Let's call to order the meeting of Thursday, March 26th. We'll start with the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
>> Please bow your heads for a moment of silence. >> Turn your cell phones off. >> Amen. >> Mr. Mr. Madden >> here, >> Mr. Barnes here, >> Mr. Pchini here, Mr. Hartzel here, >> Mr. Lovechuk here, >> Mr. Winsow,
>> Mr. Crowley >> here. >> Adequate notice of this meeting has been given pursuant to public law 1975, chapter 231. Um, we will turn it over to the mayor and administration. Why don't you guys all come up
before I should say champs? >> Yes. I've lost We have a proclamation. I know you guys are being honored, but I have to tell you on behalf of the council, um, what an amazing people. I was born 64, so
that's a long time ago. But I can tell you from the guys that watched you over these, all that kind of stuff, the teams that you built and your coaches built and how you represent Ocean City was nothing but class and unbelievable. So, we're so proud of you. But, uh, again,
the way you guys worked as a team, it just goes without saying. proclamation honoring the Ocean City High School varsity basketball team whereas the Ocean City High School boys varsity basketball team won its first state championship and 62 years on March
22nd, 2026. Whereas the Red Raiders won a 9-0 run to close out on 5546 victory over Columbia High School in state 3 to game. Whereas in the run through the playoffs, the Red Raiders outscored their opponents by 80 points to finish
the season with a 26 and6 record. And whereas his tight tight squad was characterized by teamwork, assist, and absolute poise under question. Whereas the Red Raiders were supported by local fans and sold out gyms throughout their historic run and welcomed home with an
Ocean City Fire Department escort. Well wishers lying high street. And whereas our legendary coach, Mr. John brought his first state championship and has 37 years of coaching. Great places, Cory, Kevin, Colin, Dean, Josh, Megan,
Quinn, Ty, Luke, Chris, Brendan, Luke, and Liam for one of the greatest teams in school history. The student athletes of Ocean City High School boys basketball team represent themselves, their school, and their community with great distinction and demonstrating
outstanding dedication, determination, and team spirit. And whereas coach Bruno has led the team with distinction and mentored his players on and off the field. End of court. Assistant coaches Ryan Gil and Tom Blesi each handed different responsibilities on the team and use their expertise to contribute
their team success. their report by the city council versus city and myself the city administration on behalf of all our citizens that coach Bruno and your baseball high school basketball team are honored and recognized for outstanding success for the 256 SEASON
thank you everybody for the support and uh this one was for the city I'm glad we BROUGHT IT HOME I JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO Coach Bruno. The amount of things he's done for us, 37 years in this program, he's not only coached basketball, he's done many other things. So, I just want to
say thank you. So, this is my first year at Ocean City High School. So, it was really, really special for me to be a part of this. And I just want to thank Coach Brudo and the rest of the team for just welcoming me with open arms. It's guys that I've been around my whole life and I just really want to say thank you to everyone to
have my back. SO >> say thank you everyone. uh you know what I want to go out and these boys. So just appreciate the support from the city community. Uh means a lot. THANK >> YOU. Thanks guys.
Gentlemen, you got to stay the whole meeting, boys. That was great. Thanks, J. >> Yeah, I have to tell you, I mean, again, I've seen all you at different places, all that kind of stuff, but I tell you it to see those guys and the teamwork, it just they're gentlemen. You can say
whatever you want about this community, but that uh I mean Pete, you were there. Tony, you were there. I mean, you know, just >> that's what real basketball is. There's not one person that stood out. >> No, >> any night. >> No, there was no >> any night any player would just score. So, they just played as a team like I've
never seen. >> It's It's cool being an alumni there and just seeing all the people. But again, I just uh can't thank the coach all that enough. But uh so I'm not going to have any report tonight because I know you guys want to listen to Frank instead. So Frank, it's up to you. I'm sorry.
Does he have a timer? >> Yeah. >> 5 minutes. Frank, >> put the timer. >> Caddy check. I'm not a genius. You know, people don't know. All right. Uh, good evening everybody, city council, members of the public. Um,
welcome to the 2026 budget presentation based on the budget that the mayor uh, handed out along with the state of the city speech two weeks ago. Uh, I'm going to do my routine here and go through all the numbers with you in more detail. I can't promise you it's going to be 5 minutes, but uh, I'll speed it along as
quickly as I can. Um, feel free to stop me along the way if any questions that come up. Um, the state document I'm going to hit on for a little bit. I think everybody probably brought that with them. Um, after the state document though, we're going to kind of go into the the workbook that I handed out to
you all. It gives you a lot more detail. Uh, the state budget is state documents a little rigid as far as what it offers you as far as, you know, crunching the numbers down. Um and uh like I said, if you don't, you know, make it interactive. If you know, if you got something, uh raise your hand, let me
know. Um but tonight, um we are uh going over the draft budget, which I'm on the state document real quick here. Uh left-hand side kind of gives you a 30,000 foot view. It's 118,487,000 budget. It gives you a quick breakdown
of of the appropriations and the revenues uh on that side. And compared to last year, the budget's up about $5 million from last year. Uh we're going to go over those in more detail. Over on the right up at the top, it kind of tells you how that equates to the tax rate that the mayor announced
two weeks ago. Um the $118 million budget is supported by a tax levy of 76.8 million, and that's up about $2.8 million from last year. that cranks out to a a local tax rate of 58.58 cents, which is up 1.38 cents from last year's
budget. Um, that it also gives you a little breakdown of the ratable base, which I'll go over in more detail. Uh, we're over $13 billion now on our ratable base, uh, which is up 175 million from last year. Um, real quick before I leave the state document, the
middle box on the right hand side, um, we are compliant or we will be compliant, I should say, with both of the caps that we have to abide by, the statutory caps. There's one on the spending side and one on the tax levy side. Um, the c the caveat there is the state assigned a 2% cost of living this
year. um we would have to do the cap bank ordinance like we do every year anyway to get to the three and a half percent to be compliant uh with this year's budget. We we almost made it on the 2% but we would have to do that ordinance at introduction to be compliant. We do that anyway in order to
take care take advantage of the banking uh and we're well within the tax the 2% tax levy cap or $2 million to the good on that one. Um so like I said um this is still the official document. you know, when we get to introduction, it's going to be all about this document. But at this point, I'm just going to leave
this um and start to uh concentrate on the workbook. And the workbook has all of the PowerPoint slides that I'm going to go through. It also has a lot of other filler information that isn't necessarily on the uh the screen here because the numbers would be too small.
Wouldn't be really legible for the public anyway. But like I said, rest assured the state documents already on our our website, ocj. us. Uh this entire booklet's going to is scanned in and will be on the website. Um if it's not already, will be by the end of tonight. Um so any of the members of the public
will be able to view all the same information that that we're going over tonight. Um and uh basically we're going to start um on page one, which is a couple pages in. We're going to go over first on the revenue side of the budget. I'm going to spend a few minutes on that. We're going to talk about fund
balance a little bit. I'm going to talk about the tax levy and the tax rate, how that kind of uh works together hand inand. And then we're going to go through some of the expenses at the at the end of the workbook. And like I said, I'll try and keep it going as quickly as I can here for you. Um so
we're lucky we have a lot of variety of local revenue sources that help support our budget. Um besides, you know, just relying on taxation. Um we have a lot of summertime revenues. We have our operational revenues. Um, as I read through these slides, you're going to see what we budgeted last year in each
of these categories, what we actually realized last year, uh, in the middle column in each of these categories. And then to the right is what my our recommendation is for the 2026 budget. I'm going to start off with licenses and kind of use that as, you know, kind of talk about the rule of thumb here. If
last year we budgeted 380 but we only took in 340 so we're a little short on that one this past year. The max you can budget is the 341. So we have to bring that one down a little bit for 2026 as opposed to fees and permits where we budgeted two came in at 1,ion260. That
one you can increase a little bit the following year. So the rule of thumb is you can't budget more in the following year than what you actually realized in cash the prior year. Um, for a breakdown of what's included in fees and permits, um, because it is kind of a catch-all category, go to page four and five in
your workbook and you'll see the detail that makes up those two categories. Um, licenses is like your your mercantile rental registrations, contractors, uh, vital statistics, planning and zoning board, HPC, uh, things of that nature. And then your
license, uh, I'm sorry, the, uh, the fees and permits. The second one starts at the bottom of page four. Um, you have things like your music pier receipts, Oprah receipts, um, the Hobie Cats for out on the beach, police department receipts, your golf, pickle ball, tennis
is in here, bulkhead permitry, permit, zoning, things of that nature are all in these categories. Uh, and you can see, you know, what you each one did this past year in 2025. Um, back to the first page and continuing on, municipal court um, came
in above budget last year, so we can bump that one up. interest in costs on taxes is a function of, you know, people that don't pay their taxes quite on time and we charge an interest rate for delinquent payments. Um, that came in above what we budgeted last year. Uh,
and I'm confident that 225 would be a good number for next year. Um, two of our, you know, to our biggest summertime revenues, uh, our biggest revenues period are parking and beach tags. They're both on this page. Parking had an off year this past year. Uh we
budgeted 39, only came in a little bit above 3.5 million. Uh I'm recommending we put it at 3.5 million for next year. Um we, you know, when I look at the parking operation as a whole, um out of that 3 and a half million, we do about 2
million of it in our parking lots, mostly adjacent to the boardwalk. We do another million, four, million, five in the parking meters around town. Um the meters were were pretty on par, you know, across town. They're they're obviously all over town, not just in the
downtown area. Um the the parks were down in the lots this past year. Um you know, there's a variety of indicators that that sort of indic, you know, pointed to a soft tourism season this this past year. Um the parking lots were an example of that. We parked
approximately 20,000 less cars in the boardwalk parking lots this past year compared to the prior year. Um and that resulted in the decrease. So, um, you know, hopefully we see, you know, last summer was was sort of off on the wrong foot with a terrible June, a terrible
June weather-wise and kind of just, you know, never really made up uh that momentum from there. Um, I think we're all hoping for a better tourism season next summer. Um, we had a short season this past year. I'll remind everybody Labor Day was as early as it possibly could be. This coming year it's as it's
as late as it could be. Um, so that'll stretch out the summertime a little bit. And I think there's, you know, a lot of signs pointing towards a maybe a rebound summer this this summer. And uh, you know, the parking is is one area we're looking to uh, get back to a normal season there. Interest on investments.
Um, you know, I that came in above this past year, but obviously interest rates are starting to trickle down a little bit. I I don't want to put that one above where we were last year despite having a good year. Um it's going to be interesting to see what the Fed does in the next couple meetings uh with these
interest rates. Right now they're sort of holding to last year, but every indication is they might start to come down a little bit. Uh beach tags had an okay year. Uh you know, we didn't see the dip that we saw in parking, but uh it was down from a high of 6.2 the prior
year, 6.2 million. We did a little over 5.9 million. Um again, we were down in in certain areas. Uh the seasonal tags seemed like they were they were good on par with the prior year. Um where we were down a little bit was in the in the
dailies and the weeklies. Um you know, I I'm anecdotally I'm seeing our demographics are are changing a bit with uh the weekly tags in particular. The Saturday to Saturday rentals don't seem like they're as popular as they were in the past. Um, you know, a lot of that
market is being taken up by your Airbnb and VRBOS, and we're going to get into that a little bit with the new occupancy tax this year. We're analyzing some of that data. Um, you know, the AirDNA, which which analyzes that whole market, will tell you that our
average stay in Ocean City on the transient marketplace is four to four and a half nights. So, we're seeing more extended weekends, long weekends, second homeowners uses of their homes. um is is sort of the way that I see that we're trending. Our demographics have
certainly been changing um you know and and I think that's kind of resulting in some less dailies and and weeklies whereas our seasonals are holding true. So um you know things to look at, things to to be aware of and and to adjust for sure uh in the tourism market.
Um, yeah, I'll speed through a couple more of these renter sale, uh, you know, of city properties when we put things out on gov deals that you council approves by resolution once in a while. Uh, we also get rental city facilities like the music pier and wreck facilities, things of that nature. The
airport is usually always right around 140 150 a year. That held true this past year. Um, the second page is the boat ramp. Again, that's usually anywhere from 20 to 30,000 a year. The aquatic center is having has been having some
great rebound years ever since it was shut down for COVID. It's been picking up momentum, has been doing better and better each year. Um, smoke detector is very much you aligned with the rental registration registration program that had a pretty good year. Uh, EMS is
obviously a function of how many ambulance calls we're doing for pickups and transports to the hospital, but uh, that had a good year this past year. We do get a little over $2 million from the state and that held true in the governor's budget this past uh week. Uh we can count on the same numbers last
year. Construction code again development and and construction related uh whether you know you're tearing down a house, building a new one, doing any kind of res renovations or additions to your homes, anything that would cause the pulling of permits generates revenue to
the city and to the state for that matter. Um that again was a a rather you know consistent year for that office. Uh we collect uh interlocal revenue from upper township for providing dispatch not 911 dispatch not only to Ocean City
but we cover upper township as well. And then it's an interlocal agreement with a uh with a 3% escalator. We build a library for their portion of the utilities on that wing of the building as well as some insuranceances that they cost share and uh that's going to go up
to 285,000 this coming year. Last but not least on the revenues, um speaking of the library, um every year their levy is based on our readable base. We probably have the biggest library, I guarantee you we have
the biggest library levy in the state of New Jersey. Um, not every town has a local library like we do. Many of them participate in county library system. Us and Avalon and Cait County are two examples of towns that have their own library and is supported by their own
local levy, which is then a function of the raidable base. Since our raidable base has been increasing so much over the years, our library levy is up to $8.3 million this year. It's up the levy's up 600,000. Every year when the library strikes their budget, they obviously don't need
$8.3 million to operate. Whatever is in excess that's above and beyond their budgetary needs comes back to the taxpayers, comes back to our budget as a as return to taxpayer. So their budget, their levy works through our budget. It's part of our budget. It's a separate
levy when you get your tax bill, but their excess comes back as a form of revenue >> to to the taxpayers. So that's that's been as their levy has been increasing, so has the return to taxpayers been increasing. So grants are just I just put them in as as last year's number. I
I freeze that uh intentionally just to give you a true apples to apples comparison as as to the the growth of the budget from year to year. When we get to the introduced budget next month, I'll put any real grants that we know of at the moment in the budget, but for right now, I'm freezing that number at the 1.3. Um grants have a tendency to
fluctuate. the bottom of a bottom line of a budget. I mean, we might get 10 millions in grants one year and two million the next year. It it skews, you know, trying to analyze budget growth. So, for a presentation like this, I just freeze it.
Uh capital funds when we sell bonds and notes, often time there's a premium that the bank will will give. In some cases, it's cash upfront. Uh it's it's a net to what we owe in debt service the following year and it comes back in as a revenue. I'm going to get more into debt service and how that works later in the
presentation. Uh last but not least, there was a new one uh an ordinance that um we that came through council's agenda and table last year on uh the 3% tax occupancy tax. I kind of mentioned already analyzing uh through AirDNA the
Airbnb and VRBO markets, the transit, what they call the rental transient markets. Um our uh data indicates that that is is going to be should be worth about 1.3 million based on the rentals from 25 and 24 that the airdna
statistics uh are telling us. Um conservatively I put it at a million uh recommended um don't want to go too aggressive on that. Keep in mind that anything that we earn above and beyond any of these revenues goes to fund balance and benefits you the next year.
Um, so that was my recommendation for a starting point in our first year of collecting the occupancy tax. Um, again, uh, to that point last year, $653,000 was the excess revenue above what we budgeted that we collected. That again
goes to fund balance. Uh, you'll see that number again later in the presentation. Last but not least, we always end up collecting those delinquent taxes. I I mentioned it earlier as far as the interest. The taxes themselves come back to us as well. Uh we had 877,000 delinquent last
year at 1231 uh which we collected and um the the like I said the excess goes to fund balance. So that's it for revenues. Um good stopping point if there's any questions on anything so far. >> Just a quick question on the um the
AirDNA data. You said four four to four and a half nights the average rental. Is that for Memorial Day to Labor Day? Is it does that include July and August? That's 12 months. That's for the entire year. That's the entire year. >> We we could get more granular with that.
Um we signed up for their service. We're kind of learning how to use it. Um we we could look we can isolate that month by month, but that average uh was a report that we ran. Um shows the the whole year, the whole calendar year. It was
4.1 nights last year. It was 4.4 the night be or the year before that. 4 and a half and 24. So, it's it's generally in that range. Um, over 40 over $40 million of rental revenue came through
the transient marketplace in the past couple years. So, like I said, if you multiply that by 3%, we should be around a million3 on this revenue source. Uh, interestingly, the air the the market had doubledigit
gains uh for the past four years. uh 21% 16% 14% gains year-over-year. The gain from 25 over 24 was only 3.6%. >> So again, another indicator that 25 was was a soft season compared to, you know,
the past few. Um >> Yep. Um all right. After that, we're going to flip over to page six. six in your workbook. Um going to touch on
fund balance. Um so every year whatever's left in our you know in our budget in our in our bank accounts is is considered fund balance. It's you know owner's equity in in the private sector. Um we ended the year
with 10.26 million in fund balance down a little bit from the prior year at 10.4. Uh and then every year you use we've been trying to stick to you know kind of like a 50-50 mix of using half of that as a revenue to support the budget which we are at five and a half
million this year this year same as last year. Uh and then this the the balance stays in reserve. Um I'll get into in a slide or so why leave a reserve? Why not just use it all? But um you know we're we've got about a 53 to 47% mix of using
fund balance as a revenue towards uh versus the reserve. This gives you a five-year history uh of where fund balance has been. The next page in your workbook goes even deeper than that. Goes back uh 9 or 10 years if you're interested in more history on that. Um
next PowerPoint slide just shows, you know, as fund balance has increased over the years, we put more towards the budget as it's stabilized. You know, we we came down a little bit from a high of 6 million a couple years ago. We're at five and a half right now. Um, but generally you like to see fund balance
grow. Um, and then as it grows, um, you can put more revenue towards the budget. So, um, I'll get into how we replenish fund balance in a minute. Um, for now on page nine, um, there are certain ways.
So, our goal is to make back that 5 a.5 million. Obviously, if we want fund balance to grow, we have to have a plan to put back the 5.5 million that we're using in their budget. These are the ways that fund balance gets replenished. Um, one of which we just talked about, if we
earn any of those revenues in excess of what we're budgeting, the excess goes to fund balance. We also have some miscellaneous revenues that aren't anticipated in the budget. They always benefit each year. Um, collect, you know, we have a we have to maintain a reserve for uncollected taxes. The state
makes you do that because not everybody's going to pay on time. Even though we have a 99% collection rate, they don't let you, you know, anticipate right up to that that threshold. Um, so when we anticipate when we collect taxes that are above and beyond the reserve,
it goes to fund balance. Collecting those delinquent taxes from the prior year, that helps fund balance. And then every budget has a a a lifespan of two years. So the 2024 budget served 2024. it lived through the year of 2025
because in the beginning you're still charging some stuff back to the prior year. You have some runout expenses but whatever was unspent out of the 24 budget at the end of 25 expired and went to fund balance. Um so you know whenever
we have money extra in that's not spent in a budget it always comes back to the taxpayers and gets regenerated through fund balance. So next slide is why leave that reserve right? Why not use the whole thing in in the budget? Well, the reserve is is important for a lot of
reasons. Um stability for future years and operations and budgets. Um fund balance can be used to fund an unanticipated emergency such as a hurricane Sandy, you know, when we used fund balance for that back in 2012 and 13. Provides cash flow to the municipality because our revenues are
not collected evenly throughout the year. Like I said, our two two biggest sources of revenue other than taxes are strictly summertime revenues. Um, payrolls exceed 1 million every two weeks around here. And in the summertime, they actually exceed over 2 million a year. So, you have to have some, you know, some ways to be able to
adjust your cash flow throughout the year. Uh, regardless of people pay to link or not, we are the paying agencies to the county and the school and the library and the special improvement district. We pay them on time no matter what. whether we're collecting the money on time or not. All the money comes through this building and then gets
doled out to the other agencies. Um, and then last but not least, it is the number one key indicator to bond rating agencies when we're selling our debt and Moody's and Santors are taking a look at Ocean City and they're trying to figure out are you are you double A plus or you double A or are you A minus or you B or
whatever your you know the various ratings are around the region. The first thing that they're looking at is what is your fund balance? How does it compare to your budget? What has your consistency been with fund balance? Do you use too much of it? Are you rebuilding it and re replenishing it? And and is it growing each year? So, uh
it's it's very important to keep that that consistent approach um to this uh area of the budget. Um and then last but not least, in your booklet, page 11 and 12, it shows you I talked about all the
ways that fund balance gets replenished. That just shows you in the different categories, how we've done the past year. Um, you know, as far as the taxes, the revenues, the cancellation of the prior year budgets, you know, what what caused fund balance to to get regenerated each year. Um, so that that
detail is in there for you. Um, if you uh if you want to study that. Um, that's all I had for fund balance stuff. Um, if there's any questions, I was going to move into taxes and ratable basis. Good.
>> All right. Total tax rate in 2025 was 1.16 cents. That includes all of the components of your tax bill. Um, we don't know the tax total tax bill yet for 26. That's what all of our various
agencies are. That's what we're doing here tonight. That's what the school board is doing tonight. Mr. Kelly's presenting their budget. the county, if you read about that, they they they're going through their budget deliberations or that's been in the paper the past couple weeks. >> Um, so our tax rate is made up of yellow
pie on the left is the local tax. Uh, on the upper right in the blue you have the county and then the light blue the county open space. We have a dedicated uh small portion of the tax rate that goes to fund the open space program at the county which you know some great
projects have come back to the town. uh by virtue of that program on the lower right you have the school taxes which represents about uh 17% of our tax rate and then the bottom you have the library like I said it's it's own separate levy
uh it's about 5% of the tax bill um so like I said all of these agencies right now are going through this process we'll see what that 1.16 becomes for this year um we're looking at 1.3 cents that's in front of us today the county from what
I'm reading is going to be relatively flat, maybe even a small decrease. But you have to keep in mind that the county then equalizes their levy amongst the 16 towns. And every town picks up a little bit different of a portion of the pie in
the county taxes. So some towns might increase a little more than others. It depends on how their ratables how a town's ratables grew in comparison to the overall county. So that that's a process they have they still have to go through. We we should what happens to
>> the overall their levies going down. Um but some towns might get might might get a zero increase. Some towns might get a a half a penny decrease. It depends. I think we're going to be pretty flat uh this year with the county. And then the school budgets around a penny from from what I understand from Mr. Kelly. So um
that that's that's kind of a preliminary look as to where the tax rate is probably going to be in 2026. Um so when we talk about a penny uh and we talk about 1.3 cents that the municipal
budget's up um a penny is a fraction of the ratable base. So if our ratable base is 13 billion which it is now that means a penny is about 1.3. So if you say, "Hey, I want to cut a penny out of this budget, get get the tax rate down by a penny," that means we either need to
come up with 1.3 million in cuts or added revenues to the tune of 1.3 million or some mix to effectuate the budget by one penny, 1.3 million. Um the same equation how it affects the homeowners is a penny is $10 for every
$100,000 of your home value or for round math 50 bucks for every $500,000 home. So this budget that's in front of you, $1.38 tax increase is an $89 increase this year for a $650,000 home, which is
the average assessment. average assessment, right? Um, that still is a fair average. What you you pay taxes on your assessment, not what your home's fair market value is, not what you sold it for last week,
not what you're going to buy it for next week. You pay taxes on your assessment. Our ratio, um, which, you know, every town is assigned a ratio from the state board of taxation each year where they compare assessed values with fair market values. our ratio is roughly 50%. And
that's not uncommon. The rest of the county is in the same boat. So that means a $650,000 average assessment, we're really talking about a $1.3 million home. So that puts it more in perspective. Um or more realistic terms. Um but still, you're paying on that
assessed value, which is an average of 650. And that's includes everything from your condo hotels to your condos to your duplexes to your single families to your beachfronts and bay fronts. You know that that's the average. So um any
questions on that part? Um and then just you know one more on the on the ratable base um how it's grown and adjusted over the years. um at the top in I have some asterisks
here. In 2013, 14, 15. The last time we did a revaluation was in 2008. And that was a challenging revaluation because the real estate market had peaked in 2005 and it had started to decline for a variety of reasons. And we were
unfortunately in the midst of doing a rebound. We put numbers on the books in 2008. We didn't quite catch the full decline of the market. and we were getting hit with a lot of tax appeals. Our assessor uh through a series of compliance plans that he did in in
conformance with with county rules and regulations adjusted numbers and got us back on par to the point where in 2015 we started to stabilize and regain value instead of losing it through appeals. Um and since since 2015 we've had 12 years
now of 100 plus million gains to the raidable base and in the couple years it was 200 plus million. Um but it's been nice slow steady growth to the raidable base which helps the tax rate each year. Uh helps offset a lot of these you know capital projects that we've been doing
over the years. um which is like I said in the capital presentation where you know the timing has been had been right to take on a lot of these uh programs and infrastructure projects because um we were in a good economy to do so and we continue to be in a good economy. Um
we're hoping we don't see another fall off the shelf like after 2005 and I don't think we will because things were a lot different back then as far as the way banks were lending out money and the way people were borrowing money and getting into these properties and not having equity in them right off the bat. But I think we're in a different
environment nowadays. Anybody that's gotten a mortgage in the past couple years knows what I'm talking about. Um it's it's it's pretty ind depth now compared to what it was 20 years ago. Um but we still haven't seen a plateau, right? Rates are still rising. This is not the time to go out and do another
reval because we don't want the inverse to happen. We don't want to put a set of values on the books that's going to be bad in 6 months because the market continues to rise. still kind of keeping an eye on the market and looking for maybe a plateau or a settling um before we pull the trigger on on a project like
that. But at the end of the day, our 13 billion town is really worth double that. It's really worth 25 26 billion in fair market value terms. So, um but we'll keep you posted on the prospect of a reval um as we work with the county.
Um, we're still working through the process of, you know, keeping our tax maps up to date, which which would be, uh, the first thing you have to prove to the state before you do a reval. And our assessor's office is hard at work on that. So, you know, we're keeping everything going in the background to be
able to pull the trigger on a reval. Uh, when we see that the time's right, >> the whole the whole county has to do it. There's only really one company that does it. So, we'll do it when the county lets us know. So the like I said the whole area including all of Kate County
is in the same boat. Our ratio is 50%. There's some that are worse than ours. There's some in the 40s. The rest are generally in the 50s and and low 60s. So we're all we're all behind the times as far as what our average assessments are.
Um if we're good there, I'm going to move on to the expense side of the budget. Um, like I said in the beginning, budgets up about $5 million, $4.99 to be exact. Um, here's really here's the list of of where that comes from from top to
bottom. These are the increases over last year. Um, debt service 1.4 million. Um, but I do have the revenue on the other side of the budget that helps offset a lot of that. So, kind of a good story on debt service and consistent with what I said in the capital presentation where we're starting to
turn the corner on debt service and it and the the increases are slowing down as we've gotten a lot of these big infrastructure projects now under our belt. Um insurance is up a million. Most of that is health. A little bit of it is 900 of it is health. Uh the other the
balance of that is is liability and the GIF insurance. salaries are up uh 794 which um Mr. Barnes and I were talking about before the meeting is actually not bad for us. All of our contracts are locked in at 3% cost of living. So you
would normally see that number at at least 3% by the time you factor in steps and longevities and things like that. Um we had some retirements this past year which benefited us. um if the person if the people were replaced let's say in police and fire it's generally a higher
long tenure uh employee higher salary employee being replaced by an entry level and in a lot of cases we've been able to analyze some positions uh either hold off or cut through attrition uh on in a couple cases. So um salaries is actually uh kind of a good story this
year at only 2 and a half%. Uh library levy we talked about that like I said it's part of our budget. Um, utilities. Yeah, we're seeing increases in utilities just like everybody is at home. Uh, electric makes up a good portion of that. We had some increases
in in water and sewer this past year. And we're also sort of trying to brace ourselves for for the gas and diesel prices that are out there right now. So, we're building a little extra so far, but that's something that we're continuing to monitor. Um, especially the diesel, which is what a lot of our trucks work on. Um, you know, that went
from $350, $4 a gallon to almost six recently. So, It's uh it's been a steady increase. Um pensions we're going to talk about in a little more detail, but you know, we basically get a bill from the state and we have to pay it every April 1st. Um
that's up 400,000. Capital improvement fund is the down payment on the projects that we went over ago uh we went over in my last presentation uh from the capital plan that we adopted. Um that's up a couple hundred,000. Um the trash is up about 4% at 188,000 and then the rest
are some miscellaneous. You the payroll taxes are up a little bit. Um citywide expenses and our departmental expenses actually, you know, we revisit a lot of things. We're able to decrease some areas there. Um so again, that rounds out the total uh almost $5 million in
increases to the budget. Um, the next few pages for you in your workbook, 17, 18, and 19 are basically the entire expense side of the state document, this this document here in a
three-page version. Um, every it's it's in it's in departmental order. So, you have department of administration, community services, uh, statutory offices, finance, police, fire, public works. As you get towards the bottom of page 18, you get into more citywide
appropriations like our utilities and our insuranceances um and pensions and things like that. Um every office basically set up has a salary and wage account and another expense account. That's the statutory format that you're going to see in here. Um but it's really
a reader digest version of this entire document. Um, so that if you want to look at it that way, it's um last year's budget versus the the mayor's proposed budget and then you have the difference in dollars and percentages for each appropriation.
PowerPoint wise, I'm going to jump into staffing. Um, this is full-time staffing headcount that goes all the there's three pages of this. It goes all the way back to 20 2004, which was was sort of a peak for us back then at 291. You can
see how the departments have varied in their full-time headcount over the years. You can also see which departments have kind of come and gone through different reorganizations. Uh community development, planning and engineering were departments that were in the early 2000s. Um planning and
engineering went away. We we you know we we operated through community operations for a couple years. Public works has been adjusted over the years, but for the most part, I'll get to the third page of this. It's some more recent history. Um, where we are right now,
2026, total headcount 282. Uh, and I'm on page 22, by the way, if you're in the workbook. Um, down four from last year, like I said, through some attrition, through analyzing some some retirements and and some full-time heads, uh, we're
showing a a decrease of four positions at the moment. And uh you know really if you look I mean not to pick on them but threearters of this is police, fire and public works. I mean that's that's where the majority of our workforce is. That's where our reputation comes from, right? Clean, safe, familyfriendly. I mean
that's that's our cornerstone. Um you know we've been well served by uh staffing and equipping those departments over the years and um you know that's that's no surprise that that's where the lion share of our salaries and our workforce uh comes from. Um,
so to get a little more granular on salaries, if you look at pages 23 and 24, um, like I said, the state document is pretty rigid. It's not going to give you this level of detail. I break down the salary count by office and then by
uh the full-time on u each salary is broken out by regular cost, overtime, uh seasonals, and then how many part-times we have on the right hand side in each office. Um, you know, it's no surprise that the majority of our seasonal dollars are in in operations like
lifeguards and uh, you know, if you're looking at that seasonal column on page 23, um, community services with all their summertime program, a lot of seasonal dollars there. Um, my department as far as beach tags and parking obviously uses a lot of
seasonals. um police bring on a uh you know basically almost double their workforce um as far as seasonal officers are concerned and you'll start to see them on the street shortly. They're they're starting to arrive for the summer. And in public works obviously they bring on a lot of uh workforce in
the summer to help you know clean and maintain the beaches and the boardwalk and the downtown. Um so you you can see kind of where you know where the dollars are spent whether it's full-time, part-time, seasonal. Um 23 and 24 are
the 2026 numbers. And if you want to compare them to the prior year, that's page 25 and 26. Um if you want to just focus on other expenses uh in the budget and department by department, that's page 27
and 28. And then last but not least, I'm just going to hit on some of the bigger ticket items real quick here that are part of the budget that I sort of mentioned already. Pensions is up sort of an average increase if you look at over the years, 400,000. Uh it's very
similar to last year. Uh and you can see that um the split between the PFRS, which is the police and fire retirement system, versus our contribution of the public employees retirement system, which are your civilian workers, and then a smaller contribution to our lifeguard pension program. But again, up
about 5.2% on that one. Um that's the employer share by the way. The employees all contribute. Uh aside from that, um health insurance um is has been the most volatile appropriation in every
municipal and county budget, bar none. Um this one just just keeps escalating more and more each year. Our premiums increased 14% this year. Uh fortunately we're able to keep the effect to the budget at only 10%.
Through employee contributions and through you know analyzing our you know our headcount and we've have some optout outs that helps us out too. Um but uh this sheet tells you when we've been in in when we've changed state health uh to
back and forth to state health benefits. Um so we were with the health early in this uh grid here from 2016 17 and 18. We rejoined state health benefits when it made sense for us. When they really reduced their retirey rates, it attracted us back to their program. In
2019, we stayed there till 2022. And then as state health benefits rates started rising again, we rejoined the merit health program in 23 and we've been with them ever since. Um, our budget this year is almost $10 million for healthcare. If we were with state
health benefits right now, it would be over $16 million. Mhm. >> So, um, when you talk about cost savings and you talk about ways to cut and what are we doing to save, this is, I mean, it's a prime example of having a a
broker that works with us every year, having an engaged finance, HR, and administration offices that dig into this each and every year, shop for the best rates, the best programs. Um, you know, keeping our benefits fair to the employees, but trying to keep the effect on the on the budget and the taxpayers.
um as as minimal as possible. It's it's really been and and just off the rails freight train with this lately. It's um I think the the the I think the premium increases to stay health benefits program were about
25% this past year. Um you know we've seen double digit gains but not to that magnitude and and fortunately we were able to shop and get out of it and the timing was right. So, I'm not going to bel labor these too much, but this gives you a breakdown. I've already covered debt service in the
capital program. I already talked about it tonight, but you know, as you know, we pay a mixture of bond interest, bond uh principal, interest on short-term notes, and then we always have to put a down payment down uh for any new ordinances we're going to adopt this
year. This is a comparison of 26 to 2025 is on the next slide. And like I said, sort of a good uh outlook on debt service as as we see that it's starting to pair down as a lot of these projects are now, you know, either already bonded, already accomplished and in the
model. Um that's just, you know, shows you debt service over the years and the averages where it's been. And then that's my last slide. Um, and then in your booklet, the very last page, um, gives you a breakdown of that trash appropriation
between, uh, residential trash, the recycling programs, the containers that we use, and and the tipping, which is that the, uh, MUA down at the county. So, that's $118 million in however many minutes. So, >> good job, Frank. Thank you. >> Anything else,
>> guys? Any questions before we move Frank out? >> Great job. I'm sure >> money real quick. >> Yeah. As far as schedule, um we, you know, we're not having the first April meeting. Um cuz it's, you know, falls
during spring break. So, this will be back before you for introduction. Second meeting in April or the only meeting in April, I should say. Um we would we would look to introduce it that night. So, you have you know, you have a month to analyze this stuff, ask questions, let me know if there's anything that
pops up. um even after introduction there's a whole another month so it's got to be out there advertised for 28 days we would then look to adopt it second meeting in May so we still have plenty of time so >> awesome thank you Frank >> Jay anything anything else
>> done >> okay all right um we will move into our first citizen comment um citizen comment number one is on agenda meetings items only so just give me your name your address and which uh which which agenda
item Dave, you're up. >> Dave Hayes, Ocean City, my wife and I have been your own residents for the past 22 years. I'd like to request that council pull resolution 26103 for explanation. Uh that's uh for award
of a professional services contract to Christopher Grryer for litigation regarding 14th and west Associates versus uh the city of O City. I've read the explanation. I understand it's related to environmental cleanup at that site and that the city previously owned
at really where the Walgreens is for a period of time until it was sold almost 50 years ago. I also understand that the concept of joint and several liability, but I was just hoping that our city solicitor McCrossen could elaborate on the need for uh this appropriation a
little bit. And um secondly, I'd like to request that council pull resolution 26110 authorizing an emergency temporary appropriation. So it kind of goes in a circle. It said we're specifying it, but
they never specified what it was for. So I I don't know what that's for. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Steve. Donna, >> good evening everyone. Uh born and raised in this town. Uh, as a matter of fact, ironically, uh, the basketball
team that won the championship this year, my brother was on the 1964 winning team. Um, unfortunately, he passed away three years ago, but um, it's still amazing. 62 years. Awesome.
Just shows how Ocean City can stay strong. >> I love this town. I care very much. >> Your name and address, please. >> Yes, sir. Donna D. Roer. Donna Swan De Roer, Ocean City, New Jersey. >> Okay. And which agenda item are you speaking on tonight?
>> I'm speaking about um services for the beach and uh also as far as uh uh trash pickup. >> Okay. That's Can you just wait for public comment to that just so we can follow the rules? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. I'll call you back up.
>> Oh. All right. Thank you. >> I'll get to you quick. You can go first. Okay. Um, can I have a motion to approve the regular city council minutes of Thursday, March the 12th? >> So, move Winslow. >> Mr. Madden, >> abstain.
>> Mr. Barnes, >> yes. >> Mr. Pchini, yes. >> Mr. Hartzell? >> Yes. >> Mr. Lovechuk? Yes. >> Mr. Winslow? Yes. >> Mr. Crowley? >> Yes. Um, city council reports. Peter, >> nope. >> Tony, >> no. >> Sean, >> nothing. >> Keith, >> I'm good, sir. Thank you. Jody
>> Easter egg on Saturday 1 to 3 on the boardwalk be there square. >> All right, Dave. >> All right, great. Uh that moves us into the uh resolution to the consent agenda. >> All resolutions on the consent agenda are considered to be routine in nature
and will be enacted by one motion. If the mayor or any council person wishes a particular resolution to be considered separately, it will be removed from the consent agenda. Does anyone mayor anyone have anything to be removed from the consent agenda? Can we remove two and 11 for explanation? >> For which one?
>> Um, >> no, it's four and 11. >> Four and 11. I'm sorry. >> Can we just answer the after the meeting or do we have to go through the whole process? >> I'll do whatever. >> Whatever you feel the president >> I mean Donnie, are you comfortable
answering these right after this? Okay. Is anything else to be considered? All right. Seeing none, I have a motion to approve the consent agenda. So move. >> Second. Winslow. >> Mr. Madden. >> Yes. >> Mr. Barnes. >> Yes.
>> Mr. Pulchini. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hartzell. Yes. >> Mr. Lovech. Yes. >> Mr. Winslow. Yes. >> Mr. Crowley. >> Yes. >> Penny business. Uh Peter. >> No penny business. >> Tony. >> No penny. >> Sean. >> Nothing. Penny. >> Keith. >> Good sir. Thank you. >> Jody. >> Negative. >> Dave.
>> N. David. Come back around. Jody. >> Nothing. >> Keith. >> I'm good, sir. Thank you. >> Sean, I probably should add this. People have been asking about the clams thing. We have been talking. Jody and a couple of the uh Woodwalk merchants met with us and uh that's going in the right direction.
>> Jody, >> nothing. >> Peter, >> no new business. >> Nothing for me. Which gives us citizen comment. So, Donna, come on up first and then we'll make sure everyone else we get to. >> All right. First off, as far as what I'd like to request is on for all uh
visitors and citizens that um any street that has access to the beach with through the path that um the city put a bench like they have on the boardwalk and I've noticed there's quite a few at the end of Sixth Street that you put a
bench at the end of every street that has access to the beach. I find uh for people that are handicapped, young mothers with children um that are waiting for a ride to come pick them up or just even like myself, I ride my bike
to the beach and um I need to put things down um to get sorted out to come home from the beach and um a bench would be ideal. Right now, what I do is set my belongings on top of the trash can. Um, but anyway, you come off the beach,
you're hot, you're tired. Um, young mothers have to listen to their children that are tired and hot. So, if we had a bench there, uh, for one thing, it would generate more money for the uh, city
because people do pay for these benches. Excuse, I don't know why I'm uh, having trouble right now. And the other thing I would recommend is that uh the uh streets or actually the boardwalk north
of Fifth Street where it narrows and the boardwalk south of 12th Street where it narrows. what we see, my family and I, when we go up on our bikes or just maybe two um browns or uh oves for breakfast,
people um end up putting their bikes on the boardwalk and they lock them together on the railing. So, it makes the boardwalk access even narrower. So, my request is that you have bike racks
at the end of every street north of Fifth Street and south of 11th Street for people to put their bikes there rather than on the boardwalk. Another thing that I find is such a um a
shame is people who are only here for the weekend, a lot of homeowners and so forth, um they put their trash out when they leave. So, I'm going to give you all well not a picture to pass around.
Um that this past um year in 2025, I took pictures. People put furniture out if in my area, the north end, they'll put it out on Monday and it sits out there all week. You have furniture, mattresses, people put their trash out
there. We have windy days and uh it turns out that the um trash blows all over. I've seen people that have recyclables. The cans are um roll to the chair, please. I'm not familiar with >> Would you like a water, ma'am?
>> Ma'am, would you like take a water? >> Okay. Have my back seat. But anyway, um I feel that people uh actually should be required to only allow be allowed to put
their trash out the night before pickup. in the event they're not going to be here, such as for me at the north end and my family, um we could we could only be allowed to put it out Thursday night when trash day is Friday. Um of course
in the summer you have two nights a week that that could be done, but it is such an eyesore. We have a beautiful uh community and homes are magnificent. We shouldn't have things like this on um the streets. Um, I hadn't been well in
the last year, that's why you haven't seen me, but I have um quite a few other recommendations because I do love this town, but I'll do them at another night. I feel that this hopefully will be a start and make Ocean City better for the
homeowners and visitors. Thank you very much. >> No problem. >> Anyone else for citizen comment? We'll start with this side. >> No one this side. Ed, come on up. >> Greetings to all. My name is Ed Dixon. I
live at 3507 Aspbury Avenue. I'm a lifetime member of the VFW in Washington Township and a lifetime member of the Knights of Columbus in Washington Township and a member of the American Legion here in Ocean City.
Back in 2024, I asked this council to consider dedicating the month of August to our military veterans and by proclamation, you did just that, which I thank you all again. There were additional activities for
that month to enhance that celebration. Since then, I have visited many other cities. They agreed to dedicate that month by proclamation to our military veterans, men and women.
During that time, I have met very many wonderful people who honor our military as you have. I am now proud to say that nine cities are now are now dedicating that month. How are you
>> of August? By resolution to them. From the very start of our independence, our forefathers had only a militia, then an army, then a navy, then the
Marines and a Coast Guard, and finally an air force. 250 years of growth to celebrate this 4th of July. What a historical celebration coming up.
I ask this council to consider having banners posted at each entrance and exit of the city with that dedication printed on them. So the millions of visitors who come
here and see that maybe bring back with them this dedication to the cities where they reside and ask that their dedication from their representatives to honor those who made it this 250ear
celebration of Independence Day possible. Thank you for your attention. May God bless you all. >> Thank you. Thank you for your service. >> Okay. Anyone else from this side? Jonathan. God in heaven, your will be done. Amen.
Jonathan Dice, 12th Street. My phone number 6097054856. It's come to my attention that we're facing an election specifically for mayor. Uh I don't remember when the last time there was a three-way race for mayor in Ocean City. It's probably someone knows that, but I remember way
back there was one, but it ended up being just two people. It's an important position. Uh you know, commander-in-chief, um you know, the budget, uh all kinds of different things. I'm looking at the uh
ads here for our current mayor. It says 16 years of clean financial audits. My question here would be how many times did we switch the auditor? I don't know if it's every two years, one year, not
sure. It's a question that needs to be answered. Proposed OC budget raises tax rate 1.8 uh 1 1.38 cents. That's an election year. uh
March uh 19th, 2025, mayor proposes 7% tax rate hike in Ocean City. That's not an election year. Let's be careful. Let's be careful. Uh mayor candidates raised $190,000
uh for last election. That was back in uh 2022. Uh doubled spending by Hartzell, winning TRIO Council. That was the big three. Spent uh $46,000
on there. Resident OC council end the developer first decision making process. OC on the hook for another 7.2 million for the Palmer lots. Who knows what we're to now. Uh luxury
hotel developer wanted to buy the Crown Bank. Now it's up there at Sixth Street. uh public comment sessions. The mayor saying critics who threatened him uh questioned transparency. Mansion tax. We almost bought the Crown Bank building
to rush to save $750,000 or so. New arcade and ery open at former Wonderland Pier. Thought it was abandoned. That was last year. I'd sell it if I can't build the hotel. That didn't
happen. After Wonderland, Ocean uh After Wonderland, Ocean City deserves clear answers and a real plan. These are just some I just it's just it's interesting. I I like to a new advocacy group both steps up 20 the 2050
uh Ocean City 2050. I mean, that's thinking ahead to the future right there. That's what that's what it's all about. the future, where we came from, where we're going. We started at a as a city that didn't have any debt. They used to have a bonfire and throw our
mortgage in the bonfire. Now it's 25 million just to service our debt. I mean, what's going on here? It's an election year, 1.38. Now, what's next year going to be?
My question is or or a question, how many residents are saying we need new DNA at the mayor at the mayor's official office? A and that means when I say that I mean uh we don't have a choice between the
only choice we have is either you or them. That's it. There is no other choice. That scares me a little bit. I'm concerned. I should say for me I'm concerned. So how can we achieve it? Well, I talked to the county clerk and the county clerk
says any resident can be written in as mayor by all the other residents. And I just like to put on record that I'm ready, willing, and able to be mayor of Ocean City because I read in another article how
many people the people that are upset at Ocean 11,000 people when uh when Sixth Street started to nine these groups 9,000 17 you get these people together
write me me in Jonathan Dice and it's the ball game. There's nothing you can do. There's nothing they can do. We have a new mayor that isn't of this DNA. So, just food for thought and I'll be
back. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else from this side? Public comment. All right. Seeing none, Tony. Did I miss you? >> I just wanted to thank the mayor and Dan Kelner and his team. Um, Saturday was World Down
Syndrome Day and we just had a great event, a great turnout for those kids, 30 kids dancing and I just really wanted to say thank you to uh the mayor and just, you know, just uh embracing that and um it was just a really great thing
and I just look forward to more events happening and it was just uh for my wife and I um just a really uh I don't know how to say it but heart for uh these kids and I just hope that we all as a
community can embrace this and enjoy it and see it further. Thank you. >> Thanks. And just wanted to add to that that how encouraging it was because because um we're dealing with that now in our family uh as of a 2 or three year old now and that gave me the most hope
but you really don't know what's going to I know you've been through this and you really don't know what's going to happen and um it's so emotional is see I'm so glad you invited me because to see those kids and all the things that they could do and the joy on their face um you know I
called my niece And I said, "Boy, there's there's a lot going on. It's going to be great down the road um for Deacon and uh the future's bright. It really is because that was just an amazing thing. And if if you have it in
your family, um that was encouragement." >> I thank you. And I also want to thank um Jim Kelly for attending and Sean. Um, I also do want to say this. It is never a
poor me or my wife or whoever has one. We are blessed to have a child like that. It is no way a negative thing. >> I believe God truly gives to families that can handle it and really embrace it. And me and my wife are so blessed
with Michael. And if you get an opportunity that you are blessed and we are blessed. So, thank you. Good job. >> Well said, Tom. Thank you. With that, then I have a motion to adjourn. Second.