I'll call it to order. Thank you, everybody, for coming out today. We'll start with the roll call. Chair. Vice chair. Hall here, miss Hales. Here,
miss McKinney here, Mr. Marcus here. Mr. Morris here. And welcome. Thank you. Happy to have you. Thank you. Great. So
with that, we'll go on to new business. And the first item is introduction of the new finance director. New business, that's for sure. All right. So my name is Ashley Kimpton. I know we're
just kind of talking, but to reiterate, I came over from city of Dunedin. I worked there just over ten years going way back. I, you know, started as a
staff accountant and then kind of worked my way up on the accounting side all the way to I was interim accounting manager. We had some turnover. And then my finance director
convinced me because the position was open for so long to to budget. So I was the budget manager. I was like reluctantly. I'm like, well, he's like, no, no, it'll be
fine. Yeah, I got tricked. So it was not fun. It was it was a hard transition. But but I did that for the majority of my time there. So I think it was about 5 or 6 years I was there.
Budget manager. So I kind of got like the the full picture of finance. And then, you know, this position, gosh, how did I,
I guess it was actually I found out through the grapevine that Ron was retiring and it wasn't even really on my radar. And the more I looked into the city and, and kind of what was going
on, I was like, you know what? That could work, you know, and was able to, you know, get an interview. And just every time I talked to somebody, every time I came in, I was like,
yeah, this is going to be my forever home. Like, I, this is this is meant to be. So it was really, really happy that it worked out. Yeah. So now I have
a, a larger staff I and so far everybody's been really great. Spent the last month just really slammed with all kinds
of stuff from the budget carryforward that just went to commission a week or two ago. I don't know, my everything's running together now. The new debt financing, that was a big
thing that we're working on. And then also just, you know, figuring out where the files are, you know, just little stuff that you take for granted when you work for a place for a really long time. It takes time.
So, so yeah. So that's, that's a little bit about me. What else can I tell you? So born and raised in Dunedin, I did my college years in Asheville,
North Carolina. I went to UNCA, lived up there for a while, and then after I graduated, I was like, you know, it's freezing. I want to go home. So moved
back. Moved back to Dunedin. And then more recently in the last few years moved over to to East Lake. East Lake woodlands. So that's where I'm at now with
my fiance. We we golf a lot. We have three dogs. I always say we're running a geriatric dog clinic like they're old and I
know all the medications for them. And so yeah, so I don't know any any questions or comments or you want to pick on me. Just you have to stay as
long as you're on stage. So don't live that long. But I'm bringing another geriatric dog.
I'm Max. They're driving me crazy. Yeah. Any questions for
Ashley? I have tons of questions. Not about her, okay, but about other things. Okay. The budget. Do you want to do that? When we get to number
three, we'll do the budget process. Okay. I guess the only question I have for you is you kind of talked about how you found it so far. It's been like very busy since you got here.
But any other initial insights that you'd like to share or. You know, I don't I'm not going to put the cart before the horse. I just had a meeting with staff today that I want to
get a really good idea of, like what everybody's doing. I think that's very, very important. Just I told them, like, I don't have the the luxury of time
like Ron did. I'm sure he assigned half of what they do. And I'm like, I just need you guys to write it down and tell me, yeah, yeah. And along with
that, you know, as I as I work my way through everything I've already noticed for my position where we can make some efficiencies, there's
definitely some room for improvement. And it's, you know, it could be as small as utilizing Excel a little bit
more. More. Excel more. Yeah. So you know and again like I don't want to, you know flip anything on its head I want to understand how it's all working now. But I think that some of
the things have been done the same way for a really long time. And maybe we can advance here and there, but other than that, I just I'm very lucky to have
the team that I do. They've just they know they know their jobs. They're getting it done. There haven't been really any fires other than, oh, we don't have pennies anymore. How we
handle on that. So just like little things like that. But yeah, one other thing that comes to mind is I think for the time I've been on the Budget Advisory Committee, I
would say I always saw Ron as kind of very conservative like or, you know, in terms of budgeting where we would set a target, but try to just make sure that we could achieve it.
And he kind of approached it. He always would. He always would kind of set it and add some cushion. And then usually there'd be a little bit of overage, but we would fall within kind of yeah, I would
say, like from what I've seen from Ron, that's kind of how he approached it. Just curious. I'm sure you got asked this on the interview, so you don't have to go in depth, but how would you categorize kind of
your approach to budgeting? Well, I definitely trend conservative. It's a it's a a balance, right? I mean, you get
taxpayer dollars and you know, they're paying to be spent on services for citizens. So you don't want to sit on too much of that, but you really got to
find the balance between spending and also just having your reserve in case things come up, like a hurricane or Covid or, you know, there's
just so yeah, we I think that what Ron was doing was working. So I probably initially I'm not going to stray too far from the formula. And of course we have
reserve policy. But yeah, it's it's definitely a balance. Awesome. It's great to hear from Dunedin because I also from my experience, we would often compare ourselves to
Dunedin. We experience the same weather events. So yeah, I'm sure a lot of things just kind of line up so well, I think, I mean, if I had to make a
comment, I'd say that maybe it wasn't so much finance, but I think maybe Dunedin's commission was a little bit more. Maybe a little bit more
interested in spending and kind of riding that line a little bit closer, a little bit closer. Yeah. And it is really just, you know, 3 to 2, you know.
Yeah. Okay. So I'll put my foot in my mouth. So. All right. Any anything else for us before we go. Yeah. Good question Ashley. So everybody welcome by the way.
Thank you. And this is my first question officially the budget advisory Committee. Oh. Because you were just. Yeah. You just. Okay. Just sworn in. Sorry. I mean, there's so many new names for me. That's okay, that's
okay. Everybody. Everybody holds themselves accountable in a different way, right? Some people are are binary. Like a checklist. Yes. No. Yes. No. Right. Some people kind of
focus towards a goal and consider you know. They consider progress towards that goal as you know. Oh I did this, this and this, but I still have
this. How do you hold yourself personally accountable, like in a job such as this. Well how do you plan to. So I'm going to count I'm a CPA. So we have we
have ethics we have to abide by. Right. So that's that's first and foremost I pride myself on being transparent. I'm not emotional about numbers. So really you know the background
for an accountant is it's data. Yeah. Here's here's the the facts. Right. And I if I'm asked my opinion on that I will
gladly give it. But you know you can always let's say we need a project done. Well let's look at a couple different options on how to get there. Right. Like it doesn't have to
be, you know, one way or another. So yeah. So just for me, just being transparent, presenting the facts, kind of hearing, you know, the
different opinions of which way to go. And then my go to is okay, let's run a couple different scenarios. Can we meet somewhere in the middle like what works for the most amount of people. You know,
that kind of thing. Okay, good. Hopefully that answers your question. Absolutely. Did okay. That's great. That's great. I
think that yeah, I feel like it just brings me back to I can't remember how long I've been on the committee, but it's been a long time. It's been some years, but I feel like that's right,
right in line with what we're used to. So if if they were bringing kind of a decision to us or an opinion from us, we would have different scenarios kind of modeled out. So that
sounds like it's just yeah, a fits right in with what we're used to. Now, can I ask a question. No. Yeah. Is this a two way street okay. So I'm
just now starting to get into you know, I was looking at the budget timeline and it gets me like thinking of all these questions. So. And I truly don't know the answer to this.
So can you guys tell me a little bit about your role with the Board of Commission? Like is do you guys do you do like a a letter to them, like saying
your recommendations for the annual budget or. Yeah, we have from time to time. It's not every meeting that we do that. But when it comes up like on like the millage rate, we might make a recommendation, okay, up
and down or keep the same. Or we've studied the water rates before and like when we get the consultants. Yeah. Map. We we look at the scenarios and we
say we would go with scenario two. Okay, okay. I just didn't know if you guys were used to doing that or what kind of how it was done here. So I'd say once or twice a year we make
recommendations I think. Yeah. And I think we generally have a broad mixture of like finance experience as well. Different industries like banking and.
Yeah, but the chair also like the first or second budget hearing, they will come and kind of do a a brief what the recommendations are at that budget meeting. Okay. Yeah. And
that's, that's very similar to what we did in Dunedin too. I just wanted to see if you guys were involved at that level. So yeah. Budget updates. And then if there was yeah, something like a recommendation or if
there's, you know, I again, I'm just sort of expressing what I saw Ron do. So if, if Ron felt that it would be good to for us
to make recommendation to the commission on, let's say, the millage rate, he would present the information to us, kind of offer the different scenarios,
and then then later that that recommendation would go to the commission and it would say the Budget Advisory Committee recommends this, and this is the basis of their. So in case if yeah, if you're trying to if
you feel like there'd be an advantage to, to doing something that might be good to have a recommendation from us, that's another way you could kind of. Yeah. We review the
reserve policy, our reserves pretty frequently, and we'll let some of our recent recommendations to was on the reserve policy. Okay. Yep. That's very similar to what I'm
used to. So. Right on okay I'll go to item number two. Unless there's anything else okay. Item number two is update on
the loan for various capital projects. So we just again my days are now rolling together. I think it was last week two
weeks ago. Anyways, we got three proposals, excuse me, 11 proposals. And they our bond counsel and financial advisors,
they very quickly narrowed it down to 4 or 5. And we had two meetings on the rates that were
being offered. The prepayment clauses or a couple different things that we looked at. We ended up we asked the banks to go back and sharpen their pencils like, can we negotiate
or excuse me? So it ended up the bank that we went with. We were at 3.74 initially, but then the rates went up when we asked to negotiate. And then we
went with the with regions because we were able to get sort of an informal rate lock. So they were going to lock the rate without having to go to
commission to approve it. They were just going to do it with an email, whereas one of the other banks, they wanted this whole formal thing. And I'm like, if, you know, it was just too risky. If it didn't pass,
we were going to get penalized. And so we ended up going with with regions 3.74 was a bond issuance or a just a note.
Right, right, right, right. And it was it's for up to 19 five. Although the projects or looking at 19.3. And then there's some issuance costs of
60,000. So it's up to 19 five. But it can scale back if there's just some some cushion there's some wiggle room. So that goes to I mean literally
still this morning we were updating the documents to submit for the agenda. It goes to commission on the 24th. So
Tuesday again, Ron's going to take the lead on that as far as presenting because you know, he's just got the longevity and he knows everything. And and the projects. Are you guys
familiar with the projects that are part of it. You want a quick breakdown again. Yeah because I've forgotten now I forgot. So I don't know if they were locked down last time. Yeah, yeah. So it's so fire
station 70. The construction of that, the Craig Park seawall golf course, clubhouse, stormwater action plan projects and water, sewer, electrical meter projects. So that's the
breaown of the projects. So nothing about Beckett Bridge anymore that that got replaced. Hang on. I have a note on that. Beckett Bridge utilities dependent on county schedule.
And the county pushed that project back. So I think the water treatment plant projects replace that. I think the water treatment electrical panel project. Yeah, that moved up the list because of the
hurricane. Yeah. We're on the brink of getting wet. We could use our wastewater treatment plant for extended period of time like I moved up. The Beckett Bridge is still waiting
on the county, although there has been a little bit more chatter about it. So maybe something's brewing here. We're waiting on the county. We still have to do our utility work on that before they can do
anything to the bridge, so we're kind of waiting on them to pull the trigger for that project to start for the underground stuff, for the bridge. So but there has been some chatter, so maybe there's
I think they're still waiting on a grant. If the county is trying to bank on a grant. Can I ask a question about the loan? Is it is it the type of loan
where we're going to take the whole amount of money and put it in the bank, or is it the type of loan that you're going to withdraw from as needed? So
they're going to wire us the 19. Yeah. And what happens with that money? Is it is there any possibility of it being used for other things. Or it only
can be used for the things on the list? That's a good question. I need to I don't want to say the wrong thing, but I'm just not sure. There's
a lot of conversation about exactly what it's being used for, so I kind of lean towards that, but I'm not sure I'd have to ask. I think people are interested in that. Yeah, that's a great question. Let me
make a note of that. Why would it be pulled out all at once? Because then we'd be paying interest on all of it at the same time instead of as needed.
Draw. Well, we're also going to earn interest on it, but. Hang on one second. Let me write this down, because not all the projects are starting as soon
as we get the money. I mean, there's planning that needs to be done. There's, you know, a lot of work involved. That'll get you that certain interest rate. Yeah, probably. It's
probably one of the covenants of yeah, I would think getting the lower interest rates, they're going to make your pay a higher rate. Okay. But I can
confirm that as well. Okay. But it sounds like it's going to go in an interest bearing account like we'll earn interest on it. Yeah okay. Yeah. We just got to watch and we can't earn too
much interest or we'll break one of the laws. No. Okay. What's the term on it. Is it a certain number of years ten,
ten years? Ten years? Yeah. Right. Okay. Any other questions on the capital projects before moving on to agenda item number three? Okay.
Item number three, discussion timeline for fiscal year 2627 budget process. I left mine in
and it's something okay. So this timeline I think the one that's on the agenda is that still the one that we were we
just revised. I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe if we can get fresh copies. Yeah. Because we had some changes coming from
the city manager's office. And also it was really my first time looking at it since I've been here. So I was I'm going to say that, that even what
he's printing now is still tentative because I, I still have questions on it. But with that said, very similar to last
year. Okay. Yeah. It looks like you guys typically. You get an introduction and then you have meetings with the departments
to kind of talk about their budget. Yeah. So in line with last year, but I don't want to say it's the final because I, I
have questions. I have a couple requests okay. Last and this came up last year, but the budget was already on the forms. I mean we would get copies of
it and all the different departments and how much they needed and for what and, and all of that. I have. I would
like to see where the funds are coming from. Are they coming from general fund and citizen fees, or is it so like if it's
a library, is it donation fed or like that kind of thing? Or it's like for like water and sewer, they get so much from
the fund, the, the tax. What is it. The general fund from taxes. And then they also have income from water charges for services things like that. And then
maybe they get a couple grants. I would like to see all the sources of income and the balance of that. It's like we were looking at all the money
that was outgoing, but I never knew other than a pie chart, general fund, very generic where it was coming from, like the golf course, the I'm, I'm hearing that the golf course is
self-funded, that it's doing so well that we're actually able to pay for a new clubhouse, although it's coming out of the loan money, it's going to be
paid over several years from the golf cart course fund. So I would like to see income versus outgoing. And if if it's, you
know, customer fees or grants or tax money, you know what I mean. Yeah. And that might have to be a work in progress with us. I need to see how they're
how their financials are set up right now, because I might need to do quite a bit of adjusting to get to where you want to be. And that just might take some
time. But I hear you. And then also the emergency, what is it, a reserve fund? I call it emergency fund. If we could be
kept up to date on how much is in there and how and and also what is supposed required to be in there. And then I have another question. I don't
expect answers today. I have another question. Have we gotten all the FEMA money back? No, no. Yeah. And is still outstanding. And it's like at
least 6 million, I think. I think the original amount was 2 million right off the bat. And I think we're between 5 and 7
million that we are probably still out there. I think we just got word like yesterday that it's it's delayed. Still delayed. Yeah. It's something
that we're going to we need to discuss this breaking news for us. Yeah. It's something that we need to discuss. We got to figure out how we want to. And this is just a tarpon. All the
cities are dealing with the same recovery, right? Oh, I totally understand when funds are moved or borrowed to pay for something else. Can we show
those amounts? And like like where the money was like for FEMA, like when we do an interfund loan, like when we do Interfund loans. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that should be I mean,
that's part of the financials. So we should be able to pretty easily get that. Yeah. Show me that. I remember seeing that. I
don't know that we have any Interfund loans. Maybe we're not talking about the same thing. You want to finish your thought? Like, for example, with FEMA, we had to pay for the bills up front. I mean, we
had to pay. And so that money had to come from somewhere, and it was borrowed from other places. And I would like to
know. When how that's being or when it's being paid back. Is it going, are they getting their money back? The different departments that had a yeah to
take care of a bill. I have they gotten their money back or how much are they owed. Yeah I know we've got a when they'll be paid back because that's FEMA. So depending. So for the
most part it's solid waste or sanitation. The disposal fees. That's the huge chunk. And so yeah when when we get reimbursed it'll go right back there. So it's really whichever
fund paid the expense is the one that will get it. So there might be small, I don't know, like a Parks and Rec project might be in the general fund. Well, if they paid for it
they'll get that money back. It's just the project is being delayed because we don't have the money paid back yet. Yeah. So one thing we could do is kind of if you wanted a
breakdown of the projects that are outstanding, that we're waiting on reimbursement for, we can give you, you know, which funds those are in, which would just probably be general
fund and, and solid waste. But that wouldn't be too hard to come up with. I'm sorry. Am I asking for, like, difficult things? I just no, not that one. The other one was I needed to
make sense to me where the money is coming from, and not just a generic pie chart where all of this is coming from. General fund, you know what I mean? For each department. Each
department is getting so much out of that general fund. And they're also getting they could get money from other places and is the other place, you know,
consumer fees. Is it grant money or is it borrowed from another department. You know, that just I don't know. Am I
asking do you guys, when you get the financials, we've got our memory of when I worked in finance, the department reports were just expense side. That's my. That was what I'm about to ask you. Did you ever see the
revenue side of it? No, we do, but in a separate on a separate report. So it's kind of hard to wrap your head around like one department. Here's the revenue, here's the expenses. And we talked about before combining that to this department. Here's
the revenue. Here's their expenses. Yeah okay. So I think I stand by what I say. Like it's going to be a work in progress to kind of get to where you guys want to be and to see what you want to see. I
don't know what's available. You know, I don't know if we have any canned reports right now or if it's going to be a custom thing. So just give me a little bit of time with that. But yeah, definitely. I hear
what you're saying. I think what Ron has been here for so long that we all just kind of said, okay, we all love Ron, so we all trust him. You don't you don't have a comfort level with me yet, but we'll get there.
But no on and honestly like that's it's not an outrageous ask. I mean it's pretty it's
it's okay. I think that. For me for the budget, as we go into the budget process, I see this tentative date May 14th.
Introduction on the budget, I would just like a one page summary of the high level assumptions that went into it. Like what cost of living raises are we given? What merit raises are we giving? How much are we
thinking? The property tax properties. So just a high level. Ron always had it, but it might have been on five different slides. I'd just like one slide of here's the major assumptions that went into the
budget. What was the date on that May 14th? Tentative, yeah.
Okay. I think I'm sorry, I just thought of something else. And you're not going to have an answer to this, but what what's going to happen to us if the
state does the whole property tax thing that they're talking about doing? Okay. Question. That's a hard one to answer
right now. Yeah. There's still a lot of what ifs and a lot to figure out. It might be that we have to raise permitting fees,
or maybe the county raises their state the tourism tax or the penny. You know, there's there's other avenues. But I
don't have an answer for that right now. I got to get one pretty quick, but I don't have one right now. Yeah. If we could get something when you feel comfortable giving it, I have when it comes up for a
vote or if it comes up for a vote, then I would like to be able to. On the bright side, yeah. So I have a conference.
I'm going to March 5th. It's a local government. And part of it they talk about the market and all that economical factors,
blah blah blah. I would bet that this question is going to come up, and I'm very curious to see what everybody else is thinking, what everybody else
is planning for. So maybe I'll have more information after that. And then usually, you know, you always kind of take the county's lead on big stuff
like that. So that's sort of the next stop is. All right, Alice, what's the what's the
plan here. So yeah. No, that's that's a big deal. All right.
Any other budget process timeline questions. All right. Hearing none. We'll go on to
public comments. All right. Board and staff comments. Yeah. So I missed putting on the
agenda for an appointment of a new chair and vice chair. Okay. So I don't know if you we can do it now or if you want to do
it the next meeting. I think we could. Well how does everybody feel about that. Do you want to just do it now or you can do it
okay. All right. Any nominations for chair? I nominate Kathy Hall for chair. Okay. Second, second. Thank you
for. All right. Thank you. Any nominations for vice chair and all nominate Susan for that
second okay. All right. So just one nomination I don't think vote is needed. Is that good. Do you need. Yeah. Is that we can do one vote okay. And just
we'll say okay we'll do one vote. So all in favor we can do it that way okay. All right. All in favor of myself as chair
and Susan as vice chair. I. Perfect. That's all I had. All right. Thank you Michelle. Yes. Thank you everybody. All right.
Any other board and staff comments? Welcome to our new finance director. Thank you. You're welcome. Very glad to have you. I just you guys are.
Everybody's just so warm and welcoming. My gosh, I should have been here a long time ago. No, I take it back. I don't want to say that I don't want
to hurt Danita. All right, next meeting date. Have it down as March 19th. March 19th. Okay.
So let's say March 19th. Oh, just because it's next month, did we normally do like a free
meeting last year or. Actually I know you've got a lot going on, so do you think you'd be ready for something in March or do you. So right now we've got
the the audit just started this week. Right. I would love if the financials would be done before then, but that's a very tight. Yes. It does sound a
little tight I mean I don't know do you guys want to just play by your ear and just see I always so I got back up at the plate by year. I always thought it was plate by year. And then
well into adulthood, I found out I was saying it wrong my whole life. So anyway. So yeah, we can just kind of wait. Maybe if you want to. So target we
can target April. Yeah. I say we just go okay. For April. Okay. I'm good with that. As long as everybody else. 16th April 16th okay. Yeah. So by
then the financials should be done and I should be much more well adjusted. Well let's hope okay. I'm actually out of office. I'm out of the country.
Then I have a conference on April 16th. Okay. All right. So what about the last week of April? Would that throw
everyone off? No, I'm good for that. Thursday the 30th. Okay okay okay. So do 2:00 on the
30th. I room available. We'll make it available. Okay. 2:00 Thursday, 30th April okay okay.
So next meeting will be April 30th at 2 p.m. All right. Moving on to any future agenda items. If you guys want to put
the fiscal year 25 audit financials on there we can do that. That and just an update on the loan at that point. Yeah okay. Yeah. Was there anything
else we should cover. No because I yeah. Can we get a list of the projects that are currently for that long. Yeah. You want me to just email that
or or at the meeting. Oh okay. Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. Okay. Any other future agenda items for that? April 30th
meeting? Okay. Hearing none. And I will move on to adjournment. All right. With
that, we'll close the meeting at 235. Awesome.