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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=mpvDIno6LvU

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I call to order the budget workshop workshop session for the City of Tarpon Springs. Thursday, June 25th, 2020 6:06

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p.m. Roll call please. Mayor. Here. Vice mayor. Here. Commissioner Eisner here. Commissioner Panther here. Commissioner Weaver here. City

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manager, you are going to do your introduction. Yes, I'm do the introduction. I know our finance director. I believe this is your first time at one of these. So she's got a lot of

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things I was going to say in her presentation. So I'll be short. This is something that was voted on by the people and charter to have a meeting where it's unusual from other meetings, because this is where

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the board is to hear input from the public. It's it's not the normal meetings where you hear from the commission, they respond, this is to give a chance before we get into the budget process, to hear from

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the citizens about what they're looking for in the budget. The process started 2 or 3 weeks ago with our connect Tarpon. I know we did it before I left and we did it last year, I

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believe, where citizens can send in their information about what they thinks the budget. So we'll be covering what's up to date. So far, I think we're

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covering as of 1030 this morning, the responses that have come in. This does not end tonight. That will stay open throughout the entire budget process. So the citizens will

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have a chance to make comments, suggestions and have their input heard and sent to us in the commission all the way through the budget process. So it began a few weeks ago. We're

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here tonight to hear from people in person, but you've got plenty of chances if you're not here, you're listening. You have plenty of chances to get your input into that process

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and do it later. So on that, I'll turn it over to you, Ashley, to just give a brief summary, and then we'll turn it over to the people, which is what this purpose of this meeting is. Sounds good. Okay,

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so I'm just going to do a quick overview of where we're where we're at so far. So we have had the departments have already entered their request. Finance

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has estimated the revenue and citywide expense. We've gone through our first round of cuts. The capital improvement program is in process. And we recently

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met with the Budget Advisory Committee for an overview as well. And we are currently wrapping up the proposed budget draft, which we will print on

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the 30th going forward with our timeline. So we've got our first budget workshop July 7th. Our second workshop is on August 4th. And then we have a

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placeholder for a third workshop if it's needed. On August 18th, we have our first public hearing on the tentative millage and budget that is September 9th. And then our

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second and final hearing to adopt the millage and budget would be September 23rd. This is just high level. We still are working our way through

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these numbers, but I wanted to give you guys an idea of the revenue that is citywide and the categories it hits. So as you see here, charges for services is about 49%. And

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again, this is citywide. So this is water, sewer, stormwater recreation, those types of charges. Citywide

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expenditures, the majority, I don't know, it's kind of even with personnel and operating personnel at almost 38%, operating at about 30%. I also

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wanted to give you guys a glimpse of our general fund. So again, draft numbers right now, but revenues about 38 million.

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And the majority is coming from property taxes at 41%. I did want to mention elephant in the room, the Pinellas, excuse me,

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the statewide property tax reform. This is some data from the county. And it shows what we can anticipate for revenue

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reductions. If the if the bill passes, it would start with fiscal year 28. So we would be looking at for Tarpon Springs,

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a revenue reduction of 3.3 million. And then going forward in 29 the the exemption raises from 150,000 to 250,000. So

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starting in 29, that reduction would go to 5.5 million and then incrementally increase from there. So big, big hit to

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the general fund. Our general fund expenditures at this point are about 39 million. And the

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majority of it is to cover personnel costs. This is the general fund expenditures by department. You can see down at the bottom that the majority of

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our funds cover police, followed by fire. And then those are those are our two biggest ones and kind of reduces from there. Most of our

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departments are about, I'd say, under $1 million a year. Our general fund expenditures by activity. So this is sort of combining that last graph. You

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can see public safety is the majority, followed by general government and then culture and recreation. So again, high

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level. Just wanted to give a quick overview. Let's go into the public survey. So this was the citizens voted that we want to have this hearing. Like Mark

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said, the the survey is going to stay open throughout the budget process. This is where you can find that information. Connect Tarpon springs.com to give you an idea of what the

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questions look like. There's four questions, but the first one, which three areas received the highest funding priority and 2027? So we can see here that the people that have done

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the survey so far have voted on a roads and infrastructure, followed by public safety and recreation. And then the second

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question is, which area do you believe is currently underfunded? And we see here roads and infrastructure is what we have people voted on so far. I think the next question

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is just giving comments, and I've attached the entire survey with the packet. When you walk in, there's a whole packet of PowerPoint and the survey. So with all the comments we have

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so far. And then the fourth question is just whether you live in Tarpon, you work here, what your affiliation is with tarpon. So that is all I have

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for now. And I will turn it over to the public. So whoever, whoever would like to come forward and, and talk about

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anything, any comments they have regarding our budget, any items they think are of importance to them or the residents, please come forward, state your name and your

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address, please. Marty Peters, 1702 Heritage Oaks Court, Tarpon Springs. And the main thing I want to talk about, I, I've given you a copy of the

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editorial that Jeff Brandes had published in the Tampa Bay times this past Sunday. And he points out that the. Referendum

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that's going to be there for the voters that may cut one third of your resources to do things in Tarpon Springs that

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it's not really about finances. It's about power. And basically Tallahassee and Jeff Brandy said it much better than I'm going to say it right now. But

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basically, Tallahassee is talking about taking local power away and shifting it up there because they think that they can do more for the people

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here in Tarpon Springs than you can. I don't believe that at all. You are right here. You're local. We have always talked about local government is the

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best government because that's where people can actually talk with people that can make changes that they want. Not too many people are driving up to

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Tallahassee to go and talk to those folks up there. I would suggest that we fight this completely by pointing out the

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impact that budget would have. So when you're doing the budget this year, pretend it's not 2028, that it's going to be affecting us. How would that

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affect us if it went into effect this year? What would you have to cut? What programs would no longer be here? What

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special extra taxes would you have to put on? Which of course, is more expensive than just doing the property tax? Because you'd have to hire people to collect things. In the past, we

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used to have fire departments that used to charge a fire fee. You'd collect the fire fee and then you'd go put out a fire. If one started, if it didn't

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pay, if those people didn't pay, then fire department get out there and they watch the fire burn the home down. We moved away from that. We don't need

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those kind of special fees. We have a system that works right now. It provides us the safety and the benefits that we want, the recreational things. We're

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going to have fireworks. Do you want to cut those out? Because we would have to pretty much. I mean, if you're talking about police versus fireworks, which

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one is going to go? We need to put that in a budget so that people can see it and we send it out with their water bills. This is what that impact would

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be. The the 2028 effect and the 2029 effect. This is what it would have, because that would even increase the amount of money that you would no longer have to do. The things that

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people here in Tarpon Springs want you to do. Who wants to go up and beg? Tallahassee to

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provide us some money so we can do some storm water? Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else like to come forward?

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Absolutely. Please come forward. State your name and address. My name is Tracy. My address is 904 Riverside. And your last name? Davis. Okay, and my

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address is 904 Riverside Drive. I just want to I've got two things. One is I'm about to open a business in downtown Tarpon, and I don't know if there's anything that like the

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historical buildings on my strip were all infested with termites. So I don't know if there's anything that we can do to bring together some of the owners of the building. So because I've had three

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different quotes, you can't just tent one place, you'd be wasting your money. So if there's something maybe we can do to bring some of the owners together, maybe somebody can

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cover somebody else's part if it's a financial thing. But I've eaten at my whole little strip and their wings are coming down on the tables. I mean, it's it's an infestation.

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The guy installing my security camera actually fell and hit my wall, and when we pulled the wood away, it is there just chewing away at it. Like it's like it's nothing. But I also

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want to talk about the tennis courts on Riverside Drive. I've lived there 20 years. We've played on those courts for 20 years. You we put the first

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court down. And I do appreciate the city recognizing those courts did not work at all. I actually don't know for sure who we asked or who we surveyed

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for that, but there were there were plastic and they've been pulled up and they're in pretty rough shape, but everybody still is playing on them. I guess if we can't get them

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repaired, the only thing that I would ask for is our benches back because we we don't have benches down there. There's no shade, you know, and I know we've put a lot of money into other court facilities and that,

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I mean, I that's great. But those courts down there, the courts by the by, you are, are awesome. But sometimes they can be hard to get on because it's beautiful down there. But even Riverside, it gets heavy, heavy

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play in the morning and the fences are covered in rust. Again, these aren't huge things, I know that, but you can't hang your tennis bag on there unless you want it covered in rust. Not not too too much of a big

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deal, but the bench is coming back into play would be awesome because you're literally sitting on 115 degree courts. You know, if you have to sit down. I mean, I notice everybody's in the morning,

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they're just bringing their own chairs. So and it's been more than a year. So at some point, hopefully that can get addressed. But I don't know if that's something the city does with the termites. I know that

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you guys no one's asking anybody to step up and pay for it, but maybe we can bring some of the owners together and we can see if, you know, like

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there's something that can be done for the whole historic. I mean, like I said, it's as far down as I've been. The wings are coming. They're chewing through the wood. I mean, it's

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pretty, pretty big infestation. Thank you. That's all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else like to get up and

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say anything about our upcoming budget? Okay, let's. That actually concludes the public comment portion. And now let's

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we'll we're going to go to our commissioner comments. And before we go to adjournment, chief, you got anything you want to say. No comments. Okay.

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City manager again, I want to reiterate, I know there's probably some people watching. Some people have other things to do tonight. Everything is still open. It's a access to the public. We'll be updating

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the commission if if there's a lot come in weekly or every other week. So every comment that you send in to the Connect Tarpon will go to the commission through the budget

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process. You saw the schedule up there. So we got a couple more hard months to go through the process until we get to late September and finish this. So there's always opportunity. There's always opportunity to

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send emails to us and stuff. But the best way to do it, so everybody, all the citizens together on their ideas is to use that. Even if you just use connect Tarpon to look at the other ideas that's been

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expressed from the city, and then maybe you'll see one that you thought about that's not on that list that you want to add to it and stuff, but it's for the people through the whole

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budget process. And we welcome any input that you can give us, because this is probably going to be the toughest one we've gone to. And next year's I don't even want to talk about.

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So that's it. Thank city clerk. I have no comments. Commissioner Weaver thank you. Mayor. You know, regardless of where you stand on the property

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tax issue, I think, you know, Marty, your point is well taken. Education is going to be paramount here. So hopefully the city will, you know, spend some effort educating the

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public. And we'll see we'll see how it turns out. Thank you. Commissioner Panther. Yes. And I too am for any education that we can provide, provide the

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public in light of this incoming bill, I do think it's kind of yelling in the wind. Unfortunately, I've talked to a lot of people and they're voting for it. And you know, it is. And I don't blame them. I

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don't you know, it is what it is. People, people will vote for things that affect them personally. And that the unfortunate part is I'm not much of a bleeding heart, but I guess I'll be tonight. Is that

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the people that will, I think, see a cut in services down the road are those that are, that are, that are more disadvantaged. Right? I mean, most people don't use the library a whole lot. Don't use Parks and Rec a whole lot maybe.

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But I think unfortunately, you know, some of those areas down the road might experience the most cuts. And because because we can't cut public safety and, and we can't cut, you know,

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roads and stuff like that. So I just really hope that, you know, because I see some chatter on Facebook about, oh, we're just mishandling money. We need to do better. And well, if that's the case, this is what these

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hearings are for. You can come here and tell us how we can do better. Right? So I almost think there should be a question on the survey of, of, of like, what should we cut? I'm not saying to do that, but

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I almost think there needs to be some input as we get closer down the road when we get maybe that's more for the next, the next budget cycle and not and not this one, because it's

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going to have to be collaborative as, as, as to how we're going to handle this. But I do think fighting it while, while, while, while, while we should, it's not going to do a whole lot of good. We just need

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to be prepared to answer to the public as far as how the cuts are going to go and, and, and what that's going to mean for people. But I mean, we survived the oh eight crash, you know,

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in large part thanks. Thanks to Mark back then. And I think we'll survive this one too. So I don't think it's a crisis. I was going to look at it as an opportunity to, to, to further

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to further slim down and just do the best we can. Thank you Commissioner. You're right after and the also for the public, the big meeting for you

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to watch is the July 7th, the first budget workshop with the commissioners, because that's when we're going to get into some real nuts and bolts and start talking about the effects,

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the taxes. And there may be we had planned on possibly after that one, because again, we're still getting a handle on everything. The numbers are moving. We should have a handle it by the seventh. That's when we'll present them to you. And

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after that, we may add those questions because again, there's there's going to be this year, two budgets. There's going to be the budget. You approve October 1st to start

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with. And if that thing passed in November, we immediately have to go into the budget process for budget part two, because we're going to tremendously have to cut from

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the budget. You approve in October to try to save us enough money to prepare for the disaster. It's going to be when we get to the end of the year. So so we may be going back in

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and, and I want to make sure I let you know. And somehow, Mark, there are things that we may budget for coming October in the next year, the after November, we're back to you and

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say, by the way, those things need to be put away. And again, the biggest thing when you look up there and I've told everybody and someone, someone who knows the governor. So if my challenge is out to the

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governor, my challenge is out to anybody on Facebook or anybody in this town. When the budget comes out the 30th and it goes to the library, take our budget and cut $3.4 million

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out of general fund, which you see is 73% salary. How do you do that without cutting people, which equates to cutting services? I challenge anybody, governor's audit team, any, any

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person take that budget and take 3.4 million out of it. You'll you'll help us if you can do it and not cut people in services town help us out, but they're not going to be able to

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do it so that that's just the challenge out there. But that will be coming after the seventh meeting. We may have some questions that public engagement, when we have the whole picture to you and the public, starts seeing those

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sort of things. And unfortunately, where we may win the public here and they may see it, we've got the whole state of Florida we have to contend with. And the 60% vote. So the citizens could come

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through here. And we're at the mercy of what the vote is for the state. So, Commissioner Eisner, thank you. Mayor, truthfully, this is something

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not so new. I will tell you that. The state has tried to change the Airbnbs. And, you know, my conversation when I first became a commissioner was,

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why can't we do this? Why can't we do that? And we were grandfathered in, and we're not changing any of the rules and regulations because we would lose that. I do also want you to know there's approximately,

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I think, 200 cities that are all belong to the Florida League of Cities, and they have been an advocate against, you know, trying to keep home rule

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in play. As you said earlier, Marty, that is a power struggle. But you should know that the Florida League of Cities is behind keeping home rule. And

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there is a lot of cities that are behind it. And yes, as commissioner has said, when you're having to make decisions on what you can purchase when

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you go into Publix or Winn Dixie, it's it's it's very easy for people to want to have a lower tax bracket so that they

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can eat and pay their bills and their insurance and all that other stuff. The problem that comes into play is that they don't always realize all of the

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cuts that have to come with it. As, as was said earlier, the library. And there's a lot of things that, as our city manager said, even though that

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we're going to go through this early budget, we have to be very conservative and prepared for what could be, and we're

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not going to be going into it saying, well, we're healthy, wealthy and wise. We're not. We the wise we have to be is to be super conservative. And it may

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not be that, you know, new shiny vehicle or that new shiny vac truck or that new shiny police vehicle. Yes. You don't want to hurt your police

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officers or your first responders, your fire department, but every part of what they do will be having to be looked at and to see if we can push this, you know, kick

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the can down the road. And again, we'll find out in November whether it's a, you know, whether it flies or not. I'm hoping it doesn't, but

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we'll deal with it. It won't be it won't be the worst thing in the world, but there will be some sharpening of pencils on, on everybody's plate. So it's a

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scary time that I'll say, but we will survive. Thank you. You know, Commissioner, I was very proud of you. She brought up

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bugs and you didn't. I knew you were itching to jump in on that. Give her some advice on those termites. But it's against the rules of regulations for a

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commissioner to advise on. Now. So this is a no no no no no no. Stop. Vice mayor, this is a private. I didn't want to know.

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You talked to her afterwards. I was going to say back to serious notes, this is going to be a you know, obviously of a it's going to be a tough budget, but I think it's a preparation

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for us and the upcoming years. And just, you know, I ask all departments, just be ready to answer questions regarding operating expenses, everything itemized within them, you know,

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because I'm going to try to look at it all and be very thorough, thorough with it. With this July 7th meeting, as I'm sure other board members are. And we, Mark and staff

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have already done a great job in trimming down the budget to trying to get it to a place. That's for us to look at, but we may have to be a little bit more firm. So and that's our

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job, you know? And so let's just all be prepared. And, and. It's going to be tough, but I'm sure we'll pull it together. There's, there are some things we're gonna have to sacrifice.

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But, you know, we got to understand the everyday people. We, we as board members and elected officials and people who, you know, work and do these budgets. We're a very

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small percentage of the everyday citizens who are out there. And so it's more than likely going to go through. We sort of had this idea it was going to possibly happen. And

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I'm sure we as a board are going to address it firmly starting at the July 7th meeting. Thank you. Okay. So I want to thank in advance the

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budget advisory group, because I know they've done a lot of work and they're going to do a lot more. Susan Hills is a long time member. She's in the audience tonight. Yeah, I, I

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think that what we're going to need to do is, is to let you know these numbers can be misleading because when people look at the budget, again, the

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these this hit will be straight out of general funds. Correct. So when you know, you're looking at $108 million budget and you say, oh, it's, you know,

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3 million or 5 million doesn't seem like a lot. But when you narrow it down, even if you look at your general fund expenditures, they were 39 million. But if you assume that

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we're going to maintain fire and and police intact, then you're only. And and then there's a couple other items in here that are that seem to be

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probably necessities, roads and streets. So once you take them out and you're looking at about $16 million, really. So now if you take a $5.5 million cut on

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16 million, you're talking about cutting over a third of all these employees. If, if, if, if staff is where the cuts have to come. Right? So that's why I

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think we when when we have the next meeting, let's kind of make sure that everybody gets that because you can get lost in all this and think it's not

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a big deal. And you just hear us, you know, saying it's a big deal. But I think when you zero it down to what exactly we're talking about, assuming again, we're not we're not going to

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we're not going to jeopardize the safety of the community by cutting our police department or cutting our fire department. There's not a lot left afterwards. So it is a big percentage of that when you're

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talking about, again, my math is right now 16 million and, you know, five and a half is, you know, a third of that money. So it's a big deal, right? Okay.

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So with that said, I'll, this is just the first of, of a long process we're going to go through and, and we're going to do our best to do the best thing we can for the residents

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of Tarpon Springs. Meeting is adjourned at 628.