allocate we're literally hearing these numbers for the first time right on the day as and then having to make a quick decision I think that's what you're coming out commenting on if I can mayor we the agenda does have full memos for the capital budget the operating budget of the millage but this one brought up was just brought up on the floor so we just have what the commissioner is requesting commissioner bot so yes this would normally go through and it did go through FK and then through the commission meeting and I was uh the initial thought was that I would pull it at the commission meeting to have this conversation on Wednesday so there could be a little bit more discussion but sometimes when we have packed agendas we pull items and we might not reach every item which is not casting experss it's just a function of logistics of the number of items we have the number of hours in a day and so I did not want to jeopardize the chunk of funding that was already agreed to and I knew that we were having this meeting you know 3 Days Later 4 days later and we could have this conversation it's not for a different purpose it's for exactly the same purpose it is made more Urgent by the fact that the county is considering pulling their funding this is not a you know a party trick that I plan on using very often if ever you know I won't promise to never but this is not how I roll um I'm I'm as I think you would all agree I'm pretty measured in most of my things I just think that this is the moment when we need to step up and it's an unusual set of C cumstances and I would just encourage us to support it thank you Mr chair and correct me if I'm wrong uh CFO this is our opportunity because on September 25th we have to adopt a balanced budget so anything that's not in the budget any changes that we as a body may agree to and would like to see this is the opportunity for us as an elected body to provide you with that feedback so that on September 25th you can come back with a balanced budget for us to be able to adopt is that correct correct this would be the appropriate time for us to set next year so to the extent that something is not included in the budget or perhaps you know may have been discussed in the past and may have not made it in but the body decides that it does have a desire for it to be baked into the operating or the capital budget for fiscal year 25 today is for us to come together provide that feedback so that then us the administration can find the funding sources the appropriate funding sources and making sure that on September 25th the budget is balanced for the city commission to adopt just to clar yes we would want to leave this meeting tonight with a balanced budget so if we're adding or subtracting anything we would be doing it here on the floor yeah okay thank you so today's the opportunity for us to provide that feedback thank you thank you Mr chair yeah thank you Vice May um just to clarify because I feel I'm a bit lost we had allocated previously State reduced their funding we said we want to step up for our art and culture institutions let's allocate 493 or $494 ,000 in in July the commission had uh requested uh for it to be set at a million dollars of our Resort tax uh reserves for this purpose to be heard at FK uh FK then heard the item recommended the number be at 493 uh I think it was in July and then September's commission meeting last Wednesday the commission approved that endorsement of 49 three so going forward that I as Administration I'm just noting that original preliminary budget included a $1 million allocation but based on the commission's resolution and recommending we adjust it to 493 but there's a request on the floor to keep it I guess at uh 986 which would be twice that number we just need to get direction on so then I and I'll just ask this respectfully of my colleague if we can just Bridge how we get from 494 to a million I I wish I wish we um were having this meeting in three or four days because I know it's coming to the county tomorrow or Wednesday and we would know what the back stop is um okay you know the the the amount that was given to us in the first place was already a smaller amount than what they had asked for so it it is a it's not an insignificant amount of money but in the grand scheme of things it it's not ins significant amount of money um in the grand scheme of a billion dollar budget look I'm not Cavalier with a cou 00,000 is not money that I have and it's our taxpayers money but for these individual organizations there's some which are going to have an easier time raising the funds from donors and there's some that may have to lay people off and I would because this is not a reoccurring request it's a one-time thing when the state and now likely the county have pulled their funding and we are in the process of spending a lot of capital staff resources intellectual Capital money to Pivot our brand as an arts and culture destination a wellness destination a historical and architecturally significant destination I think this gets us there better than not and I and I respect and very much value how mindful you are about how easy it is for us to throw 100,000 here and 15,000 there and half a million there but I think this is one of the times when we collectively have to step up and do it if I may may I might be able to assist in hearing some of this what might be the easiest path forward if there's additional information that we're waiting on actions from third parties is perhaps to leave the budget as the commission originally approved in July with a million dollar set aside and then perhaps for staff to come back in October to commission with a discussion to get final Direction on it but we can leave the million doll allocation uh there that may if that may help I I don't know but how how that work with but I'm not doing the well it technically for the resort tax we just we wouldn't utilize the whole million so we'd have it set aside it would be utilizing that million dollars in reserves and then the commission can give direction while in October to stick with the $ 493 or go with the you know the 986 then so here here's where I stand on this um I'll be supportive of the upper amount but we also have the final decision September 25th right yes so the budget as it is right now presented has a million dollar already baked in you don't have to change it on the 25th you could do but we have the ability to correct yes or October um here's what I I'll put my cards on the table what I'd like to see I'm just one of seven people uh so I don't know where my colleagues are I know we have some of our cultural Partners here I don't want to put you on the spot um but what I would look for at the September meeting is besides what you already do right which is ins you know Indescribable I need to know what else you could do for our community right this is a big ask this is a million dollars right this is going to organizations when when I go to uh my condo and I go to my neighbor and I say well I just took some of your tax money to put to an institution you may have never heard of yeah that's what a community is right it's not just a a one for one I'd love to hear some creative ideas about as a community we're stepping up for your institutions how you could further Step Up Above and Beyond what you already do for ours so Mr chair thank you um and I think Mr chair and Mr Mayor um so I I just think it's important to to understand the reason why they're asking us for the services for these funds is so that they can continue just their most basic Services they're not asking us for more funding to expand the program this is just for them to continue operating as they were in the current fiscal year for them to continue operating at the same level of service going into the next fiscal year um and so and so my concern is if we ask them well what else can you provide the community what else can you give the community we're actually you know we might be making a bigger Dent uh or or asking them to make a bigger dent when we're trying to fill the dents uh so that they can just have this Gap funding pretty much uh to the next fiscal year and let's just keep in mind you know it is a million dollars and that is significant um but in a way I feel almost you know it's coming from the resort fund and it's coming I believe from the reserves in the resort fund correct and what are our reserves in the resort the in the res funds around 40 40 million around 40 million you know I think that this is this is why we have this restored fund uh and those reserves there for these unforeseen situations um their oneoff situations it was you know politics got in the way and caused for this onetime need um I think it might be wise for us perhaps to have that set aside there going into the September 25th budget hearing of the $1 million if the county decides not to proceed with the cultural Cuts well then we don't need to proceed with that extra money but I think we need to side perhaps uh in caution or in the side of caution to be you know that angel for our cultural institutions so that they can continue providing at least the same level of service they do today otherwise they lose they risk losing a curator or they L risk losing a a program that then later on be hard for them to get back and so it's it's a one-time courtesy to these long-standing cultural anchors and and in a way I see that's the purpose and part of that uh of that Reserve fund thank you Mr chair for your Indulgence am I up um I have an idea of what could be proposed right now all of our Arts and Cultural programming are within the public school system correct Leslie here Dr Rosenfeld most of our programs are working with um public we work most public school system but we're moving why don't we include all of our um if here I have I have I have an idea if we give this funding one time we have them for this one year include all of our schools in the programming a special performance if you're inviting the public schools we would like you to invite every single student in Miami Beach um across the board and what you could do prior to the second budget hearing is maybe submit a small paragraph of how you would like to address all our students instead of just the public school ones and I think that's a pretty good benefit it's something that we can say every child in Miami Beach will get to go to a performance at the colony theater or the O Cinema or the symphony and um I think that that would be a way to possibly bridge the gap I don't know how you feel about this but we have a list of schools Mr Mayor just to clarify uh we currently have Partnerships I don't know if it's with every cultural institution because they apply to participate in our steam plus program which is an infusion of the Arts into our Public Schools but for this coming school year uh some of our private and charter schools have requested to be a part of that program and so we will seek to expand it but that is dependent upon their interest uh regarding um the steam plus program so it's it's private and public school requested but the but a concern I have with what you are suggesting is not so much the uh availability and access uh to the programs uh there's always a challenge with the schools getting to the location so please keep that in mind what I would propose is as the between now how long do we have we have a week until our second okay Leslie Rosenfeld is right here she is our educ director if each institution receiving funding could reach out to Dr Rosenfeld between now and the next meeting and with some sort of um summary of what you will provide um I think that and we can at least look at it we can get a print out hopefully um a couple days before the meeting so the sooner the better and um I think that that would go a long way I don't know how you guys feel yeah yeah that wasn't my exact idea I didn't have any exact ideas but it was along those lines uh Mr vice mayor was just you know if we're going to ask our taxpayers for more let's expand the net for people that are able to be included in uh our world class arts and culture programming so uh whatever that idea may be that could be one of them uh but something along those lines Mr Mayor thank you Mr Mayor I look I I just want to make sure we're not setting a bad precedent of you know the last second we asked for double the amount and and we went through a process where um you know it was agreed we went to I think two two different meetings to discuss this um and I'm I'm okay with with giving the funding I I think what what what they do for our community really what's makes a community um but you know there should be a a process right and to make sure and you know it would it would be really bad if we just all sort of rolled over and said yes right we we want to make sure that we're getting the taxpayers are getting value you know if we give you double what do we get in return um and we want to make sure that there is value in in and essentially giving a million dollars of of taxpayer money and I look I I understand it's a resort tax um I um however you know Look Resort tax it comes from a lot of the residents that go out to Res to to restaurants we pay into that it's it's not necessarily people who don't live in Miami Beach that pays this fund a big part of it is um so I just want to make sure that we get some sort of accountability on on on what we're getting and what Extra Value we get and so I'm okay with moving it to U the October 30th and setting aside uh a certain amount it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to be comfortable with the full amount we can get somewhere in between perhaps um but I I just want to know what the taxpayers are getting uh for for double the amount okay so I think on this item for now we will leave the budget allocation at $1 million as today and we'll can discuss it again on the 25th the second hearing if there's any additional um action to be taken and we can go back to the presentation we're gonna go back a little we missed a couple of slides at the beginning so this slid just shows that we sent out an LTC along with three huge budget books so all the details behind the highlights that you're seeing today are included in that book in addition to the memos that were accompanying these um agenda items so just a look at the combined budgets so this chart shows the history of our budget since 2015 so back in 15 and6 we were over a billion dollars in our budget the green line that you see there the chart on the chart is our capital budget so our budget fluctuates depending on what's going on in capital the blue line is a little more you know systematic uh next well this year's budget and to if I could stop you there um obviously asking you to paint with an incredibly broad brush but just looking at the operating budget uh let's use 2015 16 or 17 as a proxy uh to where we're at in 2024 um looking at you know uh uh 50% increase uh or close there to any highlevel okay here are the primary Catalyst or drivers for uh what is leading to the large increase in the operating budget well primarily on the operating side it's our payroll cost so we have Union contracts that are required to do colas uh step increases Merit increases so the big jump in our budgets are payroll costs then we also have enhancements so you'll see when we get to the next couple of set you see how we have the breakdown of the operating and there's a c SL current service level increase and then we have enhancements um in in my perfect world we'll just have current service level increases and no enhancements and then you'd have a lower you know incline we don't have it here on this slide but we had uh shown this and highlighted this in some of the early budget hearings and I know on some of the on boardings with the new Commissioners where we went back to look over the past 10 or 15 years and actually the city has tracked Below in the uh inflation when it goes back there so there's a lot of that building of compounding when it comes to inflation pressures and then again as as uh T had mentioned you have enhancements so we've added a whole park ranger program you know during this period we have additional police officers additional uh firefighters additional programs that this city is running so when you mix the two together that's really you know a major Catalyst for a lot of that and also a lot of those numbers were still coming out of the you know the early Great Recession where there were a lot of uh you know Cuts you know over 10 15 years ago but we want to talk about some about that then we're going to talk about projections could we go back to that slide if you look at 2015 there's what a 70% increase over the past 10 years in our budget correct and we haven't even brought on so many of the new developments uh the Convention Center Hotel thousands and thousands of units how do we know that given this 70% increase in in operations that we're not going to have to increase based on our density and we haven't we've decreased in population increased operational expenses and those other resources aren't even like they they haven't even come into play yet with our current team how are we going to we're having an issue right now for example with cleanliness we're having an issue right now with sanitation what's going to happen when you add 5,000 units 10,000 units and we're already struggling as we are and why are we struggling if the budget has increased by 70% operations that to me is a very um important question that we need to ask and that we haven't really been explained per se we going to talk about uh the next slide is about the differences as as speak mentioned about current service level changes right um so this just focuses on the general fund which is I know we're a lot of people focus on this is where property tax revenues go our overall increase was 6.7% of that it was 3.3 is our current service level so if we just open back the doors next year and provided the same level of service our budget would have gone up by 3.3 which you know last year it was around the same or probably a little less our CPI increase was 5.7 so we actually trended below CPI in this year's upcoming budget enhancements were $6 million 1.4% and then we there are some midyear changes in the budget this year that added almost a million dollars um to the budgets and then the last item and the last item as we mentioned a little bit earlier is the set aside for our itive bargaining and our unfunded uh Capital needs you know we have a several hundred million dollars in general fund Pago crr quality of life capital projects so we started this process back in July with a city manager recommended budget of $8.9 million set aside we're down the $7.7 million uh we're hopeful that we can walk out here tonight continuing to have that 7.7 so we can complete our contracts and then again other dollars will be set aside for our unfunded Capital needs Mr mayor commissioner Suarez you um I just would like to respond to my colleague commissioner Gonzalez um you know it's true our resident population has has declined but if you look at our budget 61% of our budget is for police and fire and the most is for police and the reason is because we have such high impact weekends and you know it's it goes back to We Are concered a party town and when you are considered a Party Town people party and they don't usually party nice you know if if we were to have a fundamental shift away from the party scene I full-heartedly agree that we wouldn't have to spend so much money on police you know we wouldn't have to have um you know s we wouldn't have to put so much Demand on our First Responders that really do take up you know overwhelmingly all our budget all of our property taxes go to police and fire that's because we're we're we're you know we're a tourist town as it stands you know you you we you know Coral Gables um Winwood they don't have the same challenges that we do year and year out um where people are getting murdered on the streets so um you know if we were to shift more toward residential I I believe that you know our budget could decrease where we're not having to spend so much money on on uh on police and fire I have a question the problem is that we have 22,000 hotel rooms and an additional 3,000 coming online how are we going to fill those without programming everybody said we got a program program program now we're going to have all of these hotels it you know it's it's a fine line cuz I mean we cross that line a while ago the only thing that I can say is I have hope the convention center needs to be uh better programmed for the current hotels that we have um but that will be more high impact events all the time so we have this billion dooll investment in the convention center additionally you've got 25,000 hotel rooms so you can't just say we want to be residents only because that's not what we've done ever so how do you plan to bridge that shift and and that's really the conversation that that we're not having I don't know who's moderating but I will and and if you don't mind I can respond and commissioner B can respond too um you know I think I don't know if commissioner magazine said this but I think 70% of all police related calls are to non-residents Chief I don't know if if that if you can speak to that but I believe the majority of of service calls are not for residents and it's it's overwhelmingly uh that way way so you know I just want to make sure that you know we're we're clear on on where where is our where is our budget really allocated toward is it is it protecting not protecting is is it going toward more for tourists or is it going more for residents you know one of the one of the issues that was brought up was we need more sanitation we we have sanitation for all our tourist districts like Lincoln Road um Washington Avenue Ocean Drive but we've never had a power wash cleaning in a residential neighborhood um and so you know I just want to be careful to to paint that you know having more residents is going to increase our budget I don't think that's the case because most of our budget is spent on uh on First Responders catering to to what our brand is currently which is it's a party time and since we're talking about talking about First Responders as we know the county last week on a mutual Aid agreement um voted in a somewhat convoluted way but voted to potentially charge us it's not just us it's the uh all the cities in Miami day but from what I'm understanding and hearing from people this was definitely politically motivated at Miami Beach um and that would be for spring break and Memorial Day about a million dollars now luckily there's going to be a sheriff new sheriff in town coming November and figuratively and we're going to have to hopefully the sheriff can override that but that is a potential million dollars assuming we want those Services which we we need it thank you to our man Beach police but we need the help from the state which we got who do not charge us and and the they the count the state this the state is not going to charge us um and by the way most of the time it's not charged this is this is kind of uh not cool uh thank you no are you commission bot gonna we were going to continue but if by all means okay if we can bring the presentation back up the next slide uh and these next two slides are just related to a a financial forecast this has always been part of the budget process in the budget book uh you know and speaking with uh chair magazine he wanted us to highlight that so we looked at our these are Mo our most likely scenarios we look at concern conservative we look at pessimistic we look at most likely when it comes to expenditures and revenues and we did look at this so over the next four fiscal years we do believe that looking at our projections that we would have a balanced budget or a surplus being generated over the next four years this does incorporate our understanding of the universe today our collective bargaining agreements based on where we live today and our existing contracts uh so that is good news and this is based on our understanding of the universe now the next slide will was based on a discussion we just had with uh commissioner uh magazine where he wanted us to just ask us if we get out a slide showing what our likely expenditures but if we are very pessimistic on the revenues and this is our pessimistic uh look at that and that is having very small increases when it comes to our property values really uh from 6% uh next year down to like three and a half two and a half over those percents so we think it's not likely it will be that low historically the city has never had property value increases is that low over that period of time but I think this was just and I don't want to put words in the Commissioners I know he'll probably want to add something here is just for to to be cognizant of adding recurring expenditures that are difficult to curtail you know in the future so always being uh hesitant always being conservative in there yeah so just add some context here this isn't some Armageddon scenario this is in property valuations decreased by 10% right if we look at who knows projecting out and maybe you know we don't even need to consider a downward decline but if we just look at 2025 in 2026 and 2027 right the next three years if we have low singled digigit property valuation increases this is what our budget looks like right we actually didn't even stress test the expenditures so that is just a baseline expenditure but this is how contingent are our budget at our current spending levels is going to be on property valuations so if you could just I I'll repeat it you don't need to do it but this isn't a 5% decline in property valuations this isn't a 20% decline property valuations when you look at 25 26 27 if we have a what 2 to 3% increase in property valuations 26 would be a 6% increase in 6% in if we have only a 6% increase we have a deficit say that to yourselves if our property valuations go up only 6% which is a huge number right a huge number we have a deficit at our current expenditures this isn't if covid hits and we have a stress stress test uh expenditures this is our current spending levels and we bring property valuations just down to a modest growth level right right modest not Armageddon modest we start running deficits in one year I pray that we don't encounter this scenario but this isn't some pie in the sky the the Federal Reserve is looking to decrease interest rates and maybe that will help property valuations but think about why they are projected to decrease um interest rates by 150 to 200 basis points is because they're expecting a slowing economy right so to have a 5% property valuation increase isn't an army getting scenario it's something that we should all be considering the Forefront of reminds going forward so all right thank you and I just want to just thank you for for highlighting that um and for highlighting those economic factors and those market conditions that could impact some of our future uh revenues uh from uh from from property taxes because while the growth and property values have provided us with a robust Revenue stream I think we have to remain cautious and and I thank you as the chair of the finance committee for looking out to ensure that our financial planning um does not overly rely on this trend because this trend of property taxes going up um is not and property values going up it's not going to continue uh you know we can't rely on it continuing definitely and we need to rely on a diversity of funding sources but we also need to be cautious about our own internal growth and so just thank you for being so cautious about that thank you all right so we're going to go back to where we were in the presentation we're going to do a small Spotlight on the sanitation fund so each year we try to Spotlight a fund or a department and starting in May at the commission Retreat we did a spotlight on sanitation uh this chart just shows the fund balance analysis that we did back in July uh they have a structurally imbalanced budget which means that their revenues do not support their operating expenses and so we've actually had to wave the city's policy of making sure that every budget their recurring costs are covered by the recurring revenues uh back in July we said we're going to have to use $3.1 million of their fund balance to balance the 25 budget and we had estimated that we would be at a 3 $3 million available fund balance uh we were hoping that the fer would have given us some direction to reduce uh the Gap um but instead we actually got some more enhancements added so we went from that $3.1 million deficit to add in $30,000 for the cap program that is a one-time expenditures and then we did add six full-time positions to help with our pressure cleaning on our residential areas and then we did some um dates on our revenues and expenditures which brought the Gap to $3.8 million so that $3.3 million fund balance is down projected to be at 2.5 by the end of next year and it's just important to note that that's available fund balance above reserves there's around $6 million in reserves set aside for that so you know I think as as we had spoken about um started at the budget Retreat and I know that commissioner bot has been the champion to move forward a number of ordinances and resolutions to address some of those Revenue needs there related to recycling program and the rolloff program and those are going to bring in some dollars not $3.8 million on an annual basis and just you know as as I've mentioned and not to sound like a broken record is when the waste dollar contracts come back we're going to have to have a very serious look at what our franchise fee rate will have to be to end up having a balanced budget but a question how much would you have to raise the franchise fees like how would it affect a household because people are already buckling and now we're going to come in and say you have to pay x amount for Waste but that is kind of scary that we're covering it with the 2 a half million what would we have to do that analysis hasn't been done because everything the waste hollers are are are out I think one's out for procurement and I'm not sure the other ones going on but that would have to be determined I didn't know there was a request by FK and the commission to have Financial an come in and do those studies um so at that time so they're going to look at our deficit and the budget based on that and that's the consultant that we just hired or did work with the budget yeah and we'll work with the budget team to come back with that but as of right now we we don't know what that franchise fee would rate have to be and that's what we mentioned during the retreat was that um we're going to have to look closely at whatever that's going to be too could we offset the cost um on the commercial interest and not necessarily the residents can weed do they have to with the commercial um fees would could we yeah could we increase their cost and not I don't know legality of that that could be determined at the appropriate time I think we can increase the fees on wh you know I'm saying if the reason that we're throwing this party every night okay that we have to clean up and all of our resources are being dedicated in areas where we do have clubs and hotels then they should be the ones paying the extra fees and not residents so if we are going to have any increase I would um I would say that our you know our business Community should pay them because it's not the resident's fault that we're it's almost like every single night we host a party I know that when my son hosts a party in my house when I'm not there I come home and I really want to kill him because it is taxing on everything it's not just removing the dirt it's the wear and tear on our garbage cans and our sidewalks and painting it's like an over I mean it's it's it's it's bad so we we can say to them okay fine you want to stay open fine we're all about you staying open having this party atmosphere but you know what you're going to pay so that we're not going to charge our residents because we're wasting all of our resources or dedicating excuse me wrong word dedicating all of our resources toward the you know Entertainment District just you know from this budget the budget doesn't anticipate any adjustments to the franchise fee at this time that would be dealt with I think there's a FK item where uh that'll be handled but all right back to the presentation so uh all the enhancements that we talked about prior to sanitation were in the general fund so we just wanted to quickly go over the enhancements that we did for other funds so these are all for the police budget they do have a special Revenue fund outside of the general fund so these would be to buy new uh bike equipment for a rapid response team for riots and you know high impact events and then the crime investigation equipment exists right now is outdated and same for the mapping equipment for crime scenes so those would be to replace those outdated equipment and then under transportation and Mobility uh the commission did approve us going back to the residential parking decal program so this is to add some part-time positions in order to help us to roll out this program and to send out new decals to the residents and users uh then we have the beachwalk bike counter program and these are funded from the Transportation fund uh we are planning to add more modes of transportation during art week and then the commission did direct us to add a full-time bicycle pedestrian coordinator position in transportation in our water and sewer uh funds we it's time for us to update our master plan so setting aside dollars to ensure it's timely update of our our master plan and then one plumber position in our Convention Center Enterprise fund and then uh just some other enhancements there's a clean money Beach Grant award uh that went through FK and then the commission uh in the sustainability fund of 45,000 and then a few internal Service uh funds in water and sewer uh related to cyber security uh safety officer uh to it positions and an office associate for water and sewer and that is the enhancements Jason if I could bring uh something up I know we've discussed it I've discussed it with our city manager but I want to bring it up to our colleagues ever since I got elected in 2020 as commissioner U star palman bisca star island has been grappling with a uh light pole issues um certain illumination also defective polls they're 207 of them they've been trying for literally almost 5 years to try to get that corrected my understanding it's a cost of about 300 ,000 the fixtures would be similar to what we've implemented in lak view which uh is tried true and tested unlike the ones there and um I think it's something that we should we should do since we have the ability for these uh one-time non-recurring costs um I think this would be a good project and Mr Mayor would this is actually is the appropriate time to bring that up um there's a couple of things I wanted to mention for the record so we can have that discussion uh a couple of adjustments from opponent budget uh that was published and what we've what we've discussed one item and I'm going to get to the to to how how we could find a way to um fund that item but one item I wanted to just to clear there were two items that were on the September commission meeting that had budget impacts for next year that weren't addressed uh one was uh Pride Park management switching to the parks department and that higher level of management getting the bathrooms open cleanliness and such like that so we're going to adjust the convention center fund budget by 270 to take that into account work with the manager to see how that'll be implemented but just wanted to mention that for the record and the other is there was a resolution to open up a senior uh meals lunch meals program at the Southshore Community Center uh that didn't have any funding for that I know uh community service was up here to discuss that and they would you know try to apply for federal Grant perhaps for the next year but the commission directed to open up immediately so to address that dollars there's actually an opportunity that uh in when I was working with uh Marshall the last legislative director we put together a couple appropriation requests at the state they made it through they were signed by the governor and the and the commission just approved those agreements at the the September commission meeting and looking that there were two Appropriations that come into play in this budget that we can shift Dollars around one is there was a a seniors program that we added to to supplement uh funding um in our Parks area what will happen then is those dollars that $175,000 will get from the state we can fund the existing programs in Parks which frees up for a one-time basis $175,000 and the thought here is we could reallocate those dollars over in the general fund to the Community Services Department which would give them $175,000 to uh begin starting up that program so the commission's okay with that we would incorporate those dollars so we can actually execute the resolution of the commission and get that senior meals program up and running through the commissioner Rosen Gonzalez I was hoping to um let's be clear though that this is not a recurring expense at all it is a one time in the future we will move forward with Federal um funds and is that the cost of the senior lunch 175,000 we've worked with uh we got some estimates uh from the Department uh that range from 175 to the low 200s depending on its kosher meals that was on I think an annual basis but obviously can't be up and running on day one and I think with 175 you know going out getting a provider and everything that that would be sufficient to get us through the year I mean I this is one time and as chair of the affordable housing advisory committee and allowing for ship not ship excuse me c DB see what is it cgbd Community block grant funding sorry um we do get funds every year so these programs in year two will be able to apply for it um how many seniors could we feed with that money because the idea of anybody going hungry in Miami Beach is it doesn't sit well with me actually it was just meeting with Alba today over at the community center to talk about some of these things and the budget would be for 50 people over 12 months but obviously it could be expanded also for the fact that they wouldn't be up and running on October 1st so it would take a little bit of time to go through get a provider and such and it would be based on program could expand as the need would need just to give you an idea right now one of my friends has a farm down south and we go there and we bring avocados and and mangoes and when we do uh people are are grabbing them like crazy literally hungry anytime we have any extra food we bring it to uh the loua apartments and uh this is really to feed those seniors so this is a a one-time thing and I'd like everybody remember that our budget moreover is an ethical document you know and in this budget we've decided that things like education is important we've decided that cultural and arts are important and I think that feeding seniors um we do it in North Beach through Unidad and hopefully we will now that the Southshore Community Center is uh saved hopefully we will do it in this southern end too at least this first year promise we will find funds in your two yeah sounds good so just one sorry sorry I'm not sure why you're looking at me since I support it I've got no issue with it I I actually had a question about about the light poles cuz I have a friend who's involved with this and has been dealing with it for a while my understanding was that the light poles were defective from the get-go they didn't withstand storms they broke easily they were a bit of a nightmare is there any recourse to going back to the original provider of the light bulbs light poles um to recoup at least some of the money that we spent getting them installed in the first place like we should replace them that's not a that's not a I know I had this conversation uh several years ago but I the administration respond yeah if I can well I might have to jump in here but just from the funding perspective there is 575 there is a capital project to replace those 585 that's in the capital project to uh to replace the poll so that's already funded that was in the preliminary recommended budget Mr may I think you may be speaking of the lumer or the the Cobra head that to change out the light but if that might be the item you were speaking about so the polls itself are in our funded Capital program uh but I think it's utilizing the existing uh luminer but I think there's been a request from the palet Hibiscus about doing a more decorative style from the lake view area would come in 300,000 that's not carrying in the pimary budget so I think that's the request commissioner bought not the pole itself but the the light part of it good afternoon David Gomez uh interm director for Capital Improvements the issue with the polls is that they were defective and we're going through the process of replacing those the City attorney is working on a claim against that provider um we would not be able to obtain polls from that same provider for the same reason uh the what the mayor was referring to is that the homeowners association uh has been requesting that we change the luminar the fixtures themselves because of light spill and and other issues so that's what we've been looking at that's the additional ask and we'll and we'll talk about I just have one more item that I wanted to actually I know that was it there is one more item so now it's about how do we fund that and so that item was was $300,000 so I mentioned uh the pride Park and I mentioned the the the switch on the the food and we mentioned the 20,000 decrease in the Miami new drama the reason I'm just so I'm highlighting this is there's people behind me that're taking very close notes so that we update our budget so we need to have an item out tomorrow for the 25th and and have the the ad out there so if you hear me repeating myself that's that's part of what's going on Mr CFO um in my ever ending quest to find numbers to put in without the parenthesis because that means adding money back as opposed to taking away we did it with the firefighters and I I commend them for finding a way to work around reduce the uh expenditure there um how about the Poseidon furry that uh we made a motion and legislative item to unfortunately end that service because I think we all wanted the premise and idea to work uh but I believe that's quite a significant amount that um likely won't be uh needed to be allocated going forward is that somehow reflected here what what happened there is that's a prior year appropriation of one time $600,000 pilot project so uh you know I've spoken to the transportation director about that what would happen is when the final payout and everything is taken care of with claims and everything whatever is left over in that purchase order would be liquidated and would go back into the fund balance of the transportation fund for appropriation thank you so the the item that I want to mention about is in getting to the mayor's item about how you would fund onetime items is we looked at our City's medical and dental fund and we believe that based on high utilization of the employees and it's really that the employees that thank here is I guess they are healthier they've May been engaging our Wellness programs have been been uh been doing well and we are looking at a low set of claims in 2024 we don't know if that'll be a trend that'll be over multiple years but there's an opportunity here uh to take an employee and employer uh holiday uh for the contribution for one month uh again for the employer and the um and the employee side for our major funds for our general employees uh again this is I think due to uh the low claims that we're seeing in that fund and by doing this on a one-time basis this would free up $812,000 uh in the general fund for additional appropriation now uh obviously the recommendation is if it doesn't get utilized that those $812,000 are transferred uh to the payo program to fund unfund uh unmet and unfunded uh Capital needs of which we obviously have sufficient now the mayor just brought up an item uh on that 300 $300,000 um and what I wanted to actually mention was there was I'm sorry there was one other state appropriation that I wanted to mention that did impact the budget uh we had put in there's a a multi-year uh multiphased security Ballard at the beachwalk capital program uh that has been funded through multiple uh South Beach mid Beach and North Beach quality of life funds uh I worked again with the legislative um director we put in an appropriation request and we did receive a state appropriation for that so we have an opportunity to remove uh the uh $453,500 from the beachwalk ballards project in the South Beach quality of life so this would free up dollars in the South Beach quality of life fund and I know um uh commissioner Suarez and then commissioner Dominguez has a question thank you Mr vice mayor Fernandez thank you Mr Mayor um I think what Jason is alluding to is that um I I have been working with parks to possibly get a shade system at the kids park in Lumis Park um it's located right in front of 13th uh Street and I I have some pictures I could put up um this is the this this is the kids park on lumus park it gets really hot and here you can see the sun is like kind of beating down on it it gets so hot that you can kind of smell the the plastic um when it gets really hot that's my kid on the swing that's zie when he was a little younger um go next slide please PJ and so this is the shade system at stowman Douglas they did a phenomenal job there um with with the shade system and um I I been working with Parks uh originally they proposed a a $450,000 system I did my best to bring it down to 300 uh, for a one-time uh expenditure and I think it would add a lot of value to to Miami Beach you know a lot of families come to Miami Beach especially on Ocean Drive and if you're going to take your kids to the park it it should you shouldn't be in boiling hot sun um and this would be the shade system over on the playground and then they also have a separate shade system if you go next slide please for the swings and so um I I've been working with Jason to find some funds for this um and you know I'm going to make a a request with my colleagues to uh put aside this money for for a project like this and if I can add to that these dollars are set aside you know for res you know uh Resort tax eligible area so there could to be touristy areas uh kind of dedicated to that must be for capital projects and this is not moving this is not defunding some other project to make this project happen it's not bumping anything this is just because we were able to acquire estate appropriation they really gave this opportunity and we actually by doing this it uh on the Ballard side it gives the dollars available to make this happen and um a good point portion of the mayor's item he asks for 300,000 it frees up 240,000 um uh to to fund the the mayor's one on palman hibiscus with the other 60,000 can go against the $812,000 so if the commissioner is if the commission is okay with that uh we can make this the sunshade system happen and we can make the mayor's ask on P palman hibiscus happen and the only impact would be really is reducing the $812,000 one time dollars by $60,000 so if the if there's no objections to the commission I think commission and I had a question a resident um texted me and I'm not sure if right now is the appropriate time but I want to get it out there um so on West Avenue um behind West Avenue we have the Baywalk that's slowly getting completed and a particular developer is going to do the Baywalk pieces behind their property but there could be a public benefit well they'll they will pay for additional areas and so the question is if the developer pays for the additional Baywalk portions can those Geo bond funds that were allocated for the Baywalk project be moved to assist with the West Avenue phase three funding shortfall okay uh one we obviously we have to see how that would play out and how much dollars because I know I believe the dollars that are set aside for the the Baywalk on the Geo Bond dollars may not be sufficient so I don't know where it's going to free up those dollars but in general I can't the West Avenue phase three I believe isn't in the same category of that so that might be difficult but again sometimes it's musical chairs of moving $1 to move there so I'd have to I'd have to know the specifics to to see how those chest pieces move around we can talk about it offline sure sounds good um and let me just follow up on that because this year we're funding the design portion for West Avenue phase 3 is that correct correct and so and so the construction and it would be perhaps one fiscal year out I believe we're programmed I think 26 or 27 and we'll be having a an in-depth discussion about our water sewer and storm water program when we look at rates coming in the fall at FK okay so uh so so so it's it relates to the design aspect of of phase three for West AV we're good this year correct let me let me ask you while while we're in the conversation of uh of infrastructure one of the things that that I've been championing since I got elected was the relining of of lines uh in north in North Beach uh and that's also part of our Park View uh Island water quality improvements are we uh does this budget contemplate continue investments in Park View water quality so I believe we funded everything that was requested for Park View so they should be funded and on going yeah I'm not aware of any unfunded uh needs for 25 okay great um and as it relates uh to the area managers um to to get ahead of Resident quality of life concerns that we often receive from the community often times wresters will will contact us about trash about uh broken infrastructure about broken sidewalks about broken lighting and we I believe have a responsibility to be a proactive government rather than a re rather than a reactive government and one of the things that we've discussed is is the creation of area managers does this budget uh contemplate that yes it does it involves three area managers South Beach mid Beach and North Beach and that is fully funded uh as recommended by the Commission in July and is in the preliminary budget thank you um now let me let me ask you this one of the other things that we started discussing uh at the beginning of this fiscal year in October of uh of 2023 uh which I made a referral to to the Public Safety Committee and then the Public Safety Committee discussed uh the separation of area 2 into two separate areas area two of the police department um it was discussed at the Public Safety Committee um the Public Safety Committee uh moved uh in its support and it was supposed to be considered as part of this budget um where are we with that uh I I don't see this anywhere in our documents and something that was discussed at at committee um and we haven't been presented with anything about then there is an uh an enhancement for that I'm not aware of any uh uh recommendation coming out of that went to commission for endorsement to accept their recommendation or an item at uh at firk that would made that a budget priority so that was not contemplated uh in the budget okay um Mr manager let me let me ask you about that because it was a priority of the Public Safety Committee uh um we have a big area of our city that is east of Indian Creek in area 2 geographically and and again this was all discussed at at committee geographically it is limited to access you have very limited access points to that part of of the city you either have 41st Street or you have 63rd Street um and so and so I want to know how are we going to address this because every day there's more demands on the beachwalk it is heavily used uh our Beach uh we we see a lot of uh issues on our beaches uh Beach thefts are prevailment uh you know that is one of the biggest situations that we have are Beach thefts that when you look at our crime statistics correct me Chief if I'm wrong Beach thefts I believe are perhaps the number one crime committed in our city is that correct uh Wayne Jones police chief um good evening May commission um Mr vice mayor I just I'm sorry I was asking um Beach THS that's the number one crime committed in our city is that correct it does to some extent Drive our theft numbers yeah so so we have this area of of of the city that is difficult to access yet because of its limited entry points we get complaints from residents about speeding cars on Collins Avenue we get complaints about residents about the need for more visibility on the beachwalk and we know that we have a public safety need on our beaches because of the amount of beach staffs that we have and so it was a recommend ation of the Public Safety Committee that se that that area two be divided into two areas the area west of Indian Creek and the area east of Indian Creek um what happened to that recommendation why is that not included in this budget someone else so Mr vice mayor um I don't have a good answer for your question as to why this wasn't included in in this particular budget um but what I can commit to you is I will get with our chief I will figure out what is our need and how do we correct any need that we might have in that area understanding that that's a concern of yours I I do worry that if we're going to try to create a fifth full area I think we're going to be looking at a big number um but maybe there's a way to accomplish your goals with something that looks like a hybrid uh that might be able to dedicate resources uh Mr vice mayor and Mr manager that's just precisely my thinking um we have been having internal discussions about this matter uh there are some thoughts we've been kicking around some smart ways we believe may meet your goals and your wishes um without necessarily having a fifth error stood up uh much like analogous to what we do the RDA area where this a supplement to a pre-existing area covering the times of the day and crime is most likely to occur but we do have some thoughts we we have been having some disc internal discussions about it and if you uh could give me some time to get back to you with a feasible plan I'd be happy to get back to you thank you um you know I just I just wanted I just want to make make it clear you know we started talking about this at the beginning beginning of the last fiscal year um and and here we are adopting a new budget and is not Incorporated here um and so am I going to get this information before next week's um next week's uh final budget hearing that would be our plan yes all right uh thank you um Mr maner and thank you Chief I I I appreciate that again this isn't my concern this is the concern of we this is the densest area of our city I I believe you know cins Avenue and we're constantly getting the complaints about speeding the complaints about the beachwalk and the complaints about the beach and the reality is that area is being shared with a very different area which is separated geographically uh and it's it's limited access point so please I would appreciate you all prioritizing this um I had I had um just let me see here there were three points I wanted to highlight uh um of of matters that that that came up number one was Unidad uh that I have mentioned to the city manager uh previously and I think you're you're aware of uh they they manage uh the community center up in North Beach the senior center up in North Beach on behalf of the city they're having difficulties uh hiring a new director for for their senior programming because of increased costs and they were requesting an enhancement of $50,000 uh so that's that's a request that I had shared uh with the city manager and with you Mr CFO um year after year we've been discussing the lighting on Ocean Drive the lighting on Ocean Drive you know I think it's probably the third year that I'm sitting here and this issue comes up and we keep on saying we have a capital project you know we have the zovich plan uh we're we're we're we're engaging in out reach uh to the stakeholders on Ocean Drive and in the uh ACDC or the no the ad CD uh yeah I'll get it right one of these days um the adcd uh to see how we're going to imp implement the the the scage plan in the meantime ocean drives is still lacking this lighting that they've been asking for for multiple fiscal years and I think we need to deliver on this understanding that the capital project uh for Ocean Drive you know how far away is that from from from delivery Mr manager I think we're talking about best case scenario is three years probably more than that that's and that's three years for design or three or three years for for shovels in the ground I will defer to our assistant city manager over Capital Improvements but I think it's approxim imely 3 to four years to shovels in the ground and then and then construction yeah that is correct we're in design right now so okay so you know they've been asking for it for a long time they have expressed to us how necessary this is for the general safety of the businesses uh and those who who who go out to Ocean Drive to to enjoy so that's that's a request um I think we should be considering and lastly it's uh the nor be the the North Beach freebie uh mid beach has the freebie we were able to get uh in part through the collaboration of commissioner Dominguez has been leading uh the reinstitution of the fixed route fixed schedule Route 115 uh from North Beach to Mount Si that fix rout service for for connectivity but that doesn't mean that we should do away with the freebie for the residents of North Beach I think it is a great service that uh that just complements the area and all the other uh public uh Transportation options that we provide them with so those are the three request of items that were not included in in the original document that I've been sharing with the administration over time that I think will be to the Public's benefit for us to consider thank you Mr chair um hi again so I I did get a question here from a resident who is on the police citizens committee and she asked about the peer support consultant for MBP D um because it's so important for the mental health did that make the budget it did not it was it is an enhancement listed it was vetted uh through the process and uh the commission didn't did not add that and then the other question was Lighting on Washington Avenue is it um the case that the property owners are responsible for lighting in front of their business or does the city cover Washington Avenue as well are you speaking of decorative lighting like on the trees or the um the light poles obviously is US Jill according to Troy all of the street lighting that they have on Washington Avenue they take for by their uh committee and the city does not and according to Troy he said that it's the only place on Miami Beach where they have to pay for their own lighting and up upep thank you so I guess a question is this the city pay for lighting in the streets again we're speaking of decorative lighting no a regular lights uh I believe that the city so I can confirm that the city does pay for all roadway and sidewalk lighting Citywide well the exception of County and state roads where they pay for thank you um just briefly comment on that so last year different commission I brought an item that would address a lot of the lighting issues in South Beach it did not uh it did not get through committee I have a feeling we'll have much more success and I brought the item back with this commission but that's uh I believe it's at I believe it's in finance now if I can add some numbers to to some of the items that were were mentioned uh the transportation item that commissioner uh vice mayor Fernandez had brought up uh we would that would not be from the general fund that would be from the Transportation fund uh the transportation fund does have um a surplus that could be able to afford this but just always for the record to remember that we're out for procurement for the major major expense operating expense through that Transportation fund which is the fixed R Trolley system we don't know what those are going to come out so just always just for the record to be very cognizant of adding additional recurring expenditures when those contracts come in and we get that Baseline we you know we might be in a situation where we may have to cut back some existing programs so if the commission is okay we can go ahead and add that expenditure uh whether it's one time or recurring um but I would just we need a little feedback on on that particular item but we can adjust the transportation budget um just need to know if that's recurring or one time and if there's interest in in actually adding it if I may respond um so I think that this is if if we're restoring the service or we're going to continue the service I would imagine we need to operate under the assumption it's a it's a recurring uh cost that that would be you know what I would assume uh I just I just believe a service like this we have it for residents in mid Beach um and you know we we commenced it in North Beach I don't feel comfortable taking away an amenity from our residents the moment we have provided it if anything we should be enhancing and continuing to provide services but I don't like us taking away Services especially when we are entering a phase when we want to enhance uh other modes of transportation encouraging individuals to leave their vehicles at home and use other modes of of Transportation just like align with us funding the bicycle pedestrian position I'm glad we're finally doing this because we finally get to prioritize uh in a true holistic way now we're planning pedestrian aess and bicycle axess and this is along that same spirit so I would say this is more than likely a recurring item y Mr vice mayor uh in terms of the lighting one of my key focuses uh going forward is going to be uh uh facilitating Public Safety through environmental design as we saw this um the operating budget increase from 2015 to 2024 uh it's almost entirely driven by uh Personnel costs a lot of that via public safety we can only continue spending more and more on Personnel for so long we really have to start figuring out how to enhance Public Safety through Urban Design urban planning environmental design and this is one of the key components in doing research into this uh public lighting is such a lwh hang fruit so I think it's something uh we should be looking to uh almost as a costs saer in some ways it is absolutely so okay if I if I could just um to add before I just back is we have a lot of moving Parts here and at the end we get this all done we'll make a summary of this uh there will be uh several items that be read into the record there will be an official vote this is a public hearing that when we're all said and done we'll let the public weigh in but if I could I we dealt with the convention center fund discussion I mentioned uh now uh vice mayor Fernandez brought up a transportation fund item so if I could just to close that out because they're all kind of separate so I want to try and segment this out is I don't not hearing if is there any objections to uh amending the transportation fund Bud budget to include the uh service that the vice mayor is support okay so seeing that support we'll we'll include that and we'll that'll close out the Transportation uh now getting back to uh the one time like we said there was the $816,000 that was uh available in that area uh we dealt with on the um the South Beach quality of life for the sheet system we dealt with the mayor's item related to uh the beach walk I'm sorry not the the palman Hibiscus lighting which we cover 240 60 of that would come from the 816 we are keeping track of all this just you know um the Unidad we're going to get to the Unidad because I believe you had requested that to be recurring and we need to find recurring dollars and I have a I guess we could discuss where we're going to remove a recurring expenditure uh sh mentioned the shade system the oh I'm sorry the decorative Lighting on the west side of Ocean Drive um would come from one time there was a firk item where it was discussed it did not move forward but it's $428,000 on the on the uh first year costs and then um in the second year then there's I think a maintenance cost of like $40 $50,000 required to maintenance in the power for that so um just to put a number beyond that so that would take 428,000 of that 816 would be for this initiative um is I don't know if there's concern if there's interest in for that so that that's one number uh 60,000 pman hibiscus and I'm sorry just going down my list here it's 24 240 yeah 240 is coming up freeing up from Rel to a state appropriation so out of which fund over here in a different fund 60 would have to come from the 816 uh now recurring dollars get this is where it gets difficult because the only recurring dollars we freed up so far $20,000 reduction of the Miami new drama and there's a couple of recurring items that I wanted to mention uh I failed to mention earlier there was an other commission uh September commission item to fund uh Mii day college first generation scholarships at $30,000 there was no funding attached to that uh it wasn't mentioned it was mentioned to be one time but then to be discussed through the budget process so I just need to know is that $30,000 going to come from the 816 and then becomes an enhancement to be discussed through next budget process or is do we want to secure recurring dollars today considering that this is being used to train um our residents for Workforce jobs which has a direct impact and it's getting twice matched by the MDC Foundation this is a huge impact um small amount of dollars what we could do is fund it this first time see what happens in year one and then re assess it doesn't have to be a recurring do it one time we'll bring it back to the table in a year from now and we'll see how many people participated in the program was the foundation able to match by two times how many residents actually did job training because if we do Transition from Hospitality to something else I think one of the most positive things that we could do is offer our residents something else rather than uh working in a bar they can easily get trained at Miami date in cyber security or data management and these are certificates that are available did you know that entire degree at Miami date is $6,000 it is so affordable I actually wrote my PhD in the Balor of applied sciences and our resident if they start to take this training program and that scholarship kicks in by the time they're in semester three they're getting recruited into the job market and they're no longer dependent for example on a lower wage a Hospitality job or on uh you know working in a bar so I think this is a positive movement a positive you know it's it's it's a extremely positive initiative so I think if the this will be a one time to be looked at later um and the commission's already actually endorse this via resolution we can include that coming out of the the 816 which is which is good um looking down my list here uh I think the only one I want to mention before we get into some some additional details is there was an item I think it's in front of commission which I understand as it move forward was a teacher appreciation event uh that was looked at I'm not sure it was one time I think it was commissioner Suarez had an item related that going back to the record and I There's an opportunity to fund that at least for this fiscal year in 25 if they wanted to from the recurring I'm sorry from the one time or to make that recurring um it was the teacher appreciation event um yes um I think the idea was to you bring it back to the October 30th uh meeting I think we talked about that it's on the it is on the um the commission agenda for discussion um and if that end again move forward I think we could just that one time and see how it goes and then if it does well we'll we'll continue it okay we can make that uh work yeah I think the the ask was um Leslie if you don't mind coming up for a second please I think the ask was 15,000 but if we wanted the much better experience it was 20 so for an extra 5,000 I think it it really helped the the event can you speak can you speak to that please sure um Leslie Rosenfeld chief chief education officer so the request from the committee for Quality education was to do a teacher appreciation event similar to what is done for our seniors uh and hosted very well through our Parks uh Department um this event would uh help with recruitment efforts obviously uh we're all aware there is always a challenge for not only our Public Schools our private schools our Charter Schools um for Teacher recruitment so this would support that that effort uh the range of cost is between 15,00 $20,000 yeah and and so if everyone remembers you you I just I hate to name names but you know you have the Liliana Martinez that have notoriously been around these these senior uh meetings I think it would be nice to have one for the for the students and teachers for Miami Beach we don't have that so i' I'd love to have that event at one time see how it goes and then if we make it recurring it'd be great okay okay okay are you doing the baseline or the much better experience um U if you Mr Mayor if you don't mind so just for the shade system is are you doing this as like a bulk um package or do we do I need to make a motion in a second for this or I think what I'm we're taking I'm taking feedback as I'm seeing it positive and negative we're making good notes Here summ Yeah I'd like to make a motion to to fund that shade system for this budget hearing so and we're going to we just we're going to make a universal again for the record for the the people important people behind me taking very close notes we're going to keep one big summary I think in hearing every and so that I I'm going to mention everything again if there's anything but there's one item we just have one mismatch at this point there's a request for $50,000 in recurring uh for Unidad but we only freed up $220,000 in recurring dollars with the decrease in the Miu drama uh there could be an opportunity because we need a in that case $330,000 in additional recurring dollars um there are two funded I know I had discussions because we've we' you know in all our briefings this has come up about some recurring dollars is there are two um Detention officers that were in there the original enhancement request was was for was for one uh we could phase this in and do one this year and then reevaluate and see if through next year if we reduce that down to to one that would free up the dollars for on the rec curring basis um so if the commission is okay with that we could reduce uh from two to one additional Detention officers and that would be able to make that happen if I'm hearing if it's everyone okay with that you know um we've been talking about very valid um suggestions for things that didn't quite make the cut or somehow slip through the cracks one way or the other um I I have two things one if we do this teacher party is it teachers or teachers and students is it teacher appreciation it's for both well it's for both just teachers I believe it would be for all my understanding of it is that all the teachers um which there are many uh right but not it's not a student and teacher it's teachers no that would be thousands of people okay so I would like to request that if this is a thing that happens that it is um for teachers they're invited guest or whatever the the right thing is and anybody who is current staff or Administration or elected official but it is not a campaign event if you're looking for votes this is not the place to go I don't want to see people's literature none of that nonsense no operatives no delegates no proxies let's celebrate teachers let's pay them the homage that they deserve since we have little control over other things that we can pay them and not make this a feeding trough for for people who might be running for who knows what county position or whatever I mean I was so taken back at the last event where people who had nothing to do with Miami Beach we here so I want that I don't know if that's Rick I don't know if that's an issue of legality but this is you know it's time to end the feeding trough for for operatives we should well that's it that's already come we've already got something along lines in process but for this one which is a new thing I would like to make that a stipulation but the other thing I wanted to um to raise is you know and I'll let the police chief talk about this um if he if he wants to but the reason why the ask was for two Detention officers is because we know we're having trouble recruiting and we know there's a demand for officers on the street visible doing their their thing and we also know that if you arrest some um you could be off the streets for 30 minutes or 8 hours it depends on what happens and so we want to keep our sworn officers where they serve the public the best so I would not be super psyched to Le to lose two detention offices this year I will defer to the chief but I I I would suggest that it would be um if we do one this year and one next year the one next year needs to be like the starting point of next year's budget all right I'm done commissioner B thank you so much I think you summed it up quite well for us uh as you know we've had conversations about this in the past from time to time when our police officers supplementing our Detention officers transport bad guys and bad girls to the jail um the processing time could be quite lengthy and it varies quite frankly on what's happening at a jail at any given time and so it can range anywhere from minutes and in the best of circumstances to hours in the worst circumstances and so the idea of having more Detention officers the uh uh transporting these arrestes to the jail really allows our police officers to spend more time detroying our streets and thank you commissioner bot for raising that um I want to find that funding as well but not at the expense of Public Safety which uh I kind of ran to the back and asked the chief and I it it sounds like it would hurt a little bit to not have the two then I guess we we're open the suggestions on additional cuts from the recurring budget so so that's a no on on reducing it to uh from two to one then we're going to have to take some time to go through uh and find additional cuts and I'm not sure if the commission has any inkling there or if the unit ad would be willing to be at 20,000 recurring and if that be sufficient so we would come back you're asking come back on the 25th with $30,000 and recurring cuts from another program okay thank you um yeah I mean listen you guys know the different Revenue sources that we have we have tons of Revenue funds uh you you know you look at our budget there's like three pages on Revenue sources there and so I don't I don't expect those to identify here um live on television uh what what the um what the revenue source is going to be that's uh that's uh that's your job and I trust you in it and I'm sure between now and then if there's a feasible uh funding source uh you'll let us know uh of it in the meantime I do you know there is 20,000 now available uh because at the end of the day these are individuals with food insecurities uh in the majority of them reside in North Beach and there is a legitimate need for it and the person that administers this uh this program for the elderly in our community resigned they're in the process of hiring someone new but they can't uh find anyone that uh that is willing to do it at the salary uh just because it's the salary is so low uh and they're providing these services on behalf of the City they have a management agreement with the city to to provide this and so for now you know let's set aside that 20,000 and hopefully between now in the 25th uh you can identify another uh funding source uh for for the balance so if there's sorry just one more question um there was an item that was voted on a few months ago um $105,000 total for travel for if that it that's recurring use uh that is that is a recurring that is a listed enhancement of 105,000 per year so what happens to that money if it doesn't get used uh it could be it would be roll into the fund balance your your end uh I'm not sure if you're alluding to the 30,000 short on Unidad to short that enhancement to fund the fully fund the Unidad or not but well I mean just if if it doesn't get you in my day when I ran a p&l if you didn't use your money it went back to the bottom line and it got really realloc or lose it and so you know can we look at that next year and if if it's not being used as the Hope was that it would be used uh or it doesn't need to be as big an amount as it was could that be something that we could play with for 26 uh if that's what the commission's direction is to look at that through there I didn't know if you were bringing that up to help fund well I mean can we look at it for well the program hasn't started yet so I don't have any data to tell you whether and I know commissioner her once the chime in but uh I to tell you whether 105,000 is sufficient or it could be shorted by $30,000 to uh to to to $75,000 and then fully fund the unit at proportion I I couldn't tell you oh can I um I would like to correct the record on this because this was primarily for tickets for nonprofits in our community for example the other day I got a invitation to attend a 501c3 favella and in the past the mayor's office and the mayor's budget has always covered those expenses but I to my shock and surprise about a month ago uh Jewish Community Services was having something I I believe it was $50 I said I'd like to attend this event and I was told by the mayor's office no we're not uh purchasing any tickets and I know that several of us so this was not necessarily about travel this was about supporting 501 c3s in our community it is not about travel if you wanted to use something for some sort of professional development you could this is about tickets for nonprofits in our community why do we have to do that because I'm a community college professor and I get a lot of requests to attend events and by the way some of the events I don't even attend but I purchase the ticket I give it away excuse me wait because I want to stop this whole narrative surround Chief of Staff just told me what you just said it's completely inaccurate my chief of staff just informed me you had these conversations with Veronica Co my chief stff she just told me what you're saying is completely inaccurate well we have it on an email so anyway I was told that I could not attend this Jewish Community Services event it was $50 per ticket um I think we had a whole actually we have a whole thread you can go back and you can check it we have it in black and white um why don't you bring it up as a slide why don't you bring it up as an exhibit please stop cutting off my microphone because that's not what this is about this is about the narrative that this money was for travel when this money is for supporting the nonprofits in our community so when if I need to buy a ticket to attend something and in the past customarily the mayor's office has always said yes and all of a sudden and I can actually ask this question right now um Jason and T were we not told that the mayor's office was no longer uh purchasing tickets for certain events nonprofits in was I not was I told yes or no I'm sorry we have it in email I mean I think you know I know there was a lot of discussion back and forth related to that and and it was a whole email CH yeah there was there's a whole email chain so what but the point is I'm sorry we're being Stewarts with the taxpayers money I I I apologize to everyone that we're actually watching the money carefully from our taxpayers yeah well this is not about uh first of all I do think that it is against Robert's Rule to be able to control the microphone because if I wanted to object I couldn't if I wanted to say something I I would not be able to I would like a legal opinion on Robert's roles and the ability to control a microphone system so that somebody can get cut off mid-sentence because I don't see you cutting anyone else off mids sentence but I I need to dispel this narrative that is being pedal everywhere that this was about travel because it is not for one final time and so far I purchased tickets to a PTA event with that money um with my allocation because the mayor's office might have said no I purchased two tickets to the flla event which is to support the homeless because the mayor's office might have said no if I wouldn't have gotten us each an allocation to be able to support the nonprofits in our community and that is why I allocated that money it was altruism it was not about travel through the chair if I may um so I did not mean to take over the Hornets Nest my question was whether it's for travel or or tickets or whatever that's not the point the point is that there is an amount of money that was allocated what happens if it doesn't get used up and can it be used for other things what so I don't I don't want to get into the discussion of who said excuse me excuse me excuse me I'm speaking excuse me my point is not to relitigate a decision that was already made months ago my question was about if the monies don't get used where do they go can they be reappropriated can they be modified if you know the the thought was 15 uh 15 grand per person or whatever the number was was the right number but actually when the year is over it turns out that people only needed five grand then like I I was just trying to find a few extra dollars I do not want to get into this conversation about how people are spending it that individuals can take it up amongst themselves that is not the function of a budget review the function of the budget review is where can we shake pennies out of the the sofa cushions to try to fund everything that comes up last minute so if we could with all due respect move on from the the litigation of who said what when in emails and just talk about can we find an extra 30 grand to do something that we are all United and feeling is the right thing to do I would really appreciate that Mr Mayor Fernandez has his hand raised then commissioner Suarez and then commissioner Rosen Gonzalez thank you and so let me just make sure I understand what was the intent of the of the funding here uh because I think you know let's just go back to the situation at hand the situation at hand was there was a promotions budget that God depleted this commission the mayor and this Comm commission inherited a depleted promotions budget and correct me if I'm wrong uh Mr Mayor that is correct okay so because of that we had been making requests to the mayor's office and because the budget was depleted there's only so much that the mayor's office can do with a depleted budget responsibly and and so there was pretty much no funding available correct me if I'm wrong Mr Mayor correct and so then an item was brought and that item in essence helps us now fund these activities you know if we need to go to you know Florida League of cities uh conference if we need to go to a Mami day League of cities conference if JCS has an activity Etc but but from my understanding that budget got depleted once I don't you know we're not going to be dealing with this situation year after year it got depleted one time we came in youed uh our colleagu sponsored an item to make funds available but that was a one-off situation because we had a transition in the office of the mayor one mayor was term limited um a new mayor came in this mayor inherited a budget that was lower than what usually one has available funding was influxed into it to get us through the needs of the fiscal year but do we need that on a recurring basis and I and and I think that's the question do we need this money that was approved on a recurring basis considering the fact that we're not going to be dealing with a deplete do we anticipate to be dealing with a depleted budget like what we had the situation we had this year I don't think so and so and so so that's where uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez I think the funding that you set aside made sense for this year because of the unique circumstance of the budget that was inherited that was depleted but that's not going to be the situation on a recurring basis year after year and so that's that's my feeling on it we all inherited something that was depleted but it doesn't mean next year we're going to need this $110,000 again commissioner Suarez thank you Mr Mayor look um I just want to make sure that we are all on the same page here okay we all we all want to do the right thing um and so you know I I think it's important that you know the our City attorney does answer that question when it comes to who has the floor um and and we put it out to to the public um you know because I remember specifically in our very first meeting uh with the mayor um you know he said to me when we were on a certain item you know I'm the mayor I have the floor always and I think that's important to to to to let everyone know that's the case or it's not the case so can can we come to a consensus and sort of nip this in the bud um on on the microphone use because I I I am unaware of of the exact rules for Robert rules and I do not want to see my colleagues uh continue to argue it makes us all very uncomfortable um and you know we want to make sure that we're we're moving forward in a very constructive dialogue so uh Mr City attorney if you can please uh shed some light on that thank you's no the mayor has the right to establish order in the meeting so there's no specific Roberts rule that addresses that but the right to control the mic would be part of that um first of all there's always an impetus and a reason why legislation arises and the only reason why I propose this legislation was because I asked to attend the Jewish Community Services I was told no and then I saw that the mayor attended and I found that that was very awful so what I decided to do was give everybody the freedom to not have to depend on being told yes or no by the mayor or the chair and the freedom to choose which nonprofits they would like to support and that is why I did it and by the way in order to do it and give you each person the freedom to do this I was beaten up um there's this narrative about travel when that's really not what it says it's mostly tickets and the tickets are because I wish I wish I were super wealthy I love the fact that I'm a workingclass um person because I can Advocate because I have an understanding that other people don't so if I had the money to purchase all these non-for-profit tickets and support the community I would I would not have passed it but after many years in office I am not going to let the mayor's office pick cherry pick what I can attend and what I can't attend or have the mayor attend something and pay a ticket for that but then I don't get to attend so that is where the legislation came from I don't care what you do after this year but I would caution you that this at least allows you to choose what you want to attend by the way no no no no no no I'm gonna speak see now I'm being cut off by the way now I'm cutting now I'm getting cut off fine I no let me let me just I don't even know what dinner JC I don't even know what you're referring to but the bottom line is by the way let's let's mention the taxpayers page for your trip to Basel Switzerland that I approved that I approved that trip no I'm not finished every sing by by by the way I I go to many many charity events that I do not seek reimbursements I don't even know what this JC is thing is but I pay out of my own pocket because and I'm not wealthy I am not a wealthy person um but the the city has its limits there many of these events we didn't even have the budget for at the time because of what commissioner Fernandez I don't know why we're wasting our time though even arguing about this um now we get to defend myself no I I I urge my colleagues we have 80 some thousand residents and millions of visitors and we are in the cusp of discussing and passing a billion budget and where does that money come from taxpayer dollars and we're sitting up here executing and conducting personal tax on microphone usages I have my seven-year-old daughter I brought here because I was so proud the chair of finance committee passing government budget and have her see how government works and I've become embarrassed embarrassed this is what we're discussing when we have a billion dollars of taxpayer money at stake I say this to myself and all of us this isn't directed to any single person let's get on with the people's business today tomorrow yesterday next week enough of these personal Petty at your throats we are up here representing people representing our community this is not about us anymore right we're serving a greater good so let's all take a deep breath and not conduct our own businesses our own Affairs let's get back to conducting the people's Affairs the people's business and please let's move forward discussing this billion dooll budget perhaps the most important meeting that we're going to have the entirety of the year and let's move forward on that not make it about us let's make it about the people in our community can I can I excuse me excuse me I may I through the chair may I I have um Liz can you come up for a quick second I think you're back there someplace no should left Liz has left the building oh Liz Liz is back in the building I'm here I'm here um the Southshore Community Center yes back it's back and better than ever but it needs an elevator repair that was not contemplated because we thought it was going to not be back and at some point in the not too distant future it's going to need as the programming increases it's going to need a chiller upgrade that's correct how much of those funds are in the 2025 budget and how like I know we need the elevator right away to activate the upstairs the chiller might not it might not be necessary until 2026 because I think we've already spoken about that so I actually will defer to Jason but those two things are our our priorities um to activate the Southshore Community Center but are they are already Jason can you answer my question can you articulate my question for me please my understanding is those those two apps have had this discussions uh with facilities actually just toward the facility today uh it was about two it was $250,000 for those two items uh and looking at our budget balancing spreadsheet and Magics over here we do believe if the commission is acceptable because it's onetime dollars we would have sufficient capacity to fund those two Capital Improvements through the cro program with a transfer so uh if the commission is okay with that we can fund both of those capital projects with these one time dollars the 816 I talked about okay okay that's and I'm hearing any opposition to that okay we'll add it thank you than you excuse um thank you very much commissioner magazine for refocusing all of us I would like to mention that number one I did not bring up this item I had to defend myself and furthermore um mayor the city of Mii Beach how many years has bosel been around Eric 20 I think we're approaching our 21st anniversary have we not sent a delegation to Basil with an elected official every year I don't know the answer to that I'm pretty sure it's a yes and I would like to mention that the mayor's Chief of Staff accompanied me to Basel Mr CFO can we have you uh um I'll put this ball in your court if we can get back on track and uh move forward here I'm sorry I missed the question easy Direction just get us back on track and bring this meeting home are we ready to vote I think that there's the opportunity to fund that 30,000 I I think through that reduction that 105 to 75 I know there was a lot of debate on that if we could bring it back that way I think that would land the plane and give give that uh in there is the commission okay with that I will if it is I will summarize all the adjustments at once and we're going to leave it there because I we have to open it up for a public hearing at a certain point Mr Mayor just just a question because I don't want to impact everyone else's you know allocation that was already adopted by the city commission when the city commission increased the compensation of the of the elected officials the to the total compensation I opted out from that that's budgeted in the city's budget but I opted out from receiving the increased compensation so perhaps that money can be if um I don't know if it's possible it's not possible I see T once you opted out we didn't include your allocation in the budget for 25 oh okay so you already moved you got my my money my salary you already moved to somewhere else so I mean so so just the summar that's okay we can make the unit add the 50 and reduce the 105 to 75 and that would B balance the budget my colleagues all right so I'm going to summarize so we can move on and T will keep me on track here we talked about the convention center the Transportation fund will be amended to take care of the freeat north beach that commission vice mayor Fernandez mentioned uh on the recurring basis uh we reducing 20,000 for the myu dram to match the resolution and 30,000 of the 105 for the commission which would allow us to increase unit ad 50,000 on a recurring basis uh then we added uh the employer uh Medical Dental holiday for one month which would free up $816,000 in the general fund of those would be allocated to have the decorative Lighting on the west side of Ocean Drive at $428,000 uh it would have $60,000 of the $300,000 needed to deal with the uh pal and Hibiscus Island um uh aesthetic lighting of which 240 would come from another funding source that was freed up through estate appropriation uh let me keep going down my list here the $250,000 set aside in the crr program for the Southshore Community Center elevator and generator program uh this is one time the Mi college first gen scholarship 30,000 one time 15,000 teacher appreciation uh one time and then the sun shade through the South Beach quality of life at $300,000 that summarize everything convention center and I mentioned the convention center adjustment so those are all of the items uh I believe that the commission has requested we've debated and I think we've landed so we can move to the next step and we're keeping the two um police Detention officers we're not touching the two police Detention officers so that's where are with the summary and I'm going to ask Tama if that's where we are um public hearing or yes I I think the first thing that needs to happen is the reading of the titles for the millage care of that so item r7a is a resolution of the mayor City Commission of the city of M Beach Florida adopting one the tentative at the L milit of 5.85 22 Mills for fiscal year 2025 for General operating purposes which is 9 and 610 % more than the roll back rate of 53395 Ms and The Debt Service millage rate of 02959 Ms subject to a second public hearing to consider the milit rate for fiscal year 2025 on Wednesday September 25th 2024 at 501 this is a public hearing there is no one in the audience wishing yes sir so there is no one in Zoom wishing to speak we have one individual in the audience please state your name name address and you have two minutes hi my name is Troy Wright director of Washington Avenue business improvement district um Washington Avenue obviously we know is in Desperate shape we need beautification and something that many of you may not know that Washington Avenue does pay for the decorative lighting going down the medianum Washington Avenue from 5th all the way to 17th in addition we pay for the lighting um on Espanola Way East this is and we don't have a big budget at all obviously this is something that um I brought before some of you and not before all of you which I apologize but we definitely need help with the lighting it's only $36,000 a year um but it's something that we need if we do not have or not able to renew our contract within the next two months there will be no lighting decorative lighting down Washington Avenue it will make a huge difference it will be dark I guarantee you it will be dark down Washington Avenue so then what happens it becomes safety concern and then the police will have to be concerned so if there's any way if there's finances available to help offset the cost um for Washington Avenue or to pay for the decorative lighting similar to what happens on 41st Street and all the other lighting programs that you have I think Washington Avenue deserves that help we need that help and um yes that's all I have to say for now but if you need more information more details about it I'd be more happy to give you that but I think out of all the places we need a lot of help with lighting thank you thank you hi commissioner thank you I'll be brief Daniel seral with Miami Design preservation League I want to thank you all uh for your support with the arts and culture funding we know that it was a last minute situation uh that happened in July but we believe that with the support of the city we can continue our operations these grants are for our general operations and so they go towards some of the less sexy things but we will will take on your challenge to develop a new program I'm even thinking maybe of a Morris Lapidus popup at a certain Community Center exhibit uh but we'll keep working on that hopefully we'll get uh the full support of the commission at the next meeting and just in general I want to thank you for your stewardship of this very important budget I remember coming here in 2011 to the budget hearings things were a little different then and I know it's thanks to all of your work and the city that we are where we are so thank you Howard Herring New World Symphony I Echo that thanks especially to commissioner bot commissioner Fernandez who put this forward but all of you who have listened carefully to us and thought through this problem is a particular problem a specific problem State of Florida decide decided to do what it did culture in this community is growing it's thriving it's going to make us a better Community it's a better place to live a better place for our children to grow up all of that we know so I adopting a strategy that will build us into an even more vibrant cultural Community is a good idea but I just want to talk about the Practical side of this quickly in 1979 there was a property at in the 700 block on the north side of Lincoln Road that turned over for $1 a square foot you remember Lincoln Road in 1980 some of you do and what happened after that Miami City Ballet new symphony the south Florida I always forget the name South Florida Art Center Regal Cinema books and books all of a sudden there's a reason to come to Lincoln Road and all of a sudden the property values began to grow there was more to the story than that but there's five Cultural Arts organizations that established themselves and recreated Lincoln Road which is leading to the recreation this community so I thank you for considering this uh one-time funding and I hope that we can get it passed next time thank you so may I call the let's call the vote I have a motion from commissioner by Fernandez seconded by commissioner SS all in favor r7a please say yes yes motion passes 70 may I read r7b yes yeah r7b r7b is a you're out of time out of time r7b is a resolution of the mayor City Commission of the city of b beach 4 adopting the tenative budget for the general G Debt Service City Center RDA ad valorum taxes North Beach C ad valorum taxes Enterprise internal service and special Revenue funds for fiscal year 2025 subject to a second reading public hearing scheduled on Wednesday September 25 2024 of 5 1 p.m. this is r7b it is a public hearing I see no one in the audience wishing to speak and this will be as amended based on the Amendments that I described move it I have a motion from commissioner Suarez second of viice Mayor Fernandez all in favor please say I I motion passes as amended second reading public hearing for all these items is Wednesday September 25th this item and the previous one will be heard at 50:1 p.m. R r7c is a resolution of the board of directors of the Normandy Shores local government neighborhood improvement district adopting the tentative advore and millage rate of 0.778 night Mills for fiscal year 2025 for the Normandy Shores local government neighborhood improvement district which is 5 and 410 per more than the roll back rate of 0.73 87 Ms subject to a second reading public hearing schedule for Wednesday Wednesday September 25th at 5:02 p.m. for the record we're reconvening we're recessing as a Miami Beach commission and convening as the board of directors of the normaly shores local government neighborhood so there's no one in the audience that wishes to speak it is moved by commissioner Fernandez vice mayor Fernandez seconded by commissioner Suarez all in favor of this item I the item is approved oh the other way around it's okay whatever got it so it corrected it is commissioner SAR made the motion vice mayor Fernandez seconded all in favor was 70 second reading public hearing is scheduled for Wednesday September 25th at 502 p.m. one sec oh one more one more so the next item is r7d the resolution of the board of directors of the norm Shores local government neighborhood improvement district adopting the tentative operating budget for fiscal year 2025 subject to a second public hearing scheduled on Wednesday September 25th at 5:02 p.m. it is a public hearing there's no one in the audience requesting to speak moving second I have a motion from commissioner Sor seconded by vice mayor Fernandez uh all in favor please say I I I item passes 70 second reading public hearing is Wednesday September 25 at 50:2 p.m we are now reconvening again as the city of Mi commission meeting we're now doing r7e which is a resolution of the mayor and City Commission of the city of May beach adopting the tentative Capital Improvement plan for fiscal year 2025 through 2029 and adopting the city might reach tentative capital budget for fiscal year 2025 subject to a second public hearing schedule on Wednesday September 25th at 5:03 p.m. this is a public hearing there's no one in the audience requesting to speak I'll move it I have a motion from Comm commissioner stare second vice mayor Fernandez all in favor please say I I item carries 70 second reading public hearing scheduled for September 25th at 50:03 p.m. there are no other items great I want to thank my colleagues um as I started this meeting show me where you put your money and that's where your priorities are we're putting quality of life putting Public Safety we have street cleaning items pressure washing law enforcement dealing with the homeless education initiatives we're adding prosecutors Detention officers and much more we kept arts and culture thank you arts and culture we kept the tax rate flat um and we incorporated a lot of the commments we heard from our residents in our survey and feedback that's the items you're seeing that our commission is focused on was directly we hear you we heard you and we're implementing it and a special thank you to our budget and finance chair commissioner Joe magazine who really uh it's it's it's not an easy job running that that meeting and working together with our CFO and our city manager to make sure that our city is running fiscally responsibly and and you're doing a great job so thank you okay meeting adjourned thank thank you for