Oh my gosh, this is going to be great. So, I always get very excited when anybody asks me about my job and where I work and what I do. It's not a secret that I love working for the city of Northport. I worked for Charlotte County and I felt that I needed to do something
different and I wanted something more and I wanted to offer my skills. So, I told my friend, I'm I'm don't know what to do and I was thinking about my next steps and she said, "Maria, did you think about applying to a job at the city of Northport? They have a different vibe here." And she says, "I'd love it."
And I said, "Oh, I didn't think about that." So, I applied and everybody There we go. Today's Monday, June 16, 2025. It's 9:00 a.m. We're in city chambers. And I call the city commission workshop meeting to order. Commissioners
present are commissioner Dva, Mr. Langden, Mayor Stokes, Vice Mayor Emerich, and Commissioner Pro. There's quest there's a quorum present for the meeting. Also present, city manager Fletcher, interimm city attorney Goolan, city clerk FA, board specialist Lane,
uh I think we got Captain King back there and fire Chief Titus. Uh Caitlyn, you want to do us the honor of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty andice for all. City clerk, any general public comments? John Cresbach, followed by Susan Balmer and Pam Tokars. Good morning um
commissioners, city manager, gentlemen and ladies. Uh my name is John Krepach. I own property in Northport and am I and am not a resident. I cannot vote on referendums,
but I am financially affected by commissioner and staff decisions. I have the following comments. The new was approved in late 2024. The main reason for this approval was to
increase tax revenues by converting 9,000 residential and duplex lots in Southeast Northport to commercial zoning, an area now designated activity center 6 and 10.
Are the commissioners aware how many commercial projects have been presented to the Northport Development Review Committee for AC 6 and 10 from November 2024 to May 15, 2025.
two and after talking with those two applicants, I believe the actual project count is less than two. At this rate, AC6 and 10 will be fully developed in 2,250
years or in the year 4,275. Now, I understand that the city of Northport needs to pay for deferred maintenance and new projects. Two, Northport homeowners want property tax
relief. Three, Northport vacant lot owners want to develop their property rather than incur a 22% average annual tax hike with idle property. I believe all parties will benefit if
the city of Northport implements a variety of common sense ideas which will be discussed at a later time. Right now though, the uldc rewrite for AC6 and 10 creates the opposite effect on city
revenues by banning residential development and making it cost prohibitive for commercial development due to costly mandates and tighter restrictions. What I see is a lose-lose lose path for
the city of Northport homeowners and lot owners. Why not choose a win-win-win path? Commercial landowners association has a number of solutions to offer. 2,250 years or 32 generations from now
is a long time to wait for Northport to be fully developed. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. um you asked us to um
to try to be more um to work with you on budget. So, we reached out to citizens and um just like to say as you look at the budget issues, I'd like to ask you to think about how you can better educate and involve citizens. What else
can we do to give citizens and what can citizens do to help you with tools that examine um the budget like from home? Some citizen concerns we heard were the short time that commissioners have to
review the recommended budget only six days in order to ask questions and make informed decisions. Uh two, the significantly lower 8.68% 68% property taxable value and that um was brought up
in the city manager's editorial. Three, commercial revenues projected by the ULDC. Um the changes are significantly based on infrastructure that's not in near future plans. Four, property tax
increases. Five, truth and population projections and needed increases in services. Six, um, millage rates. Seven, uh, funding, um, projected by increases in, uh, budget items covered by sir tax.
Eight, the reclassifications of jobs and the speedy salary increases that have been happening recently. So, we're looking at what is justifiable, what happens if funding is not there for projects on the basis of companies that
just don't happen. These are all very valid concerns. Something else I think you might need to think about in the future is to revisit and review current health insurance coverage. Northport's new hospital,
Sarasota Memorial, will not be accessible to city employees with the coverage that you have now. This seems kind of embarrassing. Um maybe it's time to look at new options. Um I ask you to work this year uh with
the perception that what puzzles me in understanding the government uh uh the budget also needs to be explained to the citizens. How can we in the future work together um with citizens um on the budget? How
can we help each other? Thank you so much for all the work that you are doing. Thank you. Hi Pam Topars. Uh for the gentleman with the activity center 6 and 10, are you I don't know if you're aware that there's a infrastructure meeting next uh
Wednesday the 25th. Yeah, because what we need F do DOT to get that exit in and then you guys are good to go. Um I I'm going to I did uh we had a group of people that got together and we reviewed the budget as best we could. Uh we took an Excel spreadsheet and I sent some of the we whittleled it down. You're
welcome to a few questions that we had um and we uh took into consideration uh the year to date and uh other future uh projects that the city had. So those were some of our questions that had in regards to the benefit package. I used to work at a nonprofit hospital. It's a
hard conversation to have because health care is usually the biggest increase in the budget and I believe that Sigma that does the administrative because we're self-funded is going up 15% this year. So like Susan mentioned, Sigma's not taken at um Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Has not been taken since I think uh either 2019 or 2020 was when they um had the contract dispute and they've never renewed it since then. So, there's Etna, Blue Cross, and United Healthcare. Um, I know you guys can't do it for this year, but next year maybe considering going to
a cheaper health insurance, and I believe Etna might be the way to go, and United Healthcare is a close second uh for that. And some of the other things to considerate consider based on the health care is maybe in the future the city might want to uh look at increasing
the um cost that the employees contribute to the um health health insurance and also maybe prrating it on salary so that someone that's making less than another uh person in the uh in the city that makes more won't be as
affected that. And that's what I got. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. Moving to general business. A25-2391. Uh discussion possible direction regarding the fiscal year 2026. City
manager recommended budget. City managers. Your item. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh we do have a PowerPoint that we're going to walk you all through, but first of all, we want to say good morning and thank you for being here. And I know that this is a lot of information um for our two newest commissioners. It is certainly uh maybe
more than you had um expected, but it's a lot of good information. There's a lot going on with the city. We're at a critical point in our life cycle. And I think that the information that we're going to share with you and some decisions that we have made to move the city forward and the very limited and
constrained circumstances that we have are very well worth a good discussion. But as we know, there's there's consequences of all of our decisions. So, we just need to make sure that we're as comfortable as possible as we move forward and lead the city to the next
phase. All right. If I can get the PowerPoint up. Oh, thank you very much. And so, as it relates to our mission and our vision, uh you as a commission determine the vision of what we want our community to be. And it is our job to go execute on said mission and provide
exceptional service for the entire community while we do so. um your your vision is based on the strategic pillars that you have decided upon. If you recall when you had a meeting uh retreat, excuse me, with Doug Thomas from SDR in the winter, we had six
pillars. We added the disaster uh response pillar and it's very timely. We added it since there is some uncertainty at the federal level as to how our disaster recovery will uh be handled going forward. When you sort of look at our pillars,
safe community um priorities provide attention and effective staffing to ensure a high level of services and response time for our public safety. Pretty straightforward. Uh one of the most important pillars as we consider life preservation uh one of our top duties as a government when we talk
about quality of life and its pillar we all always want to make sure that we encourage cultural, musical, entertainment activities. We want to make sure that we can um have resources to expand our amenities and we also want to protect and preserve environmentally sensitive lands um as well as our
resources. So our quality of life is the reason why our citizens love to be here and why our community keeps growing economic development and growth management. This pillar has gotten more attention in the last few years. Uh I
think we're heading in the right direction. still have work to do as we talk about making sure that we have programs that are in partnership with those who share a similar outcome. And we'll talk a little bit about more of that as it relates to small business as
we go forward as well. The environmental resiliency and sustainability pillar is highlighted by our natural resource division. uh what they've done. They just briefed you recently here in the chambers as to their efforts and what we expect out of
them going forward in the next fiscal year. Uh we know that the revenues are there to support the division and its efforts. So we're we're confident that the community will continue to benefit from their existence. Infrastructure and
facilities integrity. This is a challenging one, not one that we haven't discussed over the last year or so. We know that um whether it was the referendum items that were included, whether it was the 20-year CIP plan that we've discussed, whether it's the
10-year CIP plan that you will review uh over the next day or so, it is a priority. Deferred maintenance is not something that um is unique to the city of Northport or any city government, but at some point we have to stop and pay
and take care of the infrastructure that we need to service the citizens. Um and unfortunately um the cost of everything has increased. So the cost of us doing what we need to do to take care of the city will fill that as well. Good governance. Um we always want to
make sure that we provide convenient modern and uh using technology to help both inside and outside of your government. Um this pillar of good governance is one that we do not take lightly. We always want to make sure that we not only continue to have the
highest levels and the quality staff for those who work in the office but for those who work outside the office. And those come with different challenges and we'll talk about some of those as well as we move forward. But we also want to make sure that we recognize that we have
put together a budget for the last um six years if including this one for the millers rate that has stayed the same. So you you take that and you add that with the growth that we've had as a city and then you have a combination of where your good governance starts to show itself.
the disaster response and recovery management. Um completing a post hurricane eman review and emergency program and procedures has been very important. Um Mr. Lucio has done well in the months where we were not in hurricane season and now that we are in
hurricane season. Everyone is um preparing and bracing for what what may be a similar season to last year. We hope not in terms of volume, but as far as damage goes, I'll remind everyone that we were very fortunate last year during the three storms that came
through our area to not experience as much impact as our neighbors to the north did. So, as we start this we start this budget process, we want to highlight that we are celebrating our history. We celebrated 65 years last year, which was
a milestone for the city. And as we move forward, we're excited about the things that are going to happen, but we are very proud of how we got here today. Um, we believe that our community engagement and our services that we allow to
empower our citizens are going in the right direction. When you think about the North Point University, it just received a national award um, which was great by the National Association of Government Communicators. We're very proud of what our communications their
team did and their vision in order to make sure that we can we lead the way with how we interact with our citizens. Uh one thing that growth will bring you is the need for improving our roadways. Uh we improve our roadways to ensure
that people can get through the city as much as possible. The widening of Price Boulevard is just one way our roadways are improving, but you have to have a daily maintenance and a constant maintenance budget for our roads, which we have in the past and kept up this year so that people can get
to where they can as soon as possible. So, as I go through these next few slides, you're going to see some some things that are included in our budget for conversation and good discussion, but I'll explain to you why I put them in there and how they should benefit us
all going forward. One of the things that we needed to highlight was what does this process look like? Because there has been conversations to say that well, he completed the budget, but he didn't get your approval or he didn't bring it back to you. That is what this process is
right now. What you have in front of you are my recommendations and what you will have the time and obligation to do over the next couple of months is to give us your recommendations and input from that and we will act accordingly based on the what the board direction is. But these
are the steps and we are only on the recommended portion now the time between week June and July. We will meet with you as often as you like in order to make sure that you understand everything that you're looking at. And uh we we pride ourselves on making sure that we
answer your questions so that you feel comfortable because the budget is the single most important document that you will look at the entire year. So we want to make sure that you're comfortable with what you're voting on. Uh, our city is is like many cities that
received the Doge report from the Governor Santis and we received it and we reacted to it and that was in March and some things that were highlighted in our statement back to the
governor was the strength of our credit rating of double A2 and that means we have a high quality credit position as well as a very low credit risk. Um the steady millage rate which um is at the sixth
year being at 3.7667 is impressive for a city that has continued to grow. Um I do believe that you know as I have said since I've been here a small but regular incremental increase in that number would help us
get to the point where we don't want a big number asked of our citizens later. And I believe that we may have seen that in a few years in the past and we definitely don't want to repeat that. Maintaining your fund balance balance requirements is important because the state and those who look at your credit
want to know that you have the proper levels in your coffers and you have been able to do that as a city even regarding Hurricane Ian which put a huge dent in that savings. But we have recovered in the amount of time and that goes to the
strength of the city and the staff and those who made sure that everything was replenished the way that it should. We have six departments with state or national accreditations. So what that says is that an outside independent source has verified and confirmed what
we believe that we are doing which is leading the city in the right way. And that's exactly what you want. You want to be able to say that regardless of the times that are outside of the city's control, outside of your control, outside of my control, that we're still
moving in the right direction. When you looked at the actual letter that was sent, um they were looking for areas and situations of financial distress, none of which applied to the city of Northport. That doesn't mean that we are
working at 100% optimal operation or efficiency. I don't know that anyone is, but I would love to strive to get there. But we know that we're doing the right things. And I believe that when people look at us and see what we've done as a city internally and externally, I
believe that they're going to see that we're doing the right things. But but as they go go through their process, the state is pretty large and there were some municipalities that received a second notice from the state. I believe they got those in April and they were due back at the beginning of May. We
were not one of those municipalities, but if the state wants to come in and look at anything that we have, we will cooperate and provide any information that they need and ask and we will be able to explain hopefully some of the things they may ask that are either policy driven or circumstantial that
they may not just grasp from looking at numbers or on paper or whatever we see them. Um, there's a lot of things that we have to be ready to explain and we stand ready for that challenge. So, some things that we want you to consider um in the very beginning is
that we have not funded all of the positions that were included or recommended from public safety. buyer had six positions that I removed from their budget and they were able to work through their own budget and make some decisions as it relates to replacement
of some of their equipment that they thought that they could actually um defer and make up at a different time and allow these positions that they need to be hired at this time to be included. So, we did that and that's why theirs are in there. But, they went through the same process that we dealt with with
police, but we know that the price um boulevard widening is going to cost some different shifts and transportation and times to get to people in need. So, chief is looking forward to that process so that he can be ready and that's why his positions are critical for this
year. When you look at police, they had 35 positions that were not included in our budget. And I didn't include those for a couple of reasons. One, we are we're still hiring for some of the employees right now that were in our budget from this current year. And
that's not to say that police hasn't done a good job of filling those roles, but we will never be at 100% of filling roles because people retire, they quit, they get terminated. But you als you want that number to be as small as possible. So, knowing that we are going through the situation of police needing
more space, um you will see those trailers come out on their property in the upcoming months, um that's independent of the request from uh this year in fiscal year 26, but it does matter because we're adding more people to a situation where when we need space.
So, we're going to figure that out and make sure that we only add the people that we need when we need them. This is no different than if we were doing a mid-year budget request. we would come to you and say, "Hey, we need these positions. Here's how we're going to pay for them, and they they are baked into our formula so that we can pay for them
going forward the same way that we would the positions that we already currently have. So, it is a stronger strategic hiring initiative so that we can be more um hands-on, be have more oversight, and make sure that we only ask for what we
need when we need it." Um, I believe our police would tell you even though the referendum results didn't reflect it, we believe that the city does appreciate what they do. They like the service that they get. They appreciate the response times and they're satisfied with the overall quality of service from our
police department. So, this is in no way a reflection of anything uh against our police force. We just need to make sure that we have the money and the funds available when we ask for what they need when they need it. Um you're also going to review and talk
about any possible adjustments to the certax um war plan. Um the short version of that we all know is that the widening of Price Boulevard and how we moved money in order to make that happen absorbed a lot of the first launch of our certax. Um, but there are projects
in the outer years that if you decide to rearrange or shift or reorganize, then for whatever purpose you might feel is best for the community, that's the conversation that you need to have publicly and we'll entertain and do whatever it is that the board wants us to do to make sure that plan reflects
your intentions. The review of the 10ear CIP program, that is going to be important and critical because not all of our projects are funded. uh when you are looking at the horizon, the five-year plan is more funded than the 10-year plan. The 10-year plan might be
more funded than the 20-year plan, but they're not all funded projects. And as we look out to the sequence of projects that we need, we got to be careful and conscious of how we obtain those projects. Knowing that we still don't have the ability to borrow funds or even
failing infrastructure projects um related to health and public service, we need to make sure that we explore our other options. And those options could be to continue to pay as you go. And if we've done that for 65 years, and it's the will of the community and the
commission to continue to do that, then we need to just talk about how do you get that money there in the time that you need it. Um and there's different ways to do that. And of course there's different avenues that you can we can try to pursue that would not result in the city incurring um debt so to speak.
Um the fund the future general fund contributions for ambulance replacements is what I related to back to the firing I mean the hiring of the six um firefighters. The funding of two divisions to departments. Uh we're going to talk about that and how the evolution of our
city has grown and the recognition of the complexity and the the visibility and the volume and the accountability that is needed in those two particular divisions to allow them to operate at their most efficient levels. Um the price for that I believe combined is
some something like $137,000. So it is not the most expensive item in your budget, but it is one of the most important as we grow from a smaller city to a larger city. And as we have grown, our staffing levels have grown with us.
Um you will see on this chart that you can see that around 200 uh n I believe it was our eight or nine our staffing took a dip and 2007, I'm sorry. And it
was 13 years before we got back to that same level. Now the city wasn't experiencing the same kind of growth it was during that same level. But we have to understand that this is why the staffing levels in this city have grown. This is why the staffing levels uh outside of this year's budget which
doesn't have a lot of growth in it will continue to need to grow. The growth isn't the challenge. The challenge is making sure that the growth links and is in alignment with your property tax growth, your ULDC
commercial growth that we know that those were made and done so that we could get to a higher level of commercial base so that our residents aren't paying for all the things that we need. But but this budget that we have right now, the one that's in front of you, is going to be what is considered a
flat budget. We just don't have the revenue right now at this day to increase some of the things that we want to as a city. So, we're going to have to bring those things to you periodically and systematically when the revenue will allow for it. I just don't believe that
there's a there's a good time and I think we we'll all agree there's never a good time to raise a millage rate. So, if we're going to try to avoid that for the long term, then we need to watch what we do right now and hold on until that revenue comes into our city.
Uh this res this slide shows the uh number of employees per 10,00 residents. Um we always use comparables of the cities that you see and you've seen those before. Those are comparable cities either based on um population size or other things that we've talked
about over the course of since I've been here. And we as you know our philosophy is we love to be in the middle. We don't want to be the highest. We don't want to be the lowest, but we love to be in the middle. Um, when you look at the government spending per resident, we
just happen to be right there again, right in the middle. Um, I think that is how you show our residents that yes, we could spend more to be at the top or we could spend less and then your services would be less than desirable. Having
that ability to maintain a space in the middle is very very important. uh the police department staffing that I spoke about earlier when I talked about the 35 positions and how we make sure that we hire them properly. I do want to emphasize that is going to be a
year-long journey. It's not going to be something that you're going to hear in the month of uh September when you adopt the budget and then hear again in the spring. You're probably going to hear from me at least every 60 to 90 days at least with an update on it if nothing else. even if we're not sitting in front
of you saying that, hey, we need these number of positions and we feel confident that we can be able to pay for them going forward. Um the portables that will come out in late fiscal year 2025 are going to be a relief for our
police chief and his team. Um they are, as we all know, they are struggling for space over there. Um in lie of the police department referendum question that did not pass. We've got to keep going as a staff. So, what we're trying to do is make sure that you understand
that we are going to do everything that we can to ensure the services of this city are not sacrificed for any reason. And then we can all figure out how to get the new um space there when it actually comes. So, one of the things that we've talked
about and heard a lot about is u not only our staffing levels, but our staffing salary. And so I'm using the example of myself. I was like, let's just start at the top and sort of make sure that everyone understands what we do and how we do this. It's not magic.
It's not made up. There's a philosophy behind it. As I've said since I've been here for the three and a half years, you do not want to be at the top. We don't need to be at the top. That's not something that is going to help the the city of Northport. You don't want to be at the bottom either. When you start
getting to the bottom of people in your field, you begin to tend to sacrifice a few qualities that might be that needed to be there to make sure that the city avoids as much public scrutiny as possible. Make sure that the team and
the culture is solid for the right level of growth. You want to make sure that your community engagement is there so that people know and can access and talk to your team as well. So when you look at um my salary of $247,000,
you can see these are the city's population based on the right side that says the like when you look up or down, you can see the salaries go up and down of those in our population. When you look to the the bottom left, you might say, well, what about the cities around
us? And the city of Venice is recruiting now from 210 to 260. The city of Sarasota is recruiting from 225 to 310. Um, and then you have Bradington and Longboat. But I hope this paints a picture and shows you when people say to
you and write to you, well, you know, you know, he's the highest in the state, he's the highest in the land. We really do this not only for this position as your city manager, but the same thing is done throughout the organization from the top to the bottom. When I got here
in 2021, we did a compensation study that aligned things at that time. You're supposed to do one every 3 to four years. We we accelerated the one that we put in 26 because we had funding to do it in the summer of 25. So, that one will be completed in about 6 to 8
months. So, around this time next year, you'll be talking about the results of that study. Now, we believe since we have um we've done reclassifications, we um we make sure that we look at each job when they're vacated to make sure that the hiring range is accurate for what is
needed to be there. So, we don't believe that there will be a huge amount of need to change from the compensation study, but that's why you do it. So, you don't have to pick through a thousand different positions. I think we got 9 uh 70ish employees if this goes through.
You don't want to do that individually. That is not the best way and definitely not the most efficient way. So that's why we want to make sure that we keep it and make sure that we take care of everyone from top to bottom for proper payment.
When you look at the things that has happened since uh the last three years, um the first thing we need to make sure that people understand and appreciate is that the cumulative uh inflation since 2020 is approximately 23 and a half%.
Now I know none of us are going to argue with that number because we we've all seen and felt that number. But your government has also felt that number. So as your government has felt that number and the quality of services and the growth that we've had is still to be ex the expectation has not changed. We did
um increase waste uh and water and wastewater fees in 2023. We did increase solid waste road and drainage fire district uh wastewater and water electric utility and created um utilities payment in lie of taxes in
fiscal year 24. Uh and then in 25 we increased our rate in Jonish Flag District waste wastewater and solid waste with um with a peel off. But we did all of that and kept the millage rate which is the main tax or main fee
that you use for your general fund the exact same. And you we've been able to we've been able to um make do off of that as well because the numbers have been high because the property um industry was going through real estate industry was going through sort of a
boom at the time but now that boom is over and now our number is back down. So when we talk about the actual numbers coming down, then that's how we know that, hey, we have to do something differently as well. And that's part of our budget rate, our budget conversation
for this year. The six-year maintenance of the same rate, keeping it flat for the middle rate is impressive. And I I do not want to minimize the efforts that the board took in order to make sure that number stayed the same. But then the actions
that were taken in order to maintain the quality of services at a high level which our staff has done. It takes uh it takes both of us in conjunction to make it work. And I think that we've been successful so far. The abalone rate that
we're looking at as an increase as of right now, what we know is 8.68. 68. That number was 17 last year. 17 the year before and 25 I believe the year before that. Yes, in fiscal year 23. So
as you can see this is the lowest number in quite some time. This number is the one that was directly linked to the ability for us to be unsuccessful in fulfilling the task that you gave us of lowering our
expenses by $3 million. When you look at this number which of 8.68, I think we all thought it would come down from 17. Not sure any of us but one thought it would come down into a singledigit number and that's where we're at. And that singledigit number has uh really
made this budget a challenging experience. And again, hence the um the hiring of the staff, which we all know that staff and benefits are our most expensive cost just about in every single department everywhere. It is just the way that it is. When you look at
these numbers and you see that the current military current current 3.7667 mill rate will bring you in $39 million, that's an increase of 2.8 eight over last year's budget, but the increase due to new construction is $3 million. So,
the higher increase due to new construction indicates that property value, some property values will decrease in taxable value. And we have heard people say that my taxes keep going up, but those people their taxes are going to go down because of that. And I have been on record to say and
will continue to say your property value going down is never a good thing. And I think that we all should want our property value to go up. I do understand the fiscal constraints that it causes, but that's the system that we have where we're able to generate money that would help them and not raising another tax by
our property value going up, which hopefully helps everyone as they continue to um enjoy their quality of life here in Northport. the 10-year taxable value history. Um, as you can see, the steady increase. Um,
that might get a little flatter as we've just talked about seeing our number for our future year fiscal 26 go down, but it is something that highlights the growth of the city of Northport. These major general fund revenues when you look at them whether they're property
taxes or some of the taxes that we have increased over the time to maintain our budget levels they are pretty much flat you know across the board. So there's nothing on here that is going to sort of
be a a a savior for ourselves if we don't sort of make sure our expenses are in alignment with the money that we have. Um, I think that I think that if we all agree that there are certain things that, you know, we just don't see for change changing in the foreseeable
future, whether it's the military or whether it's the economy or or whatever it is, my most important focus in this budget has been to maintain the people that we have. If some of you were in or near government in 2008 and n I mean
there were there were large layoffs of people. um reduction in force were happening everywhere. Um that that is something I hope that we as a we as a country and a county and the state don't get to. But if it does happen, I think we need to be prepared and we need to
start talking like that right now. Like when you look at your staffing levels, are you going to be able to maintain that through the duration of what might be a harder time? Um and I think that closer scrutiny will help us um make sure that we come out better on the other side.
Our general fund budget, which is the major fund budget that is within the control of the property tax, is 97 uh million dollars. Um that is a that is a good size of a general fund, but there's also a lot of things that we want to do
that we can't include in that number. Um, those are the budget proposals that were not able to make it through our recommendation, but we believe that we were able to make it through enough and get the city taken care enough to keep us um from from having a setback at this
point in time. When you look at the breakdown of this general fund, you will notice that uh police and fire make up 55 56% of the pie. So, if we were to look for a reduction of $3 million as instructed, it would come from
theoretically at least half of that pie. I don't think that that is uh an area you would like for us to uh entertain. And when you look at the other areas that are not in that 56%, hitting those for a significant amount of funding would definitely change their levels of
service. And as we go through some of the slides and the departments, you will see some of that and you could make a decision that says, "Hey, you know what? We do see that there and we do want to make some changes and adjustments there." Um, as long as they still stick to your I'm sorry, still stick to your um
your strategic outcomes that you want us to achieve as a staff. So, some changes in our general fund. The CPI adjustment of 2.5% is a is a regular change. Um, our mirror increases to nine employees, non-UN employees, $957,000.
Our increases for union employees, $1.6 million. The new positions, uh, 15 FTEEs, that's with, um, seven, uh, firefighter EMT split with the fire district. I believe there was, I think it was nine general fund positions that were general fund only and then several
that were split general fund and maybe with another fund like the fire district. So that low level of employment comes back to my conversation about watching our levels and where we're at and what we do in being able to take care of these funding uh expenses
going forward. The division of the department that I mentioned earlier which I think I said was around 137,000 total dollars. It is a process though and I've talked to um you about the importance of the process. Um but going through the steps of the process, the
first thing we had to do is advertise it for two weeks which that was done and then we included the next step which was in putting it in our budget for the next fiscal year not right now for your consideration. Um when you do look at and you do think about the division to departments, we just want to make sure
that you understand that it is it is it is not in an effort for anyone to circumvent or do any other process other than what our current department heads do. But they do share a lot of similar um actions, responsibilities and duties.
And the growth of the city has just made this a a no-brainer to make sense. Um the city is going to continue to grow. Um in my mind, you know, there could be an emergency management department one day led by, you know, the the ones who
are important enough and see that we have to go through these types of um weather events every single year, all year. You see in this budget that I presented to you, there's two um emergency management people in that budget for FTE. We have to grow those
areas as we can and show their importance to the outcomes of what we want the city to be. But the division to department is a process, a next step, a logical step in that that allows us to upgrade um these divisions to departments. Um
and I believe that is time. You look at the IT department, you know, they support the entire city and cover over 500 um service tickets monthly. um maintaining our critical systems. We've all been through what we know was a bad cyber event. I'm not even going to go
there. We we we know what that looked like. It felt like and we're glad that we have the team in place. Um believe they have 20 some odd individuals in that department to make sure it doesn't happen again. Um and their strategic adjustment helped build resilient
adaptable organization that positions us to scale effectively as we continue to grow. And similar on the communication side, you know, not only they are credited in winning national awards, but they support the entire city as well.
Um, and they also are positioned to meet our internal needs for the entire organizational structure. Um, they they enhance our ability and yours uh to oversee um critical key initiatives uh
as well as community engagement and build public trust. And I think that we all know that building public trust is something that is a goal to improve of all of ours. Um, we continue to work on it. I will say that the commission works on it as well. I've heard nothing but
positive things about the town hall type of uh meetings that you all held during the police and the referendum um process. It was very wellreceived. So well received they want you to do it more and more often. and I said, you know, it really needs to make sense and
match the level of what you're asking for because that is a special kind of engagement. I personally liked it a lot. Um, but I know that it came with um some some feedback as well. But again, building public trust got to be one of our high priorities. You look at our
total budget by department, $331 million. You will see that public works uh 28% of that, utilities is 21%, fire and rescue is 13, and police 12. You can see how we're spread out by department
for our entire budget. Uh one thing that helps our budget uh immensely are our grants and the pursuit of our grants. Um Val and her team are always working for grants in various different areas. Um they actually have
$30 million uh in grants and over $50 million in grant funding that's active or open and that is uh that is phenomenal. Um when I got here she was a division of one or person of one. Now
she has she has three no she has yeah she has three more people. And you know, basically when you're looking at the award, the date of $4 million, these are positions that pay for themselves. And she has one in this budget, but we do believe that as we continue to move forward, we're going to need to look for
funding sources outside of ourselves in order to make this work. Um, and I think of the state and I keep thinking of the state lately. But if the FEMA model changes and what I keep hearing about the FEMA model is, well, we're just going to push it down on the states and then let the states take care of it. If
the state doesn't get any more money in to take care of it, I don't hear Governor DeSantis saying, "Well, I'm going to increase the amount of fun money I'm going to give you for um hurricane um hurricane or disaster recovery." it is going to fall, it could potentially fall on us as a city who
make up that shortfall. And when you look at a situation like um these that you have on your screen, the repayment length can be years when it comes to the storm. It depends on the size of the storm and the damage normally how much you get. But as you can see, you know,
Charlie um took six years and um Wilma took five years. And when you look at what Ian uh did, which is ongoing, which cost us roughly between 50 and 60 million, and I think we've gotten most of that back, I think there's only about
um is up there I think about maybe 8 million or so that's still outstanding. Um I told her to give up on that CO 19 $500, but she refuses. U I I some of this money you're just not going to see. And we're talking about a model that is
literally changing in front of us right now. So if you're not going to see that money now, can you just imagine what you may not see going forward? It it is it is really something that I cannot stress enough and I I hope that I'm wrong.
Um there I'm sorry. Here it is. So here's the here's the actual FEMA reimbursement number. And yes, 47 million is what we've got reimbursed and 57 million is what was available. Um the Milton cost, we've gotten 1.2 million of that. So that's great. But the $2
million that we experienced from Milton was really the best case scenario. Those three storms that we got last year, Northport was on the better side of all of them. Our road and drainage district. Um this is a fund that is uh including a
recommended 15% assessment increase. And this is how we pay as you go as it relates to not being able to borrow. The project that we needed was um was not approved and we need to listen to the will of the people and figure out a different way to get it done and this is
one of those ways. Um whether it's a different way in the future maybe of certificates of participation or something that doesn't um the court would validate as non-debt we will explore those as well. But right now we have to do what we have to do so to speak and that's why that number is that
way. Our fire rescue district um they have an assessment increase of 10% and this is following in line with their their report that I know that you received annually from Stantech and you'll get a verbal report from Chief Titus I believe his is tomorrow regarding the fire rescue district and
how we feel that it is uh it is sustaining itself. um solid waste. Um also uh included in our budget as a 10% assessment increase uh to make sure that we carry out the needs of the division in that
department. Um our building fund um continues to be successful. Uh we know that we are still currently doing the the um fee assessment that relates back to what Asella put into place last fall. So we look forward to having that conversation with you in the upcoming months. But the building fund continues
to uh maintain itself. The utilities fund uh another enterprise department that I would say when we look at our capital um projection for the next 20 years, this is a pretty big chunk of it.
We need to make sure that our utilities and infrastructure are solid and secure going forward and our ability to manage that growth now as um as we know the situation that we have to deal with is going to be critically important. Our
fleet management fund um we're grateful that we have a team there that can take care of our vehicles inhouse. Um as our staff grows, as our vehicles grow, their volumes grow. Um we have looked at this year um to revising or revisiting I
should say some of the service levels for the vehicles that we use because we just can't change vehicles as fast as we used to. But there's also that balance there of making sure that your vehicles do not alter or fail while you're going through the course of the business that they need to do and uh especially as we
talk about those who are responding to our emergencies within the city. So, Mr. Mayor, I'm going to stop right there. That was the introduction of what you're going to hear and see. Um, happy to answer any questions on the intro and then we'll start going departments um
shortly thereafter. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Uh, commissioners, any 5,000 high general comments, general thoughts regarding the person's budget?
You want us to use a little Yes, please. So, I can see who wants to speak. Commissioner Langden, you're up. Thank you, Mayor. Um, uh, city manager, could you go back to the advorum slide?
Um, yes, because I have a number of questions regarding the increase in our taxable value. and some of the informations on that slide. Um I would be interested
in understanding of that taxable value increase how much came from new residential growth, new commercial growth and how much of it is actually an increase in the property
assess the taxable value of current residents. is um is that something that they provide to us when they give us the number? We'd have to we'd have to ask for that information as we've broken down from the county. Okay. Yeah, because I think um
I I know that the sales value of our properties have decreased a lot in the past couple years. And I know this is an assessor's office question, but I'm sort of interested in how the assessed values
of our properties track or don't track to what's happening in the market. Okay. And so I would anticipate I would hope that that increase in taxable value of eight something percent is heavily
more weighted to new development than it is the fact that our current houses are are being assessed at a higher value given the fact that the sales value has dropped so much. Um, in previous years,
we've compared our taxable value to that of the other municipalities in the county in Sarasota. Okay. Um, I' I'd be interested in seeing that again. Um because I recall in looking at last
year's numbers, what what really struck me in looking at those numbers is and I I forget looking at the city of Sarasota, their taxable value is much higher than
the city of Northports. And what it said to me was the city of Sarasota actually has more tax dollars to serve their residents um than we do.
And we have three times the number of residents than the city of Sarasota. Think about that. Fewer dollars than the city of Sarasota. And we have to service three times the size of that population. So I think
sometimes we get hyperfocused on millage rate. It's really the value of our aggregate properties. Um and again one of the reasons why we're valued so much lower than some of
the neighboring municipalities is our lack of commercial development. So all of this stuff is related and it I'd be really interested in seeing the taxable values of the other municipalities in
the county. I think it's a good we can prepare that chart, right? Um okay, I think that's enough on taxable value. I also had some questions on um the 3.5%. Now it's um
Yeah. So the 3.5% is covering raises for current employees or are new headcount in that number as well. Correct. I think you're talking about the uh who was that
I forget what slide I didn't make a note. I remember it was considerations. Um yeah. Yes. Okay. You're hear me? Yep. Yep. That's it. So my question
relative to that. Okay. So I can't relate that. I can't do the math that quickly in my head. So the 3.5% then does include the 15 new full-time employees or is that simply
the adjustment for our current employee base? The three and a half% merit would be for current employees if they're you get your merit increase after a year. So anybody who's new for fiscal year 26 won't have been here a year get that.
Okay. So that is current employees and then a 1% cola puts us at 4.5%. As you mentioned, city manager, our strategy has been to be in the middle of the pack, not high, not low. Again, how are
the neighboring communities or our reference communities, how are they looking in terms of what kind of raises they're considering? Um, I'm a big proponent of retention. It's so much
more costly to replace an experienced employee than it is to simply retain an experienced employee. But, but I always like to calibrate and see how we fall. And so, is that 4.5% going to keep us in
the middle? Is it going to bump us up? Are we going to fall behind? what and we will do the research and get that to you and provide it back. Um, but since I've been here, I I think from what I without having in front of me, I thought they were all pretty much consistent. I don't
think that there's a 8% versus like a 3% that is given around this, but we can I get your point and we can Thank you. Um, and and just a general comment, I'm concerned about the police.
Um, but I'll I'll wait. I have some questions and some observations, but I'll hold it for that point. I'm done. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Pro. Thank you, Mayor. A question regarding
the continue of additional 1% cost of living adjustment. That is the minimum wage increase that was passed this late is or is it cola or is it combined for awardism?
I don't think it's related back to that the 1% is the continuation of the to get us to the minimum wage that the HR has recommended. I believe this is year five of six, but I would have to double check that and the one and a half is the
regular cola that is in the poly. So the total what would be the total then of salary increase? Do my question is is cola included in this or is it just minimum wage? budget
and and page 2.5 includes the book. Well, I'm looking at the first page of our budget book and it says salary cost of existing level of service 3.5 and then 1% that relates to minimum wage
not the 3.5 is the merit increase. Yes, 1% is minimum wage thing. 3.5 is the merit. There's a two and a half cola that is made up of 1% for the minimum wage and the one and a half CPI that's
included in 3.5, right? No, 3.5 is the merit different. It's a different thing. The merit increase from once a year. Okay. 3.5 plus one minimum wage. What about 2.5 cost of living adjustment? Is
that on top of it? The the 2.5 includes the 1% for minimum wage and the one and a half for the uh CPI. So, is it total of seven or is it total of um 3.5 + 1 4 and a half? Well, that would
be a half two and a half. It'll be three and a half for merit and two and a half would be the cola and the CPI. the minimum minimum wage. So, it's a total of six.
So, in essence, it's uh six total, correct? That's what you're saying. Okay. That's it. Anybody else? Um, I uh appreciate very much all the hard work
that's gone into this. I know we're in the early stages, but I know it took a lot of work to to get even this far. Um, you know, I I'm really very appreciative that we're able to put forth a budget that that
shows no property tax rate increase, especially in light of what is a certainly small appraised value increase in comparison to last few years of experience. Um,
I I express some concern as we look forward and and don't know exactly how we might prepare for it in this budget going forward, but there is such uncertainty with regard to what the state's going to do in terms of property
tax rates and sales tax and FEMA. Um, you know, our goal is to keep the military flat, yet we're tapping a little bit our our um
fund balances to make this general fund balance not leaving us a whole lot more as of 9:30. And as Commissioner Langden raised the concern, we budgeted nothing for for police in here for public
safety. And I have grave concerns as to how we're going to find ways to fund those quarter by quarter. Um so, you know, I don't know at what point we might have some discussions about what we might do
in terms of building reserves larger. Um, you know, we've had uh three projects and an emergency borrowing referendum turned down by the citizens. Um, and you can see the result of that, you
know, increased user fees. But since police play off general fund, there's absolutely zero provision for how to pay for this police headquarters um in this budget. which grows at a 8 to
10% cost every year it doesn't get done. These are needs, not wants. So, you know, this is a tight budget. There's no doubt about it. I'm going to be real interested as we go department by department. I think everybody did a pretty good job. I've been through it
once, you know, in detail and and gone back on some areas, but you know, there's there's not a whole lot of areas in here that I see to continue to cut. Our problem is on the revenue side. There is no doubt about it. And if we don't want to raise our property tax
rate, um, you know, we can probably go another year balance in this budget. But, you know, we have to recognize we got two humongous question marks. What's this hurricane season going to do to us and what the state legislature is going
to do to us and the federal government? I mean, these are going to have serious impacts on how we operate going forward. And um I don't know if this is the year to address that or if we hold our breath and see how we get through the balance
of this year, but you know, it's uh these numbers are sobering to say the least when you look at the kind of growth we're experiencing. Um, we found our financial
planners presented a a 20 30 year plan as to what we can look forward to with our uldc rewrite and our planned growth development growth in our city. And a lot is predicated on our ability to hit
those hit those projections. And a humongous portion of our ability to do that is predicated on getting the infrastructure into some of these undeveloped areas in order to attract the development commercially, industrially and even some
residentially. So, you know, those are huge challenges for us and and uh looking at our capital improvement plan is is going to be real critical, I think, because we've got about 3 to five years that we
are going to be real lean. It isn't going to get any better than this for the next five years. And it could get a lot worse before we start to see any light in terms of development growth. So we better make sure that we do the things we have to do to be ready for it
5 years out and not all of a sudden 3 four years from now find that that projection is really elusive and another 3 to 5 years out or the city's going to suffer. And um without that kind of development growth, there is no way to
sustain this flat military. And and I've been a big proponent of holding it flat or even reducing it. I asked for a $3 million cut and a millage rate reduction. And the reality is
it's an impossibility. I'll be the one to say it can't happen. not facing what the state's going to do in terms of property taxes and sales tax, not in light of the fact that the federal government's going to chop FEMA to death, not in light of the fact that we're not going to stop people from
moving to this city and continuing to increase our needs and our wants in order to maintain public safety and provide the basic amenities we need in this city. So, we're going to have to get awfully creative. We're going to have to marshall our dollars carefully,
but this is just the beginning of a number of years of of extremely extremely tight fiscal management. So, with that, I suppose we're ready to go department by department. Uh, Mr. Commissioner Dval.
Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'll try to keep this brief. Uh first of all uh talking about projects in activity center 6 and 10 uh only two so far
I would be interested in knowing uh what the suspected reason for that lack of development is. I highly suspect that it's the infrastructure that we don't have. Um, so I'd be interested in
hearing something about that. Um, also somebody mentioned something about prrating employee insurance cost, you know, based on salary. Um, some of our employees don't pay for health insurance costs. Health insurance
costs are going up over 15% this year. Um it may be time to look at having those employees share some of that cost. Just a thought. Um FEMA
from Ian I think I think don't quote me on these numbers but I think FEMA is still about $20 million short of reimbursing us for everything we 10 million. Thank you. Uh, but it's still $10 million short because
of the fact that we're going into a hurricane season. What happens if we have another Ian? Okay, so I know this is asking a lot, but if we could possibly increase our reserve a little bit for
those emergencies considering that we can't borrow that got turned down. U just a just a thought. Um I have a question about um ambulances,
general fund for ambulances. To me, ambulances, fire, solid waste, utilities, these are all services. And I believe that the city should provide these services at cost.
You know, if it cost a h 100,000 for a new ambulance, then that should be paid out of those service fees. But I
noticed that it said um we're going to take general fund money for ambulances versus fire and rescue which is slated to go up 10%. Why aren't
we buying those ambulances out of you know fire and rescue's budget? And if those fees have to go up 15% pay for it, um
so be it. Uh services, we have great services in this city, but to maintain them, those services have to be paid for. and kind of just strikes me as if we're
going to buy ambulances out of the general fund that were robbing Peter to pay Paul. Um, and I saw one thing on there was real quick, but I saw that the solid waste transfer
station was a 75% increase. Is that 75% increase in the cost of building that versus the 14 million that we were asking for um 75% increase. I'm sorry. You know,
that's the increase from the original estimate when we first started talking about the project. So the 14 million is the 75% increase. Yes. what we have in the CIP right now is with the 75. Okay, thank you. That's it for me for
now. Mayor, just letting Commissioner Duval know that when we get to the fire department, we'll be able to answer your questions about the ambulance and the questions you raised about why did we pay out of general fun versus district, etc. All right. Um before we move on to
individual departments, uh any public comment on this a item? Debbie Mcdow. Reviewing the budget will forever run through my veins. As a commissioner, budget workshops were one
of my favorites. It's a new fiscal year, a new budget with 27 new proposed positions, a 3.7667 mill rate, and assessment increases to all three districts. I wish you all the best as you decide this budget and talk about ways to fund the three referendum
infrastructure projects. Here's my key takeaways. One, the increase in dependent healthcare costs needs to be absorbed entirely by the employees or at least split 50/50. For the past 5 years, taxpayers have absorbed these increases 100%. Two, it is premature to form two new departments within the budget.
Shortly by now, the city attorney has advised all of you about the charter section 505 5.05A 05A requirements and the laws against polling behind the scenes. The commission has not granted anonymous approval, unanimous approval to activate these two
new departments. The new communications director salary will be 150,000 and oversees 11 employees. The new IT director salary is 186,000 overseeing 30 floor four floor four employees. At least six other departments have greater responsibilities because of their multiple divisions and between 70 to 200
employees. You might want to request a director's salary comparison for all departments for July's workshop backup materials. It's eye opening. Three, double check the salaries within all departments. They're all over the place when comparing year-to-year current positions. Some executive salaries
increases more than 10%. Some regular salaries show a zero salary increase to more than 10%. What happened to the 4.5 increase mentioned in the CM's letter? Four, where is the plan to start reducing the natural resources division reliance using 100% of the tree
fund aka the environmental fund revenues? Five, do we really need 27 new employees? Do you know how many new employees have been added in the past 5 years? Good luck, everyone. I'm sure the discussion will be interesting. And that's all. Thank you, ma'am.
All right. Moving on to B25-2368. discussion of possible direction regarding the fiscal year budget human resource department. City manager, you're it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um this discussion for our human uh resource department um as we get into they have
14 authorized positions um included in the fiscal year 26 budget. Um there are no new positions there. you actually increased them by a position last year and this year when it comes to human resources the the main thing that
they've just done is sort of reorganized within themselves for the resources that they have so that they can get the right people in the right positions. Um, I know that you have also had some discussions and we're going to be talking about the health insurance as well that was mentioned and the decision
that you have. We have a practice that we've done in the past few years of helping to supplement the employee costs as a city. Um, and as Commissioner Duval says, then you know there you all had one-on-one meetings with our team and our um, health consultant. And now is
the time to have a conversation if you would like that model to change um based on um Commissioner Dvalo mentioned who wasn't paying any right now versus the cost that we have of the services that we're paying for. Um I believe two main
drivers of our health insurance increase were cancer and diabetes. Uh both of which have things that we do in our plan that are up for adjustment if the board seeks to do so. Um as it relates to HR and their performance related to their
targets, um they are on target for all three of making sure that we increase participation in the employee fair, maintaining 80% of the job injuries to less than seven work days of off time and maintain a turnover rate of less than 15%. Uh I believe was said earlier
by Commissioner Langden, there is a cost to turnover and having to lose employees. And again, as you look at our structure and philosophy of how we compensate our employees, we still want to be in the middle. I don't think you want the lowest or the highest. And I
believe that maintaining our turnover rate uh to be low keeps us in that particular area. When you look at the budget summary of human resources, it doesn't change a lot um from last year
to this year's request. um it's pretty pretty flat for the most part. Um but when you look at some of the impacts of their 25 fiscal year 25 funding proposals um it provided mandatory annual training to educate staff um regarding a department staff departments
across departments on our harassment free workplace. In the fiscal year 26 proposals, there were none, but we did move up two budget proposals out of last year into this year based on our projections for this year. And one of them is the
compensation study, as I mentioned to you earlier. That's all we have for human resource department, Mr. Mayor, but we're happy to answer any questions. Sure. Those that want to speak, make sure you get in the queue there. Uh I'm up first. So I'd like to go and target right focus right
on the uh health health care cost uh issue here. Um as I recall from my one-on-one with human resources. Um, if I recall that 15% roughly equated to about $238,000
if I remember of increased cost in in that range. Yes, that is correct. And um correspondingly were were the uh employee families to absorb that
we would be looking at increasing their monthly cost of health care by roughly $100. A little under $100 a month. Yes. Correct. Each um the family plan would go up approximately $43 per pay period
for the family. Right. um without actually having a detailed analysis, I would say that um if we were to drop that burden
on all our employees who have families in this in this city, um you know, who work for for this city and add what's going to be a thousand over $1,000 a year of health care costs to the average
family employee here. Um, I would say that the amount of fallout in terms of lost employees since I have in the number of years I've been paying attention to what's going on in the
city. It pains me every time I hear about any of our employees moving out of the city because they can't afford to live here anymore and because they need to find cheaper accommodations and cheaper ways to make ends meet. Um, you know, quite frankly, the cost of
replacing people is going to far ex far exceed $238,000. It won't even be close if we were to lose a percentage of our people because we're adding over a thousand dollar
expense to them. I I I I mean I think the number will run not just a couple of hundred thousand. It'll run a million dollars or more to the cost of the city. Not to mention the disruption in in continuity if we have to go out and hire
new and train new and bring people up to speed. The solution to the health care issue is something we've been working on now for a bunch of years and that's the health clinic. Right. The health clinic is
going to dramatically impact our employee health care costs. And I think that initiative ought to continue to play out. I don't think we ought to do a thing but absorb this $238,000. I think this is a smart investment on
the part of our citizens to keep our team together. We worked many, many, many years since the recession to build a team in this city to help run this city at the level it's running at. I don't think we compromise that. I think
it's short money in order to keep keep things going in the right direction personnel wise. So, I would not be in favor of doing anything to pass on the cost to our employees. I think this is something we should absorb.
Commissioner Langen. Uh, thank you, Mayor. For me, it was pretty simple. When I first met with staff, my inclination was to share that increase in the cost. Um, and then when I had an
opportunity to look at the budget, um, I realized that we're going to be asking our current employees to do more with no oftentimes increase in headcount or
support. So, I concluded that it would really be a double whammy punch to increase the health costs on the back of our employees. and then ask them to do more without more help. So, I agree
with the mayor. I think we just absorb it. Um, I'm looking forward to some cost savings when our health clinic actually gets um implemented and and I know I often hear when we talk about staff
salaries and the costs of human resources here at the city, people will say to me, well, you know, the fellow working at the gas station or at McDonald's, they're not being treated so well. And so my answer to that is
always, well, let's get some jobs here that elevate uh pay scales for the people who are here. Let's not punish our staff. That's not the solution. So uh I say we suck it up. We uh absorb the increase in those health costs and look
for better news next year. When when is our health center going to launch? I forget. We talked about it. Our anticipated would be January of 2026. Beautiful. Okay. Thank you. That's all I
have. Who else? Commissioner Petra. Thank you, Mayor. Uh the health center is uh projected to be 1.2 million. Is that all that'll be needed to have it running and operated? Yes, that's it.
That is Yes. It's comes out of the operational bucket that we're paying Etna for our um health insurance. So that was the fund from last year that was approved to get the um facilities up and running. So it's operating expenses
paid all of it. It'll all be built into Yes. So on the insurance um absorption certainly it's really nice for the employees uh although somebody is paying those
money and somebody is the taxpayers um so it's I can see two points uh of you and um I do believe there's the survey was done and there's like I think less than 30% of companies pay
100% of premiums. Um so the discussion is to absorb that 15% and hike in and the cost. Correct. Um will we know how much it would be after the healthc care center is set up and running?
Um those projections will probably utilize some of the Charlotte County's projections to give you guys an idea on the return of investment. Um it could you know we have things in the back of our mind that we're going to be doing to
put the workforce to the facilities such as their annual physicals will be required to be performed at the facilities. We'll be able to use the facilities for workers compensation. Um could take two to three years to see a
positive turnaround for that. They're all estimates. Yeah, I just wanted to be prepared for the next year's budget or down the road that we could take a look at the model where we can do some
model of sharing the cost between the employees um and the city. Uh I mean it's a generous thing but um like I said somebody's paying for those. Yes. So the um the employee who's an individual on a
health insurance plan, there are things that they have to do in order to get the reduction of the cost. They have to do an annual full physical. They have to do an online risk assessment through our insurance carrier, which gives them some
tools to live a healthier lifestyle. And they also need to be smoke free. Once if all those criterias are met, then the individual insurance person that single coverage, it's at a zero pay. If they're not met, they would have a $15 co-share
or 25 depending on if they meet all of them or half. Thank you. Quick question. Do we have any gauge on what on a percentage basis the difference
between private industry compensation levels and and government or city wages? I mean are you know do we pay 10% less 15% less 20% less than the private marketplace out
there? And I'm not talking just health benefits. I'm talking about compensation levels because it it plays in a part. One of the huge attractions is we provide a great health care program for our employees here in the city. But it's my
my assumption that working for a municipality is considerably less compensationwise than what you can get in private industry. Yeah. and private industry doesn't share that data with us of of
their health insurance cost sharing or anything. So we rely on our government our counties and municipalities in our area for comparisons and such. Commissioner Dval, thank you. Mayor, um
I believe mayor mentioned $283,000 increase this year. I thought 228 I didn't remember the number one 22896 289 228,96.
Okay. Well, okay. If we Just based on the $283,000 number, I worked out some numbers. If we divided that by two, in other words, cutting the cost between the taxpayers
and the employees, okay, that would be 1415. If you divide that by the 400 employees right now who don't pay for the health insurance, I believe there's about 400. Uh, and you divide that
um by 26 weeks pay, that comes out to about 13660 a pay period or $27 a month. Now, that's based on $283,000.
So, it would be less than that. And I don't think that asking employees that don't pay anything for their health insurance to come up with around $20 a month to help split that cost between
the employees and the taxpayers. As I sit up here, I have to re represent the employees, but also the taxpayers. And I just, you know, every dime makes a difference. U you
know, so we could share the cost a little bit. I I'd be happy with that. I would love to say that all of the um employees that are single coverage actually meet the criteria. Some of them don't. So, there is a cost sharing
that's going on with the employees who are not getting their annual physicals or they are smokers or of some that nature. Um, so to try to understand, Commissioner Dval, so if we were to do that and share it,
share this $228,000 with the taxpayers, are are you just trying to understand, are you contemplating giving that money back to the taxpayers? In other words, to reduce their property
taxes by $130,000. I don't understand how we're sharing it with the with the citizens. How are they getting any benefit from it? Or are we going to are you envisioning taking thatund $14,000 or whatever it is? And where
would you spend it? Where else would it go? Because I mean, it's easy to say we're, oh, we should share it. But share it with who? Like if we're not going to give it back to the taxpayers in terms of a tax reduction that goes back in
their pockets, they're going to pay less to the city every year, then the contemplation would be that we're going to spend it somewhere else. And I question where we might spend that money and what would be a better use than to spend it on the people who do and work
hard every single day to run our city the best it can to do the best for the most and try to provide the best services and quality of life. So I'm just trying to understand where where that cost savings will go if we're going to charge our employees. How's it help how's it going back to the citizens?
That's what I don't understand. for for me. No, to answer that, uh, it's money that the city would not have to spend. Now, what the city did with that money, you know, do we find something else that, oh, gee, we just
saved, you know, $100,000, so let's go buy something new. No, that's not necessarily so. It would just lessen the burden of finding the money for the things that we already do have to pay for. It's just leaving that instead of
us having to instead of the city having to pay that total 238,000 out to the insurance companies. the city's going to keep half of that into the coffers
to be able to use it to lessen the burden on, you know, some of our other funds. Um, it's just, as I said, it's just a a sharing of the cost. Mr. Petro,
I'll let the city manager talk because he's going to answer that. May I, Mr. Mayor? Certainly. I'm sorry. In Commissioner Dval's example, if that were to be done, it would go into the fund balance would sort of increase the fund balance that you just said was sort of lower than you would like it to be.
We wouldn't go spend it somewhere else. Oops. One place for it. Uh, thank you, mayor. Uh, well, going back to this, we only talking about this because there's an increase, correct? Otherwise I I don't think this would be a topic of
discussion but because there's a hike on the insurance company that's why we are having this discussion the discussion is worth I mean a multiple discussion I can see a good point and David uh commissioner dwell um side upon argument
what I'm proposing is for the next chair budget I think we have to or by that time we have to have a model of some sort of a sharing between the employees and employer. I guess um
coming from a private side, I never had a job where my insurance premiums were covered 100%. And um what I'm asking is to look into this model and maybe change
it a little bit. I'm not asking 50/50, maybe some of it. Uh it's just a lot of us get accustomed to the government positions you know that everything is paid for and this is not this is a very attractive package uh if we advertise for
employment saying your insurance is paid for uh this is a really good package what I'm suggesting and I'm not asking for any consensus or anything as a discussion and a thinking point maybe to
develop a that there would be some share of a cost between the city and the employee uh type of a format. uh after all somebody's paying those money and that
somebody is the taxpayer and we as um elected officials and I can only speak on my own on behalf of myself that I represent those taxpayers and uh to be fair I think we should look in future um
to have some sort of a model where we can share um as a city and employee uh health insurance cost because insurance cost is going to go up significantly year after year. It's it's almost a
given point. Okay. Sorry. No, no, no. For the record, um we do we employees do pay the employee single is zero. Employee spouse has a co-pay. Employee family has a co-pay and employee children has a co-ay. We do
have a model of four tiers and we offer three different plans to choose from. Just for the record, the city's not paying for everybody's health insurance. I Yes, I I'm well aware of that. Okay. And I don't mean to uh I'm not ignorant
of that fact, but uh that's just a thought. Maybe we can do some development. And also, Commissioner Petro, the model that we use is one that is consistent throughout this area. We're not the only ones that do it. Employees not paying
anything as a single person is a common practice and I would venture to say it's a common practice throughout other states as well as I've seen it in other states. Cor Yes. But what if next year we're going to have a hike of 20%. Right. 30%. I'm coming again the the
reason for this discussion is because of a hike. Yes. Uh and if we're going to have another one, we have to look at some sort of a shared plan. Um and that's the only reason we're talking about this because of this hike. Yes,
sir. It was I think it was 2% or less last year and this year it went up by 15%. Which is sort of driving the conversation. Um and we're not trying to discourage you from changing the single person who may you you may decide on I think there was an example of 15 or $27
that was mentioned earlier. We're not trying to discourage that conversation. We just want to make sure that you understand exactly. Oh yes, I do correctly. Thank you. Enough of that. Anybody else? Final thing I would say on it is if were
we to take a look at that going forward, I think you have to include the overall compensation comparisons between city government employees and private enterprise. You you cannot dissect this
and look at simply a co a cost increase of health benefits and say, well, okay, it went up 15%. It's a couple of hundred,000 increase. So, we should, you know, think about sharing this burden
with our employees. There are repercussions to doing that. It may not seem significant dollars, but it is significant dollars to the person who's contemplating working in private industry versus working for a municipality. It is not easy to fill
these positions with city government. At any level of city government, we have slots that have been open for an extended period because we can't find the right people to occupy to fill them because people don't typically want to
work for a public entity, a government. And the compensation levels I know are significantly below what you can make in the private marketplace. They are. It's just that simple. And people may look at
some of these salaries of middle management and upper management and go, "Holy mack, what I did, I mean, it's been a while since I've been in in the private market working." And what I made to do what I did compared to what people who aren't at the level I was at is
astronomically more than what I made. But the reality is, it's still a lot more money to be made in the private marketplace. And we have to consider that we have a organization of
over $300 million in revenues. That is a huge operation. It's not a business per se, but it is one huge organization to run. Has almost a thousand employees in it. and the cost of providing that good governance. Having subject matter
experts fill our departments who can help provide good solid information and good guidance and good direction and good advice to us is imperative if we're going to continue to meet the challenges of growth. So I say it's very important not to be pennywise and dollar foolish
here. And if we're going to consider these kinds of changes, we should make sure we look very carefully at the unintended consequences of doing something like this. Not saying we shouldn't discuss it or look at it. And yes, the potential is that cost could continue to go up, in which case you
have to address it, but I just say we need to be very careful that we recognize the unintended consequences of situations like this because they will have repercussions. Um, anybody else have anything on this?
Commissioner Dval? Yes. Um, again, I'm going to argue and I'll try to keep it short. When I was looking through the budget and in a meeting I had with
a couple people, I noted out the insurance cost for the five city commissioners last year was $60,000. This year it's going to be $49,000. It went down
by about $11,000. And that's because this commissioner is a retired old man. and has his insurance and Medicare. And that saved the city taxpayers $11,000.
Now, if we can save the city taxpayers, just $100,000 over the year, I'm sure they would appreciate it. Um, what I'm saying is, you know, that $11,000, if I didn't have my own insurance,
that's money that the taxpayers would be paying for my insurance. And if I had to pay a portion of that, I don't think I'd change jobs. Um, not asking for a large
input from our employees, just something. And to end this, um, I guess I'd like to ask, you know, Commissioner Petro kind of seems to go my way, uh, Commissioner Langden and the
mayor go another way. Can I just ask for a consensus so we can just leave this for next year or move on with a plan? And I guess that means Pete, you get to move. I can answer your question right here because we had the meetings before, too.
And currently our employees are paying more than any of our surrounding areas for their health insurance. Correct. Yes. Almost double. Yes. Charlotte County on some of them. So, I mean, it would be a huge burden on
each of the employees. I would I've already told them I'm in support of absorbing it with the city because they are being penalized from surrounding communities for what they're paying now for their families and extended, you know, benefits
beneficiaries. Okay. Um, maybe I misunderstood something here, but do we or do we not have approximately 400 employees that do not pay anything for insurance?
I thought there was a breakdown. We have some that that are single and it's just those people that the city provides insurance for and then there's some people that are married their spouse and those those with a spouse they have to
pay and it is a good chunk and those with a family they pay a bigger chunk but what I was talking about I mentioned the numbers I gave were based on those 400 I'm just asking that those 400 that don't contribute anything contribute ute
something. That's the That is the single coverage. Yes. There's approximately 400 employees here um that are not contributing towards it because they're on the single plan. Um of those 400, I believe 188 of
them are actually married with dependent. And you know, so they're carrying their health insurance probably at the spouse's facility. So, we could see a shift in that as well, which would change the numbers a little bit.
But I just want to kind of also remind everybody if an employee is not meeting the criteria for the zero, they are cost sharing the health insurance. if they're a smoker, if they're not doing their health um physical every year, and doing the risk assessment. I don't have that
number in front of me of how many aren't in compliance to share that with you, but if they're not, they are paying a portion of the insurance. So what is what is your number of employees
that are non-smokers that are single that are maintaining you know their health and wellness exams? How many of those employees are there? I didn't bring that number with me. I'm sorry. I would have to go in and look at last
year's data to see. So I'm just We'll get back to you. Yeah. But I do need a consensus on Let let me let me ask you a question, Commissioner Dval, since you brought me into this conversation. Um,
by what I'm just listening to and what you're saying is is you're trying to whittle it down to just the people that are paying zero. Okay. Now, this is just my my thoughts. You're penalizing them for being at zero when the other
employees may have some discrepancies. They're paying a little bit for their insurance, but now the people that are at zero because they're following the rules. Now you're going to charge them. That's that's what I'm hearing in this conversation because it's going from
here to here to here. Now we're down to maybe 150 employees that it's affected or whatever. That's what I'm hearing. And I know that's not what you're trying to say, but that's what I'm hearing. I'm not trying to penalize anyone, including the taxpayers.
If it comes down to, you know, fairness, the taxpayers don't get a choice. You know, the taxpayers get a bill, they have to pay that bill. With our city employees,
there's very few places nowadays that employees do not have to contribute some of their salary to their insurance costs. And there are a lot of people that live in this city that have jobs that don't pay health insurance.
And those people pay taxes, too. So, I'm not trying to penalize anyone. I'm just trying to make the burden a little easier
for, you know, our taxpayers and everyone involved. You know, they use the term uh having some skin in the game. Um I just don't think it's asking too much to ask employees that don't pay anything to pay
something. That's all. And if it's it seems like it's a you know a three to two vote here. So I guess for now discussion probably be over else to this one.
Ma'am, do you need a consensus please? If you want Yeah. If you want us to move forward, I'll make it. Um the consensus is in this budget year the city will absorb
100% of the health care cost increases. Well, are you a yes or no? I'm a no. I'm a yes. I'm a yes. Doesn't matter. It always
matters. Thank you sir. Yes. I say we absorb it this year. All right. You have your consensus. Thank you. So you're going to be tough next year. commission or is that ready?
Let's see. And uh we have any public comments on this item? There is none. Uh let's see. We've been at it slightly under two hours. I think we're going to take a 10-minute health break.
People stretch their legs. We'll be back at right at 11:00. We are back. We are back in session. Next item up is C 25378.
discussion of possible direction regarding fiscal year 26 police department recommended budget. City manager, this item is yours. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so now we will discuss to the police department as proposed in the recommended budget. Um, just as a
reminder and they are the largest department in our general fund. Um, when you look at the adjustments, the conversation, the desire to affect the general fund, it affects police a lot more than it does in
different departments. I'll also remind you that it was in fiscal year 23, I believe, that we received a consultant report that gave us the road map and the guideline of how to address our police staff so that it would keep and stay in alignment with the population growth that we were experiencing. I believe
that we all would say at this point that report that showed us uh reaching certain milestones, we as a city had alreadycliped those milestones uh in the last year or so, last year and a half. So, our population was growing faster
last year. I believe I did not include it was 13 or maybe 15 positions within the budget they submitted. And this year, um, as we look at the amount of money that we don't have and the factors that I outlined earlier, whether it was bringing those people on and how we're
going to, um, manage those has led me to the decision that is the budget in front of you right now. Um, when you look at the org chart, there are 211 people over various divisions within the police department. Um, as we have talked about
and we got some questions over the weekend regarding some of the uh the staffing compensation. This mo the most of police is governed by a collective bargaining unit and contract which was done last summer and it is a contract for a few years. I can't remember three
or four to until 2027 that we are um obligated to adhere to. Now, the last year of the previous contract, the police union came and asked us to consider a re-evaluation of that contract because things had changed very
rapidly in the time from which the contract was signed until last year. And the first reaction was no, we did not want to do that. But when we said no, we went back and examined the parameters and what was really necessary to keep us in alignment with our competitive um
peers. and we did make some adjustments which made the contract last summer a lot easier to manage. Um we can't expect flexibility if we don't give flexibility. So it was the right thing to do and that's why we did it. When you look at the performance measures for the police department uh we are generally in
I wouldn't say universally but mainly known to have a very um low crime rate. You know, there are a lot of things that have happened recently and outside of our control, and we're lucky and proud that our team has reacted appropriately to save us from further uh harm and
damage. I believe that people are recognizing that when they do want to do things around the city of Northport, if they come into the city of Northport, there will be a reaction that is um swift and allows us to make sure that our residents feel a certain level of
safety at all time. When you look at these performance measures, the m the maintenance of 90% of residents surveyed feeling that this is a safe place to live. Uh at 90% is on target as we are at nearly 95%. The goal of the average response time in less than 10 minutes for all calls is projected to be
slightly below that of 10 minutes and 42 seconds. Um I will let the chief speak to that later if he needs to regarding how that metric and it falling below will be affected by the proposal that I have put in front of you. Um and also
the property clearance rate of 20.1% is at 24.25% 25% projected. When you look at their budget in this bar chart, you're going to see um as I've said, we're the goal is to remain flat. And in order to remain flat, that means a
combination of expense uh monitoring as well as um personnel uh scrutiny. And that's how we that's how I made it balanced. Um, now again, I will be the first to admit that not providing them
what they needed all upfront today is not ideal, but these are not ideal circumstances that we're having to deal with. So, um, I we are we look forward to the discussion of what the board might want to see done differently in order to make sure that we maintain our
levels of police safety as well as balancing our budget. for the impacts of the fiscal year 25 funded proposals. You will remember our communication, excuse me, community engagement recruiting specialists. Um this is um building trust through communications and police
activity uh community safety events being visible in our community is very important and they've done a great job of that. The electronic surve surveillance unit um enhanced our situational awareness and by overseeing over 160 license plate readers and surve
surveillance cameras has allowed us to react more quickly than without those so that crime can be solved andor deterred. Our conservation and environmental officer uh addressed the rising demand related to environmental protections. our quartermaster Finline, our supply
management for the department and our video manage management specialist uh improve our public record response time. Um there they had 11 proposals totaling $1.2 million for the police department.
And the unfunded proposals that were not included were the positions I mentioned totaling roughly $4.8 8 million and five proposals at $24,000. Um the delays in emergency response times and unable to meet statute
requirements are for public records processing are some of the impacts of the unfunded proposals. um the increased staff load as was mentioned earlier, burnout, um employees who would leave for other peer jurisdictions who would
pay more for the same or similar services is something that is a conscious effort of ours when we were doing some of the reclassifications that we did for police. you have to not only look at the other police like um police Sarasota, but you also have to take in the sheriff's department as well because
they have a lot of transferable skills that cross over between the sheriff and police department. Um vulnerability to cyber threats and system failures due to unidentified IT and infrastructure roles. We are having conversations now to see if it makes sense to merge the IT
of police with our main IT um current division under Mr. Eric Ryan. Um I think we believe even if we were to merge it doesn't necessarily mean a reduction of FTEEs. What it means is a stronger what it could mean could be a
stronger oversight and accountability. Um, I I hate to say it this way, but I'm going to say it this way. With police, I want the main thing to remain the main thing. You know, they are good at law enforcement and they are good at making sure that the things that we talked
about earlier and the stats that they have are good. if I can help relieve some of that um other activity that would make them better, more efficient, and make everyone um a better performer as government employees. And you know, that's what we that's what we do as it
relates to our police department. Mr. Mayor, I'll stop there and we're happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you, sir. Uh who wants to speak first? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? I'll go. Thank you. Um, a few questions. You had
mentioned earlier, city manager, that we have a number of positions open um, in the police department that were funded this year and recruiting good people is tough. How many of those positions are
open and when can we reasonably expect to fill them? So, as the chief prepares to respond, what I'll say is he did a he did a report about a month ago that showed there was like 16 positions that were unfilled, but maybe only five to
eight of those were new positions that you had included in your budget. They were replaced. Correct. And based on that attrition, the replacement termination, uh this has been a very uh interesting year for personnel across the board for the city and police has uh
no different. But the the purpose of me saying that was that they're not all just 16 positions that where you put in your budget and we just delayed in filling them. There is a there is a cycle there of where you try to fill them. Mainly we start the beginning of the year because when we budget we don't
budget them to start on October 1st because that's the beginning of the year and you got to recruit and you got to hire. So there's that little bit of window built in there. So, but even with that window, we had 16 to 17 and the five that I remember off the top of my head were ones that were sort of put into the budget. So, if we sort of
shrink that number down and you can really look at it based on how many people have, you know, come in and out of their department, then it will help us understand how do we build forward going their their request because again, if if we can reasonably expect that it's
going to take us all of 2026 to fill 16 positions and anyone else who might leave that we have to backfill. Then I don't feel quite so bad not approving new positions because why tie up the budget right with with something
that just practically won't happen. Well, and while I believe that we will hire some level or some number, my thought process was to only bring it to you when we were ready to do so. So when we get ready to do so, then that's when we will bring it to you. And it would it
would be very similar to a mid-year request where the information and the data has shown us that we can afford these positions. Um and that's no it's just no different than any other midyear request. Right. Instead we won't be doing it mid year. We'll be doing it
quarterly. Right. Um I guess in in going through Oh, I have another question before I make comments. Um proposal 3144 for community service aids. Is there a direct correlation
between the number of hours that a community service aid works and the offload of our sworn staff? So if we have an aid working 40 hours a week, is that shifting 40 hours of lower
priority tasks off the back of our patrol and detectives? So there's that direct correlation. That is correct. Um, you know, I started going through and there were certain of these
proposals. I said, "Oh my gosh, we really should do that or not do that." I'm not going to second guessess you guys. You know best what you need and what you don't need. But my my general comment, and then I'll keep quiet, let my fellow commissioners chat, but if
indeed we're not adding headcount this year um for our police staff, then we better do some things that impact the efficiency of the people we have. And just a few things on the notf funded
list really popped up to me as things that we might want to consider. And one was the community service aid. I mean, if we're not relieving the the work burden of the folks we have and we're
not adding, then we better do some things that make them more efficient and offload them of things that aren't critical. The only I'll make one comment though. The the one that really popped out at me. Oh my god, do we need another
traffic cop or watch I mean everybody complains about speeding and you know all kinds of just I'll be quiet and see what my fellow commissioners have to say. Um I don't
see anybody else up there. Um, so I am Can you roll these slides back to first or second one? There was a Harrison. Oh, that one. Go. Yeah, there we go. Um,
let's see. Okay. Question on the operating level down the bottom. Um, we're showing amended fiscal 25 of 10 million7.
um projected 95 recommended 4.6. Where are we cutting there? I mean that's what roughly $5 million of reduction.
It was for the design of the new PD headquarters. Uh over $4 million for that. Okay, that's what it was. I got to Yeah, because if you look back at fly 24, it was 4.9. Okay, thank you for that. I was wondering like where are you
guys saving that much money, but that's what it was a design for the police. Um I had a qu I' I've had a question and and I know you know maybe some people know maybe they don't that
in order to achieve the goal which is response times okay there are algorithms and formulas and methodologies to based on population based on overall geography
there's so many police for you know so much population so much geography how much credence is given to density and the reason I ask that is is
you look at the type of growth that the city is experiencing and where it's taking place and the type of population growth and correct me if I'm wrong but you take an area like my district the
predom I mean that's probably the fastest growing district in the city and it is the highest density growth in the city because of the close proximities of the communities the types of building you got apartments you got seniors you
got villas you got townouses you got condos you got some singles but in in a very tight geographic circumference you have significant population increase so my question is how much do We take that into consideration when we look at our
study and and I don't recall how long ago it it was updated. But if you know when it's done, how do we adjust for that? Because if we say our study is looking for say 40 new
hires, I'll just pick a number. But if density in the growth areas is such that it takes less officers to cover that area of higher density, then maybe we
really don't need 40. Maybe we only need 20. I I and and the way I compare it is you look at cities around us and throughout the state, throughout the country that have don't nearly have 104 square miles and they either have
similar populations or less population, but they're concentrated. They may even have more, but they're concentrated and packed into a tighter geographic area, which at least as a layman, I would think would require less police coverage, less
vehicles, less officers, but maybe I'm wrong. So, how does that all play in? Cuz because do we really need everything our studies say? Do our studies really address the density consideration in terms of the growth? And and I don't know the answer, mayor. The the study
did consider all of that. Um it's not just the density though that it took in the place. It's the geography of the city and just because you have a densely populated area, it might not be requiring the uh uptick for calls for
services. But the problem is mainly with our city is the geography of it. We are growing on the west side and the east side tremendously, right? So it's stretching our resources extremely thin. The other downward turn of this is you
cannot traverse to the city easily, right? And you know, we're going to see the heavy impacts of that with the price widening project as well. So because of that, it's our it's stretching our resources extremely thin and you're not able to get to point A to point B in a
reasonable time. So you are going to require those people, those additional law enforcement officers to be able to respond to those calls for services. It's not just the dense uh the density that you have to look at. You have to look at the geography as well. All right. Good. I I don't I mean just to
get my head wrapped around that. Appreciate that. And the only other thing I would ask you is you know I to me public safety has always been the highest priority in our city. And and I I feel very good about the fact that for
the last handful of years running when we pull the community, they actually put infrastructure ahead of public safety. And I think that's kudos to us because we provide such a safe city. I mean, if we didn't, believe me, public safety
would be right at the top. So, people have gotten comfortable with all this. And we are not going to stop the population growth in this city. I don't care what anybody says. There's no way to stop it. People have property rights.
They own land. They are going to build. It's all a question of what type of development we get here. We don't manage it right, it's going to cost our citizens and all of us a whole lot more money than if we do it strategically. But so assuming all that and and we know
this budget provides for no staff increases and on a quarterly basis I assume we're going to look at this as budget amendment type things and and you know hand inand with the ask is
going to be how we expect to pay for it. I know that right now I I don't see how we pay for it. So, I'm kind of curious how we expect to
figure out how we're going to pay for it. Are there efficiencies in operations that could generate the tune of, you know, $4.8 million? Are there areas
across the general budget that we might be able to reallocate money for? I'm just curious because as we get into the thick and thin of the year, there's it's going to come before us and and the struggle is going to be how do we pay
for it? And and I mean the only I I I don't see any new revenue materializing anywhere. I I just don't. And so if it doesn't come from cost cutting or it doesn't come from reallocating it
from other parts of the general fund, how in any kind of realistic sense are we ever going to make a dent in that 4.8? And don't get me wrong, I appreciate that we got to make some dent in that in order to keep pace with
our growth. So I I don't, you know, and maybe it's a premature question. Maybe it should come up a quarter down the road the first time you all come and ask, but I'm sure curious because this this budget's balanced on the backs of
the police department. Quite frankly, it's every department's squeezed. And you can see where every department's made cuts and and tightened their belts to make this work, but the reality is 5
million of of this balanced budget is on the backs of y'all. And so how how do we dig out of this? Where are we going to find that money? Do we have any idea conceptually? So a couple answers to your statements. Police did sacrifice within their
budget. they've already sacrificed in their expenses. So, they have sacrificed as well in addition to their need for new staffing. But you add those two things together and you're talking six or seven million in one department for one budget. So, the the amount of the
amount of stress, so to speak, was spread around from everyone not getting what they needed. So, it was balanced on police as you stated because they are the heaviest cost driver in your general fund. they represent $40 million of a
$97 million budget. Um, so that is why the answer was for them to help balance the budget. The other question about where the money is coming from, whenever we do a midyear request from you, we have to tell you exactly where that money is coming from and where it's short or where it's over. Whether it's a
$40 million budget for them or $97 million for the general fund, none of that is always going to be paid out exactly the way that it's budgeted in this book. And as those changes occur and some might be soon uh later rather than sooner, we will come to you and say this is what the picture looks like now
that looks differently from what we knew in May, June or whenever it's budgeted and accepted in September. But there is no way for me to tell you exactly today where exactly the line item is going to come from because we don't know what's going to happen. What we can tell you is that as we add staff that they need, we
will make sure that we do include that in our budget projections going forward so that the use of fund balance is not the place where they're funded out of. That was a big because you can see, you know, when we look at the fund balance, we are make this overall budget balance. We're tweaking fund balance a little bit. That isn't always a great thing,
but it's, you know, the million one is kind of not a big number quite honestly. and to balance this budget school, but we don't have a lot of general fund fund balance left to do this with. So that's why I say it's really got to come from
operating during the course of the year and seeing where we can reallocate funds from here to there within the general fund to make this work. So I I didn't mean to put you really on the spot, but I wanted to highlight that's the challenge. That's the challenge.
Uh, Commissioner Petro. Thank you, Mayor. Couple questions. Um, well, first I want to compliment the police for their work. They do outstanding work, and that is both the chief and the deputy chief. Um,
as I drive, the men and women out there that are putting the hard work in, so they make us look good. your management. Uh, everywhere I everywhere I drive, I two streets I pass there's a police officer car. Two streets more, there's
another. So, you do outstanding work. I was just going to say all about you, Commissioner. Uh, but um, couple of questions. Um any are there any planning strategies uh for the police
station uh any of planning and um thoughts on that? Do you guys do any I I believe what the city managers um already described to you guys and that I believe those options eventually be coming back towards the
commission. Yes. So the if you're talking about the planning for the actual funding or you're talking about the planning for what he's going to do as a chief in between the current situation and the new situation are two kind of different things. The first one you as a board have already directed us
to go back in to explore the P3 and the cops pathway. Uh and that'll be coming back in front of you based on the unsolicited proposals that we've received. And then once we sort of discuss that, you will make a decision and then we'll we'll go from there as it relates to the overall funding of a new headquarters. But in the meanwhile, they
still have to operate and still run their department the most efficient way possible. And as you know, some of them are sort of stacked on top of each other over there in the building. So the trailers that are going to come in the end of fiscal year 25 will allow them to move some space out and give some more
breathing room there. And that's just with the staff that we have. So when you do the space planning and you bring on new employees, they'll have to be configured in and we'll have to know where they're going to go or how much time they are needed to be in the office versus the field and add those people accordingly. But there is definitely
going to be more art than science in this process of making sure that we move forward with a new police headquarters, whatever it looks like or whatever it costs or whenever we get it with what he has to do on an annual basis, which will be several years based on the fact that
we don't have a a funding pathway right now identified here in the middle of 2025. So, one thing I want to ask, well, I I got a couple things. um the integration with the IT department. Uh how how open
are you into that idea and working with the IT department to integrate police department with the overall IT our two departments work very well together right now. So um you know city manager is going to be looking at uh
different options and efficiencies and and make those decisions. So I just want to be on the record that I'm in full support of that. I'm all about efficiencies and how to make it more effective. Out of 35 positions requested
um and how many unfilled positions in that number? 16 or all 35 are requested or I guess my question is 16 unfilled positions that
needed to be filled and and that is part of 35 or no 35 is the number of unfilled positions that we're requesting for this year and 16 what is that number 16 are you referring to the 16 that they didn't get in their last year's budget yes so
last year I believe that number was 16 if I'm wrong correct me but based on sort of what we're doing Now that number was cut in half of what they actually um submitted. So he had to make do and figure out a way which he did in order to keep the services going. And so that
number has just now gone to 35. And those we have several of those that are identified with candidates already. We have five that are currently open with no names attached to it right now. Out of that 16. What do you see the most challenge of
recruit recruiting process? What level of positions? Entry positions or mid-level positions or I think getting the right people all across the board um is is challenging. Uh we have not really had difficulty recruiting because people
do want to come work for the Northport Police Department. So, I'm I'm proud to say that and a lot of that is because of the support that we have from the commission and the city manager's office. Um, but we're not really having a problem, you know, doing that. It's there's a lot of things that weigh lay
into the delay of our hiring. You got to remember the hurricanes really put a damper on a recruitment period and being able to process people, you know, during all that time and then some other situations that we had that we had to deal with that kind of delayed things.
Um, we also have to remember that we have to wait formies to start to get people into police academy. So sometimes our hiring cycle gets delayed because we have to rely on outside entities to put on police academy
and and one of the things Commissioner Petro that you asked in one of your questions, you know, the the ability for us to make sure that his salaries are competitive with those around him. That's what drove our decision-m to make mid-year adjustments for police because
we did not want to fall behind, but we had to also prove that we were going to fall behind if we didn't make an adjustment. So, we try to be proactive with problems and solve them before they reach you and definitely before they reach our community. So, when you see
some of those things happening, they're not always reactive because once you are reactive to it, it takes a lot longer and a lot more to fix it. we if we delay or or fall behind um we're in such a hot market where people
can leave here and go to a neighboring agency and not lose anything and make more money and stuff like that. So, it's important that we stay competitive uh where we are to keep our people here because if not they can easily they don't have to move their house or anything. They can easily jump from one
department to another department, stay in the region and they're not out anything. So, it's it's vitally important that we stay competitive. This commission has been so supportive over the years to get us to where we're at. If we lose any foothold there, you
know, you're going to have a hard time making up that that that time. And uh just to note uh the density population if we look at the Wellland Park West villages
a lot of those areas are gated communities. You don't really patrol those. Correct. That's not it's not correct. We control gated communities. So you do go in and patrol. And I guess my my question is u are you utilizing that strate strategically
placing the police officers in one location of the town uh versus uh so they don't travel all across the town to make it more efficient. So our city is broken up into zones, patrol zones and then in those
patrol zones we have police officers. So, um, we have a zone throughout the entire city. Each segment of the city is broken up into a zone. So, right, if someone's in Whan Park, they're not responding from Whan Park out to uh Yorkshire to respond to a call
unless it is some type of a dire emergency where it's, you know, everybody's responding. So, city manager, we'll hear from you on a quarterly basis as far as how many positions or how how does it work? How
you going to fund this shortage? Well, if Commissioner Petro, if the board agrees with the approach that I have proposed to you, then we will come to you on a quarterly basis and update you even if there is not a request at that time. Um, back to the um the mayor's
point, there has to be a funding mechanism that says, "Hey, we can we can afford these not only in the current year that we're bringing them in based on however we find those efficiencies or where things don't work out, but also how do we look forward to the next
year's budget?" Because you are you are automatically, as we all know, when you're adding new FTEEs, it's got to be for the long term there. You cannot just use it for one-time funding. So, that wouldn't be our goal, but our goal would be to keep you updated and posted. And be honest with you, what we're going
through with the police headquarters department and that sort of um exercise, you're going to be updated on a lot of police things for a lot of time for the next 12 months plus. Thank you, Commissioner.
Thank you, Mayor. Um on one of the slides I I noticed something about uh maybe it was a position or maybe two uh technical people to monitor approximately 160 license plate readers
the the electronic surveillance unit. Yes. Um first question is are we up to that 160 level yet? Do we have 160? I I know that the whole city is pretty much, you know, has I guess no matter which direction
you come at the city. Um I've been told we have license plate readers covering, but are we at that 160 level? Do we have those? We're at that level. The these people are not monitoring these cameras. the
electronic surveillance unit is responsible for going out and uh maintaining and putting up these uh cameras, but it's not just the cameras that they're dealing with. They're also dealing with other type of law enforcement sensitive electronic
equipment also. Okay. Um what I'm getting at is I believe in technology and you know MAC you know you know technology is expensive. Um, but I think it's a worthwhile investment. Um,
as a citizen who just drives around the city, uh, I don't worry too much about somebody, you know, robbing me, uh, attacking me physically. What I do worry about, and I'm sure
other people do, is traffic. Just about every trip I take and a lot and a majority of my trips nowadays seem to be about four miles from my house to here. Just about every day I'm looking at somebody that's tailgating me. I look at
somebody that passes me in a place that they shouldn't be passing. I think um in on a safety aspect uh I see you know I see all the all our young people and a lot of adults nowadays too you know on
these two wheeled electric vehicles um and you know I did see I said this at our last meeting you know I saw a young man you know a teenager and he was on an electric bike and he had
six, seven, eight year old behind him. When they got to a stoplight stopped, young person got off, pushed the button for the crosswalk, then they waited for it. When it came on, he even turned back to his left to look, you
know, and I stopped. I gave him a challenge point. Um, I'd like to see more of our efforts put into education because there are going to be accidents with that and I'd like to see technology.
I know we use drones but because of geography in this city way our neighborhoods, you know, we don't have that interconnectivity. We have isolated neighborhoods and people in the in the neighborhoods continually go through stop signs
continually. And so I know traffic, you know, that's that's one of our major issues. And and I wouldn't mind seeing, you know, the money put towards, you know, even drones, uh, whatever we could use, you
know, that's my major my major major concern. I can assure you it's uh the city manager's priority as well as mine is uh traffic safety throughout the city. Um and you're going to see a lot of
proactive enforcement coming along, especially with the the ebikes and and the scooters and stuff like that. Um but everything you say, Commissioner, I don't deny. But everything you you talk about, it boils down to people. And the
one of the biggest things that we're talking about here is not providing personnel that are needed to provide the services that are so needed in this city. So eventually, you're right, the service levels will suffer and we won't
be able to do all those things that people want because we don't have the people to go out there arbitrarily to do all the extra things. We have to stay with the core mission and respond for emergency calls for service. Yes. Um, one thing I, you know, I forgot
to mention, um, kind of an indirect thing, but every time I hear someone complain about city hall, you know, the city city taxes are going up, you know, other taxes are going up, insuranceances are going up.
Okay? Car insuranceances are part of those insuranceances costs going up. And if we put the money into our police department, into our traffic control, maybe we won't have so many accidents in the city and maybe insurers cost can
start to level off. So, one one other thing that will be coming in front of the commission um soon is we are looking at putting the speed cameras in the school zones. Uh so that's something that we're we're hoping that
will also keep our children safe uh traversing to and from schools and hopefully it will slow the motoring public down. Mr. Lang, thank you Mr. Mayor. Um city manager, how would you like us to proceed? So, for example, I would like
to um call for a consensus to increase the police budget by $300,000 to be spent specifically on things that increase the efficiency of our patrol and our
detectives. Mhm. Um I'm thinking if there could be other places in the budget where we would like to see more investment, would it make sense to identify them as we go through and then at the end of the process say
Gibbers, we want to find another million dollars to fund what we all think are critical investments to make and then we can have a conversation. Okay, how do we fund that million rather than trying to figure it out for each the park? H how
are you thinking? What would be the best way for us to proceed on these kinds of things? So, if you made a consensus that you wanted to increase the budget by $300,000, which is not something we cannot adjust to. We would make that adjustment and tell you where that adjustment came from. Um it is not
something we would ask you to do on a day. If that number is $3 million, then we're going to have a different conversation. All right. Because that that's more than we can identify without cutting into one of the priorities that we believe you have in order to find said $3 million. So the 300 How about
$500,000? Yeah, I can. Does that tip it? I can work with $500,000, but um to rearrange some priorities, but it's when you start getting to the bigger numbers that we will have a challenge of making um but again, we might add everything up
and it might be 5 million. Correct. Correct. Then we have to have a conversation. Where do we find five million? You would you'd have to say what do we want to rep prioritize based on what we see it on based on what we want. Right. So if you said, "Hey, we want $5 million and we want to take it
from good governance then or or this and good governance is not as important as this is in infrastructure." And then you make some of those decisions, we would go in the direction that you point us. You don't need to point us to a line item, but you do need to point us in a direction, right, that says, hey, you
know, this is the pillar or outcome I want you to try to find it from. And we would do that. Okay. Yeah. Sure. So I I just want to point out I I know and I hear a lot of discussion about you know focusing on the police
and the detectives right but one thing that we do year after year after year is we forget people behind the curtain right those critical positions that we need to keep the operation going and one
of them is is like the um the video u processing for public records you know because we have body cameras and all that other stuff. It's increased that workflow so much and it like the city manager and I have talked, it's putting us in a position to where we're going to
have a hard time keeping up with our legal obligations to be able to uh fulfill those requests. So, it's not just the gun to cops on the street, it's people behind the curtain as well. Right. Exactly. I mean, I think we are not funding to telecommunications
people, right? I mean, that's that's sort of a a big deal. Um, anyway, I' I'd like to float a consensus if you haven't that. True. Um,
I would like to direct um staff to increase the police budget by $500,000 specifically for investments that directly impact the
productivity of the organization. things like just to give some suggestions since I'm making it community service officers, asset specialists, drones, electronic surveill surveillance, traffic officer
sort of not productivity but you know really essential things and I don't want to second guess you guys. You know where the productivity gains can be best made. Um but but I'd like to make that correction.
Um I mean my only comment to that since I don't see anybody else's name up there um is where where would that $500,000 come? Well, I'm thinking that we sort of
gather them all up because we might have other places in the budget where we think we should increase the investment by X. Rather than trying to figure this one out now, at the end of this process, let's look at
the amount of increased funding we'd like to see and then can have a more cumulative um meaningful conversation about where we find it. I mean, if this is the only one, then staff might say, gee, we can
things within the police budget to find it. It's not a big deal. But if over the next two days we identify five million more spending for the general fund and that's a whole different conversation. Yeah. I mean, you know,
uh, my presumption is that staff's responsibility, and when I say staff, I mean from city manager on down through every department as this budget was put together, there were serious and and and
comprehensive thought that went into what ended up in in these departmental budgets and prioritization took place in and among. Now, as commission, we can decide we want to rep prioritize some of that certainly our right to do and and
to say that um the exercise of doing that I have no big problem with, but I would never support increasing the utilization of of of of fund balance to additionally pay for it. What it's going to mean is we as a commission say we
think it's more important that you spend $350,000 or half a million dollars on these things but not on those things. If that's the exercise we want to go through, I'm I'm okay with that. But, you know, again, it's it's there's a
finite universe of dollars to work with. I I would have assumed staff's already done that exercise, but if commission feels that it would like to second guessess that and perhaps rep prioritize some of staff's priorities, I have no problem with that.
I'll, you know, well, well, again, part of what my thinking is is that staff put together this budget with certain assumptions, and one of those assumptions was for the sixth year, we'll keep our millage rate flat. Maybe
depending upon the outcome of these two days, we have to revisit that. Fair enough. Okay. So anyway, I I guess city clerk, you want Fair enough. Review. Yeah, just reread the consensus
to direct the city manager to increase the police department budget by $500,000 for investments that impact the proficiency of the department. Mr. Petra, you yay or a nay? Yeah, I got no problems having that
conversation. I'd be a yes. Yeah, I'm going to have the conversation. Absolutely. Yes, I'm a Yes. I have I have a question. uh city manager's budget for the police department recommended for 2026
uh 868,410 greater than 25. Uh Commissioner Langden is your proposal to go 500,000 above that for the use of technology for efficiencies. Yes.
I'm very concerned not adding headcount and not doing everything we can to help our sworn officers be more efficient and effective. I have to go along with you. Right. Well, we have a unanimous
consensus, but you get a feel for it. I think it's important hopefully staff will track this so we can build that list because uh yeah I'd be interested to see what we're through all the departments how big that list grows. So we got 500,000 on it so far. Going
once, going twice. Uh anything else on police? Sure. Last call. Any public comment? All right then.
Guess we can move on. Thank you very much for all you do, for all your efforts. I know this was not easy one and so we'll do everything we can to try to get you guys the
dollars you need to do the job to keep us all safe as we've been. Next item up. Oh yeah, we're going to slash this department. D25-2371 discussion direction regarding fiscal
year 26 city clerk's department recommended budget city manager all year. Okay. Well, here's where we're going to find your $500,000 that you just mentioned. That's what we think. I'm just teasing.
Um she uh this is the city clerk's office. Um let me get you up here. My apologies. Um, this is a department that I pass. Man, it was so quick. I went really fast. Um, there's only eight
positions in this department. Um, there are no new additional requests. U, this is a department that has actually lost people over the past few years. Um she has a budget that remains extremely um tight and small and has done a good job
in keeping um in line with some of the financial challenges that some other departments in the city has seen. You look at the performance measures of the city uh clerk's office, you can see two of them are on target and two of them are below target. I, as I was looking
through this, I would recommend the 100% target goal and being at 98% on both of them might be a little too high of 100%. I understand where she's coming from. Uh, so in my mind, those two are on target as well. Um, she she does well
with posting the 95% of the regular schedule the commission meeting agenda packets uh as well as um the public records request. Now, I will say that the the people that we talked about just briefly in the prior conversation with the police chief about public records requests, the clerk was generous enough
to go over and work with our public records request team over in the police department to identify how their structure could be better in order to service the public records request. So those positions and if we're if we're all in the same mindset of where we're at so far would be sort of the first
positions in my mind that would come back to you on a quarterly basis because we recognize there is a challenge there. But as the clerk went over there and sort of helped with the um the duties and assignments and the roles and responsibilities, it sort of cleared itself up. But at the end of the day,
those positions are needed in order to make sure that what the chief said does not happen. Um, so I I appreciate the collaboration from the clerk and the police department on making sure that our public records requests stay in alignment with what the law says and what we expect. U and then the last two
were um commission meeting minutes um being provided within 14 days as well as she's making her target on 100% of the official documents uh into the records repository within seven business days.
Um this budget summary right here uh shows that you know within her operating budget um the 113,000 is very small for department to operate on. Um but the efficiencies and the
desire of not needing more within her office are reflected in her request. Uh and then her personal request as I said there are no new positions just only normal um merit increases. Um, no funded
proposals impact 25 and one proposal included in 3,88 for fiscal year 26 and there were no other unfunded proposals. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Happy to answer any questions. Quick question. Uh, where
the does the cost for public records requests fall it under the police or under Clark's department? Is it police? No, it's a good question. So when they say um in other words, we
we got bodies. Obviously, God knows how many people actually devote resources to providing you mean like the extra cost when we say like you got to pay X amount of money to get the request. Well, yeah. I'm wondering like what departments that
budgeted item fall under. There's a cost to it and then we charge for it. Yes. Where under where is that? We charge them based off of the lowest person in the department that can complete that request. No, but I mean what department?
Is it your department? Whose department? So, so I think it depends on what the request is that comes in. The staff and our team are responsible for doing it. So that's in our staffing cost. It's not broken out separately for wherever that is. Okay. So someone makes a request
let's say police related, right? So police does it. Okay. But if they make a request that's police related and there's a cost to it that we charge them, then that money comes in and goes into a a line item, I believe. At least correct me if I'm wrong. It's a line item or all public records request
revenue goes into the same line item. Do do we know if if we're covering the cost of public records requests? Well, I I believe that based on the calculation, it's recovered based off of Florida statute. So everything that we charge is
based off of Florida statute. We can't change those fees. But our my question is are we recovering 100% of what it costs us to meet those public records request. Do we know the answer to that? I don't think we charge the
salary of the person who's the person who's completing it to include their benefits as well. So we for anything over 30 minutes. So, if it's under 30 minutes, we don't receive anything for it. If it's over 30 minutes, we charge the exact rate of the person who's completing it as long as
it's the lowest person in that position that can complete it to include their benefits. And we charge for if they want paper copies, which most of them don't. So, we're probably not covering all of them, but we're covering most. Yes. Not 100%. But I don't I don't believe it's I don't
think the system's designed to do it that way. But I I see what you're asking. Yeah. And I know it's Yeah, I see what you're asking. Okay. But I just Who's up on this one? Anybody got anything else to say on clerks? Petro, put your put your name up there
because if you don't, I don't know if I I guess it's part of their job to provide public record. That's actually in the job description, I believe. So it is covered and that's their time
they actually um I've never done well they actually did one public request but it was construction related. Um my question is so this reclass of assistant city clerk to the deputy. Um,
it's nice to have a deputy clerk, right? Because if someone something happens or if you're not here, uh, the deputy can fill in. Uh, my question is about the salary for the deputy proposed position. Is that
48390 uh, additional to the current salary? I believe it is with cost. Yes, with the benefits and everything. So that would be what would the uh
deputy city clerk am month of a salary on an annual basis don't have no we can get it for him but I don't think we have it right now unless you have it
I but I can get that to you um my My my only concern is uh the compensation packages are very generous to the city uh plus the benefits. Um so how do we
determine that amount to be assigned to the deputy position? So there was a job description for a deputy city clerk when I got hired in 2019. That is the job description that was used to hire me. So it yes it is the exact same job description with the
exact same pay classification as it was in 2019 when I was hired. Do we have any say in that or how do as a commission board how do we when it was when I was hired it was a charter officer position and then we did the um
referendum question for it not to fall under commission any longer. So now it's yes as a deputy. So now it is a employee of the city that falls with the um rest of HR classifications. And how does HR determine
the amount of um of compensation compensation? Um there's several different ways. One is by desk auditing to make sure that the duties are in alignment with other grades within those same duties. Um there's also a comparative analysis that we do when we
do as I mentioned earlier the comp the comprehensive compensation study where you can make sure that you are not only properly classified for your grade and your peers within yourself as an organization but others around you with the same title and the same duties. Uh so there's several different ways to
make sure that it's fair and accurate. Um but what we just did very recently if I'm not mistaken and I know HR is not right here right now. We looked at the different positions in the department of the clerk's office to make sure that they were in alignment with what we
needed and when we do the comprehensive study that I mentioned they will still be included again as we look at it to make sure that they have stayed into alignment. So our goal whether it's as I said in my example whether it's myself my office my team her office attorney's office anyone in any department we all
we need to make sure that everyone has a salary and a grade that is reflective of the duties they perform. Thank you Mr. Oh, we do have the salary. I'm sorry. We do have the salary of the deputy. Yes, for the salary for the
deputy for the fiscal year with the reclass happening on March 1st will be 81,465. That's only from March 1st till what's the annual is that that would be only for March through December, correct? Oh,
October, I'm sorry. That's for the fiscal year that we're talking about will be 8165 and then the annual fiscal year. Yeah. the annual fiscal year of next year that we're talking about with our budget 81. The second
year annual fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Lang. Thank you, Mayor. Um, someone who has recently completed a campaign I am violently in support of 2948 easy
vote. Uh and report on my own. I'm sure our two new commissioners would agree with me on that one. So, thank you. Thank you for including that. Um and I just want to give you kudos. We're getting like
meeting minutes pretty quickly after a meeting. You know, a few months ago we get the minutes. I couldn't even remember the meeting. I know it's a minute. So, I just really want to compliment your staff. Things just seem to be moving
um in a much more timely and efficient way. I would second that. We really really appreciate it. In the last couple of months, it's been head over heels. Mr. D.
Thank you, Mayor. Um, my first question is, uh, there's a $19,940 increase in retirement contributions. Is that the result of increases in salaries
or does the FRS system mandate some increase, you know, certain percentage increase each year? Yes, there is definitely an increase uh by the state in our FRS contributions every year, but also part of that is
taking the assistant city clerk to a deputy city clerk. They move into a different category that's higher. Okay. Thank you. Um on the PowerPoint presentation there were you know four things and uh couple
were at 100% a couple were and I saw the things where they were below expectations um at 98%. Uh yeah below target um acknowledging and assigning 100% of public records in 24 hours and 100% of commission meeting
minutes in 14 days. 100% is an awful high goal to try to get to for anybody. Um, and it's hard for me to say that 98% is below target. Um, city clerk staff works with me. Um,
they tell you more more than I would. Um, they do an awesome job for me. uh they have a lot of the technical knowledge that I don't have you know uh an Apple iPhone uh and
year over year the increase in the budget due to this department uh you just have to say it's excellent. Thank you folks. We need any consensus on this department or we good?
Right. Nice job. All right. Public comment. All right. Moving on. E25-2372.
Discussion possible direction regarding fiscal year 26. City commission recommended. City manager. You're up. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. U. So this is the budget for yourselves and you really only have one
slide here to discuss. Um the main reason for the increase in your fiscal year 26 recommended from your 25 projected is the carryover effects of what we did last year which was to rightsize the salary of the commission
based on where it was to based on where it needed to go. Um I think two of you were not here when we did that and it was was a very public conversation but a very necessary conversation to sort of better align the compensation with the
duties that were performed at some point in time. Uh for the new commissioners this probably was a part-time job that required less and demanded less. Now, as you have seen, I think uh whether you agree with what we did or not, you have
seen firsthand the demands that the job uh entails. It's not just two or three meetings a month. We're talking uh serious demand on your time in addition to the the meetings. We're talking about public interaction. We're talking about citizens responsing. We're talking about meeting with staff. Um we're talking
about all the things that entails to do the job that you have been selected to do and you have embraced to do since you've been here. So, um, I'm going stop right there, but, um, between myself and our team and the clerk's office, we can answer probably any question you might
have regarding some of your line items in your budget for fiscal year 26 recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, sir. Commissioners, I see no names up there. Don't feel compelled. Oh, I do. I'm Thank you, mayor. I'm looking at the
2025 adopted and it says 2018 560. Are you Are you in I'm in the book? This book. So when I see the proposed budget, I as a citizen or any
user for that matter. I see a percentage hike of 51% in salary and I don't think it is correct. I don't know if it was an honest mistake or if it's me reading this incorrectly. If you can guide me.
The salary increase was done after the budget was adopted last year. So your adopted and amended do not show the increase that was approved by Looks like such a big jump. So if the public sees it, they're going to say,
"Hey, they're getting another raise of 51%." How do we address that? How do we Is it is there a note? Should be a note food or something that so it will be visible because we only
getting I believe less than 10% or something like this. You could add a footnote on this page that would better explain the difference so that someone saw the number put aster by and then put at the bottom because it's similar to the same thing when you look and we you asked questions over the weekend like
regarding our office is the same thing. The increase that I had skews the other ones based on it not being budgeted at the time that it was um provided. Yes, we can fit a footnote on that page. I just feel like if it if it's adopted and
it's current um we at least should have a footnote or something saying I mean I would be not opposed to 51% hike but um I know it's not right at the same
time I I was told by uh previous commissioners and my current fellow commissioners that that is a full-time position. Just as a city manager stated, whether we want it or not, I mean, it it takes a
lot of our times and uh looking at the celebrity report as of April 17th, I believe. I we are one of the lowest paid employees in the city.
True. And yet we are the we are the legislature body of this city. Sir, it was a lot worse before you got here. I will say that. But again, it was the same way we looked at ours, you know, to be fair and equitable. Like I said, like
I want us to do from top to bottom. We did a very similar exercise on your salary as well. It was not just a number that we came up with. It wasn't just something as a nice to do. It was a growth in equity that we tried to solve for in order so that we could um not
only I think what we said was um retain the talented commission that we have but also make it more attractive for those that we want in the future. Yes. And I'm not advocating anything. I'm just stating the fact um and if we want to attract the uh new talents and new candidates, it
has to be competitive to some extent. But I guess the I don't know maybe the the previous commissions didn't see the need that. But um and it's not only for retirees to have a
place in the on the commission board. I believe that's exactly right. I do I do believe we have to be proactive. Um but enough of this. I just want to make sure that public doesn't see the percentage
hike of 51% in commission salary. Yes, sir. Uh as of right now, our commission uh salary is $55,000 annually. That's right. So just want to state it publicly that we're not pocketing any
money that we're not extra making extra uh any other way or stipens or anything. I mean our charter is really specific of how much and what and for the record I want to state that currently my salary
is $55,000 plus I think it's 5 55 500 something. Yes. So that's it for me. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Duval.
Thank you, Mayor. Um, not going to be very popular here. Join the club. Uh, you can hold me out three and a half years, but I'm not running. uh when it comes to commissioner
salaries, you know, I I mean I campaigned on on the issue. Um, I am just against anybody giving themselves raises, you know, and and you know, my overall goal before
2026 is to get a referendum on the ballot that says city commissioner salary is whatever value and after that it'll be raised as long as we have a balanced budget. per the CPI just like people on social
security. Um now there was already a raise given you know from 425 to 55 and included in that is a is a raise this year you know in October to around 62. Um,
and in the interest of showing taxpayers, you know, that we're serious about, you know, trying to keep cost down and keeping in mind and it and you're you're correct, Commissioner Petro, it is a full-time job. It's a lot of hours, but
we all volunteered for it. We ran for it and asked the citizens to give it to us. To me, it's a service position. My position here is different than every one of those city employees sitting out here. They're they it's their career,
their job. This is not my career, my job. It's a lot of hours. It's a lot of work, but it's not the same. And therefore, you know, I'd just like to put out to our commission, you know, the possibility of maybe we should freeze
our salary raise that's supposed to come this October. What do you think of that? Well, since I'm next up in the queue, um, well, certainly as commissioner
ball says commission is different than staff. Um, and in some respects, one could argue levels of importance. Um, but I don't think we need to go
there. I I would have to say that being responsible for the the acting as stewards for our citizens tax dollars to me is one serious
undertaking. I do not take it lightly. This is no bloody volunteer job for me. I didn't do this because I got tired of fishing or painting. I did this to make a contribution to my city.
I work my ever loving you know what off for it. I deserve to be compensated reasonably and fairly for it and equitably for it. And I expect that. And the reason I voted for those increases were because I truly believe this
commission should not be filled by retired individuals who can afford to sit up here, but rather to incentivize younger folks who were willing to for a period of 4 to eight years give up their
compensation in the private sectors to do public service work and be compensated fairly and equitably for it. Um, I do not believe singling out a specific department to freeze salaries is a smart
thing. If this commission wishes to entertain freezing a thousand salaries in this city, opening up the union contracts, freezing everybody's compensation, and I suppose that's a conversation worth having, but I I would say that no commissioner on this day is
willing to do that. Okay? because this particular item and recommendation is about optics to a group of people who would love to see commission salaries cut and
um a variety of other asks. But you know, my personal opinion is that as every other department was rightsized here in this city in order to get the best people in the best positions working at the best they could do. And I
think the solution is very simple. Let's just simply change the formula. tying commission compensation to s to to population growth doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I understand there was a a logic to it at
some point, but I'd be agreeable to entertain staff and make a consensus to have staff come back and look at changing the way in which compensation for commissioners are figured. tie it to what everybody else is tied to, which is
a cost of living increase. Um, and I understand statutoily it it if we were to do this, it it would not take effect until after a next election cycle. I think by law that's how that has to work. I'm good with that. Um, the
decisions we made last year were to rightsize the commission's compensation package so we could attract a broader caliber of candidates. Would we get better candidates? Anybody's guess, but
we certainly should get more and that's important, I think. And that we all whoever is sitting in these seats get compensated reasonably and fairly. Um, so I would definitely not be in favor of freezing our salaries unless commission
wishes to freeze everybody's salary. It's all I have to say and Commissioner Langler. Yeah, so often happens the mayor always steals my thunder. Um, I hit my button. I mean, I agree. No, I think when um the next raise goes in,
we'll be at about 62. For me, that feels right. And my motivation again was making running for a commission this kind of public service to make it more feasible
for a broader range of people. I mean look at us four of the five positions are held by retirees. We are not representative of the community perman um and and when you're compensated at
$30,000 or $35,000 that is not enough to have someone who's 55, which is young from my point of view, maybe go into early retirement. 30,000 doesn't cut it. 62, 64, yeah, you
know, it might become an option and and start getting younger commissioners up here. So, um I think, you know, once we get this final raise, I'm feeling pretty good that we've been right sized. I agree. Population, although a lot of
other municipalities are based on population growth, doesn't really resonate with me. So I think next year we can have a really good conversation about any changes we might want to make because again they can't go into effect
until after the next election. So uh that's it for me. What kind of lead time would staff need if we did a consensus to bring back? Do we can we wait till next year or is it something we should do now?
Um if you want to change the formula and format of how you are compensated going forward. Um, I would say if you give us the direction it would if you want us to do more analysis than we did last time in order to justify where you were going at that point or if you just want us to
see well what does it look like as far as options of uh I I believe I heard you say well if we decide upon what the job is worth now and then add it incrementally on an annual basis for increases or if you want to tie it to a percentage of what the county administration is compensated on.
There's different ways you can go to make it simpler than it is right now. Um I believe what you voted on last year will take you through this October. So once you get past that anytime between I guess October of when your new salary begins and before the end of the next
following year, which of course should have uh um election implications in there as well to get it done. See, that's why, you know, I'm I'm wondering if it is if this isn't the year to actually make that decision for
ourselves. We knowing full well it doesn't go into effect till after the election, but it's a good year to do it. It's a dormant year, so to speak, without the election. Well, and I I do believe that uh doing it closer to the election will influence some people
whether they agree with it or not um in November of 2026. And if we can avoid that at all possible, I would agree. Appreciate it. Uh, Commissioner Dval. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to uh
rebut one statement that that you made, Mr. Mayor. Um, my proposal is not to satisfy one segment segment of of the population. Okay,
this is just a something inside me that I just do not believe and I started by saying, you know, that uh I want to see a referendum in the chart that changes
the way commissioner raises are given. I just don't believe it's correct. at whatever salary whether it's a 100,000 you know 200,000 I don't think we should be voting on our own salaries and that's
why I'd like to see the change but I do not make these statements uh for any segment of the population other than myself as a representative of all the taxpayers Again,
I see the distinction there. And before vice mayor speaks, if if uh you know, if commission wanted to entertain a a referendum item 26 to uh to change the charter and how commission is compensated, that's a discussion to be
had, I suppose. Um, I personally think we could just fix it by making a decision to tie compensation to a CPI or a formula now that it's right sized and have that go into effect. This way we do it and it's done and we can we can do
that and accomplish the same thing. And it would send a message to our citizens that we feel now that the commission's compensation levels are rightsized and reasonable that going forward compensation should be tied to CPI just
like or um you know just just like every other department just like everybody else who works for the city. That to me seems very reasonable. And and just to be clear, Mr. Mayor, if I'm if I'm hearing Commissioner Duval correctly,
in addition to the model of how you're paid, you also want to change who controls the changing of the payment. You're asking for a referendum item to go in front of the people so the people can make the decision on how much you are
being paid. Right now, the commission makes that decision based on the rules that are in place. Am I correct? with a slight slight variation. I'm just, you know, asking a referendum item that would change the charter so that the
salary would be set at a certain level. Yes. And then, as the mayor just suggested, be increased each year per the CPI, but being determined by the people because you're putting it on a referendum. So, you're asking the people to determine
that as opposed to the commission who does it now. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Just No, I'm not clear. Right. I I had thought the referendum was to change the charter to put the pay
formula in the charter. Not the formula. I am not a fan of the formula. I'd say right set the pay level at you know like if it's 55 now and and it's going to stay you know the way it
is now it'll be 62 in October then the next year have a referendum and say okay it's 62 it's going to be at 62 or whatever level and then increased each year in the future per the CPI
not by any commission's vote okay We can the five of us can vote to increase our salary or lower our salary if we want. But then the next commission can also do the same and and totally reverse it.
Once it's in the charter, the citizens decide on it. It's there and it's locked in. Question answer. No, but it's okay. Just Yeah, I maybe I can rephrase it. In other words, he's
not re and correct me if I'm wrong, Commissioner. We're not suggesting it's that there's there's no suggestion that citizens vote to decide what the compensation levels going to be, but rather to say, okay, as
of the referendum date, whatever it is going forward, the mechanism by which it's increased would be locked into a charter language so that it wouldn't be approved with the budget by commission
each year. That's what I meant by the formula and you said no. So that's what confused that's what it is the formula. Um different. Yeah. But I get that. Okay. Yeah. And we're on the same page. So I just that's how I heard it. So
thank you. Um Vice Mayor. Yeah. I got a headache now. No, that's what I was getting at for Commissioner Deval. Right now the way we did it was a two-part raise. you know, last year, this year, next year it's automatically froze. So, if that's the
number that everybody's comfortable at, the 62 or whatever it comes out to be, it's very simple to go ahead and get the language put down for a type of formula to go out there like as you said in the referendum, put it out there. Okay,
every year we're going to go by X. Citizens approve that. That's fine. If not, then we're stuck at where it's at until it does get changed because it's going to be froze for well elections. You know, you got to change it at the next election. If not,
it's going to stay at 62 forever and ever and ever and ever. That's the way it's been worded in the ordinance. Except for the fact that in the formula that's used right now, there's a population. Correct. I'm not saying we
So, so, so the the there could be an increase next year if if we go above 5,000 population gain. Every time gets to 5,000, there would be an increase. Well, however you work it. If there's a
different cost of living aspect of it, you want to follow that strategy, you can do that. Population, like the mayor, he was against population. So if we get it like commonized on how everybody else does it, you know, oh, you get 2%
because that's where social security went up or percent and a half, that's what you're going to get compensated, but you want to put it on referendum. The public gets to approve it. If they're good with it, it's all good to go. So each year you might get a percent and a half, but we finally got it fixed
right now to where we can jump off of that going forward. That's that's all I'm looking at. That's what we wanted to do was rightsize everything. Now, you know, the skies are blue. We can go ahead and fix that before the election of next year. Absolutely. That's all I
have. Thank you. Um, Mr. Petra, Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry. Really quick, um, Mr. Mayor, we just want to make sure that the we understand that the formula that we did adopt last year is still based on population, but the numbers that were in
the column didn't sort of go to the top of where that could be. So, changing it and fixing it because I think that we've heard we heard a lot last year, even when we did it, that the population being based was something that you all wanted to get away from. So, just want to make sure. Thank you, Mr. Petra.
Thank you, Mayor. Just for the record, our salary is $55,255. I was not part of that increase vote last year because I was not elected yet. Um, but I just want to dispel this notion that, you know, government positions
or working for the city is somewhat inferior. on the opposite and contrary to that I as I was looking at the salary report of uh April 17th um print out
after I'm turned out or if I don't run for the re the election I I'll be applying for the city I'll be applying for accounting department or whatever because they pay a lot better than currently private sector at least in our
area and I can speak from the experience because my peers are looking for jobs. Um, and I've been amazed the disparity between the government paid and the private sector. Years ago, it was vice versa. It was the opposite that, you
know, government paid little, but now it's the opposite. Plus, you take into account the benefit packages, uh, insurance and all all that stuff. So, I just want to dispel that notion that, you know, city
employees are underpaid or they they it's it's the opposite. And let's just be real to that. But enough of that. As far as my salary or our salary, um I don't know the solution. I I guess it
was voted in. So, um how do we change it? It's up to the board um formula. Um if we don't vote ourselves how else we do it and even putting in the charter. We still
have to vote. Uh but my my my concern is uh this is my primary job now making $55,000 a year um as a single bread winner with four kids.
I mean I I think it's fair. Uh I don't want to go lower than that for sure. I want to go higher but you know it's have you have to be reasonable but also I want to dispel that notion on the
public view of our salaries. Um if we if the public wants a proper representation of their city it has to be properly structured and compensated. Um because otherwise it's a
retiree position, part-time position. But wait, wait till you get in. It's not a part-time position. Uh so just want to put my five cents into it and um I don't have any other income
in that amount. So this is my primary income. So so to speak. So um you be the judge. 55,000 if it's okay. But looking at that salary report from the city, we are the
lowest paid people in the city yet with the highest legislature board of the city that is growing. Oh, and I just want to say that we only 45%
build out. That means our city is going to grow and grow and grow. And uh you'll be amazed how many people call us, how many people stop us. I mean they take our time. This is work. Yes, we signed up for that. But uh there's more and more
challenges as the city grows. So that should be taken into consideration growth of the city. If the city grows and the demand, the number of people are calling you, demanding you to
I mean you everybody knows here in this room at least the amount of emails we get and I try to reply to every email that takes time that takes work. So tying to the population, it's a consideration and I think it
should be probably considered to the population but I have not looked at the formula proposed formula or the current formula. So I have no of knowing what to do now as of now. So I just wanted to
put this out. This is our salary and that's how we feel. That's how I feel at least. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Um, just two points. Well, one point and then perhaps the consensus. Um, uh,
I wasn't sure if I understood Mr. Petra correctly when he said comparing compensation of working for city government versus private sector. Um but but I would want to say emphatically that private sector always pays better
than public sector and has does and probably will continue to if you compare like entities. Yes. If you look around Northport and say gee you know what's a small business pay it's department head for this that or the other you know yeah
sure they might not get paid much. Let's not forget, and I call it a business, but it's not a business. This is a $330 million organization. If you're a department head in a $300 million corporation,
you're getting paid some serious money to do your job. If you have 40, 50, 60 people, you look at what our people make and when the public gets a records request and publishes everybody's salary
in the city and people gasp, well, go out and look at what Fortune 500 companies pay their people to do like jobs and you will see that public service workers in the cities, municipalities, and counties get paid
less. It is just a fact. It has always been a fact. It will always probably be a fact because you're talking about taxpayer dollars. And that's just how it is. As far as, you know, not to belabor that point, but just to switch gears,
I I'd make a consensus that we direct staff and it doesn't need to be done next month, but it, you know, sometime this this season, yeah, to have, you know, staff come back with a formula. I mean, right now it compensates tide the
population. In my opinion, that's a lousy idea. I don't like it. I don't think it's reasonable. I don't think it has relevance. I think now that we've right-sized it with this October adjustment, I say tie it to what
everybody else does in every other department. Tie it to this to the cost of living and be done with it. And if commission decides it wants to actually create a referendum item to memorialize this in in in the charter, well, that's
a discussion to have for another day. So, you know, my recommendation would be to, you know, I'd like to make that that consensus. So, it's on the record. So, you know, staff is going to work at it over a period of time to bring it back during this fiscal year so we get get it
decided before we go into the 2026 election season. I don't think that's the time to have that conversation. It's now. So, um, with that, Mr. Petro,
no, I mean I made a consensus. I'm looking forward. Mayor, can you restate your consensus because Yes. to instruct the to direct what's Yeah. to direct staff to come back with a uh
methodology, a recommendation for for uh commission compensation increases uh going forward um before this school year.
Early next year. a yay or a no. Vice mayor. Yeah. It'll also give the new candidates something to campaign on. Either for or no. That's fine. Absolutely. Give them something to talk about. I mean yes. I
mean yes. Just have one question before I say yes or no. Commissioner Sally right now is based on a formula and I just my memory is that formula
in the charter codified right it's not in the what's that formula is codified in our city code is not it's not in the charter thank you very much okay yes Right.
Good. Um, yes. We got anything else on city commission that we want to talk about? Then do we have any public comments? Yes. Debbie Mcdow. This Okay. Yes. The city manager's budget is giving the hardworking staff a
recommended salary increase, I quote, salary cost for existing level of service of 3.5% and a continuation of an additional 1% cost of living adjustment to meet the increase in the minimum wage. End quote. Don't forget, all of staff's salary increases are tied directly to an annual performance
review. Commissioners do not get an annual review. Using the gov max page six to compare the commissioner's executive salaries for fiscal year 2025 is $218,560 or about $43,200
each to FY2026 showing $329,410 or about $65,000 each. This is about a 51% increase. Good lord, nobody deserves a 51% increase year-toear. Nobody. Especially with no increase in responsibilities. Please show the
citizens you mean business in cutting costs and preparing for the three failed referendum projects that are a priority. It starts with your example. Please show staff you are not above their 4.5% increase. You'll have the power to freeze your salaries or take a reduction
to match the staff's 4.5% modest salary increases. Do the right thing. Reduce your salaries today. And that's all there may. All right. Um, where do we sit? What's What's your schedule? Lunch time. We've passed it, but now would be a good time.
Be a good time. Then it is 12:40. Let's say we're back here. 45 minutes. Yeah, 45 minutes. Can we do it? That brings us back to 130.
45 is fine. Yeah. I All right. here at 1:30. Yes, sir. I started my first position in planning and zoning in our development services department. I'm partnered with the building department because my my the
fees are assessed off of the building permits and it's strictly for new construction, new development. And uh the first thing I do is to check the spreadsheet to look at the permits and determine which ones need me to estimate
their impact fees. And that's where I start with that. Then I go to numbers that I have to put together and I put together the invoices for our developers. Oftentimes I'll get phone calls to give quotes before their um the development comes through and so
developers want to know how much they can budget for. So sometimes I put through proposed estimates to help them with that. And the bulk of it is is making sure that the fees are in the system as fast as possible. I love the
aspree decor that I experience. Just how everybody team work together. I uh enjoy knowing that I'm can make a difference for the city and that my position can have a positive impact in for our city.
Oh, you're swimming in the pool. Okay. I'm Stacy Losio. I'm the emergency management coordinator for the city of Northport. And we're going to talk about why it's important to have a go kit and what should go inside of it. It's important to have a go bag because if you wait last minute to pack, there are
definitely going to be items that you are going to forget in the scramble to get everything put together. So, it's important to have your documents such as IDs, insurance paperwork, titles for your home and your vehicles and your boats just so that if your home does
flood or your roof blows up, all those documents are with you and they're safe because you don't want to end up losing those and having to try to replace those later on. Also, in your go bag, you should think about what medications you might need to have ahead of time. If we're under a state of emergency, you
are able to refill your prescriptions ahead of time, even if they're not due yet. So, it's important to do that. Also, in your go bags, you should have non-p perishable food, flashlight, batteries, a radio that is battery powered and extra batteries. Should all
power go out, we will be able to broadcast on 97.5 FM anything uh any emergency information. So, be sure to have your battery powered radio ready and tuned in to 97.5. We believe that the natural resources
department will be an integral part for the city's growth as we want to achieve a more balanced approach of development in the future. What we really want to do is see sensible development, sustainable
development and development that is um in line with what we already have here. So we want to preserve as much as we can of the uh natural resources. So there is still place for our natural species, our our migrating birds and all the other
species that live um and survive in our habitat. Natural systems are a big part of the ways ecosystems function. An important part for our community, our
listed species. They stabilize the soil. They provide so many different benefits including shade, limiting the heat island effect uh within our city, providing habitat, providing shelter for
these species and just uh also for our aesthetic enjoyments. Well, as an arborist, uh a lot of what I do is making sure that development conforms to the tree protection code. So, one thing we already have in place since April of
2022 is a tree protection code which is quite robust in the city of Northport that was adopted by commission and the city through also a lot of community involvement. And so, we're very happy to have that tree protection code. So, what
I a lot of what I do is making sure that development either residential or commercial conforms to that code. We are such a passionate team. We come from varied backgrounds. Uh I think between us we have over a 100red years of experience and we are every day raring
to go and you know we know our work is cut out here and we're happy to uh take the challenge through the division and community involvement and leadership in the city. We really hope to make great strides in protecting what we have here
and finding that balance with development and environmental stewardship. I am excited to be a part of this team and I'm really seeking and looking forward to the opportunities for us to be able to make a difference.
I started with Charlotte County Utilities as a meter reader in 2004. So that's kind of where I got my foot in the door. And once I reached a point in my life where things were more stable, I decided to leave Charlotte County Utilities and I went and got my insurance license. It was very exciting
doing that for a short period of time. But after a while, I started thinking about the utility. It was in my heart. At this point, I had almost 12, just two months shy of 12 years in. And so I realized during that time, my heart was in utilities. And so I started looking
around again. and I seen an opening here to be a CN D tech. So, I applied and I got in. Typically, I get here at 7 in the morning. I get my list of, you know, if I can get to this, this is what I need to do. And I get in my truck. If if I need any supplies, parts, tools based
off of the work I was given that morning, I'll pick that up here at our shop. And then I head out and um my goal for the day is just to get as much work as that was assigned to me done as possible. And sometimes that happens happens. And other times there's a lot of first response calls that come in. My
favorite part is the uniqueness. It's um not knowing what I'm going to be faced with every day. It could be different. It's not mundane in any way. And it's exciting when you get a call and you're you're on your way and you don't know what it is. And you you have the
experience and the knowhow and the backing to face whatever it's going to be. So I feel very confident in facing these calls. And I think that's my favorite part. Hello, my name is Devon Pulis. I'm the aquatics facilities manager with the city of Northport. And today we're going
to be talking with you guys about our free swim evaluation. It's important that we do these swim evaluations so as uh kids are registering for swim programs, they get placed in the right class. What we're looking at when we're doing a swim evaluation is every swim level has what's called exit skill assessments. So, what we do is we have
your child get in the water and we'll go through a series of different movements. Can you go under the water? Uh, can you show us your front crawl? Can you show us back crawl? Can you show us elementary backstroke? Different strokes within there. And what we're doing is we're trying to see where your child tests to before it becomes a challenge
for them at that point. Once we assess that, then we'll let you know and you can go ahead and sign your child up for that appropriate level there. It's important that we have these so that way when we're teaching a level one, we don't have kids that should be potentially in a level two and a level one class because they're not learning
the appropriate skills that they need at that point in time. Right now, uh when we're in full summer operations, uh we ask that people come between 8 and 10 to do the swim evaluations just as you can hear the water splashing in the background, slides, and everything like that. But any day of the week, uh that we're open, you can come in at any point
in time and ask for a swim evaluation. We always have a certified swim instructor on site that can uh have your child take a swim assessment llama sawways manager. I am here today with Mario Van Diddi. Mario, tell people here how long you've been doing this job. I've been here five years. Five
years. Excellent. Excellent. So, Mario, tell people what it entails, what you do. I'm a planner scheduler for solid waste the city and um I go around and I I greet the new residents and I educate them on the recycle. Excellent. Sounds interesting. Very good. Y So, Mario,
what do you find inside the recycling bins that shouldn't be there? So, let's try to tell the people how to recycle, right? Well, the most common thing I find, Frank, is plastic bags. Okay. So, the plastic bags are not recyclable. I find them just tossed in the container or they bag the recycle with them.
Right. And they should This is inside the blue lid container. That's right. Inside the blue lid containers. Correct. And they should be either taken back to the grocery store or tossed in the trash. Very good. Do you see a lot of recycling inside the containers? Uh I do. I come across a lot of that. Okay.
We don't want to do that. So, okay. So, if you have any questions, you can always look at our website ww.northportf.gov. /solidwaste. Welcome to the brand new Northport Podcast Network. We're so excited to introduce you to our revamped lineup of
shows created to keep you connected, informed, and inspired about everything happening in our city. That's right. With three unique shows under one network, there's something for everyone. First up is Northport. Now Madison and I will rotate hosting this fast-paced
news-driven podcast to bring you the latest city updates, event previews, and important information all in one quick listen. Think of it as your weekly guide to staying in the know about what's happening in Northport. Next, we have Northport Stories. Laura and I will share heartfelt and inspiring
tales from around our community. Stories that showcase the people, places, and moments that make our city special. And don't worry, Voices of Northport isn't going anywhere. I'll continue bringing you even more personal stories and interviews with residents who shaped our city. And last but not least, Northport
Living. Cody and I will also rotate hosting this show, which is all about tips, events, and lifestyle ideas to help you make the most of life right here in Northport. Whether you're looking for family-friendly activities, ways to get involved, or helpful home and garden tips, Northport Living has
you covered. With breaking news, heartfelt stories, or practical tips, the Northport Podcast Network is your go-to source for all things Northport. Make sure to subscribe to the Northport Podcast Network wherever you listen and join us as we celebrate and connect with
our amazing community. Northport Now will be released bi-weekly. Northport stories and living will be monthly. A schedule will be available on social media and our website. Hello everyone, Devon Pulis here, aquatics manager. Welcome to my crib.
We have fun here at the crib. Programs included. Become a pass member. Play all year long. Payer at the crib. We do have rules. We take all payments here at the crib. Apple Pay, Mastercard, Visa, cash. You pay right here to enjoy the crib.
So, enter through the gate. Childp proof, most adult proof. Shade. What's that? Our newly installed sun shade available for rent all season long. Here at my crib, you don't have to worry
about a place to find a seat. We've added more chairs than ever here at the crib. You're coming to enjoy the cribs and you got little ones. We got the perfect area for them. Our Pelican playground. Newly painted, fresh floor, fresh palm tree. It's looking clean.
Looking for a place to work your upper body? Take a shot at here at our Stingray shuffle. Looking to relax? I got you covered here with our lazy river. Living more on the adventurous side. Check out the slides right behind me.
Newly painted. All offer something individual and unique. Check it out. Check out the main pool kept at a wonderful 84 degrees all year long.
I just want you to have a good time. We have safety covered. Lifeguards here, staff all day, every day when we're open for you to enjoy. Concession is open. Pizza, pretzels, nachos, ice cream. We got it all.
My crib is your crib. Looking forward to seeing you here. Duty calls. I'm Stacy Losio. I am the emergency management coordinator for the city of Northport and I'm going to be talking about having an evacuation plan. It's important to have an evacuation plan
ahead of time. And it's very important to write it down because that way you can have it somewhere present where everybody in your family can see it and keep it fresh in their minds. And you want to also share it with people in your family or your neighbors so that they know what your plans are ahead of
time and how to get a hold of you or where to look for you after a disaster. for your evacuation plans. Uh you should have multiple routes to get to the location you're planning to go to just because traffic wise traffic on 75 might be gridlocked. There could be some very
good back roads to get to where you're going uh that could get you there more quickly without being stuck in traffic. When you're making an evacuation plan, we usually tell you four different things. You should stay home if you are not in a zone that's being evacuated and
if your home is built to withstand the forecasted storm. If you can't stay home uh and you evacuate, your next option should be to go to a friend or family's home that is outside of the evacuation area and is structurally sound to withstand the storm. Third option would
be go to a hotel. They're much more comfortable than our evacuation centers. Fourth option would be to go to one of our evacuation centers. Sarasota County has 12 evacuation centers. Those can be found on their website. I'm Stacy Losio. I'm the emergency
manager for the city of Northport and I'm going to discuss first responders after the storm. So, it may take a while for first responders to get to after the storm and that's due to a variety of reasons. One being we pull first responders off the roads when tropical storm force winds are sustained for
their safety. That is a standard usually across the state and other states that have hurricanes as well. So, we will have a backlog of calls that have come in during the storm that we will prioritize based on urgency and they'll be responding to those as well as the calls that are currently coming in if
they're urgent. Also, the roads might be flooded. There might be debris in the roads. Our tactical first in teams will be going out right away to clear the roads of any hazards so that our vehicles can get through and respond as quickly as possible. Just keep that in mind when you call after a disaster for
assistance. We are coming. You are very important to us. We care about our residents and their safety, but it may just take a while for us to get to you depending on the conditions of the roads. Hello everyone, my name is Mario Van Diddi. I am the planner scheduler for the city of Northport solid waste. I got
into this position um first I was a recycle driver for 5 years for the city of Northport and then I became the planner scheduler after taking an interest in educating the residents on how to recycle properly. In my position, my day-to-day, usually I start out by
visiting the new residents that schedule garbage and recycle containers to be delivered and I will go see them and educate them on our solid waste guidelines. More or less, I'm more focused on the recycle part of it. After that, I will drive around the city and I
actually inspect recycle containers manually for contamination. And then I will take calls from drivers if there's any issues with uh repeat garbage in the recycle and I will go educate those people as well. What I love most about the city of Northport is
their residents are from all over the world and I get to learn about the solid waste guidelines where they come from as well as educate them on the city of Northport's solid waste guidelines and how to recycle properly. I decided to become a firefighter. I
used to work in uh hospitality and group sales and I had always had friends that were firefighters and I decided one day that I wanted to change my job and serve people. So I went ahead and went through a EMT and paramedic program, went to
fire academy and then I saw Northport were hiring and I really liked what they had on there between their ISO rating and their beliefs and values and everything. So I applied. They gave me an opportunity. Every day is different,
but for the most part we start off the same. We'll uh get our gear onto the apparatus and um make sure everything's operational like our air pack. Then we also check the inventory. Uh make sure we have all our medical equipment. Um
everything's operational. Um that way we can respond to any emergency so we're always stocked and ready to go. I think the best part is that everyone's passionate about their job. So they come to work and they're ready to train and uh take care of each other and and teach each other. So everyone's sharp and on
their agame. So it makes the job fun and I just look forward to coming to work. Yeah. I'm Stacy Losio. I'm the emergency management coordinator for the city of Northport. And I'm going to tell you the difference between flood zones and evacuation zones or in Sarasota County
we call them evacuation levels. So flood zones were generated by FEMA and they're used to determine the likelihood that you will flood and they're used to determine if you need flood insurance if you have a mortgage on your home. Now, the evacuation zones are based on storm
surge data that comes from the National Hurricane Center and they use topography as well as hurricane vulnerability for storm surge for the area and we use those to determine who needs to evacuate during a storm. So, it's important to understand that there is a difference. If you're interested in finding out what
evacuation zone you are in, which we highly recommend you do, uh you can use your search engine of choice and type in Sarasota County know your level and that'll take you to the Sarasota County government website. Frank Lamas always manager city of Northport. Uh here today with Mario
Vindetti, planner schedule for the city of Northport solid waste division. We're going to talk about bulk pickups today. Uh how to schedule bulk pickups, what should go out and what should not go out to the curb, where to place the items in them, what happens if you have more than what's allotted for you for the year for
a bulk pickup. So Mario, I know we call 941-248050. Talk to our customer service reps. That's correct. About how to schedule a bulk pickup. How else can we do that? Can also go on our website, northportfl.gov, click on solid waste, and fill out a bulk request form. Excellent. Excellent.
So Mario, what about uh if a person wants to place it out? What should they place out? What's the right thing? What's the wrong thing? Basically, Frank, anything that doesn't fit in the container that's garbage is going to go curbside. We're going to stay off driveways. What's not accepted is tires,
chemicals, stuff like that. You can put yard waste out. That's considered bulk, but just make sure it's separate from the garbage pile. Yard waste is a separate pickup. So, what happens if I use all my bulk pickups, right? Good question. So, you can have more, but you
just have to pay. It's going to be$,650 a cubic yard, and that's length time width time height divided by 27 is 1 cubic yard. Any questions, of course. Let us know. Give us a call. 941-24850. Water in a swale that's kind of the ditch by your house is not flooding.
within a after a storm event, water should be in that soil up to 72 hours after the storm. That allows the water to be filtered to get the stuff that came off our roofs and off the road out of the water so that when it reaches the habitat, it no longer has those
contaminants in it. It also provides an opportunity to slow down water so that the water doesn't go so fast that it erodess um the roadways or any other infrastructure. So when you see water in a soil, if it's only been, you know, up to 72 hours since the last rain, that is
not flooding. That is doing its job. I'm Stacy Losio. I'm the emergency manager for the city of Northport. And today we're going to discuss storm surge and flooding and how both of those affect Northport during the current. So storm surge is when strong sustained winds are constantly blowing over a long
period of time over the Gulf and pushing water up onto shore. So when that happens, there is a lot of flooding along and beach erosion along the beaches and the homes inland. However, the storm surge can also push water up the river. So it could push storm surge
up the Maka River for instance from the Gulf and then the water coming downstream from the river has nowhere to go. So that can cause water to back up along the rivers and cause flooding. That along with a lot of rain that comes from these hurricanes can also cause an increase of water flooding into the
rivers and into our water management systems causing flooding as well. Public works does a lot of work before the storm to make sure that our water levels are as low as possible so we can handle additional storm surge and flooding in our water systems. If you want additional information about that, we
have a great video about our water control structures and you can visit the public works website as a full class TRX. boot camp is a new class for me. Although I've been using TRX for many years uh with personal training that I do or in other style
classes that I've done, but an actual focus with just TRX, this is a new class for me. I love the camaraderie. I have to say uh with all the participants, I think we have a lot of fun. First of all, everyone gets to use the bands, the TRX bands of course, and being that we
have five stations. So when we have overflow or more than five people, part of the people are on the band, the other people are doing floor work and then we'll switch. So everybody gets an opportunity to be in all stations. Just come in, have fun with it, make it your own. It's not scary. It doesn't have to
be intimidating at all. You're using your body weight. You're using the angles that you choose to use on the bands. And it just varies with how you're comfortable and how you're feeling when you're here. Hello everyone. My name is Devon Pulis. I'm the aquatics manager within our
parks and recreation department. We're here today at the Northport Aquatic Center just to talk to everyone about our float for life program. We recognize that nationally unintentional drowning is the leading cause of death for children that are under the age of four. So we have an awesome program here called Float for Life. Float for Life is
a program that we teach that starts with the fundamentals of floating before we actually learn swimming. This program is targeted for those children at ages 6 months to four. And what we want them to do is we want them to get comfortable in the water and if they accidentally fall in the water or find themselves in a
trouble situation, they can roll over their back and float. When we launched this program, uh we were the only one in the state that was actually teaching this milestone program. So do want to give a shout out to our Northport Rotary as well who sponsored this program here at the aquatic center and actually paid
for a trainer to come in all the way from Nebraska where this program originates there. We practice and we go through what's called milestones here. So, as soon as the kids progress through the milestones, we can continue moving on through them. And at the end of it, it's a pretty awesome program when they graduate. It's one of the final things
that they do is they jump in fully clothed and they have to turn over, roll over on their back, and actually be able to scream for help at that point in time. It's just an awesome segment program that leads right into our learn to swim program. So that way we can make sure we're keeping our kids safe in, on,
and around the water. And they're trying to Oh my gosh, this is going to be great. So, I always get very excited when anybody asks me about my job and where I work and what I do. It's not a secret that I love working for the city of Northport. I worked for Charlotte County
and I felt that I needed to do something different and I wanted something more and I wanted to offer my skills. So I told my friend I'm I'm don't know what to do and I was thinking about my next steps and she said, "Maria, did you think about applying to a job at the city of Northport? They have a different
vibe here." And she says, "I'd love it." And I said, "Oh, I didn't think about that." So, I applied and I started my first position in planning and zoning in our development services department. I'm partnered with the building department because my my the fees are assessed off
of the building permits and it's strictly for new construction, new development. And uh the first thing I do is to check the spreadsheet to look at the permits and determine which ones need me to estimate their impact fees.
And that's where I start with that. Then I go to numbers that I have to put together and I put together the invoices for our developers. Oftentimes I'll get phone calls to give quotes before their um the development comes through and so developers want to know how much they
can budget for. So sometimes I put through proposed estimates to help them with that. And the bulk of it is is making sure that the fees are in the system as fast as possible. I love the aspree decor that I experience. Just how
everybody team worked together. I uh enjoy knowing that I'm can make a difference for the city and that my position can have a positive impact in for our city. Oh, you're swimming in the pool. Dad.
I'm Stacy Losio. I am the emergency management coordinator for the city of Northport. And we're going to talk about why it's important to have a go kit and what should go inside of it. It's important to have a go bag because if you wait last minute to pack, there are definitely going to be items that you are going to forget in the scramble to
get everything put together. So, it's important to have your documents such as IDs, insurance paperwork, titles for your home and your vehicles and your boats just so that if your home does flood or your roof blows up, all those
documents are with you and they're safe because you don't want to end up losing those and having to try to replace those later on. Also, in your go bag, you should think about what medications you might need to have ahead of time. If we're under a state of emergency, you are able to refill your prescriptions
ahead of time, even if they're not due yet. So, it's important to do that. Also, in your go bags, you should have non-p perishable food, flashlight, batteries, a radio that is battery powered and extra batteries. Should all power go out, we will be able to
broadcast on 97.5 FM anything uh any emergency information. So, be sure to have your battery powered radio ready and tuned in to 97.5. We believe that the natural resources department will be an integral part for
the city's growth is we want to achieve a more balanced approach of development in the future. What we really want to do is see sensible development, sustainable development and development that is um in line with what we already have here.
So we want to preserve as much as we can of the uh natural resources. So there is still place for our natural species, our our migrating birds and all the other species that live um and survive in our habitat. Natural systems
are a big part of the ways ecosystems function. An important part for our community, our listed species. They stabilize the soil. They provide so many different benefits including shade,
limiting the heat island effect within our city, providing habitat, providing shelter for these species and just uh also for our aesthetic enjoyments. Well, as an arborist, uh a lot of what I do is
making sure that development conforms to the tree protection code. So, one thing we already have in place since April of 2022 is a tree protection code which is quite robust in the city of Northport that was adopted by commission and the city
through also a lot of community involvement. And so, we're very happy to have that tree protection code. So, what I a lot of what I do is making sure that development either residential or commercial conforms to that code. We are such a passionate team. We come from varied backgrounds. Uh I think between
us we have over a 100red years of experience and we are every day raring to go and you know we know our work is cut out here and we're happy to uh take the challenge through the division and community involvement and leadership in
the city. We really hope to make great strides in protecting what we have here and finding that balance with development and environmental stewardship. I am excited to be a part of this team and I'm really seeking and
looking forward to the opportunities for us to be able to make a difference. I started with Charlotte County Utilities as a meter reader in 2004. So that's kind of where I got my foot in the door. Then once I reached a point in my life where things were more stable, I
decided to leave Charlotte County Utilities and I went and got my insurance license. It was very exciting doing that for a short period of time. But after a while, I started thinking about the utility. It was in my heart. At this point, I had almost 12 just two
months shy of 12 years in. And so I realized during that time my heart was in utilities. And so I started looking around again. and I seen an opening here to be a CN D tech. So, I applied and I got in. Typically, I get here at 7 in
the morning. I get my list of, you know, if I can get to this, this is what I need to do. And I get in my truck. If if I need any supplies, parts, tools based off of the work I was given that morning, I'll pick that up here at our shop. And then I head out and um my goal
for the day is just to get as much work as that was assigned to me done as possible. And sometimes that happens. And other times there's a lot of first response calls that come in. My favorite part is the uniqueness. It's um not knowing what I'm going to be faced with every day. It could be different. It's
not mundane in any way. And it's exciting when you get a call and you're you're on your way and you don't know what it is. And you you have the experience and the knowhow and the backing to face whatever it's going to be. So I feel very confident in facing
these calls. And I think that's my favorite part. Hello, my name is Devon Pulis. I'm the aquatics facilities manager with the city of Northport. And today we're going to be talking with you guys about our free swim evaluation. It's important that we do these swim evaluations so as uh kids are registering for swim
programs, they get placed in the right class. What we're looking at when we're doing the swim evaluation is every swim level has what's called exit skill assessments. So, what we do is we have your child get in the water and we'll go through a series of different movements. Can you go under the water? Uh, can you show us your front crawl? Can you show
us back crawl? Can you show us elementary backstroke? Different strokes within there. And what we're doing is we're trying to see where your child tests to before it becomes a challenge for them at that point. Once we assess that, then we'll let you know and you can go ahead and sign your child up for that appropriate level there. It's
important that we have these so that way when we're teaching a level one, we don't have kids that should be potentially in a level two and a level one class because they're not learning the appropriate skills that they need at that point in time. Right now, uh when we're in full summer operations, uh we ask that people come between 8 and 10 to
do the swim evaluations just as you can hear the water splashing in the background, slides and everything like that. But any day of the week, uh that we're open, you can come in at any point in time and ask for a swim evaluation. We always have a certified swim instructor on site that can uh have your child take a swim assessment
llama sawways manager. I am here today with Mario Vendetti. Mario, tell people here how long you've been doing this job. I've been here five years. Five years. Excellent. Excellent. So, Mario, tell people what it entails, what you do. I'm a planner scheduler for solid
waste of the city and um I go around and I I greet the new residents and I educate them on the recycle. Excellent. Sounds interesting. Very good. Yep. So, Mario, what do you find inside the recycling bins that shouldn't be there? So, let's try to tell the people how to recycle, right? Well, the most common
thing I find, Frank, is plastic bags. Okay. So, the plastic bags are not recyclable. I find them just tossed in the container or they bag the recycle with them. And they should This is inside the blue lid container. That's right. Inside the blue lid containers. Correct. And they should be either taken
back to the grocery store or tossed in the trash. Very good. Do you see a lot of recycling inside the containers? Uh I do bags. I come across a lot of that. Okay. We don't want to do that. So, okay. So, if you have any questions, you can always look at our website ww.northportf.gov.
GV/Solidwaste. Welcome to the brand new Northport Podcast Network. We're so excited to introduce you to our revamped lineup of shows created to keep you connected, informed, and inspired about everything happening in our city. That's right. With three unique shows under one
network, there's something for everyone. First up is Northport. Now Madison and I will rotate hosting this fast-paced news-driven podcast to bring you the latest city updates, event previews, and important information all in one quick listen. Think of it as your weekly guide
to staying in the know about what's happening in Northport. Next, we have Northport Stories. Laura and I will share heartfelt and inspiring tales from around our community. Stories that showcase the people, places, and moments that make our city special. And
don't worry, Voices of Northport isn't going anywhere. I'll continue bringing you even more personal stories and interviews with residents who shaped our city. And last but not least, Northport Living. Cody and I will also rotate hosting this show, which is all about tips, events, and lifestyle ideas to
help you make the most of life right here in Northport. Whether you're looking for family-friendly activities, ways to get involved, or helpful home and garden tips, Northport Living has you covered. With breaking news, heartfelt stories, or practical tips, the Northport Podcast Network is your
go-to source for all things Northport. Make sure to subscribe to the Northport Podcast Network wherever you listen and join us as we celebrate and connect with our amazing community. Northport Now will be released bi-weekly. Northport Stories and Living will be monthly. A
schedule will be available on social media and our website. Hello everyone, Devon Pulis here, aquatics manager. Welcome to my crib. We have fun here at the crib. Programs included. Become a pass member. Play all
year long. Payer at the crib. We do have rules. We take all payments here at the crib. Apple Pay, Mastercard, Visa, cash. You pay right here to enjoy the crib. So, enter through the gate. Childp
proof, most adult proof. Shade. What's that? Our newly installed sun shade available for rent all season long. Here at my crib, you don't have to worry about a place to find a seat. We've added more chairs than ever here at the
crib. You're coming to enjoy the cribs and you got little ones. We got the perfect area for them. Our Pelican playground, newly painted, fresh floor, fresh palm tree. It's looking clean. Looking for a place to work your upper
body? Take a shot at here at our Stingray shuffle. Looking to relax? I got you covered here with our lazy river. Living more on the adventurous side. Check out the slides right behind me. Newly painted. All offer something
individual and unique. Check it out. Check out the main pool kept at a wonderful 84 degrees all year long. I just want you to have a good time. We have safety covered. Lifeguards here,
staff all day, every day when we're open for you to enjoy. Concession is open. Pizza, pretzels, nachos, ice cream. We got it all. My crib is your crib.
Afternoon everybody. We are back in session. Uh missing Commissioner Langden who is I'm sure on her way. So with that, let
us move on to the next item. F25-2373 discussion and possible direction regarding fiscal year 26 city attorney department recommended budget city manager thank you Mr. Manager Mr.
Sorry. Um I got promoted. Yeah. Sorry. The uh the city attorney's office recommended budget starts off with their or part. But you will see that one new position has been requested by the department and the interim city attorney. Um of course this is related
back to the growth of the city and the volume of the office um that he has observed and recommends for the time that he has been interim. um as we all know that he is still replacing um one attorney right now. The city attorney's
uh job advertisement is out there right now as well and that still leaves the need for a new position to make this department whole as it could be. From a service standpoint, from my uh my perspective, we as a staff and the team
have been asking a lot of the city attorney's office lately, and our volume is only going to increase as the city continues to grow. So, I see firsthand the needs that his team has and needs, and I'm I'm glad he's requesting some
assistance. When you look at that's the work chart I just referenced, my apologies. uh nine positions, one new position which will be an assistant city attorney. The goal of uh increasing the tim
library from uh for to 240 is on target to meet at 244. And when you look at their recommended budget here, you see their operating and personnel expenses. Um as you can imagine their majority of personnel um
operating expenses are very low and right sizing their staffing is the main thing that they are trying to accomplish. Um impact of fiscal year 25 funded proposals the overhire of assistant attorney allow for the continued ethical and excellent legal
services to the city and preservation of employee engagement and performance by maintaining appropriate workload balance. that is definitely written by a lawyer but it is very accurate and well said as to how they handled 25 and 26.
This is the new position totaling uh 179580 including salaries and benefits and there were no impacts of any unfunded proposals for fiscal year 2016 as well. Um myself and city you know city attorney are happy to answer any
questions you might have as mayor. Thank you very much. Commissioners, anybody want to speak on this department? We have we get a breakdown. Anything? Anything? Um,
just aformational question. Sam, I'm just got a general question. the police legal advisor. Does the police department have their own
anybody from the legal like any lawyer on staff? I can't remember. I can help answer that, sir. No, the the the police legal advisor is housed within the city attorney's office. Okay. Mr. Petra, just a thank you, mayor. Just a
question. Given the fact that the city will be hiring the city attorney, is there will be it will be less load in the uh workload in the city attorney's office or as far as I I wish that I
could make that decision, sir. Um, I I expect the load to to continue as it is and to increase as the as the work within the city increases, as the city expands. Everything that this commission sees, whether it's on consent or a general item on the agenda, comes
through our office first. As you see more, we see more. As the city does more, we do more. Um, and I don't see that it's slowing down anytime soon. Okay, thank you. Anything else for anybody on this one?
You have public comment and which case we have no consensuses needed. I guess we can move on. Um, good job, sir. Thank you. Next up,
G25-2374. Discussion possible direction regarding fiscal year 26 uh information technology division recommended budget. City manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. U so with our information technology department,
um as we look at the very first slide, part of their conversation revolves around the one new position that is included in their budget. Uh we've also talked earlier today about converting this division to a department based on some slides we already read and
conversations we already had and I know there may be um more questions regarding how the the the money actually trans um transfers into this equation as well and we're happy to answer any of those questions. But this is their org chart
uh with the one position included in our request for FTEES. Um as we talk about their performance measurements, we know that they need to uh maintain and keep our infrastructure um up and the availability of it being at 98% and
they're on target with that 98.85. Um the uptime availability of 98% is on target to be met at 99.91 and 90% of service level agreements assigned to categories of service orders
is on target for 9450. Um this is what their budget would look like. Um when you look at the operating and the personnel, you will notice that the the operations um has increased a little bit and there are a few
initiatives in there that are citywide or agencywide that we need them to handle. Uh as well as the personnel, we talk about the increase of going from a division to a department. Um the impacts of the fiscal year 25
proposals. You will see that the desktop system administrator um which has increased our support and capacity and strengthening coverage for over 20 key applications. Uh the network analyst has worked out well enhancing our communication support for expanding infrastructure and mobile connected devices and also the firewall
replacement are some of the impacts of what you funded in the budget that we are currently in for fiscal year 26. Um there were five position reclasses totaling $106,000 that was included within the recommended budget as well as
eight other proposals that total $47,000 as well. The unfunded um request that came from it related back to one position and two proposals. Uh, one of those proposals I believe was the enterprise resource um
planning project that we needed to get done which we are going to figure out how to do it. We just don't know how we're going to pay for it yet. But again, we had to make some choices and sacrifices based on um the limited amount of resources that we had. But I
believe that we are moving in the right direction with it. I know that they met with our commissioners one-on-one to answer some more um sensitive questions, but if you have any other questions, we are happy to answer or explain uh on our behalf. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you. Commissioners, questions, comments, vice mayor, can go back one slide, please, sir. No, you're fine. Right there.
Uh, okay. We are according to this budget, you are looking at five position reclassifications in the total amount of $106,340. That's the impact to the 26 budget.
Correct. Yes, sir. Okay. So, is that above and beyond the current salaries that are there? I mean, let's just use the the biggest fish in the in the pond here, and that's uh the manager to director. It says uh
impacts to the budget is $81,930. How does that break down? Is that an $81,000 raise? Is that uh where he's at? and then he gets promoted up because it it just keeps getting bigger and bigger as the years go on. So, how does that
number calculate how it affects the budget of $81,000? So, Mr. Mr. Vice Mayor, for the salary and benefits for the conversion of the IT manager to director, the total of that was 81,930
with 28,720 being for salary and 52,210 for benefits. Okay. Um, and the benefits are miscalculated. I'm in a different uh retirement fund
and so they calculated them out of one fund as opposed to the other and um that number would be drastically reduced based on the investment plan I'm in. I believe that number is reduced by $1,030 is what he's referring to. That 1130
would be total. Okay. So Oh, I'm sorry. So the 11 the it's going from the 80,000 to 11,000. So that 11,000 would be the benefits plus the salary increase. So we're this number is inflated by
70,000. That is what correct you're telling me. maybe in our new sheet going forward or an update to this sheet that we have the proper number there because I all the other ones look within range because you're reclassing a customer support
manager and he impacts 4,000, right? So, I mean, it should be more in line to lower numbers rather than higher numbers because it's it's quite a mouthful to swallow at $81,000 for a salary adjustment in one year. It's actually 11
total. He's correct, Mr. Vice Mayor. I'm looking at some communication from our team on yesterday that tried to clear it up that I was uh misquing. So, my apologies. That number that you're looking at will go to 11,30 total for his position for reclassifying it. Okay. And then we'll get to the next one here
because it must be another inflated number that I seen in a different department that we'll look at and it goes back to, you know, reclassification from manager to director and we'll get to that one when we get to that department. But another question that I
had is you you brought up multiple times that we're going to be doing a compensation study. Yes. We're starting it now or it's within this year's budget. Yes, we had to pull it forward because we were trying to figure out based on our projections that was going
to end in fiscal year 25 what we would have available to pull out of 26 to lower that number. And one of those was the compensation study which I believe is either at 50 or $60,000. I think the one that we did when I first got here was 25,000. So this one was a little bit
more because it's a little bit deeper and involved into all the positions and all the duties. but it has been pulled forwarded this year. If we're in June now, it'll most likely start the process throughout the summer and then it'll be um completed probably normally six
months after the consulting begins, which will put you into the spring of next year and then deciding on what you want to include in ISO in the summer budget proposal. Okay. Now, this is this is probably the humdinger of it all. Why
wouldn't we wait for that compensation study to come back to justify either these adjustments or any adjustments throughout the city? Because what if we're wrong in our assessments and they come back and say, "No, it shouldn't be 11,000. It should only be 7,000.
Why wouldn't we let an outside entity give us that information or that input rather than creating it ourselves?" because you'd be waiting a year for that information to come back to you. And in a government of our size, we don't wait for a year for a consultant to come
back. We have an HR department that has a compensation person who actually performs those duties. And as I said earlier with the other examples, we use whether it's the um desk audit, whether it's the comparables, whether it's the other tools that HR uses to make those
positions correct throughout the year. And that's not a new or unique process. But um if they come back and they say to your point, well these we we decided or we recommend these to be lower, we we
adjust accordingly, you know, both up and down. It's not when when have we taken money away from an employee because it come in saying you should only make 50,000 and they're making 52. We would just freeze their salary at 52 until the compensation caught up. So,
we've never taken money away from an employee. I don't I don't know that you have. I have because when the study comes back and if someone's out of alignment, you make it right. It doesn't it doesn't do you any good to get the compensation study and say, you know what, I'm not going to follow it. So, if something comes back and we've over um
overestimated or overused whatever that grade is for that particular job, you have to make the proper adjustment. And sometimes that might mean someone going down, which is not ideal, but the goal is to make sure that it is a fair and equitable process. And you can't continue to do that internally all the
time. You have to have someone come in independently and say, "Let me benchmark you against other jurisdictions or or your peer group or other grades of assimil equality to make sure that there's an equity there." Right. Well, I'm I'm not going to beat this one anymore. I just wanted to get those numbers out there, some
clarifications out there, and we'll get new information coming back for our next next uh workshop. But, uh, well, well, and we'll give we'll give you that uh we'll explain that and give it to you in a memo uh here today or tomorrow so that it'll make better sense when you look at
these numbers. Well, I' I'd like to have it updated in the book, too, because as citizens get the books, too, I want to see them getting the proper information, not seeing, oh, 81,000. What's that about? Right. At least they have, you know, it explained. That's all. I mean,
understood. All right. I'm I'm good with that, mayor. Thank you. Yeah. Anybody else? Anybody else? Good. Just a quick question on line 54, books, public
subs, and member. I noticed like if you go fiscal 24 actual I should have asked this really in my in my briefing so I apologize 712 712,000 jumped up and adopted to 1163 almost 1164
we just then it's going up again a little to 1352 what's in there like why so big that's kind of a big jump but so under the city manager's direction we have been consolidating it from the various departments. So it it
is um predominantly a lot of training and and with the consolidation of various individuals depending on what department they're coming from. We're carrying a lot of those costs. It's a lot of money like inquis $400,000
and now it's going to go up another top. That's a lot of like4 to $600,000 for training. I just That just seems like such a big number. I mean, you look back at 23 the software cost for the city. Well, that's software
cost. Software cost for the city. I apologize. I misspoke. If you look in the GovMax worksheets on page 23, Vicki does an excellent job of telling you what everything is in that account. Yeah. Sorry.
just just All right. And then the accumulation down the bottom where we're transferring the picking up the 633. We're working towards that billion dollar number right here. Okay. Uh Commissioner Dval.
Yes. Thank you. I just have uh one question on uh item 2958 replacement computers. It's replacing 51 computers this year for a total of $48,000. Um,
that comes out to $941 a computer. Are we buying those individually or are we buying like a thousand computers and getting a deal by volume is I guess that's my my question. We get volume discount with the we have an account
with them. Thank you. Anybody else? Has there been anything put in the IT budget um to compensate for the additional efforts it needs to make in assisting Commissioner Duval in his
technologically challenged ways? I want to make sure you heard that we had an approval. I'm just teasing. Sorry, I got him on standby for half. I couldn't resist. That was lowhanging fruit. Anyway, believe you would pick on a
disabled American veteran. Well, if you look at it that way, I guess I probably shouldn't say anything. All righty, we can move on to the next one. I guess thank you very much. Oh, public com I usually catch them. I'm way better
than Alice was. Somebody else. Moving on. Non departmental discussion and possible direction regarding the fiscal year 26 non-departmental recommended budget. CM,
you're up. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um this department is our non-dep departmental uh department which um as we go to the next slide basically contains our liability insurance as well as um none
transfers for RNR. Correct. Yeah. Oh, and we took out the contingency form. The the $100,000 that was in there that you allowed us to have the last two years. Uh we took that out.
Um yours is still in your divisions. We took ours out. Commissioners, anything on this one? Mayor, public comment. There you go. That's your urge. That's
your urgent. Moving on to I25-2376. Discussion and possible direction regarding the fiscal year 26 parks and recreation department recommended budget. CM, you're up.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Parks and Recreation Department. So, here we go. Um they have 76 positions as noted on their org chart. Um there are no new positions being requested for this
particular department. So what you will see on the screen is basically what has been shown over the last year. Um when you look at their performance measurements um they have and are achieving a lot of their targeted goals.
one being uh probably the main one achieving 20% of cost recovery excluding free events to an anticipated 25% cost recovery. Um which we'll get into some more of that conversation shortly. Um maintaining and exceeding the uh achieve
anything memberships uh are down expected to be 1,200 as opposed to the prior year of 1232. Um maintaining or exceeding the aquatic facility rental hours. Um the previous was 1,130 and we believe that we are
anticipated to do 1,200 this year and we're also on target uh for 90% completion compared to a 75% goal on non-recurring work orders within the 10 10 business day window. Um the fiscal
year 24 cost recovery. This is one of the the big areas that we want to talk about as it relates to our parks and wrecks. So, as you can see, or as you can read, I should say, we talk about, you know, making sure that according to the National Recreation and and Park
Association, $28.63 in revenue uh annually per resident with an average cost recovery of 27.2%. When you look at us in the same model, um our number is 34.16%. Um the current industry average in
Florida is 20%.6 and our cost recovery excluding Warm Mill Springs and free events is 21.7%. Um, when you look at some of the items that we typically think of when we think about parks and rec, we talk about Warm Mill Springs Enterprise Fund. We know
that it makes money annually even though it has not recouped its purchase price for the entire project which happened uh quite some time ago. The aquatic center at 54% and 23% for the recreation division. There's uh we always talk
about how to change or what we should change for the cost recovery method of our parks and I think that is and remains a valid conversation. The question is how do we want to do it? You know doing it incrementally whether we're talking about hours whether we're
talking about c um entry prices on things that we pay for. I believe that as we're going to show and discover we like the events that the department puts on. The question is where and how can we do better? So, Warm Mill Springs cost recovery is
120%. And again, that's because the fund itself operates in the positive, uh, which allows us to be able to not only do the renovations that we have right now underway, but knowing that we should and hopefully will be better held
accountable to maintain that property as those completions are fixed. Um, we have made the pledge and we remain with the pledge that we want Warm Mill Springs to stay open as we make any renovations there. We know that that is a critical
piece of that community and we have um we have committed to do so. When we talk about the aquatics recovery uh on this slide, we are looking at the attendance and revenue as well as expenditure and we're looking how can we
be better and be more efficient. Um you can see there are some really high numbers of cost recovery um during the hotter months. Not that it's not hot here all the time, but when you get through October, through February, the recovery drops down to 13.27%.
So then we are we're always trying to figure out how can we make that number higher. Um the the issue that we always want to watch out is how do we price compare with those around us who have a similar facility and I know all facilities are sort of unique and they have their own
fingerprints, but we do want to make sure that we are looking at this cost recovery at 54%. And as we go to have this conversation today about well how do we increase our parks and recre efficiency a gradual increase of cost
recovery is a good way to go just because on the prior slide that I said that we were at 34% or this one's at 54%. I don't want you to think that we're not we're not um hearing the voice of making sure that not only parks and reccks but every department does better
during this time. This is not me picking on parks, but we've all gone through the same level of scrutiny throughout this budget process because uh there's just no there's just nohere else for us to go other than making sure that we can monitor ourselves as much as possible.
When you look at recreation, the 23% of cost recovery, um you look at the summer camp, which is 107% going on now. Uh contracted classes do 159% and employeeled classes do 112%. Um, so the
24,000 youth um that we are we are keeping safe in the services that we provide, they're at low to no cost for out of school activities um at our community centers. So it's not a surprise to anyone there
of what we do during the summer. And actually since we've removed some workout equipment in the Mullen Center, we freed up some space at the Mullen Center for a potential another level of activity. That activity could be more students in a summer program. It could
be us actually talking about and executing on one of our conversations regarding small business and entrepreneurship expansion in the city. The city does not have a lot of space in order to do one of those activities, one of those initiatives. So, if we're going to talk about the space that we have,
the Mullen Center is a space that belongs in that conversation. Now, the Mullen Center, of course, we know it has a gym. It has an existing meeting room right now. and those activities and spaces for utilization should be considered and discussed. But if we are going to talk about how do we move this
city forward and embrace the business owners that we have, we know we have a lot of home business owners who are at that small business level who might need that extra step up to reach that next level of medium business ownership. Um it is a good way that communities provide back to the public is an
opportunity for space and if we want to reimagine some of the space that we have that's where some of that conversation should come in if the board chooses to have it today. Um park maintenance uh we we know how important it is in our
fields and we hear from our public both sides of it. a lot of them are satisfied with our field and then if it's the beginning of a soccer season and something's off we get those phone calls or baseball season you I don't you get those phone calls and you know we respond accordingly you know we never
want them to think that we don't make mistakes so we're perfect but we do there's normally a plan in place for what they're calling us about and hopefully they can have the patience until we get there or sometimes we have to accelerate things or sometimes they tell us about things that we weren't
even thinking of. Um, we've had a couple of those conversations this year as well. But, you know, the the goal is always to do better when you hear about it and make sure that their needs are taken care of. I hear about it when I go to the vet with my dog. Yes. There you go. Yes. We we we love our people who
who grab us and pull us aside at the weirdest places and and say something. But, you know, that's the feedback that that you truly need to be honest with you. And it it helps us be a better organization. Um, but the uh the median national average for standard park maintenance per acre is approximately
$3,700 and uh park maintenance in-house cost per acre is $3,44. Currently, outsourced mowing is $5,392 per acre. Currently, the hourly rental fee for line athletic fields ranges from
$5 to $8 for youth organizations and actual cost for material to line one athletic field could range from $129 to $219 depending on the size in the sport. The the value of that is saying yes, there's room to increase your cost
recovery, but the audience that you're trying to save the cost on provides a valuable impact to the city in various places in various ways. you have the families who are coming out to support their child during the summer. So, during the sporting event and we know
that with um an area such as the city of Northport that can always do better and bring more activities, we don't want to penalize the ones that are using the activities that we do provide. So, there's a balance there and u I think you see it and as we continue to talk about it, striking that balance will be
important. um our signature events. These are some of the ones that we do that I'm not sure we have sort of uh put in front of you to discuss at this sort of granular level. This is not an exercise to say, "Hey, you know what?
We're going to we're going to remove the signature events." Our signature events are part of parks and Rex. It's part of what they provide. It provides that quality of life and that activity which hopefully brings in an economic impact that you're not going to see measured in the parks and rec department. If they
were responsible for capturing all the dollars that they provided and brought into the city, you would see a much higher number. That's not the way the um the structure of reporting is. Um and that's not unique to the city of Northport. It's just um the way that the
the industry and government handles those particular activities. But when you look at some of the events like, you know, the Easter egg hunts and the the freedom festival, which is a very big um deal, you know, all of these uh events, the trick-or- treat, the poinsetta, we I know all of us are sitting there looking
like we we can imagine not having these events. So why are you showing them? We're showing you just to put it in perspective of what is done because the goodwill that these events sort of generate for our entire city is I don't want to say immeasurable because I'm
sure I could put a dollar amount on it, but these are the things that people look forward to. Even if they don't look forward to many things in our city, I can guarantee you that those are definitely on the list. So, here are some things that are impacting our
revenues for the city. Um, we do do a lot of discounts and you know, you all know my philosophy on how we treat our nonprofits. You should be giving discounts to those people who are in need. We're a municipality. We're not a private business forprofit. We're
supposed to be giving back to those who need our help because when we need help, we go to the county and they give back to us. When the county needs help, they go to the state. Um, so why would we not sort of try to give back to those who are in our particular area? So this
talks about, as you can see, the 5013 organizations that receive a discount, the DeFi, the drug fi drug-free youth program. We're happy to be involved in that this year. I believe a citizen came and spoke to you about it. I feel like it was a few weeks ago, but we were already kneedeep in in that in the
process of the director working with the school um principal Fusco over at the high school and others just to make sure that we picked up that program because we brought it to you and then you said yes, go do it. So now we're doing it because of the value that it brings. Um
the scout troop um we know how um important they are reservation of 680 hours annually um which is phenomenal. Um, the youth the youth basketball league that has that is a grandfather pro program at a discounted rate of
$2,000 per season. I can tell you that is a huge discount and it is it is I I would say greatly appreciated by all those who receive a piece of it. But I think you see where we're going here. We talked about the youth football league cheer and the internal city
reservations. The city provides at a discount things that we do because it is how we operate and but there is a cost to that. Do I think that $1992 $192,000 would tip the scale of cost recovery in
a way that would make you overly joyed? I don't think so. But I think that when it comes to making sure that we provide these things and show our community that we're a partner, I think that that's where the value comes in. And then we talk about efficiencies and opportunity.
Um, expanding the summer camp program, something I just mentioned earlier, something you may or may not want to do. We can adjust the aquatic center hours. Um, again, making sure that we pay pay less for um our staffing levels. Uh, we
can modify our inclement weather program um so that we minimize staff time uh downtime. uh increased fees for um the study that we brought to you. I believe it was last fallish,
summerish, springish, sometime before now, we brought you the cost recovery fee and you agreed to it. So that's going to help bring up their cost recovery rate as well. That's already been approved by you and in place. Um you can consolidate the egg hunt. We talking about, you know, one
versus two. um the the phase reduction of the warm middle spring passes. We've talked about that from the standpoint of a couple different angles. One, you know, we have a large amount of our community that goes to the Springs that lives right next to the Springs that's an un unincorporated Sarasota County.
So, they may not receive the discount of someone who lives in the city. That's a situation that needs to be reviewed and analyzed. And uh our goal in that conversation is to annex that area. So
if you as a board would say, well, yes, we want to extend our city rate to those unincorporated people and we were to find a good method to do that, we would then sort of want them to get on board with annexing into the city of Northport because that's exactly what we want. And
I don't think that crowd does not want that. They just don't have it right now. Um, so you that's one thing to look at. And then the passes and the discounts that we have right now are deeply discounted passes when they are bought in in bulk. And so there there is some room there to sort of play with that to
see if it could come better in alignment with what a good discount looks like as opposed to a deep discount which is what is currently used. Um, you know, we could talk about admission for special events. I think that I think you're going to walk a fine line right there to
sort of uh get that done, but we're happy to entertain that conversation. Um operations that are done on holidays are something else to consider as well as um special event permit um application fees. So there there there are some ways
and some things that are within our control that we can discuss if we truly want to get that cost recovery number up. I mean, that's the number I think that we should be judged on. And if even if we're doing better than the industry
average or what someone believes we could do, we can do better. And having that conversation, I think, is important. So, looking at their uh fiscal year 26 budget, you're going to see that it is uh it's quite lower than 25. And you know, when you look at the
capital amount that's in there versus what it was, that's where you're going to see the main difference at the personnel are just regular increases, no more new people, and the operating expenses are lower as well. The impacts of what you you funded as a
board for fiscal year 25, uh, still grateful for those. We got new fitness center and cardio equipment. Um, the GMAC replaced its shed. Um, and the Parks and Rec equipment replacements. um ensure that you know reliable, safe and efficient ground maintenance operations
um continue by minimizing failures and reducing maintenance costs. Um there were 11 proposals totaling $312,000 included in this recommended budget for parks and wrecks. Um and the impact of
unfunded position uh um proposals, excuse me, were three totaling $31,000. and we were able to pull that forward in this year so that we could take them out of next year based on our projections from the end of this year. Um I know I
know I know we already beat police to death but just one more just for connection when you have things like this and you see things like this that's these are examples where I say that you know nothing ever pans out the way you think it's going to pan out and so when we see that and we adjust for that then
we will be able to give you the confidence that when you're asked to make that decision of how do we fund positions going forward that the confidence is there. I think that should be the last slide and it is so I will stop right there. Happy to answer any questions. Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, you're
up. Okay. You brought up the annexation and stuff like that and and possibly going out to discount the tickets to them to entice them to annex. Well, if they annex in, they get the lower price by being in the city. So, that's so
that's an enticement right there. Mr. Mr. Vice Mayor, you were not wrong. What I what I my approach was hardly ever ever it's gonna be a long year in a year mayorship from November. Sir, um what I would say is those people are
hurting right now to want to be included within our city so they can take advantage right now. The annexation process is not a short-term process. Oh, I know. by extending that out to them now and allowing them to um um take part in that discounted rate. And again,
right now we're in a deeply discounted rate. First of all, it needs to change to something that is a little bit more sort of uh in line with what we're trying to do, but allowing them to take advantage of the discounted rate, I think, will go a long way for the goodwill of us with a community that u we've had some challenges with with
getting the renovations done over there. We're still working on the um overall out outcome over there, whether it's conservation easement, whether it's something that we do or whether it's something else. I just think it would go a long way with showing them that we're serious about working with them and making them happy. But that was just my
and and I got no issues with that. But you got to remember as well, it's the city taxpayers that are funding all of this all of this money. So they get the biggest discount to where if you went with a discount for unincorporated it would be less than the city discount
just just to just to keep it in line. And that's another one. Yeah, that's all I'm saying. I didn't think about that. But sure, may she have something please? So, uh, when we review the, um, fee schedule, the annual fee schedule that's coming
forward, uh, we've put together a proposal for commission to look at that, um, adds a category for Sarasota County um, residents. So, you're not getting the discount that a Northport resident would, but, you're not paying what a
non-resident would. So, there's going to be that additional category that would give them more of a discount than they're getting right now. Uh, we're also bringing forward a phased um plan to get the pass rates into a better
position. As the city manager said, it's it's deeply discounted now um from what the regular admission rate is and what you would pay say if you bought a 30 visit pass. So, we're trying to look at a three-year plan to take those rates up to where we think they should be. Um,
just about the time that the buildings um hopefully would be constructed and uh reopened. And I got no issues with that and I look forward to that conversation in the future. But since uh Commissioner Barb over there uh requested 500,000 to
be added onto this list, I'm going to add I'm going to ask to add about 60,000 out of the nonfunded. I I firmly believe that the audio video equipment in the Morgan Center, I mean, if you go in there and something's not working and somebody's having an event, it's just in
the Morgan Center, you know, that that's one of the things that we were able to fund in 20 this current year. So, why is it in here for next year saying not funded? We had requested it for next year um and it was removed as unfunded because we were able to find
um funding for it in this year. Does this include that one? I got it, but it's still in the sheet and and and if it's funded, why are we still looking at it? The sheet the sheet may not have been updated, Mr. Mayor, from the time that we sort of were looking to get those projections in so that we can make
that decision. Yeah, I'm just saying. I mean, it will update it and the next one. But yes, the other one that I had too was the security system. Did you on that one this year already? That is in the requested budget proposals for next year, right? But it
was not funded. Not not in the current year. No, this is not funded for next year. This is next year's, but I hope we're not going over this year's budget because we got to start all over again. I I I I think it's a must to have the
securityities system set up, especially in our park areas. camera. 65,000. Oh, 3065. Yeah. 3065. It says 20 grand.
And I'm not just looking at, you know, for the instances of vandalism or anything like that. We've got young children in our parks and stuff and, you know, to keep an eye out and possibly, you know, keep crime out of those parks.
I mean, that's where a lot of the predators go. So, I I want to keep our city as safe as possible. And if we have video surveillance out there, you know, 20 grand is well worth that pain. 56.
Oh, I see where you're at, Mr. Mayor. My vice mayor. Yeah, it's it's in there still for next year, right? It's not funded. Yeah. Or was it? No. Approved. Okay. It's approved. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah, that's good. As long as it's approved. I wanted to make sure it
was there. Take the money anyway. Give him 20 grand out of your five. That's all I had. Thank you, sir. Sir, Commissioner Duval. Yes. Thank you. On one of the slides,
there was an item that showed u $3,4 versus $5,393 for mowing. Uh that's inhouse versus contractor. Does that
figure, that 3,4 does that include the $20,000 that comes for equipment replacement later on on another sheet? Or is that
$3,4 cost per acre? Does that include I guess does it include that that equipment we got to replace or not? It it doesn't include that 201,000, but it includes a cost to use the equipment
for the mowing. Okay. Like what we're paying the employees per hour, it includes labor, uh truck, trailer, mower, all that was calculated into that. Okay. So, so based on those two figures, what's your
recommendation as far as in-house mowing versus contractor? uh keep things the same, more in-house mowing or uh right now we're keep we'd like to keep things the same. Um
part of the reason that that we're in a better position is we've had u quite a few um longtime employees that have retired, 30-year employees that were with us. So that that changes the um employee cost on in that equation. uh if
it continues where we're much lower than outsourcing it, we would eventually come back and say we'd like additional staff to take on that outsourced mowing, but we would do that um analysis and bring that forward. Okay. Thank you.
Good commissioner. Right. Um I've got Can you go back to which one? And it's the one that shows like competitive pool like the pool the aquatic center plus
that one um have I assume that in part of the I mean that's that's the big item competitive pool only where you see the recovery is disaster. um
the 572, how much is is overhead or fixed cost in there? In other words, if we just simply shut it down October through November, how much of that 572 would we continue to incur?
We can bring that back for you. I think the bigger concern would be shutting it down. um we would not be able to likely staff the facility the way that we do now. Um because you're you're you're not having any staff during that time at all and then you're trying to bring them
back um for part of a year. But also, well, I'm wondering could you create any efficiencies since October through February? I think would be upticks for mineral springs because it's
a high season. It's time when you'd have more people down here in Florida. Is there a way to redeploy? I mean, you look at it. I mean, that's a big spread. You're talking about a half a million dollar loss in the aquatic center right there.
If there's a way to mitigate that without hurting your staff and redeploy those people to somewhere else in the city between our community centers and and the uh mineral springs and let's say
you know we we only save 350 or 400,000. That's huge money for us overall. it'll jump your recovery way up. And hell, I'm I'm I'm just, you know, it jump it like leaped out of me. The in in con, you
know, in connection with that on War Mineral Springs, we're looking at 120% cost recovery. But should we maybe not shoot for 150? And the reason I say is before this year's
out, theoretically, we'll have a conservation been in place for 60 acres. Mineral Springs has to pay for that whole 80 acres. So, should we start
preparing? Should we start reserving? Would there be some value in doing that? I'm just asking. I'm not so concerned, frankly, with the people who live in unincorporated. I I don't have any problems increasing the cost.
I I heard what the vice mayor said and quite frankly and I know it sounds harsh because I I appreciate the value of Mineral Springs to our city, to the people who use it, to the world at large because this is a
unique special place. But the vast majority are taxpaying citizens from what I believe aren't willing to spend their tax dollars
on that place. They're not. And we're going to create a conservation easement on 60 acres of property or really when it's all said and done probably 40. and we're going to have to take care of it. We're
going to have investment in it to to make it something that's of value that attracts people to it. And I'm just wondering, should we start planning for it now? Because we're a few years off, but but I'm just saying, you know, what could we do? How much would an
additional rate increase mean to us? And if it costs those people who use it more, then it costs those people who use it more. I I mean I know that's harsh, but they do not live in this city. Vast majority, right? I was I can tell is your question
on the Springs or the aquatic center? Well, it's a piece of both. It's it's it's two areas that the opportunity to increase cost recovery exists that I think is lowhanging fruit. The other
stuff, you guys did great. I mean, you look at the special events we do. I'm not looking for cost recovery. those events. People love what you did with your budget and and the tightening up. Believe me, I I personally appreciate everything you guys have done. I'm just
trying to look at where could we pop that cost recovery number without, you know, that's just glaring. Is it viable? I mean, you got to tell us more than us just making that kind of decision. I'm here to do so. All right. Okay. So um
the cost repair it's kind of like when we talk about those special events that we we're providing that service the competition pool that we have and and the philosophy from it from the beginning is that it is a municipal pool. You take away the rest of it it is just a body of water in which we pour money into and that is every municipal
pool. If you ask our neighboring county to the south they do it to a tune of over $3 million a year. um which is also a very direct competitor for our pool from October to February when it becomes just that place for that fitness swimmer to go to. They can drive down to
Centennial Drive at 41 and uh before you get to Toledo and they can pay $3 to enter that facility and swim or you can come to the aquatic center and pay the same price of that $9 or $10 that you would pay for a full facility. So we've got a little bit of disparity there that
we have to talk about with that. So there could be a little bit to to fixing that to to do some you know past drives that would increase usage during that time of year. Um the staff crossover we've had to utilize it uh when we open War Mineral Springs and the enterprise
fund paid back the aquatic center for the use of that. So it wasn't a shared because they are two different funds. So although we say aquatics division we have very much two separate entities there. Um, the need, the training level is different. I need to have a water
park lifeguard at the at the aquatic center. I need to have a waterfront lifeguard who can deal with the difference in water. So, there's a little bit of a difference there. Um, and doing anything to take away the year round really really causes a direct hit
to staffing because you're trying to maintain full-time jobs for the trainers and the people who keep them going. And through the entire 2022 2023 seasons where the nation was struggling for lifeguards, I never once had to shut a door because I didn't have enough
lifeguards to show up. Um, and that's because of this model that we have. So, it is one of those lost leaders. Um, are there things we can do to mitigate it? For sure. We've had some suggestions in there about the extra day a week closure. um making sure maybe in endorsing different things that they can
do to support, but those people also work all of those special events and seasonal time off. So, we do try to cross utilize what's happening at that point. Um maybe we do look at a reduction or a campaign for the use during that time for fitness passes that encourage more use so that at least
we're getting more money out of the hours that they're still there. because I will tell you that that amount if you take away my staff that day just to keep those water safe and not have a huge influx when it's time to open it back up again is not going to save you as much as you really think. I appreciate that
and and that helps answer my question and you know and mitigate you know the the proposal that we close it from October to February could I mean in April of this year Warro Springs also had 20,000 people while the water park
was open at an at the uh aquatic center so you kind of run into that challenge too. Yep. because I'm wondering I mean is if if commission were to you know we talk about trying to maintain a high
level and talk about cost recovery percentages to I think it's admirable that you guys increase your overall cost recovery number and believe me it didn't go unnoticed by me so I appreciate it and I know it's still a little below the
average but could if if if commission gave direction to take this category, this particular aquatics cost recovery October through February and said, you know, get it up another three, four, 5%. Is it realistic to do that to you or are
we micromanaging it too much for you? I mean, I think I would prefer to say overall to get it up because it might be a little more attainable. One thing like Sandy just reminded me, you have to remember um and it I think it's kind of lost perspective over the years cuz we opened the aquatic center and it became
the big, you know, shiny new thing. Um but we also absorbed $40,000 a year in the cost for the Atwater splash pad and that staff still does that all year as well. So there's still the requirements for the maintenance and taking care of the splash pad which are all included in
that aquatics cost recovery. So, if we were going to look at an overall um wanting to push it up, I'd rather you say you'd like me to go from 54 to 64 or 58 or something. Um but to pull it out per season would be much more of a challenge. Got you. Because uh you know,
I just worry, like I say, it's you look at trying to look at revenues. I mean, I don't think we see it on this budget. We don't have revenues off setting it, but I'm imagining
we're still at about what 600 in the $600 to $700,000 range of the differential between the two. Yeah. The differential between the aquatic center revenues and uh expenditures or the overall
No, just the overall the differential of what we at the end of the year. I I don't have it right there, but it's somewhere in memory. Prior to um the chlorine fiasco of 2022, co um our you know, Hurricane Ian and all of the
supply chain demands we had, we had it mitigated down to about 370. Now, what you've seen incrementally go up is because of all those things. Chlorine when when we opened the center, chlorine went it's it's now like 200% higher than what it was when we opened
it. Um so you see these increase. Do you have at least 618 now? So we've seen that go up and and that is a direct result of those costs as well as you know the things that we have to do with the
increased cost to everything and and it's sort of and it's a philosophical thing. You look at you know every where I grew up and lived every municipality I lived in had a municipal pool and 100% of the cost came out of property taxes. I mean that was just a given. usually
had a ball field attached and other things. I mean that's reality and here the aquatic center is a great idea. I mean a portion a good portion of the cost is covered but that number has been growing and as our city grows and more
and more of our city's growth is tied to higher density developments, apartments, condos, private associations, gated communities. less and less people take advantage of this. People who take advantage of our aquatic center are the
people who really need to be able to enjoy this aquatic center and have it and utilize those resources. But if if you if you look at the the private communities and the gated communities, they pay a price for those amenities.
They pay a price in their dues. It's very hard to compare apples to apples, but the cost of running pools in a gated community and having the the, you know, all the same chemicals and all the and the security and all the other things
that go on, repairs and maintenance and upkeep, you know, there's a price to pay and and it's still extremely affordable to go to the aquatic center and and maybe, you know, maybe there's a way to
look at somehow now mitigating some of that cost. Um it's it's just important that we we extended some hours. It's it's probably not significant in terms of dollars, but but it's not like chemical costs are going down. It's not like repairs and maintenance are going
down. It's not like labor is going down or the benefits associated. In a couple of years, this will be a million dollar deficit. And and we have to somehow figure what we can add. What can we utilize this facility for that's going
to generate revenue for adult uses, for whatever? We got to get outside this box in order to do something or it will become a number that the citizens of the city, a growing number of the citizens of the city will say they don't want to
pay for. That's my concern. I'll fight for this always. Before I ran, I fought for this aquatic center and believe in it because I think it's a necessary quality of life amenity that taxpayers should pay for. But when enough taxpayers say they don't want to pay for
it, commissions are going to listen. And a million dollar deficit is a big number. When citizens who aren't going to use this, it's like mineral springs. I don't spend my millions of dollars on mineral springs. I don't use it. See?
So, I'm I'm just conceptualizing it. If I could just flag though, the 7,000 individuals that have been through the educational swim lessons and things since opening. 90% of that takes place between October and February. That is where the schools get in. That is where high school swim team gets to swim
during that time. There are there are other things happening during that time. Just to just to put it out there. You're preaching to the choir because I'm totally supportive. I just want you to know that for many many citizens it's dollars and cents issue. It's a
lowhanging fruit item and people I get I get it all the time. People say to me, "Why do we keep spending our money on this thing?" I say because like there are people who aren't as fortunate you and don't have a gated community or your own pool in the backyard. But it's just something to bear in mind. The cost
deficit just can't continue to grow year after year without some mitigation. That's all I'm saying. um on Warren Mineral Springs. You know, again, I am very concerned that, you know,
notwithstanding even recoup of the original investment and the investment we're going to make in fixing this place up, we're going to have a truly unknown cost of maintaining as we heard when we had conversations regarding the conservation. So there's worth thinking
about whether it's this year or next year providing for a larger cost recovery there and it's going to cost somebody. It's got to cost the people who are using that mineral springs as far as I'm concerned. Um the other thing I wanted to bring up I know I'm hogging some time but you know I have some
issues here. Well you all can continue to speak after me but artificial turf I brought it up once. I was shot down because I was told that you know people die from artificial turf. It has all these chemicals that is been debunked. That is not the truth anymore.
Municipalities, counties, recreational areas are going to this. It is a significant investment to do it, but it's worth looking at the return on investment. We have two small soccer fields that are going to go in at Dallas
White. They might be good pilot projects for it. It's not a health concern. That is just not the truth. There's technology and product out there that do not cause health issues because they're using artificial turf pretty much all
over the place these days. It's I think it's worth looking at just to see if if there's a cost effective return on investment. Thank you. What about the heat factor? I have heard that artificial turf is a lot
hotter than grass would be. It is, but there's new technology. There's new technology and it it's gotten better. I don't know, Jeff and Tom, if you want to speak to it at all. We did we did receive a quote when we um when we
looked at Dallas White Park and we're looking at an additional million dollars that parks does not have at this point to fund that. It would be interesting to see though a cost analysis over a five-year period, how much it costs to cut those properties and maintain them and keep up
the grass because that's where the benefit is. There's no doubt it costs a lot more to put artificial turf in. There is still maintenance involved in the turf though with washing it and cleaning it and those things. So, all I'm saying is I everywhere I hear new park areas are going in and fields are
being built, I hearing artificial surfaces. So that just makes me wonder why don't we think that way? I mean it's one thing if you don't have the money to make the initial investment. That's I get that we we think that way. Believe me that's that would be our first
choice. It's just been cost prohibitive. Okay. Makes sense. Well, I wouldn't say that's all I have. I would say that's enough. Wang. City man. Just to follow up on the uh pros and cons of the artificial turf, as someone who served on a task force at a
prior location, unless they have removed all the little black pellets that you see when people slide or run on those, those do emit a gas that are hazardous to your health. So unless those are gone, there is still a health concern there. Um, and I do know that I think
more injuries happen on artificial turf than grass as well. But again, there's also the lower maintenance cost that you get as a trade-off that you're going for when you say, "Hey, let's not rule this out either." So, I just want to make sure that if and if and when we come back to you with a proposal that it
would be a balanced proposal. Thank you. Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um now any woman mineral springs anything um over cost recovery like we're at 120% so that
20% has to be spent on more mineral storage. Oh yes. Yes. So, and this is sort of dubtailing on some earlier questions for us to collect enough money to maintain
the buildings and perhaps improve and maintain whatever acreage might go under conservation easement yet to be determined. What would our cost recovery overage look like? the best guesstimate would it
be 140% to cover all of those things? So, maintenance of the buildings and the property and whatever improvement and maintenance might happen to the conservation area. So, the the property
itself, you know, the the mowing, the landscape and all that is already covered within that budget. Um there is um some funding for um maintaining the buildings. Obviously, we're in modular um units right now. Um but part of our
part of the reason we're bringing that phase plan forward is to show you um one what we'd like to do with changing the discounts, but to show you the money, the additional revenue that would be generated that then could be put into the fund for um that building
maintenance down the road. Right. because I would really like to get to a place where War Mineral Springs is totally self-funding all of the costs associated with I think that would be a good goal. Um, a question we were talking about annexing
in the folks to the north of um, a lot of older homes up there, a lot of septic systems up there that I've been concerned about. Um,
we're improving the water and sewer situation out there. Would there be any opportunity if they wanted to annex that we could provide water and sewer and they would be
required to take advantage of that? Um, depending on the size of utility lines that we're going to bring to the springs. That's that was kind of the the vision is to make sure the lines are there big enough to accommodate. It's also down to a tease and to be able to
handle commercial, right? So that was the vision is that we put in utility lines of sufficient size. Now I don't know the number of residential units out there, but I mean if you size something for commercial, you can handle hundreds and hundreds of homes
typically. So, does our current design are resizing for commercial? Uh, if I remember, and this project's been going on so long, I apologize, but u forever. Well, you said it, I didn't
say that. Um, it it it's pretty robust size if I remember right. Okay, good. Um, yeah, you piqu my interest. Some of the improvements that you might make was modification to the inclement weather
policy. Would that be having it open during inclement weather or or shutting it more? I'm not quite sure. So, we actually did u two of those things already. We implemented them in May. Um and um it's really to allow us to right now if there's inclement wet weather and
we close um there's there's not really a plan a good plan to to reopen or if there's inclement weather in the morning and we just shift our entire um time frame so that we're instead of afternoon and evening kind of thing. So if we're
going to be open eight hours we could still be open eight hours but it might go into the evening a little bit. Okay. So, we're not losing that opportunity, right, of people that were going to come there. Um, and the other one was the um the operating hours. Um, we've switched
the Friday, Saturday um time slots so that there's more rental opportunities on Saturday. Um, and we've had a a very good response to rentals. Um, it's one of our parties and that kind of Yeah. renting the whole facility. Um, a portion of it. Um, so we those have been
implemented. It's a little too soon to to give you feedback since we just did it in May. Um, but we should be able to come back um at the end of fiscal year and see where we're at with those changes. Very cool. I know I've said this in the past, but I'll take any opportunity I can to say it again. I've
always been impressed with the aquatic center. You're coming in the numbers and, you know, using um attendance data to really drive when you're open and when you're closed and when you do certain kinds of things. I've always
been impressed with that. So, thank you. Yes. I forgot to mention one thing that I noticed in the slides. uh you had some information there that said it uh rent out the baseball fields for about $8 an hour and it cost I forget the number
something like $140 to line the fields. Um so I guess I'm my question is are you looking for direction to say raise the prices or don't you have the ability to just do that on your own?
Uh, so we're not asking to raise the prices. We just are trying to increase your awareness of what some of the costs are um why the cost recovery isn't what it could be because we're providing all these services um not only to um the
local you know youth athletic groups but also to nonprofits and other organizations um which is is part of what we do. Thank you. Petro. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, couple things on the water mineral springs. I
know we've talked about it privately about playing with the hours uh to accommodate more people, thus getting more income. Have you tried that specifically with the So, that's also on here on the efficiencies and
opportunities. Um we are um looking at um closing on Thanksgiving day and taking those hours and offering as a trial basis four different later evening um operating hours. So we'll we're going
to do that in the next fiscal year. See how that goes. If it goes well, then we come back and and look at um more of a structured evening program that could supplement a lot of cost recovery
um funds. So basically, do we have to do that to shift one day and spread it over that or can we just Well, last time we la last time there was a trial evening hour um it did not
bring in the revenue that was thought to um happen with that. So um it Cheryl, do you remember when it was done? About four years ago. And so there was a a whole separate rate I believe for evening hours they could come in then it
just didn't generate enough attendance um to be feasible to do that. So, we thought if we do it this way, um we're just taking a day um that would have cost us more, right? Would have cost um for holiday pay on Thanksgiving. We're closing that day, taking those hours and
then trying out that evening. Um kind of like we did at the aquatic center when we started the Friday evening hours. Um and if it goes well, then expand from there. I just I'm not sure there's that much of a need from what the staff are hearing at uh the site that there's that
much of a need for evening hours on a regular basis. And yeah, it's a common sense to to be closed on Thanksgiving, but I'm talking about extending one hour later. Oh, no, not I was not talking about evening hours like the whole evening. Extending one hour and starting
at 7, I believe, right? The reason I'm asking this because I've got a lot of requests from the constituents asking for that service and they will bring more money. So, it's up to the staff to determine if it's going to be
financially beneficial and feasible to do that. I don't want to pay over I don't want the city pay over time for the workers. But if we can just do two shifts or maybe one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening extending, we'll
bring in flux of people and this is just the feedback from the my constituents um or users of that park specifically. So I don't know if you can look into that more we'll bring our cost
recovery better uh to a better aligning with the industry standards. Um, and another thing I was going to say, the warm middle springs and commissioner Lenon touched on that we we have to bring it to a profitable level to that
extent that it would make more money. It's very doable. I don't know if you have any consulting services or I know you like hiring outside consulting firms. Have you looked into like um how can bring more revenue
besides raising the prices, how to do it efficiently. Um, and I know we have to make an initial investment into renovating those buildings. That's going to eat up a lot of it. But in the long run and that would that's when it comes
uh in handy that I forget is it seven or eight acres we ask or 10. So those acre acreages can serve um for bringing more income to
the city. Whatever we build there, restaurant or whatever, this will suffice financially and it diversifies the services the city can offer to the citizens. Uh right now the
place is not attractive at all. Uh, so have you guys looked into consulting services or maybe I don't know I'm just talking to myself a little bit but uh as far as have you looked
into how to generate more in short. So we're going through the master plan process right now. Uh so some of that um will focus on warm mineral springs and what opportunities could be out there. Um there's also um really we need we
need to get the buildings right renovated um before I I really think before we do anything else we need to have the buildings that people want to come to that then we can even do more marketing to attract people because we're not doing all that marketing right now
because we don't have the facilities um there uh but I think there's a lot of things that'll happen uh in conjunction with the new building's opening. And then if we do the conservation easement, pull out the 20 acres that was recommended. Um, then we can put
something out um, you know, a request for letter of interest on who wants to a restaurant or or has a has a project that maybe they want to do on that, but it but it has to go through a process to go out that is competitive and fair.
And yeah, I didn't mean to say I was talking to myself, but I'm just kind of giving ideas and uh because we got to make this place attractive and profitable. Um moreover, citizens want
that place to be attractive. So, whatever we do, we got to do more efficiently, quicker, uh more quick, quicker. Um, yeah, it's good good work. So, I guess
I'm done. All right. Anything else? Any public comment? Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Moving on.
Barely creeping on. J 25 2377 discussion and possible direction regarding fiscal year 26 social services division recommended budget city manager. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Uh so our next
area of conversation is our social services division. Uh great photo by the way. Um so this is their division work chart and what it looks like. They currently have six individuals. We are not asking to increase that number at
all. Um so as they stay the same there, here are some of the performance measures to discuss. One is the funding uh dispersing the funding of the NP squared program at 100% and right now we've dispersed it at 66%. Um, and
knowing that this program is not fairly new, but still sort of catching on to people, we still want to make sure that it's available to to offer to the public because of its impact. Um, the goal to participate in 24 outreach activities, we're on target to do just that. And the
goal for the skills and life training program is below 25 at 22. um when you look at their budget, their their budget, they do a lot on a very limited budget as well, especially when they've had some damage to their facility um in the past months where
they were sort of displaced for a little while. But we would thank our our facilities crew and team for getting them up and running as soon as possible as they did. Um but as you can see, their operating expenses are fairly minimum and their staffing makes up the
majority of their costs. Um there were no impacts of uh fiscal year 25 funding proposals and there were no recommended funding proposals for 26. Um so we are happy to answer any questions you might have Mr. Mayor but that is their
complete budget conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody have anything? I just had a quick question for you. Um, I'm not quite sure whether the county is increasing, but my gut tells me
decreasing social services. Do you foresee some challenges or gaps in in support services if the county downsizes their social services investment and commitment, which will
fall to the city? I I mean or potentially call to the city like what do you see in there? Anything? I'll go first. This is an off the record conversation and no one will know what I said. It does not look good for us in the city of Northport as their service
model continues to evolve. They have a model where they provide those dollars to the different agencies and those agencies sort of disperse those funds out. It is it is just not ideal for us based on our proximity to those services and their service providers for the majority of the money that is spent.
That's not to say that the county is doing that on purpose. It's not to say that anyone out there is not supporting the city. It's just a fact intended or unintended consequence of the model that we have to live in. Now, in my my mind and in my world, we would give a lot
more resources to our social services division so that we can help more more often. Um it's just it's just a constraint of the model that we're in. I'll let you expand on that if it works great. Yeah. No, I I definitely agree. I think whenever you
have um you know any type of funding that's either being minimized or removed, it's going to have ripple effects no matter what across the county. So will our you know service need increase? Absolutely. Um I've been here eight years. In the last eight
years I I feel like the funding always decreases. It it never really increases for us and we find ways we have to really think outside the box and be critical thinkers on how we're going to approach this, how we're going to do it. Is it by partnering with external agencies? Is it by um you know like the
MPsquare program? Is it to be able to provide support to the nonprofits that are helping us do the day-to-day work? We do think outside the box. Will there be ripple effects and will it affect us? Absolutely. I I cannot say no to that. Keep us tuned in because I know it's an
everinccreasing challenging situation for you all. Yes, we have people in our city who who really need that support and with all that goes on in this city, it's just so easy to miss those people
who are in the most need. So, keep it on our radar screens. Let us know. Absolutely. Not to say we can solve all the problems, but where we can help, we will try to help.
Uh, thank you, mayor. I'm glad that you discussed sort of that different model. I get questions all the time. Why does the city have a social services department? Isn't that county functioning? So, I think it's really
good to get the message out there that what the residents of this city need and the extent of that need is not met by the county's model. And that's just a fact. And um I think you've always run a
tight ship. You do a lot of great work. You leap into the breach when something's going on at the Willow, senior housing development or or whatever. And um it's really much
appreciated by all the people you touch. Thank you. Appreciate it. I have I have a great staff. I do have to say that I don't do the work by myself. I have fantastic staff. Yes. And they are the ones that are on the front lines, you know, providing the direct services. So,
we do run a tight ship, but it's because I have the correct people on board. Public comments. Easy. Thank you for all you do. Thank you. Moving on. K25-2369 discussion and possible direction
regarding fiscal year 26 finance department recommended budget. CM, you're you're right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh this is the finance department recommended budget discussion. Um as it relates to the orchart, they are asking for one new position which is an
accounted through position. um this team has been intact for the positions um that they had until recently where we tried to give some resources to them to expand them to be able to handle the workload of again the growing city. Um it's just it's just
volume you know as we talked about and we helped rightsize them with um some payroll assistant before and the creation of the deputy director position as well um assistant excuse me the assistant finance director position as well. We just need to make sure that we keep up and are able to maintain our
response times and level of service as um we know the city deserves and desires. U when we look at the performance measures uh right now they're all on target. One is for paying 95% of our property document and submitted invoices within 10 business days. Uh we're on target for 96% of
that. We're um on target for 92% which is uh the exact same amount of the goal of closing monthly reporting by the 10th business day of the next month. Making sure we're timely. And we're also on target with an anticipated 95% of our
purchasing requisitions um within 3 days uh three business days for a 90% goal. So they are looking good there. Their budget, as you can tell from the actual numbers um of the years past, is pretty
much in alignment. Um their operating expenses have gone down in the recommended budget to 192,000 and their personnel is just merit increases plus the one budget proposal that has been included. Um no impacts of fiscal year
25 funding proposals to report. Um the recommended budget includes today one position which is the accounting three I mentioned and there's no impact for not funding any of the other things that were not requested. So Mr. Mayor, we're happy to answer any questions you may
have, but that's your finance department. Super nothing comment. Wow. Thank you, ladies. Thank you. Thank you. All right. No
comments on the next one. Moving on. L 25-2370 discussion and possible direction regarding fiscal year. City manager communications and emergency management department recommendations. It looks like I hear
some guy from behind. City manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um the city manager department, emergency management division, and communications uh department are all sort of wrapped in here for this conversation. One because we've had a lot of conversations
regarding the division department, which I'm sure we will jump right back in there. But when you look at our actual department, you're looking at 15 um authorized positions and the three new positions. Uh one is in grants. um that
would about valve theme and then the other two are the two I mentioned earlier as we talk about making sure that our emergency management gets the attention that we believe that it deserves. uh in some of the models you're probably saying, well, why is this under now the city manager's office? We've talked to Titus, Chief
Titus. Um and for the last year or so, we've recommended that it the emergency management falls under the city management manager because when it's outside of fire, it has a different context of the importance of it as opposed to being sort of a little bit
below under fire because when she becomes the emergency manager during an actual event, she is actually in charge of everything that sort of happens on the operational level for the storm. And it's a very important role and it's very
different and very unique. But we believe that us making sure that she's in the city manager's office as a as a discipline of emergency management is the right thing to do. So when you look at these goals of our
uh emergency management division um they are on target for all of them which is great knowing how important this function is during the season we're currently in. But the goal of maintain maintaining 80% or better rate for submitting timely and complete agendas
to the clerk is on time for 85%. Um the increasing of win rate of grants awarded to our city, 63% on target of 65%. We're also on target to provide at least 15 emergency management trainings to staff by doing 17 and our goal of
attending 55 community outreach events is now also on target to have 70. Let me pause right here and just make one quick uh note. So recently it was um as it
relates to some of you know the agenda items and you as a board and what we provide you as a board it was recently brought to my attention that you may feel like we are not giving you enough information to make all the decisions that we ask of you and that just means
when I say that I mean we give you enough information from our side from a staff standpoint what we don't do are give you the alternatives or the options that you may want to consider even if we don't agree with them and maybe some of the consequences for you to choose and make that choice. So, we're going to
revise some of our agenda summaries so that you'll be able to see our recommendation and then the other side of the coin say, well, these are some things you can consider and we'll give our input on those as well. So, you will have a full picture of being able to
say, I saw both sides of it. I understand what why staff recommended. I agree with it. I don't agree with it, but at least I saw it and at least the public saw it because we have a lot of conversations that may not be public knowledge and you may ask your questions there, but no one may see you ask those
questions there. And we may have information that we provide, but no one may see that information that we provide. So, we want to be better with making sure that you feel like you have been given a fair shot at all the information that we have available and some either alternatives or options that
might trigger you to think in a different way so that you can make the best decision going forward as a board. That's a process improvement that I was glad to have the conversation for and I think that you'll all enjoy the results of that as we move forward. Okay. Thank
you so much. All right. So, as we look at our um budget summary as the department, you'll notice that our operating expenses are $118,300. Staffing is 1.9. That includes the new
two new positions as well as the um previous. I'm sorry, not two. All right. And here is the new emergency management division. um they don't have any prior year information to compare it to
because we're just starting it. And um I do believe that like I said earlier, one day it could be its very own department depending on how we handle storm um management going forward. There were no impacts of fiscal year 25 funded proposals in this particular
budget. Uh next year's uh requests are the three positions I outlined earlier as well as two proposals totaling $19,660 and there were no impacts of fiscal year 26 uh unfunded proposals. The last thing I'll say before I ask questions, Mr.
mayor is that we did receive some questions over the weekend and it related to some of the percentages that were shown in our particular office and like with my salary and the deputy salary and we we had to make sure that
we reminded you all um as I showed that compensation slide earlier and I'm I'm still grateful for what you all did and foresight of what the others around us were doing which has proven to come true but that 15% of a raise did sort of skew some of the
numbers when you look at percentages of why it went up or down. So, I do want to acknowledge that and hopefully um answer any more questions that you may have about our department regarding some of those costs or increases. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, sir. Commission,
vice mayor. Yes, sir. question um not about emergency management but it said we were discussing city manager communications and emergency management. So this was the other section that I had brought up
about those numbers being possibly skewed and it's the reclassification of the communication manager to director or whatever it was. It lists it at $41,000. Yes. So, is that another number that was
Yes. inflated due to it? It is an inaccurate number that we just talked about earlier. And I'm looking at Julie, unless she's got an answer right now. We're going to have to follow back up with the correct information. Oh, I'm sorry. Communications amount is correct. And let me let me explain why. Um, to go
from a division to a department director, your FRS contribution goes from 13.6% 6% to 34.5. That's the big jump. The one in it, he stayed in a different plan. We couldn't assume that
until we knew. Uh so we had to budget for that that jump in the regular FRS plan. So that's why that one is is going to change and change drastically. But of the 41,000 only 12,000 of that should be salaries if it was the way I remember
reading it. And that means the rest of it are the benefits increase that that really sell the whole package too. Yes. So apparently I misspoke. I'm my mistake. 41,000 is correct. 12,000 for salary and then the rest is benefits.
Okay. Senator Pete. Yeah. Um we'll discuss it later on in further conversation. There you go. Okay. Thank you. I just have a followalong question on FRS with that kind of a jump and I first saw
this in the FRS contribution for commissioners and when I first looked at it I said wow this is great I'm going to be able to retire in two years but that's not the case. Can you explain when there's that set aside for FRS,
what percent actually goes into the employee specific retirement fund and how much of it goes in to cover the overall program? Am I asking that question? I think I understand your
question and there's 0% chance I could tell you how the FRS funds your retirement. what they have their own calculations, right? This is what we're required to put in for you to get out what they promise you. How it gets from one to the
other, right? I I don't even want to counting as a good portion of that allocation stays with the program itself to fund the program. Not it doesn't all go to the employee.
No, because not everybody stays long enough to vest, right? So, still cities are putting in money for people who leave after four years or people who stay forever and longer or or live forever and collect more than the actual
then you get more than than we put it. Yes. Right. Yeah. And I'm I'm sure just like with our pension plans, um they have actuarial studies that they perform to project what the plan looks like and the rates that
good. Thank you. Uh Commissioner Petro, thank you. Mayor, uh quick question. Can you go a couple questions? Can you go back to the slide with the emergency personnel?
Yes. So, we had nothing before. I mean, there had to be some expense on their own. What were their expenses in that? Out of they were part of the fire department. it would be near impossible
to get their actuals out of the fire general fund and the fire district budget and the percentage increase. Do we know any? Probably not since we don't know the Yeah, if we can't pull it out then I can't tell you what the increase.
Um and also the percentage increase in salary for the executive personnel. I just want to find out uh and publicly uh state if you can tell us the
city manager how much it is how much is it for the deputy city manager and assistant city manager for our fiscal year 26 number. Yes sir. Um let me see I believe that was on
it. So, uh, one second. Sorry. Yeah, we got to break down for the three executive staff. the deputy uh city manager and the assistant
city manager are in the projections for their the two and a half% cola which is 1% for the minimum wage one and a half for the CPI and for 3 and 12% merit on their review date. Right now the city
manager is only projected what we put in the projections is for 2 and a half% increase. what he actually gets is what you guys decide. And um on communication division,
is that the time to talk about it? Is is that part of the city manager? Yes. Umbrella. And this is my first budget meeting or workshop. How does it get decided? Do we
specifically transferring from division manager to director? How does it get decided? Yes. You're going to have to vote to agree to it or disagree to it because right now we put it in the budget as the conversion is acceptable. If you say that it's unacceptable, then
we'll have to make the adjustments to pull it back to where it was. But that is a board decision based on what we've outlined. Yes, I understand that. the process, the actual process. There are a couple things I disagree. For example, how do we vote? Do we call out individual
items that I do not support or as an individual board member or how do we do that? I just do not know the process related to the conversion or in general specifically transferring the division
manual to the so so we so on a slide that was in my introduction it there was a slide that outlined the steps in the process and one of the first ones was the advertising of the process the second was bringing it to you as a board for your confirmation and approval. If
you as the board say no, do not go forward with it, then the next time you see it, it will be gone from there because this is the recommended budget. Your feedback on what you want to include or or exclude is how we move forward. Similar to what Commissioner Langon said earlier with the 500,000 for
police, the next time we see you, that change is going to be in there and we're going to tell you what we did in order to make that change happen. If you say now you won some or none of the process that you want to move forward then we will adjust accordingly. Okay. So it's
not the time yet to Yeah. This is it. I I would say it now. Yeah. Because that communication division is under the city manager department. We want them to be their own department so that they could have I already you know the things that I
outlined earlier as far as being better at what they do. I guess that brings me to a question and then I'll come back to this one. Um the F FRS how do we even what's the methodology
from 13 to 30%. How is it? Who gets uh who decides that? It should be a state. Um who who decides the difference between the 13 to the 30% and FRS? That should be a state rule.
Yeah, the state state, right? But that's the benefit also of the people that we want to be recognized from a divisional department. The director level comes with certain benefits. That's one of them. And when you're performing a duty that is very similar to the other people
in the agency who are doing a similar role, you should have that same benefit. But there is a cost to it. Whether it's the increase in salary that we've talked about um in communications, if we're using communications as example, the $12,000 that he gets is still going to
put him way behind the other departments. They're not he's not coming up to meet them where they are. he's coming up enough to be in the pay grade and in the conversation as one of the newest directors within our organization. So, it's it's not a well, let's just take him from the bottom to
the middle. That's not what we're doing here. I believe the 12,000 represents a 10% increase, which is something that we in HR believe is the right number to go to, but he is not being risen to the level of a parks and reccks department head based on what we're doing for this
project. Um um Miss Balia just said that similar to Eric Ryan who was sitting in front of you earlier who said he was on a certain retirement plan that was going to affect the benefit number that you saw. Mr. Barlo's on that same plan and that's an individual specific choice which is why
we don't sort of know all of that and she's talking about it right now but we will get that adjusted as well. So, there'll be a decrease as well in I think some of the benefits, but not necessarily the $12,000 in salary that I just talked to vice mayor about. I just want to make it clear, make it public, I
do see that the level of importance for the IT division manager to become a department. um involves a factors a lot of it involves a lot of factors such as the security
and overall IT provision for the for the entire city personnel. I do not have anything against that. I do however want to make it clear that I do think it's maybe premature
to do the same with communication department um for variety of reasons and the first one is a level of importance. I just don't see it that important at this time, specifically this budget time and um
I'm not in I'm not in the support of that transition. Just want to be on the record and I don't know. So I want to ask for consensus not to promote division manager department
manager or director of communication team division as of right now. uh financial reasons, the time we're in, um level of importance,
many reasons. I can go on and on, but not this time. I just want to ask my commission. your manager. Before you move, um I just want to make sure that I made it clear for the communication department to
where you as a city were to where we are now or light years apart from each other. And I understand that there may be a feeling and there always is going to be a feeling if I'm honest that you know, well, our communication needs to be better.
I have heard communication needs to be better in every place I've ever worked in. I would ask you to make sure that we are judging this division that deserves to be a department on their impact. Um the creative things and programs that
they brought to our city, how they have increased our transparency, our reaction to the social media that we incur on a very heavy basis. um the creativity they brought to some of the programs that I
think most of you have either seen or participated in and the impact on it throughout our entire community. It is impactful and I do believe that they should be a department um because they meet all the criteria to be recognized
as such and by no means I diminish the distinguished services that they do. It's the other reasons that it listed, but I understand what you're saying. Thank you, sir. Y
um in speaking to that, because you've offered up a consensus, but I'd like to comment before we vote. Um, I I I do support making an apartment or I quite honestly
it doesn't take me too many years to look back as city manager said to what was in my opinion a real lack of transparency, inclusiveness, communications. I think our
communications department is in incredible. I the it's funny because there's one area of it that I would love to see a much more aggressive stance taken and
that's in the area of social media. We do a great job messaging um branding ourselves, communicating on a on a on a slightly higher level to the bulk of our community. And I would say that the vast
majority, my personal opinion, vast majority of this community appreciates it greatly and recognizes that change. But there is a core group of people in this city who have aggressively and
vocally addressed the issues of the day. And they are very opinionated. They are very strong. And I would not negate their positions. They're entitled to them. But I think our communications department could do a whole lot more in
the area of social media addressing this. Whether it's our own Facebook pages, not just city pages, but pages that aggressively interact with that portion of the community that disseminates misinformation
and and confusing information and uninformed information. that's even makes sense. And the idea being that these days people I hate to I'll say this politely people
tend to go the easiest route and and pick up tremendous amounts of information rightly or wrongly opinion or fact on social media. And I think it's important that we expand our communications department
in that venue. We need to be on the same level as our citizens are. They go to Facebook and other social media areas to get their information. And I've always said it, social media is long on opinion
and short on fact. And it's time that we are as effective as some of those pages like Northport concerns and some of the others that are constantly out there making an impression on our citizens who want to know more but may not be getting
all the facts and information. So I digressed a little in the sense that I really support our communications department. I think you guys are killing it and I totally support it being a department. I think it's important and um you know yes there's an incremental
cost in doing it but you know we are a growing city we have much more messaging to do in a lot of areas that we haven't even begun to touch in terms of our development exposing our city to the rest of this country and the rest of
this world and I think it's important that we keep up with that and I think your department's every bit as important as any other department and should be a department, not a division. So, and if I could just add on to that, Mr. Mayor, um what I will say is what you just
outlined as being better in social media is a job performance task that I believe we we take the people out of the positions when we talk about something like this. So, take Barlone and his good team out of it. The expectation for anyone in that chair would to make be
make sure that they have a better stronger social media presence. Now I have all the confidence that they could do what you just asked for but irregardless the expectation should be there none the same and I was trying to think of an example to use but maybe not a great one is you know when we
inherited uh Warm Mill Springs in 2014ish you know before a lot of us were here and we looked at it in 2024 and 25 and it looks terrible and looks bad I didn't hear anyone say well let's break up the parks and reccks department and make them something smaller because they didn't take care of one piece we all
have areas that we need to improve upon and we're taking the steps of improving Warm Mill Springs in my example. But for them as a division and a department, their skills, the complexity and the volume and their reach uh is just the same as any other department that we
have in our city. Thank you, Mr. May. Thank you, Commissioner Lang. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Just a quick comment. I also support it. I think communicating effectively with residents and outside the city is vitally important to the
financial future of this city. Um, and I can honestly say I've only been here about 11 years, but the narrative on the city of Northport when I first came here, the types of climate, the kinds of
stories that would infrequently make it to the press or on TV or radio were embarrassing at best. And today, everywhere you look, Northport up and coming dum
just positive, positive, positive. And if we don't think for one minute that when a company is thinking of locating here, that that's not an important factor in their decision making, then you're wrong. So vitally important um
both for transparency connecting with the community but also in terms of how we are perceived outside of the city vitally important and light years um better than it was 10 or 11 years ago.
And if I could say something really briefly I think Mr. Bernal wants to say something as well that part of that identity and rebranding and the refreshing that we've talked to you all about recently that goes handinhand exactly with the value of how people see you or perceive you or and how you
recognize yourself. We are a larger city now. We have so many great things that people don't know about and we are branding ourselves to be confident in what we provide and why people should want to be here and he and his team were a big part of that. We'll stop. Well,
thank you, sir, and I appreciate the positive comments. Um, we have worked really hard in the last three years to restructure how we do communications here since the city manager brought me on board and we've expanded our team mostly by reorganizing um positions without the city that we're doing communications in different areas,
bringing them together, trying to build the expertise and the level of professionalism to what we do to communicate and the different areas that we're doing that. So, I know we haven't gotten to the presentation yet of the communications team yet. Um, but I hope you'll see that we've made a lot of positive strides in the last few years.
Mr. Petra, you were in the middle of making a consensus and anytime you want to clerk reread it. I just want to finish with that. I don't minimize the importance of the communication division and all the work they do. I do believe they
do phenomenal job. um communicating the message to the residents. Um in the end, I do believe that the actions will speak louder than words uh of the city leadership. So, I just want to I I just don't feel personally
uh it's it's not the right time, okay, to do it now, especially we're trying to squeeze and save every dollar. So, but I do appreciate the work and the importance of the communication division and I thank you for that. Actually, I'm
really impressed about the work you guys do and communicate the message through social media flyers and all the all the communication means. Um, by no means I undermine the importance of the division, but I just
feel that this is not time and as a taxpayer myself, I don't think it's really the right time to do it. So if we can make it un understood before you make your motion. I'm sorry. One more wrinkle. This is twice now.
Yeah, I apparently didn't go down far enough in the same slide deck of the same department. There's actually a couple more slides. I'll go through them really quickly. There are 11 positions in the communications department. I think that you you've all either engaged with them or seen some of them. That is under Mr.
Barlo's uh watch. Um but you know they are on target to hit 70% of their goal of increased percentage of calls handled live in the customer call center from 66% to 70%. Um they are going to fall short of the 3123 number of service
tickets submitted through the Northport Reap app app for um last year. We anticipate 2,000 this year. Um the goal of 475 increased media contacts. They're going to beat the number from last year of 431 and they are on target for
320,000 as the increased number of social media followers followers across all platforms from 27 uh2,000 last year and that's a pretty big accomplishment. Um the operating expenses are pretty much flat for the most part and then the personnel
we're just doing the um increases because they're not asking for any new positions. Uh, and the one reclassification totals for 404 $47,000 is in there now. And that's the number that we'll make sure that we um take
care of and one proposal and then that's it. So, sorry about that, Mr. Mayor and Mr. Vice Mayor. Mr. Petro, do you had a census out there? You want to direct the city manager to not include
the change of the communications division to a department in the FY26 budget. You're a yes. Yes, Vice Mayor. I'm a yes. A yes to not. Correct. I know what I'm
want to make sure. You know, I'm a no. Thank you. Okay, public comment. Moving on to our final item of the day at 25-23-79 discussion and possible direction
regarding the fiscal year 26 development services department recommended budget. CM this is your item. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Um development services department recommended budget for fiscal year 26.
Um you will remember that they have 82 authorized positions throughout their several divisions um including planning and zoning, code enforcement, economic development, uh natural resources and building divisions. Um there is a request for two
proposals included within this budget, both of which are code enforcement that will allow us to be closer to a proactive rather than reactive um department. We all you all especially I know weekly get emails about areas that
need our attention and we we see them and we recognize that we can't get out in front of them but so much based on what I believe is a a very uh limited number of staff for the volume of people and the space that we have. Uh it is a challenge. If I remember correctly, you
requested four positions. Then I cut it down to two um based on the need in order to get our budget to where it is. But when you talk about the performance measurements of the department, they are doing well with an anticipated uh goal
of processing reviewing 90% of single family resident permit applications within 30 days. They're on target to do 96.5%. the goal of uh to plant or donate 500 trees throughout the city. Uh we're on target to do just that in this year. The
goal of 90 more business attraction contacts made. We're on target because we're looking at 100. And to maintain a rate of at least 90% active cases brought into compliance without property owners having to go before the hearing officer is on target for 92.7%.
um the budget summary for this particular um department. Uh you will see that there's uh a little bit of capital in there for this year as well as operating expense, but the personnel is just the two positions that we asked
for as well as natural um merit increases. Um let me let me go back and just say something. um their their personnel cost is probably not going to make it there because they're down to one planner in
their department right now. We just had another resignation late last week. Um it is it is really challenging to keep the people in some of her places in their seats and you know we're we're trying to work through it the best way we can knowing that we have a large
volume of work that needs to be done and that people expect the timelines to be adhered to regardless of how many people you happen to see. It is what it is but just want to make sure that you're aware that they are going through something very um unique. the unapproved lot
program. This is some direction that we need to see from the board. Um if you remember um we have engaged our city attorney's office um through outside council provide a recommendations for options and alternatives. Uh an
alternative may be easier to implement an assessment on vacant lots. The this would involve placing code enforcement lean recovery on tax bills each year. that takes you as a city out of the trying to be in the collections bill business and getting it right on the tax
bill and knowing that you are only you're only charging the vacant lots. um outside general counsel is working on a document to include those options and um but the earliest time frame that we can implement it would be fiscical year 27
because it is a tax bill um situation and we've already passed the time deadline for it to be included on fiscal year 26's bill. So, we will be looking at another year, but this could be one of the programs that not only will we service vacant lots that are not
currently being serviced, but we will be able to ensure that um some extra revenue does come into the city of Northport for those people who just have vacant lots and aren't doing anything particularly with them. Uh impacts of the funding proposals that
were included in fiscal year 25 include uh the economic uh impact analysis report. Um, that report was very good to tell us exactly where we thought some future revenue was coming in. And I think that it's given us some comfort knowing that our community is growing
and money is on the way. And I know that we're in that sort of um u gap time where we are waiting for that money to come in. I almost feel like we need to just hold on. If we can, like Commissioner Pro said, the timing may not be right for some things, but if we
can just hold on until some of that extra revenue comes in, then I think the city will be in a better place in a couple years based on us trying to increase our commercial footprint in the city. Uh the flood plane administrator was a good addition to our team. Um, we
had an enhanced review of development applications for flood plane compliance and placed additional focus on the city's rating through the community rating system and national flood insurance program. Um, and the citywide tree paying program uh always underway
the completion of design for multiple areas where trees will be planted and irrigation installed to ensure long-term survivability in multiple city parks. uh Sumpter entry feature as well as the aquatic center and the dog parks. The proposals that are included in this
budget that you're looking at from development services include those two positions that I mentioned earlier as well as 10 other proposals totaling $1.1 million. Um the unfunded are the two positions and I believe those two vehicles are associated with that same those same
positions. So that's about 342,000, excuse me, $432,000 4 $450,000 approximately of um cost that came out of the budget as a result of that decision. Um this does leave us in
a spot where we have fewer inspected inspectors per 10,000 residents. As I mentioned, it will increase the workload and stress on the remaining staff. And I think that we have to sort of chip away at this and make sure that we get to the number uh over time. Um again, none of
us are strangers to issues that involve code enforcement. And hopefully uh we get to them become before they become egregious like some of the ones we've seen lately. But when we see them, we react to them and make sure that we do the best we can. Some of them are ongoing. I'm thinking about the hive
over near the um the pawn center. Um, you know, we we just those are ones that you just got to stay on. And it goes from one process uh one step in the process to another step in the process, but we're not we're not ignoring it and we're certainly not giving up on making sure that we provide the best code
enforcement and customer service throughout the city. So, I'll stop right there, Mr. Mayor. We're happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Maris. deval. Thank you, mayor. The departmental level of 80 people and
asking for a budget of two more. It's a task, but when it comes to the fact those two positions are code enforcement, I think it should have been five more. I'll take them. I can take you down to
my house. I could show you a new house being built across the street that's had multiple multiple violations for a year and a half. Further down the street, I have a house that somebody started and then they abandoned it
two, three years ago. Still half empty. It's a brand new house being built right now and they're using a lot across the street for their dumpster and stuff like this. What I'm getting at is these code violation positions. I'm not kidding. It
should have been fine. Um, and this is hard to say when you know you're trying to save the taxpayers money. Um, and again, I'm on my soap box here. Um, I want to see every employee do a little
bit of code enforcement work. When they show up on the street and see violations such as this, they should be doing a little bit of code enforcement work. Even if it's just reporting it to their supervision,
I just think we can do better. And these two positions, I hope, will help. Thank you, Mr. Lang. Oh, so many things. I'll start from the bottom up. I was having a conversation with a neighbor
who was originally from New Jersey and this was relative to Bilbur's abandoning um home lots and and thank you. The dump on on Bellingham Lane has finally been
cleared up. But he was sharing with me that when a developer is is going to build a home in New Jersey, they have to buy a bond and if they don't finish, then the bond sort of kicks in to finish
the property. Just going to throw that out. I'm sure it would be incredibly unpopular here in North but just food for thought. Um it's it's such an issue here. I mean these are not
isolated cases. You go to any neighborhood area in the city and you'll see at least one of these. So um so two two new code enforcement officers I think I know the answer to that question who are still going to be reactive in
strategy. If you got five, that would in my mind mark a shift to a more proactive. Absolutely. Even even before that we we had originally requested gets us more on a proactive footing. As it stands now,
we have fewer code enforcement officers per 10,000 residents than any local jurisdiction in the area. Uh with the addition of two, our next our next um city that has
um a low number of code enforcement officers is Bradon. Um with the addition of two, it puts us just above Bradon. And how many? Um seven. We have now five. We have five. Okay. currently uh at seven uh Bradenton currently we
currently have 0.53 code enforcement officers per 10,000 Bradenton has.70 the addition of two puts us at.74 so just barely above Bradon that still puts us considerably behind city of Sarasota Puna Gorta Venice and Cape
Coral um they all have Venice has twice as many as we do uh per 10,000 uh So, when you look at our competitor neighbors, um, and bearing in mind these are the competitors that
businesses are looking at to relocate to, we're on that type of footing. We are definitely on a reactive footing right now. We want to be on a proactive and I think when you drive around our neighborhoods, you can clearly see the evidence of our reactive footing. It's
not a place where we want to be. Um, most of our code enforcement officers live in the city. They don't like it either. So, um, but I think that what you're seeing is the incredible growth that we
have had in our population, in the number of build sites that we have, in the number of um properties that we have that are not being maintained compared with not keeping up with the number of code enforcement officers over
a period of years. the the issues that we have with code enforcement didn't just manifest themselves overnight. It's been a couple of decades in the making of growth yet not keeping being able to keep up with the number of code
enforcement officers. Okay, thank you for that. Um, just a a quick question on the unimproved lot. We went through it quickly. I didn't quite grasp the change. Is it that we would do our normal thing? We would take care of
the dangerous tree, send a bill, and if they didn't pay it rather than chasing them through the courts, it would facilitate just putting a lean on the property. Is that correct? So, we had a we had a pretty lengthy discussion. The the city attorney and I had a pretty
lengthy discussion with our outside council um who is familiar with these types of issues and um the registration program for the unimproved lots. Um while we can do it, it's it's going to
be more complicated. Um it's going to take a lot more research on the on the part of our outside legal team and it will take longer to implement than what we would really like. Um plus there are some legal hurdles that we need to overcome.
um the outside attorney um put us on the trail of a an alternative that sort of gets us what we're wanting to accomplish, which is cleaning up these properties, getting dangerous trees off lots, all of those types of things. And
the way he suggested to do that, which has been vetted, um, it does work. It's legally sound. It's, uh, it meets all of our criteria, is yes, we would go out, we would take care of those trees, we would take care of the dangers, we would take care of these properties, and then
we put it on as a lean through our code enforcement process. And at the end of the year, all of those leans go to the tax bills. So instead of sitting on a lean for 5, 10, 30 years, however long, and possibly
more likely probably never recovering those funds, we would recover our funds at the next tax bill. Um, and if the if if it's for instance not a um on these vacant lots, if the tax bill isn't paid,
it goes to for it goes to a tax sale. So, it is a much um faster way of recovering funds. It's done throughout the state. Um many cities and counties do this. Um sounds like a lot less work. It's a lot less It is a lot less work on
the city's part. It's a lot less um cumbersome once you set the program up. Um all you have to do, we bring a list to the city commission each year um in an ordinance. um I believe it was an ordinance either ordinance or resolution
um for with a list of the leans and the properties and the city u commission would um either approve or deny that list and then it goes to the um property appraiser tax assessor and then they put those on those leans on the tax bill
like that. It's it's much more efficient. Um it ass it assures that the city collects um what we're owed. Currently our lean recovery is only about 30%. So we have a lot of we have hundreds of thousands of leans sitting
out there and we would be able to go back. So when you first start the program, we would be able to go back over the last four years and recover all of those leans that have been sitting out there for the last four years. And it's substantial. It's hundreds of
thousands of dollars. the value of those leans. Um it's it's there's a certain um we can collect the certain fees. Um we we can't necessarily collect the interest, but we can collect what the city paid, all of our administrative costs, the cost to file the lean, all of
those types of things, the the actual costs that we had to um u levy and the fines. Okay, that sounds terrific. Thank you for that. Can I ask a question just specifically on that related? So,
how much would would someone be charged who's not taking care of the propert if we had to go out and we have what 50 complaints a week? We go out and we have to cut down two trees and it's $2,000. That $2,000 is going to be assessed. Correct. Okay. So, and the
administrative costs. And the administrative cost. Correct. And so, the people who are not doing it and not taking care of their properties, the ones going to suffer with this. they're going to pay to piper. Correct. Rather than our our current residents or people who are taking care of their properties
or um don't have any issues. Um and once a year it'll roll over from a lean to a an assessment on their tax bill. Correct. Oh, that works. Beautiful. Yeah. One last question. Um
what should we be doing or doing better to attract and retain planners? Is there something about that is a that is a multiaceted issue problem. Um planners
there's been a sort of a history over the last decade of fewer and fewer planners being attracted to cities like Northport counties like we're in. Many of the planners coming out of schools and the younger planners they want to go to metropolitan areas. They don't want
to come to Northport or Venice or Nagorta. They want to go to Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, the exciting places. I think we're exciting, but um pay is an issue even though we do
offer competitive salaries compared to our lo other local jurisdictions. Um it's the private providers, the consultants that we don't compete with. I will tell you we've lost several planners um within the city to private
providers. They're they're now with the consultants that are providing us services because we don't have any planners. Um so we are contracting out we're outsourcing almost all of our land development review right now to private consultants. Guess who work for those private consultants? The people who used
to work for us. So um that's an issue. I my my people myself my people that are in the planning field are recruited on a monthly basis from outside sources. Um what's the paid differential from being a planner for the city and being a
planner for a consulting agency? It varies based on experience. Obviously, the more experience you have at the upper levels, um, lead leadership level down to probably principal planner, you could be talking anywhere from 20 to
$50,000 a year when you factor in all of the compensation that's provided with bonuses and and things like that. It it can be very substantial when you factor those bonuses in. Um, most of us who stay in the private sector
don't do it for the money. We do it because we love the priv I mean the public sector. We do it because we love being in local government. I've worked for a consultant. Um, I enjoy this side of it because I'm working in my community, the community I live in.
That's why we do it. But a lot of people chase the money and when the economy is doing great, they all run to the private providers um because they're paying really well. When things go south in the market, they tend to trickle back to the
local government. Just might get easier over might get easier. You never want the economy to turn down. We certainly don't want that. Um but that is the issue that we have and it's not just us. If you look on the job boards um for the American Planning Association um any of
our local jurisdictions, they all have planner positions open. It is just the world that we're in right now. We are doing everything we can to recruit. Um are we going to any college campuses? I mean, it must be tough to be hiring all
green peas, but Right. We we're not going to the college campuses. We are reaching out to to some um of those, but we are going to the planning conferences. We're talking to all of our networks and we have substantial networks. What we hear over and over
again is we're looking to we we've got all these positions open and we don't have any anybody. Um, but we also suffer a bit where some of our other jurisdictions don't suffer in that people who are in their 20s, early 30s,
this is a hard area to recruit to. Um, if they want to live somewhere where they've got lots of stuff to do like Sarasota or Tampa, they're going to have a major commute. Um, we've lost we've hired I think three people who lived in Fort Myers.
Um they we hired them, they worked for us for a while and then they went back to Fort Myers because it it was a long commute. So we're trying everything we can. In the meantime, we are outsourcing to consultants so that we can meet our
statutory obligations. Um and starting bonuses that they have to stay x years. I mean there's there's issues with offering bonuses. there's there's issues with finance and and HR and and that kind of thing when you start trying to
do that. But um we've we've offered flexible schedules, partial remote work. We've tried we really have tried everything. Um right now outsourcing to private consultants
and running project management is about what we are is that's where we are at right now. Thank you for that. Good. Uh just a couple of quick things. Um
um happy to see we put on the natural resource division $2.5 million for sensitive land acquisition. Will any of those acquire spent out of that two and a half come before commission to approve
all of it? All of it. We we will be bringing you a list of properties that we have vetted that we think have environmental value in preserving. Um we will be bringing that list to the commission for you to look at it and consider
properties and if there are any on there that catch your eye that you would like for us to pursue. When you say environmental, you're also considering strategic as well. So like properties along like possibly tier 2s along Nakahhatch. Correct. anything that can
help us with storm water management, things like that. I mean to me that's a huge huge huge category property that I'd love to see us make a dent and there's things we can do to help some of our right especially lowlying areas you know especially if we have if there's
some property that has environmental value that's adjacent to the maka or adjacent to other properties that we already own that can provide a larger area for us to utilize for those types of things. Um, my dream is to have a a
mini celery fields someday in Northport. Um, I think that would be an incredible asset not only for storm water management that we desperately need, but also um an echo tourism attraction. You're not kidding. That would be great.
And then I will ask a pregnant question. Twothirds of our tree fund budget is going to support the natural resource division.
I mean, I don't know where else we would get the money to support this important division. I mean, it is an important division and I don't think anybody would want to see it go away. This is just a reality of
life. We have to accept that what's right now two 66 and a third I mean twothirds and will continue to grow. We generated three million in tree assessments. How are we going to well we I mean I don't want to see every dollar
in a tree fund go to support this department. But that's what's going to happen. That that's where we're headed. So the question is how are we going to create revenue sources to be able to plant trees do some of the other some of the other things that the tree fund was
intended to do land purchase and whatnot. So you know what's the strategy because all you know absolutely and where it would come from the general fund that is the only place that it could come from but I can tell you that based on our our uh revenues each year u
and our expenses we would still about half of our budget would on an annual basis would go towards either land acquisition planting trees um habitat management those types of things. Here's here's my question. Do we know
how much of the tree assessments are coming from plan developed communities specifically that the well and park areas and areas like that because my concern is that we're building a great natural resource division and my concern
is that do we run the risk at some point if development waines if a project like Wellen Park starts to build out or the economy tanks like do we see this revenue disappear on
us or shrink? Most of it is not from Willen Park. Most of it is outside of planned developments. Um I can tell you that um based on the revenue that we have, the expenditures that we have on an on an
average if we were going to say we're just going to um put everything to the general fund instead of using the the the environmental fund for our salaries and our operating expenses. We would have to plant in the neighborhood of
4,000 trees every year to spend all the money that we have coming in. The city doesn't own enough land to plant plant 4,000 trees every year and have those trees be planted in a way they're going to survive. I don't know if you talk to
Alice and Barbara. Well, I'm I'm a former I used to be an arborist, so I've got a little bit of experience in that and and how you have to plant trees and where you plant them and how far apart and um just to use the funds that we have in our in our um
environmental fund right now, we would have to plant in the neighborhood of 14 to 15,000 trees just to use those funds. That doesn't count the revenue that we have coming in every year. We can't plant enough trees. That's why we also
the the support of this division is something that is very typical of all jurisdictions that have these types of funds. They use those funds to support these divisions because these divisions are what make those funds possible and
utilizing those funds. Um the it allows us to improve habitat. That's that's one of the things, as I said, we don't have enough land to plant all the trees that we would need to plant to use up all of those funds. But we can restore habitat. We can protect
some environmental land. We can do a lot of things. Um, for instance, helping people plant trees on their property. Um, you know, there are a lot of things that we can do to um keep, maintain, and improve our tree canopy. um improve our
habitats for our scrub jays, our gopher tortoises, and our other wildlife um that don't involve just planting trees. It it's a multiaceted approach to environmental um sustainability in the
city. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Petra, thank you, Mayor. Uh well first of all I want to thank your department for all your hard work and your expertise. I mean you do phenomenal job. Um I want
to make a point on uh unimproved plot registration and that's a perfect example of when city manager said we only get presented one side of an option and and I want to be on the record for
that from the beginning. I said, "Let's do leans." And I was shut I was shut down by everybody, both sides, my fellow commissioners and staff saying, "It's not feasible. It's not right. It's not going to work
right now." And you well aware of my position of on the stand on unimproved lot registration. Um, right now it appears that's the way we're going to go. And I'm still in the favor of on complaint basis. I just
don't feel it's fair on uh investors or property owners of vacant lots to to bear the cost. And um I do believe it's not well first of all
u I do believe it's about 9% of the increased taxes on uh for vacant plots last year. They still pay taxes. they still, you know, they still contribute to the city and yet we're trying to um
tax them. Again, I'm glad to hear that it's not going to be implemented to 2027. Uh but I just, you know, and I'm not legal expert on that, but it appears to be that's the route we still going to
go. uh just just want to point out that um regardless of where I stand we have to be presented with many options and um have we consulted the outside council before? We would have
known this information at that at that time of that presentation but we we did not know that and uh I do believe uh that other municipalities utilizing that system lean and then recover the entire
cost of whatever the cost the city incurred and does otherwise and this is actually I spoke both for both the city's sake and the property owners because we would be overrun by by the
number of dollars we're going to spend this way. We're going to shift all that money burden to the homeowner. I I mean the lot owner and he or she has to pay that much money whatever we spent. I would even add a more
commission percentage onto it to recover our administrative cost. there is an administrative uh fee that is charged that we're allowed to charge by state statute and that would be recovered as well as as well as u
there's a cost to file a lean u even and that would be uh included in that recovery cost. Yeah. And I just want to conclude with that that I'm still in favor on a complaint basis only. I don't want to charge people because it's
another tax. Thank you. Thank you ma'am. Commission. Yes. Um, as far as the lot registration program, I'll wait to see what we come up with. We, you know, we had one plan
and then we started talking about another plan and now this is a new revelation. Uh, so I'll delay any judgment on that. Um getting back to the tree fund, a revenue
of $4,74,000 and expenditures of the natural resources division of $4,74,000. Uh earlier this year, I asked some folks and I was told we were going to plant 500 trees this year.
Mhm. How many of those trees have been planted so far? And I understand that this, you know, environmental resource division, you know, can do a lot of good for the city,
but I just don't want to see tree fund just be void of funds to plant trees. Uh it's of of those 500 trees our goal for
planning for the year. How many have been planted? I'll need to look at that, but I the majority of them are going to be uh planted in the next few months. We had to go through the design and procurement. So
that's where we're we can't just go buy the trees. we've got to go through a procurement process because of the number of trees that we're purchasing um and the cost of that. So, it is we're looking at planting all of those or the majority of them
this fall during the planting season. That's the other thing. We can't plant during the dry season because um of irrigation costs. Um, so we typically try to there's the fall is really the best time to plant trees in this area.
Um, so we had to get all of the designs. We now have all of the designs done. Um, our arborist worked on that for months with parks and public works um to ensure that we plant the trees um in the best place possible and then we had to work
with um the irrigation companies to ensure we can get irrigation to those trees. Um, and so now we're we're essentially at this point we're waiting for uh our all of our purchasing documents and then we will purchase and
plant uh but we intend to plant likely it'll be more than the 500 um a lot of we we had I want to say a million and a half um already encumbered for tree planting um and we do intend to
spend all of that Good. Anything else? Any public comment? Yes, Debbie McDow. Good morning. After reviewing budget proposal 2961 for two new code
enforcement inspectors, I noticed three things. First, the budget proposal 2961 states a vehicle will be required for each position. However, there is no line item designating the funding source for the vehicles. In other words, the vehicles associated with budget proposal 2961 are nowhere to be found in the
budget. Second, the budget proposal states each position is slated to begin January 1 with an annual salary of 70,000 each. The Govax budget proposal line item 12-01 detail shows a total of $46,750
for two inspectors. This figure is inaccurate for a 126 start date for two inspectors. Which brings me to the third item. Looking further and comparing the GovMax regular salary shows fiscal year 2026 has a proposed budget of $467,000.
Compare this with the amended fiscal year 2025 approved budget of $286,000. There is a difference of $181,000 or a 63% increase year-over-year which already includes the two new positions. Something is wrong with this
line item. Maybe the vehicles were added inadvertently inadvertently to salaries. Please review further for accuracy. Thanks. And that's all there. Thank you. Thank you. With that, any other general public comments?
In which case it is 407 this workshop. See you all bright and early.