Call the May 15th meeting of the budget advisory committee to order. Can we have a roll call, please? Mr. Berserman here. Miss Hall here. Miss Hails here. Miss Mciny um is a new member. I'm not sure if she will be able
to make it today. And Mr. Smarcus here. Before we get into old business, I want to welcome the new member. Thank you very much. Okay. Old business. The mayor and commissioner salary survey.
open. You're probably going to wonder what are all these funds and account numbers and all this stuff? How does it work? I'm over my door. In fact, I had a presentation from members a few years ago that try to to go over this stuff maybe help getting back to the salary survey.
The board at the last meeting requested that we salated it. This is just numerically the uh from the lowest to the highest salaries for the mayors and commissioners in the county going from
say harbor $6,000 mayor commissioners $4,800 going down to St. Petersburg which is 169,000 for the mayor which is government and the commission 46,000 graphically I put this
presentation together in a different Hey oh thank you went way up high. So, I just included the uh safety harbor through the clear water. And as you can see, Tarpon Springs is in that little box
that's outlined, the orange color right there. Um the commission, the mayor salary has been the same for I think 20ome years. It hasn't changed and the same with commissioners. And with that, I'll leave it for y'all.
Questions, observations. Any idea why Simol has an odd amount? Do they tie it to something? Yes, some of them have tied it to the the CPI index and I think Deneden is going to do that too. I I texted the finance director down earlier to confirm but I haven't
heard back but I'm pretty sure Denine is Den is always going to index it with the CPI index or whatever their their other pay their employees are getting. Well, we generally compare ourselves to Dun Eden even though we are smaller. A
smaller budget too, I think. Right. Yes. My first inclination is to raise the commissioners to maybe 10, but we have we have a larger gap, I think, than most between the commissioner and mayor. And I don't I don't really don't think there should be
that big of a gap since I they they all have equal votes. I guess the mayor drives the agenda maybe is the biggest difference in ours. That's my initial thoughts. Any thoughts? So
the purpose we're looking at this is to consider a potential increase for both the mayor and the commissioners. Is that kind of the context that we're I believe. Yes. And how much larger is Deneden than Tarpon? The the budget for
Deneden just approximately percentage. I would say probably 35%. 35%. Yeah. I was going to say it's not quite 50% but probably 30%. Good. And our com um payment scale isn't tied to anything like CPI, right?
For employees or Yeah. Or for for commissioners and mayor. No, we don't tie it to anything. It's been the same amount for 20 plus years. For 20 years. Wow. Okay. So, it's just a question of what
amount increase maybe we might recommend and have you looked at? You don't have any recommendation here based on your comparison. This is the only analysis you did, right? Just analysis to update it. Okay. Okay. I'm just gonna look at the numbers for a
second. I don't know. Um, I think it makes sense to have an increase. There's an incentive to to do it. It's just a question of how how do we want to Yeah. suggest do we want to talk to anything? Exactly. I think part
of it was to try to It was been mentioned getting more people to work on the board. Right. Exactly. They thought, well, maybe if we pay them some more money, we might get more people that want to run for the for the board positions because they would get this payment plus they get insurance, right?
Yes. Yes. Okay. So, that's pretty good. And most of them do. On that previous slide, it does it does list the benefits that the different uh cities provide on the far right there. And does that extend to family coverage as well?
No, it's just the individual. Yeah, yes. Okay, last question. So, Deneden, we usually compare ourselves to Deneden. Deneden's a little larger. They're a little I think their budget's probably 35% more than ours re on a revenue basis. They're bigger square foot square
miles too, but bigger square miles. And then uh Deneden's tied to the CPI, you said? Yes. They will be Oh, they will not right now. So they may increase from here. Okay. And we don't have any insight as to what they're considering
for their increase. Um, no. I just uh reached out to the finance director this morning, but I haven't heard back yet. Okay. I was almost thinking like what if we try to get more closer to the Dened numbers, but I'm wondering if that's
going to even be sufficient with their with their increase. You know, if you want to, I'm just throwing in something. by the next meeting I could try to find out, you know, if you're looking at the re how much increases in revenues. See what see if they if they have the increase. I could provide some more
information for you if you're sort of honing in on Deneden there. What does everybody else think? If I made a recommendation today, I would take the commissioners to 10,000. I don't know that I would change the mayor. Okay. because I don't like I like
I said I don't like the gap right now we have between mayor and commissioners. What about going forward? Do we want to consider the CPI index or not? I'm not inclined to do that. I mean you're inclined to let this committee evaluate it on an annual basis. Do we have some
idea as to what amount of time a commissioner puts in for the city? Well, I'm sure they probably say a lot of time. The requirement is two meetings a month,
right? Yes. Special meetings. Well, then they probably all talk about every little special ribbon cutting. um ribbon cutings and which is not if they have to stay I mean you know 10 hours six hours
12 hours rough round figures between meetings and when I've estimated it I've estimated six 600 hours a year I would say so do you want additional information for the next meeting or we make a decision
Unless you two are ready to make a decision now on the 10. I I think um well, let me ask that question. Are you ready to decide on the 10 at this moment? If we don't want to postpone for additional information, I'm open to a motion being made right now. Yes.
Okay. Um Okay. So, let let's just look at this real quick. So, so we're fixated on comparing with Deneden that's 30% larger. Are any of these townships more close to us? Seol Well, like I
say, like Simol's a lot smaller than us, but they're apparently not too far behind us. Well, in fact, the commissioners make more than the right, but just sizewise and and kind of budget-wise, I'm kind of new to this.
So, looking at these things and having grown up here, I look at, you know, little places and big paces, but I know Golf Course, Golfport's not that big, but they sure have, you know, a lot more value than we have. So, you can't really compare that. They're a smaller size,
smaller revenue than Tarpon Springs, but you know, overall it's a higher value area. Therefore, I don't think their budget, you know, is is a is a comp for us. what I mean. I'm just trying to figure out and I don't, you know, being
relatively new five or 10 minutes. I'm just trying to get a a better idea of what we're actually comparing with. After 10 minutes, you're a veteran.
20 is when I resigned. Well, the I I I see the difference you're talking about in the numbers for seminal, but if you look at under the comments, they don't have any benefits where ours has the insurance and stuff. Right. Right. And I mean that has a lot of value. Like if it was me that all
that insurance stuff is what is what increases in in cost every year and has increased in cost every year for 20 years. And now granted, it's probably offset by, you know, the $8,000 going down in value over the last 20 years,
but it it balances out in my mind depending on and I'm not overly familiar with what all the commissioners do all the time, but you know, if it's 10 hours or 12
hours a month, that's 50, 60, $70 an hour depending on what they're doing, which that's relatively reasonable with benefits, you know, at least in my mind. But that's where I'm trying to get a
better idea of, you know, how much time is it exactly? I think is that's unique to each commissioner. Right. Right. And if you just go with requirement, that's the two meetings a month plus the special sessions and such.
And sometimes it ends up being real late at night, too. Like 10, 11. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. That should give them incentive to cut to the chase. Okay. So, what if we did something where I mean I could make a motion that we maybe increase the commissioners to 10,
but then also maybe next meeting get an update on Deneden just so that we can see and this would just be a recommendation from us I believe. Right. We can wait because we we're meeting pretty soon because of budget next week. We we can wait. Okay. Oh, we are. Yeah.
This is budget season. We meet more frequently. All right. So, we can They didn't tell you that, did they? Come with the application. I did put a sheet of the time the times. Behind his laptop, there's a schedule upcoming meeting. So, we can defer it
till next meeting and just have it as the first item before we get to budget review. If you want to wait for some information from Denon, uh, probably be okay with me. Did you wonder if I mean the commissioners might all vary if I try to reach out to some to see how many
hours they may say they spend in a in a month. That'd be an interesting survey. Yes. Yeah. Maybe just another data point or two if it doesn't take too much time too much your time. So there in agreement we table this to
further discussion at the next meeting. Y okay let's move on to new business. Uh I let me by way of introduction I attended the board of commissioners meeting on April 22nd in which the representative of our external audit firm made a
presentation on the results of the audit. So I've asked Ron to sort of go over that for the rest benefit of the rest of this committee. Yes. Hi. Um as you most you probably know except maybe Mr. Smarcos, we are required to have an external independent
audit by state statutes performed on the finances every year. Uh Malden Jenkins is our current external auditor. This was our fifth year of doing the audit. They this I took I wasn't sure exactly chairman what exactly. So, I took their presentation,
thought I I would use that same one, make some comments on it, and I added a slide at the very end just to try to maybe some highlevel numbers on net income and fund balances. Let me go um this was just their their intro here. Malden Jenkins,
um they do mostly all governmental clients, cities and counties in the southeast here. They're a decent size, middlesized firm, but they're and they're well recognized. is a good auditing firm doing uh well well recognized and respected in in our
government clients and cities here. Um like I say the firm is in the top 20 of all firms in doing the audits. Just some more information on Malden Jenkins the audit book which is this
here all 100 pages of it. This is uh it contains their audit opinions but all the financial statements within the audit report there they're broken out between an introductory section a financial section and a statistical section
um their audit opinion you know one of the big main items on page uh B1 of the report is the audit opinion which the basically and I just want to highlight highlighted there just so you'll know the basic financial statements are responsibility of cities
management. The finance department puts this whole book together. Then the auditors verify all the numbers in there and then they give us their audit opinion reports. Uh we had a clean opinion. They didn't find anything which is, you know, good. Knock on wood. Very
proud of proud of the finance department. We've got a good staff back there. They've been there a long time. They do a good job of checking everything and making sure that everything that we're following the policies that we've established in the finance department.
uh they also look into compliance and internal controls. That is another separate report. Page B1 is towards the front. The the reports go A1, B1. They go in these different sections. But F uh the compliance report is page F2 towards
the end. And this is where they put the report on compliance and internal controls. And as it says there, there were no findings in the current year report, which which is good. And then they do work on the single audit. What single audits are, if a if a government has more than
$750,000 in federal and or state grants, they have to do what's called a I call it a single audit. What they do is that whatever grant was over that amount, the $750,000, they have to do more research into that grant. They ask for more expenditures. They ask for all the
detail into it into the grant. So that is the single audits that that the audits all the audits are going to be found on page F1 of the audit book. Um, go to the next page and there's a management letter and this is also towards the back of the book, page F9.
The auditor general of Florida requires that they look into and report on various things within the audit report. So, they went through it's in the page F9 on the audit report. It's called the management letter and they had no issues with that. And then the last one there, those
examination report on investment of public funds. They want to make sure per state statutes of Florida and our investment policy that are we are in compliance with both the state statutes and investment policies on our investments and they said they had no issues with that.
Um other things they look into is the policies we use but the policies the city uses are based on our general accounting ac general accepted accounting principles. We follow Gadsby which is the government accounting standards boards which sets all the standards we have to follow. Um
management judge judgment and accounting estimates. We use a standard approved accounting estimates for when we do our year-end audit. Uh relationship with management as they say they receive full cooperation from city management and there were no disagreements with
management on any accounting issues. um required communication whatever they usually ask for and you know we're make sure we give it to them we have that consultant with consulting with other accountants we we we haven't done that you know I guess
they would think there might be some cities that might reach out to maybe maybe I didn't if I didn't agree with our auditors I might reach out to somebody else you know but no we we don't do that um audit adjustments sort of proud here with this one too there there was no
audit adjustments so they that means they didn't find anything where they asked us to do a journal entry an entry that we had to correct so where there's no audit adjustments um um let's see other requirement just I just highlighted
there that just so everybody you know it's state statutes require that we be audited by an external auditor CPA firm um just to make sure that that they are independent from the from the city. Um, let's see what this was summary. Did they have any findings last
year? No. So, that's why they're just saying they had none last year and there's none this year. Um, that was basically the end of their presentation. I threw in these numbers. I just sort of trying to figure out something that you might want, but just to show that the general fund had a
change in fund balance. is basically like the net income 84 84,000 minus in in 2024 ending total ending fund balance was 14,762,000 unassigned fund balance was
9,158,000 the general fund has a net income of 76,000 ended up with ending fund balance of 1.8 8 million. The grants fund which is mostly the ARPA fund. What's remaining of it had net income of 383,000 ending fund balance of
775,000. The penny fund income of 786,000 with almost 8 million of a ending fund balance. Those are general government funds. General government funds are basically ones that sort of a cash basis. Um enterprise funds are like
business type funds where the full ac cruel accounting. So we've got down below we got the sanitation fund it in net net income was 50,000 ending fund balance 4.5 million with unrestricted of almost 1.8 million
water and sewer fund net income 1.4 million total ending fund balances 75 million unrestricted fund balance 5.2 million stormwater fund net income 1 million total ending fund balance 9.4 4 million with unrestricted fund balance
of 858,000. Marina fund very small fund had a net loss of 22,000 ending fund balance of 26,000 and unrestricted fund balance of 15,000. And then the golf course fund net income of
89,000 total ending fund balance 1.7 million with unrestricted fund balance of 888 883,000. Um just part of the audit pro I think I wanted to mention the audit process is a long process that starts in
October a lot of times in November and December we're doing all the entries for the audit and then gradually as we get into January and February the auditors usually come about midFebruary that's what they did this year they spend about two weeks here three four people for two weeks they are asking a lot of questions
of staff and we get get them the information as quick as possible and so they can finish their audit The audit usually continues into March more or less. They're not here physically, but they're in their home office usually asking questions from there, but we have to be done with the audit by March 31st. So, by by state
standards, um I'm trying to think of anything else information on the audit, but I think that's it. Questions, comments? Uh no, just to confirm. So, there was no findings at all. Great. Okay. Yeah,
that's always good. That's always good. Thanks. Let's move to the next item, the proposed budget overview. [Applause] Mr. Smarkles, the budget really, they probably already know it starts in probably February. We send out the the
budget request to departments. Departments start keying in their budget in February. We get all that information. In March, we start to compile the budget together. So, departments have entered all their budgets obviously, and then in April, we'll get all their budgets. We'll
project the revenues. We'll work with the payroll. Um we're at the time now all funds are balanced. The general fund is balanced with no use no use of unassigned fund balance. That's unrestricted reserves. St. 10th straight year we haven't u used those reserves.
The city manager met with the department heads last week over their budgets. Just some revenue assumptions within the budgets. Usually when we do we do the revenues we look at the historical what's gone on in the past years. We look at the current year through through March. Our fiscal year
starts October 1st. So March 31st is the end of our is our midway through. Um property taxes, we we had an originally 3% taxable value increase for property
taxes. Talking to other finance people, that's what we were doing initially. But then we heard, you know, the county says taxable value increase might only be 0% or minus one. So, I thought I reduced the 0% about two weeks ago. I mean, from 3% to 0% about $450,000 we had to cut
out. Uh, so right now we're at 0% taxable value increase. Uh, the millage rate is still at 5.37 and just for reference, every 1% increase in the taxable value is about $150,000 more in revenue. So, but hopefully by the end of
May, 1 of June, the count is required to send us what the taxable values is. Now, when they say the county said it was, so far they're thinking it's 0%, but that might be countywide. Tarpon Springs, I'm hoping might be a little above in the positive
side, but uh we'll see. Um water and sewer fees, a 2.75% rate increase for water and sewer is in the ordinance still. Sanitation fees, um the 3% max is is in the budget. and stormwater fees.
We know we have no approved increase, but I budgeted for a 5% rate study rate increase and we're having rate studies done for right now currently for both storm water and water and sewer expenditure assumptions within the
budget. We have pay increases in for the police and fire union employees. So, they are in the budget. No general employee increases are in the budget yet. We're waiting on to finalize the pay study that's being worked on. There's no new positions in
the budget. Uh we've increased the budget for police and fire pension the police and fire pension contributions that were required per the actuary. We've estimated health dental and life insurance increase at 10%. It's an estimate along with property property
liability workers comp and um those insuranceances. We've estimated a 10% increase. Sometimes we don't find the actual increase out until latter part of July or August what it actually comes to getting into some numbers in the budget right now. The way it is, this is the first go around. There's going to be
this budget, then there's going to be another budget that goes before the board towards the end of June. So there'll be like three or four iterations of the budget during the summer until we're finally done in September. So right now highlighted yellow the total city budget is
100,417,934. That's that column on the left there. Um and then it's the percent of the budget. So like the general fund at 36 million is 36% of the budget. Last year it was 36 million. So there's an increase of 334,000
or.9%. And off to the right I try to put any explanations for the major increases in the budget. Water and sewer fund 32 million. It's increased about 6.2 million and that's mostly due to some capital items for water the wastewater treatment plant electrical processor
having worked on water well improvements and water meter installation sanitation fund is mostly the contract increase is 3% with waste management penny fund is all capital projects so it's just based on whatever capitals we're trying to do that year so that's why I just call it the capital
project allocation CRA fund is increasing uh 2.4 4 million. That's because we have Orange Street Construction in there for 990,000. And then we have the CRA master plan improvements about 1.9 million. Stormwater fund the increase is 100,000.
That's mostly for annual pipelining and a utility truck. And then the golf course fund increase about 4.3 million, but we have in the budget a clubhouse for 4.2 million. So these are the largest funds. I didn't show all the funds, but just the larger funds right there are the se
these seven of them. So these seven funds are 93 million almost 94 million of that $und00 million budget. We have 33 funds within the city budget. This is just showing for the total city the revenues of the total
city. Uh the first column is 2025 at 86 million. 2026 totals 100 million increase of 14 million. That's a 16.6% increase. And down below graphically just to show the highlighted there charges for services is the biggest
increase at 40.5%. Charges for services is mostly your revenue water and sewer increases of storm water and sanitation. The same numbers from the previous site but over to the side I've tried to explain those same categories but but why the increases and
highlighted intergovernmental had 2.2 million but that's mostly because of water and sewer electrical grant. It's it's a $5 million project that's going that for the wastewater treatment plant. U the public services director has a $2 million grant and then with the 3
million balance is being subsidized by the city. And there's also a sustainability grant for 400,000. That's what causes that $2.2 million increase in intergovernmental charges for services going up 1.5 million and that's mostly the water and sewer rate increases for
charges for services and storm water and sanitation. And down below highlighted across from miscellaneous, we got a $3 million increase. And that's mostly there's something called a PAS settlement with the water and sewer about a $3 million
uh settlement. Um public services directors using that to improve some of our water wells. Um that's all I had highlighted there on that. Getting into the total city expenditures going by personnel
operating capital again 2025 to 26 personnel increasing 1.2 million and that's mostly the police and fire union increases and the health insurance increase of 10% estimate capital outlay going up to 11
almost 12 million and that's mostly the water and sewer capital items and the uh 4.2 2 million for the golf course clubhouse. And as you notate down below, personnel is the highest category at 38 38.1%. Get a little dry through
here. Too many numbers. What I'm trying to show here is that each fund and each department of the fund. Here's the general fund and uh just listening to departments what the budget was in 2025 and then the budget in 2026 the dollar change and the
percentage change and the the biggest increase is police and fire and off to the side I highlighted it's it's a union wage increase and the pension contributions and the 10% health insurance increase for so the total increase in the general fund is 334,000
or.9% with this with the way the economy is right now, not knowing the taxable value increase, and we even saw some sales tax revenues go down last year, but we're seeing them start to go back up now this year. Total citywise, we've cut in the last couple weeks about 1.5 million of
operating mostly operating out of the out of the budget. We've cut about 900,000 out of the general fund to be able to balance it right now. So, so that's why it's only an increase of the 334,000 or 0.9%. These are the other funds, special
revenue funds. And what are special revenue funds? Well, they're money that's required to be set aside in its own fund and restricted for a certain purpose. So, these are all the separate special revenue funds with the the budget 25, the 12 2026 budget, the
change, and the percentage change. The biggest increase was general government impact highlighted and that's because we're doing the budget for some Dell server Dell servers for IT and then down below that transportation impact 170,000 for the road program and down in the CRA
fund we got $2.4 million increase and that's due to the master plan for 1.9 million and and Orange Street construction. Um down below under capital project fund, we have increases, but it's mostly due to the capital investment fund is a fund that has the
uh sidewalk improvement fund. It's got like a $1.7 million budget. The expense it's used for sidewalks, but the expenses for the sidewalks are not done in that expensed in that fund. They're expensed in the capital project fund right above it. So the increase there that's charter
approved used in before they you were allowed to use 100,000 a year for sidewalks. The charter increased it to 300,000. This is increasing the transfer up to 300,000 to the capital project fund. That's making any
sense. Last slide on the on the funds here. We start with enterprise funds is increasing 322,000 mainly due to the contract increase with waste management. Uh the big increase underwater and sewer is a $5.9 million for mostly the capital increase in the electrical work. The $5
million project for electrical at the wastewater treatment plant. Uh non-EP departmental mostly went up because the increase in repairs and ma in repairs and maintenance property insurance and an inter fund transfer. Uh storm motor fund went up due to health insurance uh and debt
service on the back trucks. We haven't we don't have the debt service on the vac contracts. We're we're working with our financial adviser and bond council. We found that we had two vacant trucks that are very old and the cost of keeping up is outweighing the keeping them. They're 15 20 years
old. One department need one and the other one really the both of them. So we went out to reached out to our financial adviser. We could we could piggy back off a contract that Delray Beach did. We got a rate of 3.47% 47% to to finance
these trucks over five years. So we got two VCON trucks. They're about $600,000 each. So the debt service will be about 130,000 for each one of those. So that's it's not been gone before the board yet and approved yet, but that's what the
budget. What What truck is it now? What is it? Vacon truck. What does it do? It's a big truck that sucks. Oh, the vacuum truck. I think it goes into the sewer system and they Yeah, it sucks the leaves out of the sewer. Okay. Chief says yes. That's what I thought.
So now that we have two new ones, all the sewers will be clean. I would think so. They should be the They should be the cleanest sewers in town. I I know more numbers. The ones were by funded by department and I just thought this is total city but this is
breaking out the line items in the budget what we are different line from executive salaries regular other salaries overtime um mostly like to say that under personnel which is going up 3.4% 4%. It's still, I'm repeating myself, it's the police and fire union increase uh
and the cont and their police pension cont police and fire pension contribution increase and the 10% health insurance increase. Um this is showing operating line items. One of the bigger increases other contractual now
545,000 majority of that is the contract with the sanitation and there was some with water and sewer insurance that's a that's a 10% on the health life I'm sorry not the health and life this is the property insurance but it's an estimate we'll
find out in July or August what it ends up being hopefully it goes down and then the increase of 418,000 repairs and maintenance majority of that is in increases it and the water and sewer departments and I think that's uh some of the larger amounts. What's a total
increase for operating is 844,000 or 3%. Getting in the capital outlay, we've got an increase of 11 million which uh 1.6 million is under buildings. Most of that's a club golf course clubhouse at 4.2 million. Uh improvements other than
than building 9.8 8 million. That's more of the water and sewer electrical plant work or haven't done at wastewater treatment plant. Uh debt service increase. That's due to the land financing we did in December. That's about a $680,000 a year debt service and plus
adding in the VCON trucks. Um down under transfers. Uh that's that's that transfer from the capital investment fund to the capital project fund for sidewalks. Um reserves and loans. U the
very last item highlight 823,000 a decrease but I don't have any money last year this current year where we budgeted for putting money into the unassigned reserves. We didn't have that this year. So that's we did it last year but I don't have that in there this
year. I'm getting there. I've only got two slides just on the general fund. Basically, the revenues again and I highlighted 649 bucks increase in ad valarium. Usually last year that was probably 900,000. Year before that was a $1.2 million increase,
but since we got 0% obviously we've got 649 bucks and I think that's delinquent taxes is in that total. Uh the other one for charges for services increase of 570,000. That's mostly due to our EMS contract.
We were able to increase one more unit that we have which pro provides more funding from the county. So that was a the larger amount that increased that charges for certifice category along with the fire went up a little bit but not as much as the U EMS contract.
Thanks to the chief here. Um expenditures in the general fund. Well, we're hearing it again. It's personnel and it's 1.2 2 million it went up and that's the police and fire union increase and the pension contribution and the estimate of the
health insurance and down below in the graph as usual general fund is mostly personnel so 74 74% of the general fund is personnel expenses um a little two slides on water and sewer just to show the revenues
intergovernmental that's the two grants one for the electrical plant two million and the sustainability 400,000 And then their charges for services increase of 1 million. I say that's the rate that's the rates that would get imposed on the residents for the increase. The PAS settlement of 3
million and then down below charges for services is the biggest category of water and sewer fund at 70%. Expenditures of the water and sewer fund personnel operating capital. The biggest increase again is the is the
capital with the 5.7 with the electrical plant. Total increase in the water and sewer fund is 6.2 million. And down below, the biggest increase is capital outlay at 40.5%. And I'll stop there. Next, I was going to go over some capital, but I don't know if you have any questions on
on the budget. Questions, comments? When do you anticipate the salary survey data to be in and plugged into the budget? Well, they're working on that right now. They it's still in draft form. They're analyzing, going through
making some corrections. Um, they're working on they're meeting with departments, I believe this week, going over with departments what the increases are. There's a cola of 3%. If anybody needs adjustments, there's adjustments to the salary and then there might be adjustments for compression. So
the minimum would be the cola of 3% in the study. I would imagine it could be in a couple weeks. I know Scott's been working on it, but I would say we probably have it in the next weeks. I've got a slide on that a little
further down but just a one slide but the cost of it is like right or wrong which is good not as good it's 1.1 million total city but it comes to like a 5% overall which if you look back to what we've been giving for pay increases
the last three four years we've been giving 5% so it sort of has worked out Good. Um, with respect to the operating expenses, you said that you kind of reduced took out some operating expenses
in the for in the budget for this year. Yes. Primarily because the taxable value increase you're hearing may not give us an increase. Might be flat. Right. We've got we've gone through and I got to thank departments too. They went through and they said, "Oh, maybe we can cut here and here and here." Yeah,
absolutely. I think like probably this is the time where everybody's like super busy trying to get get this stuff in order. I'm sure it's a a ton of work. Um and yeah, you you guys always do an amazing job. How are you thinking about
tariffs in the budget? And I asked because like some businesses are saying if 10% they could absorb in their in their businesses and they might not pass that on to the consumer but anything more than that. So there might be some passed on in some of the supplies that h
how are you thinking about that and have you Well, we've been thinking about but we just tried to include that in the budget but we don't I don't know we haven't seen anything directly yet except I'm not sure if in your fire trucks or anything but yeah nothing has really come through yet. So you're just
kind of generally estimating what you think the impact might be. Okay. Do we have any sense of like where our supplies come from to to a large degree or not? Not not so much. We would just ask I would have to get with those departments to find that out. Okay.
All right. One other question. The supplies that we order or the supplies we use, do they all go through procurement or Yes, they all do. So if you did want to look So they'll be looking at them. Yes, they could. Okay. So if you did decide to look at that. Okay. I was just curious on how you were kind of thinking about
that. I had a question on you made a comment on the cola increase for salaries. It's 5%. 3%. 3%. What was the 5% increase that has been in previous years we've done 5% pay increases for the employees?
How many years in a row has that been? I think it's four years in a row and this year would be 3%. Well, the overall increase funded would be the 5%, but some people might get will definitely get the 3% cola, but some people might get be getting a more of an increase
based basult do the pay study and they're looking at all the positions in the city, comparing them within the city, but also comparing them with other cities to say see where these positions should be at. So is it a fair statement to say that salaries have increased 25%
in the last five years or at least the salary budget line? Yeah, with the 5% a year. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. Let's go in the capital. Ready for the next one? Yep. I know you all say these presentations are
riveting. I'll have to get somebody else to do them [Laughter] sometime. We've been working on the capital improvement program and financing options and we I put together a PowerPoint. We we met individually
with the board members just to try to Well, let me just get into it here. city manager requested back in January requested departments to give us their 10-year CIP and capital outlay. So back in January, they put together a list of all their CIP and capital. It ended up c
ended up totaling 212 million. This is just graphically breaking it out between general government 7.4 4 million public safety 7 almost 73 million physical environment 95 million transportation 16 million
cultural 21 million I just want to mention people some say what is physical environment well the 95 million is mostly the water sewer storm water and sanitation funds that are covered by their respective you know fees to the users the other functions are covered by we call the
general government funds and in particular the penny fund we also look to see if any impact act funds are available to cover whatever if it's an allowable project. Just for the penny fund, our annual revenues are 3.8
million. They increase about $100,000 a year. And Mr. Smarkels, the penny fund is one that pays for a lot of our general governmental capital. Um there's more expenditure demands on the penny fund. Our we're allowed to charge our fire vehicles and
our police vehicles to the penny fund. Fire trucks have gone up in cost from 300,000 about 15 years ago. We bought one. Now they're upwards of $2 million. I'm sorry. I got to pick on them. But police vehicles have gone up too. You know, to outfit them, they've
been 50,000. Now they're about 100,000 each. And the cost of street paving has gone up. So it reduces the funds for other availables for cap availability for other capital projects. We've got some unfunded capital projects out there. Cops and kids building they've talked about 4.5
million. Dredging the bayou 5 million renovating the old cops and kids building 1.5 million. Maybe renovating the EOC 500,000 and Craig Park seaw wall construction phase two. That's still to be determined. We have some projects
that are already cash funded like fire station 76 million Craig Park Seaw wall construction phase 1 1.6 million. It's a total project of 3.6 million. We've got a $2 million grant. The other 1.6 million is money we have in the penny
fund. Um and then if we were to do refinancing, we we financed the dredge the land dredge site in December. We could refinance that land after 18 months and pay it off at July 1st,
2026. We could pay off that that debt if we desired to. The over the history, the city has maintained little or no debt issuance. The city has one of the lowest amounts of debt in the county. The RA the ratio we use to measure the debt is usually
the annual debt service to the amount of total revenues in the general governmental funds which is about 45 million. Um before the land financing we were at 089% after the land financing we at 1.91%.
This is a a survey study we put together last summer with the cities in the area going from Den Deneden to Newport Richie Bair Tarpon Springs Golfart Seminal and then the average as you can see that's
that highlighted 89% is Tarpon Springs we had little governmental debt most of it was firet truck leases so you had two firetruck leases for five years one will be paid off next year and I think we got two more payments on the other one. So,
we're at 089. We're one of the lowest in the county. So, we did little or no debt. Oh, just right. And the average was a 4.51%. Also presented to the board members, you know, how the financing uh options out there. We've been mostly on
pay as you go which limits you know it limits how many projects you can do but there's financing options and that's usually when they say you know have future generations pay for capital projects. So we presented financing options for 10 years 15 years and 30
years. If you go 10 years you don't have to go to the voters for referendum but if we go over 10 years you have to go to the voters. So we had examples for 10 years, 15 years, 30 years. And then the different financing instruments the city can do is a bank note where you just go
out to bid to the bank. The the winning bank with the lowest bid or combination if you find the prepayment, a low prepayment, which we did with the land. It it combined both the interest rate was at 4.3, which was almost one of the lowest, and we could prepay it off in 18
months. The rest of them are somewhere like three, four, and five years. or you do a big bond issue and that's a big public bond issue and the difference is bank notes banks usually only want to go from five to 15 years but there are less issu is issuance fees bond issues are
for more for larger projects over 15 years takes a little longer to get the debt proceeds there's more issuance costs like if the board that's decided they want to go for a bond issue they would have to probably send it to the voters in March of 2026 and from what our financial advisor
er says it usually takes 6 months after that time to get the money. So March, it probably be September of 2026 before we got the money. In comparison to a bank note, we did the bank note was approved by the voters the first week of November. We had the money by the middle of
December. These were the options that we went over with the board members. We had more detailed ones with all with each each one of these separately was a separate slide with all the projects and all the years going out 2026 27 28
29. So thought I'd just sort of summarize it here. We did if we did no additional projects zero financing hopefully say no term the debt service is 677,000 currently. That's the debt service on the land purchase that we bought. It would leave funds available
of $470,000 for other projects. Well, not not very much for any additional projects. And our debt to revenue ratio is 1.91%. If we decided to finance the fire station at 6 million over 10 years, our
debt service to go would go to 1,417,000. That includes a 677,000 for the U land dredge site. But we'd also have funds available of 5.7 million for other projects. The debt to revenue went to
3.1%. Uh next one down if we decided to finance the cops the fire station 70 and the cops and kids building 10.5 million 10 years the debt service would be 1.9 million annually but we'd have 5.7 million for money for other future
projects and debt to revenue ratio went up 4.75%. And then keep going further. If we did, if we refinance, this would be a 15-year term. So, we refinance the land debt, uh, finance fire station 70, the cops
and kids building, and throwing in Craig Park phase one, the 1.6 million, which would re bring that cash back into the penny fund. Our debt service be 1.5 million. Funds available for future projects, 7.9 million. and our re debt
to revenue ratio would be 3.36%. And lastly, the big uh bond issue for 30 million, basically same project as as the one above it, but adding in Bayou dredging for 5 million. Uh $22 million
financing 30 years debt service be 1.3 almost 1.4 million. But we'd still have money available for the future projects is 7.9 million and the depth to revenue would be 2.96%. So those are the options that we were showing playing with and showing
the different the board members. So just so I understand, excuse me, uh the funds available for projects column is money that's going back into that penny fund. Yes. Not be spent on these projects because they're being financed, right?
Okay. Yeah. It would have after it would those projects would already paid be paid for by the financing and it would relieve some money funds available for projects and it's mostly a good portion of that because station 70 is already cash
funded for 6 million. If we decide to find it, finance it, it's freeing up that money for future projects. some other projects. We were talking about Becket Bridge utility lines that the the county still hasn't that's seems like this has been going on forever. But
I don't know if you know Mr. Smarks, but the Becket Bridge the the county is going to replace that bridge. It's been going on for a while. We have utility lines underneath the bridge, the water and sewer lines. Before they can work on the bridge, we have to mute
the city water and utility lines. It's a county bridge. We have to move our water and sewer lines from underneath the bridge. It's a cost about 4 million, but the county is trying to get a grant to pay for their bridge, which would also
include moving those utility lines. So, we're hoping the county will get the grant. They've been turned down a couple times already, but this will be the third try. um stormwater action plan. They're trying to fund some projects for 10 years for 4.5 million and then the golf
course clubhouse at 4.1 million. That's mostly capital. I would I just threw this slide in about the pay study just to tell you about that. The total cost of the pay study is 1.1 million. The general fund portion 600,000. The the COLA the minimum is 3%.
And then some positions will have adjustments over the COLA. the overall increase comes to 5%. And I think that's all I got. Oh, just the meeting schedule there. Okay. Couple couple things about the meeting
schedule. When are we going to have the breakdown of which departments fall on which of these dates? Because if I if I don't get them till Wednesday, I'm out of town Wednesday. I'm not going to be ready for the meeting next Thursday. So, I need to know what departments are. When when are you going out of town? I'll be out of town on Wednesday. The
day before the meeting. So, if I don't know the departments till Wednesday, there's no way I'm going to prepare. Sherry's been reaching out to him today and I think she's got them almost all set up. Okay. As long as soon as we know, the better. I would think I want to put you on the spot with this Friday
maybe. I think so. Okay. Okay. Uh last meeting we talked about these dates for the three meetings coming up and I had indicated to the committee members at that time I was tenatively going to be out of town on the 29th. That's no longer happening. I'll be here on the
29th and for Mr. San Marcos's benefit what these meetings are about back here the city manager what met with the department over those three meetings the department heads will come in and present their budgets for us to review and make questions and concerns about. So that's what will happen over the next
three meetings. See if Mr. Smartus can be it. Hopefully we might be able to do it in the two. Last year we did it in the two. We got it done in two. So but in case we've got the third one we have the third one scheduled in case. Yes.
Keep our fingers crossed. Any other questions, comments? And don't worry, Mr. SM. you know, you won't be busy through all the way through September and stuff. It it's mostly these two or three weeks and then maybe after that there's maybe one meeting a month maybe to go over the budget and
update as the budget gets updated. We meet once a month to review that. I don't know if we if we would have a meeting in June or maybe sometimes we wait until after we we'll get the second next budget book together probably about the 1 of July. I'm not sure if your next meeting after those after the department meetings might be in July, but whatever
you prefer. We'll see where we're at. Yeah. Right. Thank any other thing on the upcoming budget stuff. Right. Thank you, Ron. Uh any public
comments? Okay. Board and staff comments. I'm going to lead off. As I had indicated before, I had attended I got invited to attend the April 22nd meeting of the board of commissioners. uh they had declared April volunteer
month. They had all the chairs of all the volunteer committees come in. They read the proclamation and presented this which I need to share with the rest of the committee members because it's not just mine. Any other board and staff comments? Any future agenda items
besides the item we tabled from today? Seeing none, we will adjourn at 257. Thank you all.