I call to order the budget special session of the City of Tarpon Springs. Tuesday, July 7th, 2020. 6:06 p.m. Roll call,
please. Mayor. Here. Vice mayor. Here. Commissioner. Eisner here. Commissioner. Panther. Commissioner Weaver here. Okay, so tonight we're going to have.
We have two agendas. So our first one, city manager, will discuss the millage rate. And I'll turn it over to Ashley to
give the presentation. Okay. Good evening, Mayor and commissioners. Ashley Kimpton, finance director. This is very quick. This is just the Florida Statute 200.065 sets the
procedures for the adoption of the military. The DR420 document establishes the maximum millage rate for fiscal year 27. I'm recommending to authorize the city manager to
sign form DR420 at the maximum millage millage rate of 5.37, which is the same rate as the current rate. Okay, thank you very much. There won't be any
public comment on this item. Is if what is item? Yes. On this item there is public comment. Okay, I stand corrected. So is
there any public comment on the millage rate being that there's no public comment on the millage rate? I'd like to come back to the board for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. Is
there any discussion on this item being. No discussion. Roll call please. Commissioner Weaver. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Commissioner. Eisner. Yes. Vice
mayor. Yes. Yes. Mayor. Yes. Okay. I adjourn the budget special session, and I now I'll
do two tabs. That's more official. Okay. Now I call to order the budget work session of the City of Tarpon Springs.
Tuesday, July 7th, 6 p.m. Roll call, please. Mayor. Here. Vice mayor. Here. Commissioner. Eisner here. Commissioner Banther. Commissioner Weaver
here. Okay, so now we're going to go to the agenda items. Let me just read a little announcement here. The purpose for the meeting tonight is for the Board of Commissioners to
issue, to study issues, gather and analyze information, and to clarify questions. No votes are conducted during work sessions. No public comments will be allowed tonight on the budget.
However, we will allow. We will be allowing during the next two public hearings that are scheduled for Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 and
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026, both meetings being at 6 p.m. Miss Kimpton. Okay, so this is Budget Workshop number one on the fiscal year 27 proposed
budget. We have a couple slides on the overall budget. As it stands as of June 30th, 2026. This is still in draft form. We will continue to adjust our estimates over the next couple
of months. We do have the department heads here tonight to answer any questions along the way, and I do want to quickly say thank you to everybody for being so kind and welcoming throughout this
process and understanding. When my door was shut and I was super stressed out and you guys left me alone to get work done, I appreciate that a lot. So thanks. Appreciate it. Okay, let's go here. All right. So
the budget process to date the departments have entered their requests. Finance has estimated revenue and citywide expenditures. Our first round of cuts have been completed by the departments. Our CIP, our
capital improvement program, is in process. We did meet with Budget Advisory Committee for the fiscal year 27 budget overview, and we had our fiscal
year 27 budget public input hearing. That was a couple weeks ago. The revenue assumptions within the budget are. Projections are based on
historical actuals, current year to date, and other current economic factors. Our property taxes. We have a taxable value increase of 4% as of July 1st.
And our current numbers, we were still showing 3.74%. So there will be a little bit of an increase moving forward. It's only about 50,000. Millage rate is set at 5.37. No change
from prior year. Water and sewer. They had rate increases of 7.75. Sanitation is based on CPI at March 31st 26. Maximum
3% and stormwater issue 19.01% increase. This slide shows our revenue citywide from the fiscal year 26 adopted budget to what we currently have in
the proposed budget. Under property taxes, fiscal year 27 is the 16.6 million. Again, that's based off of 3.76%. And
that's based off of fiscal year 26 final taxable values, which came in a bit less than what was originally budgeted for 26.
And again, once we update these values to match the seven one county dollars, it'll it the increase will be about 4% in
other taxes. This includes fees from Duke Energy Communication Service tax, penny tax and gas tax. Overall, this line item is flat. This is mostly due to.
Penny tax has been trending down this year. About seven 8%. So budgeted conservatively in 27. Just kept that flat over
fiscal year 26 estimates. And I think the main reason for that is they remove sales tax on commercial property leases. And that started in October.
Licenses, permits and fees. The increase there is a result of the impact fee rate increases. Intergovernmental. These are grants state revenue sharing
library co-op. The increase in fiscal year 27 is mostly due to FEMA reimbursement and grants like sponge Dock, flood, flood abatement, and Lincoln Pond
grants. Charges for services. These are. Water sewer fees, stormwater fees, Marina parks and rec ticket sales. The increase is mainly due to the
water, sewer and stormwater rate increases this year under fines. This is mostly code enforcement and that is flat. Miscellaneous. This. This is
interest. Earnings contributions and donations. In fiscal year 26, we budgeted 3 million for PFAs settlement and we are only expecting 200,000
in fiscal year 27. Under that proceeds we budgeted 19.3 million in fiscal year 26 for the non ad valorem revenue. Note that closed earlier this year. I haven't done a deep
dive on future year financing. There is a sweeper and stormwater that was to be leased, so that's the only debt proceeds we're showing so far in fiscal year 27. That's that
438,000. I know there was additional debt anticipated as part of the water sewer rate study, but that will be a conversation, probably our next workshop when we go over those
funds. The transfers in the increase we're seeing there. So the transfers and that's mostly the utility funds paying into the general fund for general
admin services. The increase is due to the rate increases in those utility funds. And below. The pie chart shows the percentage of revenue by category. As you can see,
charges for services make up half of the city's revenue, followed by property taxes. Okay, moving on to citywide expenditures. So the
expenditure assumptions within the budget right now, we have no merit or Cola budgeted at this time. We have no new positions budgeted at this time. Fire and police pension
contribution is per the actuary. We have placeholder in for health and life insurance of 18% increase and property and liability insurance of 10%.
Tabitha, HR director and myself are scheduled to meet with FEMA and gearing Group later this week to discuss those increases.
Hopefully they'll go down. Okay. Citywide expenditures and our largest funds. As you can see, the total city. Last year's budget was 117 million. This 27
is 108 million. So $9.7 million decrease. This is mostly due to the CIP budget SIP projects budgeted in fiscal year 26 and not in 27. Below are the funds
that make up the majority of our budget. First being the general fund increase of 1.9 million. Majority of that is the 18% for health insurance,
10% for property liability insurance, 335% for vehicle repair and maintenance. The vehicle repair and maintenance, along with other items like
electricity and water. We increase the budget on those to bring it in line with actuals over the last few years. So that's why that that is
increasing under the CRA. It looks like we've got 3.4 and 26 and 3.4 and 27. In reality there's 2.5 million for Orange
Street in fiscal year 26. We're only planning a couple hundred thousand of that in 26. And so we've reallocated the rest of it to 27. Penny fund. The
change there is mostly due to the fire station. 70 construction. That was in fiscal year 26. Sanitation. We're seeing the contract increase of the 3% water, sewer
and storm water. That's based off of the capital that's in the proposed CIP and the golf course. The decrease is due to the clubhouse construction
being in fiscal year 26 and not 27. Okay. Citywide expenditures by category personnel. A lot of
this is going to be redundant information, so I apologize. Personnel increase is mostly due to the 18% health. The increase also for police and fire pension. And also we had
three FTEs from fire that were budgeted under the Safer grant in prior year for operating. The increase is mostly due to 10% property liability
insurance, which actually is about 330,000 citywide. The vehicle repair and maintenance is about 500,000. Citywide, the electrical costs 176,000.
Citywide it costs is about 500,000. Facilities maintenance is about 200,000. And the capital, again, that is based off of the proposed CIP, which
we can go over later. The debt service, just a small adjustment there. That's just bringing it in line with the
2026 amortization schedules. Transfers out. This is the flip side of the transfers in. So the utility funds paying into the general fund for general admin services. And again, the
increase is due to the charges for service rate increase under other. These were reserves budgeted as non operating expenses. These are still
entries that I'm working through. So they will be in for the next budget workshop. Pie chart below gives a visual of cost by category, with
personnel being the largest at 38%. Okay we're going to move on to the general fund unless you guys have any questions so far. Do you want to go through
questions? Commissioner Weaver, do you have any questions at this stage? No. No questions. Okay. Commissioner Panther, just real quick, are we going to cover reserves in in this
upcoming section or we're going to look at the general fund reserves at the end of this presentation. Thank you. Commissioner Eisner. No
questions, vice mayor. Yes, I noticed that, you know, we have a $9.8 million change, obviously, because of the capital improvement projects that we have budgeted for the
2026 year. But we haven't started any of them. It seems like we got a long ways to go. And so as these are budgeted,
we'll see a nice clean description coming up as you provided. But I'd like I'd like our city auditor to start. We said at the beginning of this loan, when we were going to
borrow this money, that the auditor was going to stay on top of it as as it came in. So I'd like that report to start coming forward as we we move
forward with everything. And so. That's where I'm at with it. So we'll follow up with the general fund as I'll have some statements for that. Thank you
ma'am. Okay. So. Let me ask you on on the health costs. You're using 18%. And is that like a
historical number? That was a guesstimate we received from the gearing group probably two months ago. Actually, no, their number was much higher than
that. The consensus was that we were going to go back out to bid. So I just sort of went with a middle number at 18%.
Are we going to go more into personnel or should we ask those questions now? Probably now would be a good time unless it's specific to the general
fund. So the the merit, the merit Cola, is that okay? That is a 3% cost of living and then
a 3% raise on. Is that what we're talking about? 6%? No. So in fiscal year 26, I believe you guys had did a 5% Cola and a 3% merit in fiscal year 27.
We don't have any of that budgeted. We were working on balancing the budget before we did any increases. Okay. So let me clarify where I am right now
to present you right now. I see no way of of keeping the merit for the next time. What I'm looking at, and again, I saw recently, it was a 5% last
night was the possibility of refunding what money to find from budget to refund that most is the 3% Cola for the work. And most of the other cities
and the city managers of all the cities talk every Friday and probably every Friday now through the budget process. Most of them are at least at least trying to give something this year, because there's a
good probability that there may be years after that where they won't be. So my, my goal right now is looking at suspending the merit program, which is the
second wave of raises you gave last year that could go up to 3% and trying to come up if we're able to a 3% Cola, that's the money we're looking to fund in here. And we'll have more
information the next time you know we meet. But that's my game plan right now, subject to change. But there's nothing budgeted right now for any
increases. Okay. So let me ask you, do we it says no, no new positions budgeted at this time is I guess we have what we call
a soft hiring freeze right now. Right? We've got a freeze in every position. There's a scrutiny to it if it's needed, not needed. If it's something
that may be cut next time it is. I'll give you an example. The arborist position came up, so the department had to give me a a summation of what it would cost us for outside. And we did
have some bids recently. We were looking at that since we lost our arbiter. We're using a company right now. We're using a person right now. We're contracted with. They had to look and get what the prices
would be, the hours. And in that case, it showed the higher out the arborist would cost us more than it would to fill the position. So I allowed that position to be funded. The
other positions, especially the general fund positions, are, are held unless again, you can show that justification, like in that one instance, that the
that the farming out is going to be more than the actual person here. So, so every position is value. And those ones who don't meet a criteria that are, are frozen as of now
and are not being hired, they may also still be in this budget for next year. But as I said, when it gets to the November date and there could be a change, then that's when
those positions would go from frozen to done away with. So you those those we anticipate now, or I anticipate presenting you positions still frozen in the next year's budget, that
the money will still be there. But the minute we go back into budget phase two after November, if that passes, then we'll be talking about taking that money
and probably putting into some type of internal reserve fund to help us get through the crisis we're going to be going through to meet the loss of the $3.4 million. But we'll go into
that. Probably more of that will be in our second budget here, and we'll go over the the game plan and what we're looking at for that. All right. So just so everyone understands and and other board members as
well, is that right now we have us what I call the soft freeze, meaning that it's we haven't issued a freeze of hiring, but the city manager will use his.
We trust him to use his discretion to fill positions only on an as needed basis. So do we have a. And I don't expect you to have it right now,
but maybe for future. If you do have it, that's wonderful. Do we have a list of all budgeted but not filled positions? I
don't have it handy. Okay, so if if we have that now, so the budget, the 2027 budget has all positions in it. Yes. Whether
filled or not. Correct. Okay. So it's possible we have some additional opportunity money in. Yeah. That would basically turn into vacancy savings that. Yeah.
So at the next at the next meeting would be nice to have that a list of that. And maybe you could, you could distribute it to all the commissioners beforehand, but I'd like to know how many positions we have
that are in this budget that are not currently filled. And then we can all get from the city manager which ones he anticipates not needing to fill, because that can give us some
additional funds. Okay, mayor, no worries. Yeah, I still got a few more. And then and then I'll go. We'll go another round. So also I'd like to. I'd like
to see again, I don't, I don't think it's in this, but I'd like, I'd like to see it a, a kind of a little chart of, of
the cash flow of our revenue. So and I mean by that is let's say, you know, okay, so let's say we had, you know, obviously like a chart where you got the
different colors of revenue sources. And, you know, we, I assume that like when, when people pay their taxes early, let's say before December on
their real estate taxes, how soon from the time they pay the county does it end up with us? Good question. It's pretty quick thereafter because we get
the bulk of our revenue. November, December. Yeah. Well, because there's a discount on your trim statement if you pay early. So okay. So it comes in
quick. Yeah. So I'd like to see that revenues. I'd like to see the revenue sources. I'll I'll sit down. I can come up and talk to you about it. Okay. What I'd like to see, but I'd like to see the revenue sources,
some form of a chart or something that shows how the revenue comes in. And the reason I'm asking that is in in anticipation of possible next year, these revenues come in
early in the season, like very soon after the budget's been passed. So if we do have an ad valorem drop because of that referendum passing, I'd like to
see the effects of that. I think you'll see it right away because there, there, there will be adjusted based on that new the there bill will be adjusted based on the new property tax reform. That's what I'm saying. So I'd like to.
So if if we have a I think for informational purposes for the board and for the community as well, to see how quick that impact is, because it's not going to be. Again, you talked
about a three point something effect the first year and five point something the second year that is not going to be like evenly spread through the year. That's going to hit quickly in
the budget process. Yeah. Okay. I just want to I think it'd be useful for everyone to see that. And they can see the, the impact of that, the effects of
that referendum, and you'll see how quick it hits our. And so it's mostly just property taxes that you're talking about. Not all of them, but, you know, and even because we also have a lot
of seasonal monies too, right? We, we collect again, sales tax comes in earlier in the year because it's during the season, it's going to drop at the end. Well, I'll start with you and go over the new sources. Yeah.
I'll go over that with you. But I just I think it'd be good to have the effects of that. Does Commissioner Weaver you want to go again. Thank you. Mayor, you
mentioned the FEMA reimbursement. Where does where is that? Because we're anticipating being reimbursed. Or is that just a a wishful. So it's for the hurricanes Milton
and Helene. We're still expecting reimbursement. It's just almost 1.1 million in the general fund. And then all the
other funds. Sherry. I don't know if you have that information available, but I think we're still expecting 5 million from FEMA. Most of it will be going to the sanitation
fund, but water gets some general fund gets. So, yeah. Did you receive any positive information about when that was coming? Because I know as of last it we really didn't know
when that might be reimbursed. Sherry, what's the most recent? Our first money. Oh, fresh off
the press. Okay. I didn't hear a word she said. Oh, they received the first wave. FEMA reimbursement. How much was the
repeat what you said for. Hang on one second. Sorry. Hello, commissioners. Sherry Boehm, assistant finance director. The
FEMA money we received the first wave of money this past week, but still projects are still being completed, still being worked on and submitted. So we anticipate receiving this
money well throughout 27. Okay. Thank you, thank you. Commissioner, do you have any follow up questions? Just that, if you could, when you when
when we asked these questions up here, actually, if you could put the answers in, in like in like the, the memo form, your memo about the debt was excellent. It was it was beautifully laid out. I'm
serious when I say that very easy to read. It was layman's terms. Thank you. So I think it would be helpful for, for, for these questions. I will obviously repeat them when we meet again. But to have these answers in that same format, I
think would, I think would, would, would, would, would be excellent. I put this thing in chat. GPT, it says it says we have 13 budgeted but vacant positions. I'm not sure if that's correct, but even if
that's close, that's that that that is that is like significant dollars. So so that's something for us to, for, for, for us, the, you know, for
us to, to consider as we move forward. Thank you. Commissioner Eisner. Thank you, mayor. And I want to thank Commissioner Panther for that
request for this breakdown, because it was, I believe, what Commissioner Kulas and myself have been asking for from day one is we needed to know where
the 93 was going. This gives you an excellent breakdown. And, you know, of course, if we have to move it around accordingly to, you know, because of what's
issuing, you know, before us, so be it. But this was this was a good breakdown. The what the mayor was speaking about earlier, about the monies for
the people that are not working, but we have allotted money. We've included that, though, into the budget as money, and
we're still short. Correct. Right now, our numbers are I mean, we're we're right at 20%. It's like 13,000 that we've got to make up. And there's still
so much movement going on that we're fine. But. Yes, there are positions in there that are
vacant. They're budgeted for. We just we need to keep drilling down into this budget and tweaking it. I mean, it's a long process. So now all I'm
all I'm asking is that that comes into our final figures as if the people are not collecting, but we utilizing
that money to balance the books. Well, it's a placeholder. Well the positions. They haven't been cut. Right. We're we're on
this kind of freeze. So I can't take them out without specific direction from leadership to take them out. So if that's the direction we want to go, then we'll we'll get those numbers
figured out and we will remove them from the budget. And then that will free up however many dollars. But we're going to have to look at it probably
case by case like Mark said. So yeah, I'm just sort of waiting on direction from Mark and from you guys on. Let me let me help with that a little bit. So the
money we're getting this year for these every week, these positions I haven't filled, that's going to be used because we've also got a problem with
this year's budget and the spending. So hopefully it'll go over. But right now those open positions are going to fund some things that would put us over spending this year. So
what we're trying to do with the freezing positions now is to try to get this year's budget to come, because obviously it comes in the negative, then that affects the reserves and that. So the goal
this year, the goal next year, those monies would stay in for those positions. October 1st, there would still be, you know, a frozen position, that much
money into the into the budget comes to November. That's where it change. And that budgeted money for that position of the year. And I'm just using a layman's term. It's going to be
put somewhere as a reserve and all that money is going to add up to help us get to when the crisis starts coming. And the the real 3.4 million cuts come
in. We're built up a fund to do that with. We had the advantage in 2008 and 2009 because we saw the real estate falling coming in. The city manager at that
time and myself, again, we put away a lot. We stopped projects almost for a year, year and six months, but we stopped projects and we built up a big pile of
money waiting. When it happened, we had that money and we made it through without cutting position or anything. Again, like I said before, the disadvantage we have now is we're still trying to balance
the budget for this year and looking at overages. If we don't do something drastically this year, which just puts us further behind next year. And then if it hits in November. So so that's kind of the the idea
in my layman's thing of what we're doing, we're taking every bit of that money in a freeze of position and trying to balance this budget so it doesn't come in as a negative to roll over and affect us.
Well, my question was pretty much relabeling that employment as flexibility money. Yes. Thank you. That's where I was going with it. I know you gave
me more than I asked for, but okay. The other thing was, where did we get the 18% increase for the health? Health? Yeah, because I went through
every one line item of every department, and it was probably close to being the most expensive item on every single agenda. So where did we get the
80%? So that was an estimate came out from gearing a guesstimate a couple months ago of 25% increase. After talking
with HR Director and City Manager, it was decided that we would go back out to bid because 25% is crazy, but I needed to put something in the
budget. So I went with 18% to still be conservative. And I mean, I think I don't know if I'm allowed to say this or not,
but it's looking like 15% or 19%. So we're really not far off. Well, I don't know if you knew, though, that I think if my memory serves me correctly,
we estimated at 10% last year and it came in at around eight, I may be off by a percent here or there, but that's what I think it was. I'm hopeful that
it will come in lower, but I'd rather have good news and bad news. So I went. Hi. Well, we've had nothing but bad news, so I'm good with the good news.
But yeah, that is a the biggest jump. It's a hit on every single line item that I looked. So okay. I mean, I really have
nothing else to ask. I mean, again, that's the dynamics with the other cities are looking at. I don't know what the cause I haven't had a chance to dig into what is the cause for these estimates of the
increases. But it seems to be not just us. It seems to be universally they've got news again. You know, there are some issues when you go to bid, you know, you might get a lower bid,
but it's an inferior product for the people. But this was a situation where in no choice to go to bid. When we're looking at 25, when we're estimated at 25%, you know, we need to try to get the advantage of the bid
market, not only for the person that we have now for health insurance, but you're going to need to be competitive or you're going to lose our business. So hopefully it's going to get it below what she said, the 18%. But again,
that's one of those things we don't know till late because we can't put out the bids till later. So we always that comes in right at the end of the budget process. So you can't plan for what that number is
going to be. But that's why we are going to go out to bid this. And again, the commission way back that hired the gearing group. And, you know, I was so-so on the hiring of a firm to do that. But that firm has
saved us far more money than we paid them over the years. They have just saved us in every way, and that was a great decision. If anybody can get it down and and get it into that group has
proven in the past to save us a lot of money with these companies and bids and with the present people that we have insurance with to say, hey, don't come in that price next year is not going to work. So
so we hired whatever year that was a good company working for us. So they're going to be working to try to hopefully bring those bids in at a lower rate than that. So we again, we
got some some more money to try to balance things with. Are they bidding out just for us or for the whole Florida League of Cities? No. For us, this, this this is the group that we hired,
the gearing group, the League of Cities has got to know they're dealing with them and they're going to they're going to advise us to go elsewhere. If they don't come in with some
good prices for us. Okay. Vice mayor? Yes. I was looking at I'd like to see as we see the different departments and the salaries for individuals, we
see there are past employees still on there. Can we please have them updated so we can see who's in what positions and you know, who new executives as well. And during that pay study
last year, I, you know, I'm going to be real honest, I was I didn't like it. I thought it was very lopsided. I had to
give in to a compromise just to get the lower level employees up to 5%. I believe, you know, some executives, if not upper
positions, the double digit increases were, you know, there were too much. And that's why I pushed for a tier a tier
process. But at this time, I don't want to give an increase for the second tier this year for those upper positions. As you know, I had to give in to
that just so I could get these lower level people. I thought that pay study was very flawed staff. You saw how hard I was on that prior city manager giving himself a 17% raise. I
did not like it. It was never deserved. There are some staff members who were left out who weren't considered during this, you know, raise. So I'd like
Mark and staff to be able to look at some of those people who didn't get a fair opportunity when that when that raise came along. But I'm not supporting that second tier jump this year. We got to start
somewhere and coming a little bit tough this year. Not on you guys. You guys are trying to do your best, but as a reflection of us as well, the direction we put the city in at the time
being in which we can all move forward. But I want to take care of personnel expenses, but I am going to be tough on operating expenditures. And if we all band together, we can
really make this work for this year and moving forward as we set the tone and. Yeah, so I brought those two up as well. That's it for that part. But
I'm going to follow up with commissioner salaries as well, because that's going to be in the general fund with some other topics. Thank you. And again I will be looking at that.
I haven't got through it and I don't want to I don't want to come in and criticize the pay study and criticize what was done. But but I've already seen
some things that I didn't like. So I am looking at that. The second tier I know, for instance, in my contract with y'all, I'm supposed to get that
second half in October, but I can't accept that. And, and I'm also already looking at just holding that back until we look more. So that was already in my list of holding back that
second tier. That's not to say. In fact, there's one of that second tier that I don't think was done right in the whole pay plan. So, and I'm sure there's a lot more of those. I just
haven't got to that pay study yet because of the other things. And that's going to be an in depth looking into. But I already know in my mind there's some issues with it that that. But I'll need to look at that.
And it is right now on hold in my mind that second tier increases. They're on hold. But again, I haven't had time to really go in depth into that study and stuff. But there are,
on the face of things, some issues I see with it, but hopefully I'll have more information next month on that as I'm able to get into it and look at it. I mean, it was
great for a lot of people, but again, there's we still the problem is, and I emphasized before I left this sword of Damocles, of the property tax has been holding on our head.
It didn't it didn't go away. Absolutely. And I know I would have liked to have done more for the employees and got them more money and stuff, but I held off and I had to take the
brunt of, you know, I had to hold off because I didn't know if this thing was coming through, what it was going to do. And there's no sense doing a bunch of stuff if it's going to go away or and unfortunately,
I'm the bad guy who's back, who may have to stop or do some of that stuff, but that's just the way it is. But I don't think you would ever ask for 70% raise, you know, so that's just something we have to look at.
And that's going to be a whole part of looking at things, what we do and, and how we correct it. And if there are problems and there do, but that's a, that's a long, long look. So thank you. It's going to be at
least a month or so before I have a better feel of that. And what's going on with it. Yeah. Just well updating those rosters and that'd be perfect. Thank you. The but just for clarification, there was a city
manager, which you say you're not taking your second half of that raise. Right. Well, if it my idea to bring back to you freezing it, obviously I'd be one of the I'm freezing myself.
Right. And then one was the city planner who's no longer here. And the assistant city manager is no longer the assistant city manager. There's a few of them. So I think those were all pretty much all those
were some of them were three of them that were that actually were it was double digits that were split. So they're really a moot point right now because none of them are here. Well, there's still you still other
people on the list. Yeah. But not the not the double digit ones. So yeah, there are who else who else we'll get let's let's get I may be wrong, but I
thought there was there were I was counting three, three. There's three big ones off the right. Right. The big ones. Yeah. Yeah. So avoided that
page. Yeah. All right. You're going to go on to your next item. Yep. Okay. So general fund. On here. So millage is
maintained at 5.37. Again property tax property taxable value increase. I'm saying 4% but it's really 3.76 in this
presentation. And that's over fiscal year 26. Final values. Here's a chart of other full service cities and their
millage rates. This was from the fiscal year 26 adopted budget. And we're the the
lowest at 5.37. Saint Pete's at 6.45. Okay. General fund revenue fiscal year 27. We're
looking at 16 million. And again, based off 3.76 fiscal year 26 final tax values, which is a bit less than what was originally budgeted. Fiscal
year 27 amount will be increasing about by about 50,000, as our new estimate came in at 4% on July 1st. Under other taxes, slight
increase there for Duke energy fees based on historical actuals, licenses, fees, permits that's mostly flat.
Intergovernmental. This increase in 27 is due to the FEMA reimbursement charges for services. This is the fire and EMS reimbursement from the
county, as well as parks and rec sales and ticket sales. The increase, though, is mainly due to the fire and EMS budget under fines. That's the code
enforcement and that is flat under miscellaneous. The decrease is due to interest, earnings and other miscellaneous items. Transfers in. Again utility funds paying
into the General Fund for General Admin services and the increase is due to the charges for services rate increase. The bottom chart shows the majority of the general fund revenue is
derived from property taxes of 41.2%. We've got. We've covered most of this, so no merit or
Cola increases in the budget at this time. No new positions at this time. We have not included any changes in anticipation of the fire police union
negotiations, but we did increase the pension expense based off of actuarial estimates. And again, 18%
health insurance placeholder. Other additions to the general fund property liability. We've got a placeholder in a 10% increase. Again, we're going to
meet with them on Friday. Electric cost budgeted at 11% increase to accurately reflect previous costs. Vehicle maintenance budget at 35%
increase. Again to accurately reflect previous costs. And then for capital, we've got request increasing by approximately 475,000. This
includes major projects and such as the library a C for 175,000, and splash park
repairs for 140,000. General fund expenditures by category personnel 18%. Health. Fire. Police pension. We've got the
three FTEs from fire that were budgeted under the Safer grant prior year operating. We just went over on the previous slide. Same with capital, the library,
A C and the splash park transfers out. That's the flip of the transfers in utility funds paying into the General fund for general admin services.
The other category reserves were budgeted as non-operating expense in fiscal year 26. And those are entries I'm still working through and will be updated for the next presentation. Pie chart below
shows the majority of the general fund budget is spent on personnel 73.1%. Okay, now we go into the general fund department expenditures. I've
kind of just started some of the bigger ones. We can do it that way. Or if you guys have specific questions you can ask those. So it's kind of up to you if you want me to go
through them or. Yeah, okay. All right. So just some of the highlights here. This is an order by cost center code. So
the city manager that budget increased almost 200,000. And that is for the assistant city manager position. Under economic development reduction
of 175,000. A lot of that has to do with we moved 0.5 FTE. So half FTE from the general fund to the CRA fund. A couple down
I t that went up for on base maintenance and Microsoft services, jumping down to police, an increase of 400,000. That's got to do with the
health insurance, vehicle maintenance, the pension. And looks like we have Taser and Motorola cloud subscription increases under fire rescue
increase of 470,000. That's health insurance. The 3FT is being fully funded by the Safer grant last year and now some general fund towards the bottom
facilities maintenance increase of 333,000. That's Hvac contract, black water camera services, decorative globes and
poles. Parks and parkways. Increase of 188,000 due to chemical and mowing contracts, tables and equipment replacement and vehicle
maintenance. Towards the middle we've got aquatics. So this we pulled aquatics out of Parks and rec into their own cost
center, just so we can better see how much they're spending. It's 164,000, but 140 of that is the CIP project for repairs
and maintenance. And then down at the bottom non-departmental, that decrease that's going back to the reserves that are
budgeted in non operating that I still need to work through. So before we go on to the long
range plan and reserves, do you guys have any questions for the departments on these last two slides. Commissioner Weaver do
you have any questions yet. Just one. Thank you. The the library budget has increased significantly. Can you explain
the increase? Let's see here. So that is includes the $175,000 a C unit. So that would make up the majority of
that increase. Okay. Commissioner Panther. Yes. Mark. I don't I don't, I don't, I know I don't want to put you on the spot, but would that increase we're seeing with the
ACM position? I want to know and we can talk more about it as a board. Is that something that we have to have right now? All these things are are included in looking at when we
need them and when we have to have them. So they're all going to be there may be a different answer for you in August on the second budget hearing and stuff. So but they're all under
evaluation. As as long as you're here, I just don't, you know, at least in the short term, see the need for that for that position. So what what were you talking about. Assistant city manager. Oh
that's not. No. What was it's just the increase up there. She pointed. Oh, okay. I thought you thought you were on me. No, that's just what spurred me. Was she put it was for city
manager and for the budget she's budgeting for. You can be assured if you have me there, that money is going to go towards the reserve to get us through the thing. That's not going to go to the. That's not
going to go to the position of the budgeted, but not but not filled positions. Correct. Okay. No plans while you have me here to fill. That's not that I can do it all myself, but I guess you can. You're fine. Well, I
got the team. I utilize the team to help me more to make up and compensate for that, that position. That's what's going to help us make this thing work,
is having all those unfilled positions. Commissioner Eisner thank you. Mayor. So I know you touched base on the aquatics,
and that brings it's not so much a question. It's going to be more of a statement. We have to, as a board rediscuss that vote that we had about, you
know, making sure that we're not losing a ton of money at any one particular place. And we may have to go back to charging something there to not
have $140,000. Come November, we'll have a new set, a new deck of cards to play with. So I'm just making the statement because I hear your statement
as as I went through this list, I have a list of all the things that we need to sharpen a pencil on, and the list is exorbitant that I'll tell you.
What department was it, sir? That was page 107 in your book. It's aquatics. We're paying
$140,000 for Splash Park. Splash Park repairs, a 9500 painting and spot repair 6000, which is 1505 utility supplies
to keep it sterile at 7500 Rec needs and staffing supplies is 1000 grant dependent for mechanical repairs. So the
whole thing is under 4000 plus. What I found out afterwards was we were presented that there's a member, their rec center, someone there is nobody there.
So You wanted that mic. You went to the splash park and splashed around or something, right? Just to remind you, I was the no vote. Just to remind
you. You know, all I'm saying is it's nice to have free things, but we can't when you're scrunching on a budget.
We have to look at all avenues of what's not bringing us money, and try to at least make sure that people aren't paying a lot.
So here's a question I have for you. This does you have not made an estimate of how much more the county commissioners are going to charge us. Correct.
Because their price is going to go up. I know they have no jurisdiction on what they will be charging us. What how much
money they will get from us. For what County commissioners? I'm. Yeah, I'm not sure. No, I haven't factored that in. Well,
there is a part of our taxes that go to county commissioners for Pinellas County just like things. You have it up there
that I didn't see for a city commission, not city. Yeah. Because I had heard some rumors through the grapevine that if they don't get enough, they'll just be picking up their
millage rate that they charge the cities. I'll have to look, it was just an added, joyous, you know, event that I had heard. So I just heard that one.
But I did hear that one. I've told some of you. It's definitely could affect the. The second hit on the library, the first hit. Obviously the library is a big hit with the
property tax, but it also might affect the library corp. So things like that that the county controls and gives us money, like the library co-op, we rely on a good portion of
that. So it could be a double whammy for the library hit with the property and then hit with the co-op funding. So things like that from the county to help that that could have
effect. That's what I've heard could have effect on our future rating. So you're probably hearing some things that may be in the works. I just, I just wanted to make this public so
that people hear it and our board is aware of it because I didn't say it happened yet, but there was rumbling about it. So.
I, I, I, the only other thing I would say is I, you know, I'm just glad that we have that 19.3 million to, to play with. I'm just going to tell you that
because it is it is that well, you know, if we didn't have it and you put this into the numbers, you would see just how much more trouble we're in. So
that's all I want to say. I'll I'll keep quiet. Vice mayor. Yeah. And with that said, I'm going to start off with us city commissioners. I'm the one who
pushed for us to get a raise at some point, but not for us, but to slowly push some stuff and, you know, get future boards or whatever. And when I brought it up as an agenda item, it, you know, nobody supported it for,
you know, whatever reasons. But that same year, last year in the budget, the increase happened. Okay. And so it didn't need to be an agenda item. It was slipped in. I personally think we need to go
back. We as a board need to be representative and at least take a hit, at least go back to what we previously were, if not even more, because of the situation that we're in. And I think we need to show
leadership and and do that first. So are there any objections to us going back to what our salaries were prior to last year? Because some of us are getting health insurance
benefits. They range in an average of about $13,600. It's a pretty good benefit for us into as well. And if we don't set an example that we're going to pay ourselves less well,
how's that going to look for you guys? So I'd like to get the support back on that board. It was nice for a year. It helped me. I can't say it doesn't, but I think we need to go back and I'd like to get the
support from two other members of the board. I'm good with that. I'm good with that. The only thing that, you know, the reason we brought this up was because not just even for us,
that's why we didn't vote on it. We had the budget committee do that. But the discussion was for people wanting to come in after us. Yes, and that's what
it was about. It wasn't about us. Truthfully, when you're reducing us to go back from the 11, 5 to 8, it's it means a tic
tac toe, a whale. Is it symbolic? It's symbolic, but it's meaningless when you're down 3 million. I'll go along with it. I just don't think it's anything. Truthfully, it's
$15,000, and I'm going to ask for $15,000 from a lot of departments today, at least. So somewhere I just I'll go along with it. I think it's a
minuscule, like I said, a tic tac toe. Well, when you're dealing with this kind of budget, you know, I don't know. I just think this was a
presentation, not so much for us. That's why we didn't vote on it. We had somebody else, the budget committee were the ones that made the decision. And when you want people to run for office, you you know, at
this point, the 8000 was something that sat around for, I don't know how many years without an increase. So, you know, when you go to Saint Pete,
they're getting 80, $90,000. At 11,500 is, is not the end of the world. If you want to make this a symbolic thing, $3,500 is not going to change my life.
And but again, I, like I said, I don't think it's a big deal. I think it'll set a good example, at least for us too. So I'd like to get the support.
It looks like that's there. I'm going to go to page seven. Just want to verify like we talked about item 50-29. We're going
to get about 1 million back from Hurricane Helene. It looks like our sales taxes. We're having at about a 38,000
increase. That's 12-01. So we're going to bring in proposed a little over $1 million, our half a cent sales tax. That is the city's half a
cent sales tax. Can someone answer that? And that is so it comes down from the state. Okay.
That's 18.01 on page seven. Let's make it $0.01. Which page
seven. This page seven physical book. 18.01 that half cent sales tax. That's our city sales tax. Do we have an
ability to increase it. We can't okay. We can't create our
own sales tax. Okay. Fire protection service, emergency
service fees. That's 40-00. It's a $500,000 change. What exactly is that? And that's
page eight. So that is probably emergency. So that that's the reimbursement from Pinellas County for EMS services.
Perfect. We're going the top of that page 90-01 Library cooperative. What exactly is that? Well, it's money that we
get for the library, but I can't I don't have a whole huge explanation for it. Okay. Yeah, that's what I was, is obviously
so because the ability of all county residents to go to all libraries, we get money back from the county account for their people that comes visit our library. That's the thing I say may be in jeopardy of, of
losing if this or greatly reducing. Hopefully not. But again, we get money to account for our services to county residents using our library. That's called a library co-op.
So okay, hopefully it wouldn't touch that. But you know, there has been rumblings so well. All right. We know there's going to be some good ticket sales this
year. An increase and checking fees. Okay. We're on the page. Page nine. The Safford House, the Heritage Museum those look
like extremely low budgets. Are those fairly accurate? It's
90-23, 90-52. Those are probably just little revenue items. Don't have the detail in
front of me. They're just so small. It's like, you know, I don't know exactly what it is. Yeah. I mean, we could roll that kind of stuff into a
miscellaneous line item, but it's there. So and then I'm looking at page ten, our water sewer fund. That's basically
money we get from the water sewer fund back into the
general fund. I just want to.
Okay. All right. 13. Okay. And
the Inter-department allocations. I see that a lot. Please explain that to me a little bit. So we charge
different departments. The fire would be one of them. So we charge fire for services like finance, doing their payroll, paying their bills. So in a
nutshell, that's that's what you're seeing there. Okay.
I see the youth program on page 35. It looks like we don't have any money budgeted for it. It's ten grand. We usually have ten
grand to the side. That way, some of those sports team. Youth sports is that am I looking at it? We don't have no funds prepared for this year. I
think that was just an oversight. And we have it in our notes to adjust going forward. There's a couple of them, random departments that need to be looked at. So as long as we can get a few
equipment items for those leagues as needed, you know, and that that would be, I haven't noted in the slide that it's to be reviewed. And I got the page 52. It's going to be
the homeless outreach. Just the number looks extremely small for the police department. 250
yeah, it's $250 for the homeless outreach from the police department. I don't I don't believe that's an accurate number. Right. Pager.
Well, we don't have a dedicated officer for homeless outreach like we did in years past. It probably is a little bit low, but we're it's up to every officer, every shift to
advocate for homeless outreach services. I see, okay, it's not the that fund is really for an an officer to primarily be that point of contact. But now it's more of a cross training with
other officers to help deal with the the outreach. Correct.
Okay. Thank you. I know we talked about this, the flock cameras, we're starting to get a lot of attention on these
things. I know it's safe to you know, it's it's good to help solve things, but is there a need to maybe we can reduce some and save some money right
now? And do we need to have that many. Sir. Yeah. So a lot of that is the subscription to maintain the cameras. So we
have talked to you a little bit earlier with. We have them at the ingress and egress of the city. They use primarily for, you know, solving crimes, missing persons, you know,
things of that nature. They've definitely benefited us since we've had them. We didn't do any increase on them last year or this year. This is just simply maintaining what we've
got. Okay. And there are a few more in our city that aren't necessarily Tarpon Springs. They're the sheriff's sheriff's part to some that we do have
access to for solving those crimes. Okay. Thank you major.
Yes, sir. I'm going into the the fire rescue right now, page
62. We got this chest X-rays for 500 $0. What is exactly does that include Chief
Meissner come up. He's he's he's relaxed in the audience.
Hey, chief Meissner, fire department. The. If you're looking under. I assume you're looking under the. Professional
physicals. Yeah. Yes. So the include. That's for. It's not. It includes the chest X-rays. But what that is is the actual NFPA physicals that the
firefighters get every year per contract. Okay. Through life scan. So that's the life scan plus the chest X-rays plus the blood work that they get yearly. Plus it's for also our new
employees. When we hire them, they have to get their new hire physicals. We don't go through the regular city physicals we have. They go through the life scan process. So it's a more
in-depth physical. Okay, that qualifies for the NF, the NFPA standards. Yes, sir. The the Tampa Bay psychology therapy services, are we utilizing all that money each year because
it's 3000? Are we getting. Yeah. So that's between us and the police department. We have contracts with temp psychology and that's for the members to
utilize for their mental health related issues to the calls and things like that. So that's a standard fee. I think ours is based on the number of people.
And same with PDS. PDS is a little larger because they have more staff. And then. The
elevator weather station generator, the I guess the maintenance for that's going to be 26,000. You guys think this year. Yeah, I the elevator and the stuff on the buildings
always, you know, across the elevators actually has upgrades that are required for the elevator. So that's a increase plus their normal maintenance.
So it was not up to code. They would not pass. So it's getting their upgrades now. Repairs and maintenance, the AC maintenance repairs fire station 7071.
Those are that's not the the main station, right. Correct. Okay. Because we use that Arpa
money for that big one. Our fleet maintenance, we've got close to $330,000. Is that for all the different. That's just
for our main fire trucks we have and our yearly maintenance or just plus, what the is that what drives most of the costs for that? Sure. Yeah. It's fired. It's all the fire trucks.
And then of course your staff vehicles. Okay. Oh, it was another one too with the, the police department I see, and
I'm going to go into the fire department. I see there's 2400 $0 for janitorial services for for the police department. Is there any way we can shed some
of that? I mean, it's a lot of money a year. Yeah. So that's under a new contract. And that was the lowest bidder that we that came in. Okay. And that's a split between us and FD.
That's for the entire public safety complex. Okay. I believe Raquel, did that go out last year, right. The new contract? Yeah. They went out to bid last year and that was the lowest.
Okay. And that's a three year contract. And chief, are you gonna laugh at this one? But man, those three stations take up $9,500 worth of toilet paper.
And I mean, that's what it says. I don't that also includes the public safety building. So that's a combined effort on that. It's not just, you know,
that that's PD side and us them as well. So we pay for everything on that. You know, the busses stop there and use that to you know, it sounds
like it's fingers. All right. On page 80 we're back to using leaves or something. Washcloth
on a stick. This is page 80. The city sponge dock boat repair. Or do we spend $10,000 a year every year to maintenance it? Or is this just,
you know, this is under facilities maintenance. Which one are you talking about? Sponge dock, boat repair. It's
10,000. I don't know if we haul it out every single year, but, you know, it's a really old wood boat. So they do require quite a lot of maintenance. In
fact, I think that $10,000 is probably low. We probably should have put more in there. But, you know, we may have to scale back what we're doing with that boat. Sure. But yeah,
to answer your question, I don't know if it's an annual thing, but it's no more than every 2 or 3 years. We have to pull it out and do it as long as we can try to keep it at
that pace. That'd be great. Thank you sir. Decorative globes and pole maintenance repairs. That's right below the city. Sponge boat repair.
That's for $44,000. What is that? Consist of the decorative globes. Well, what? I believe that's just all the various decorative light poles we have
throughout town. They're they're always, you know, being damaged. You know, we're we do a lot of maintenance on those. The lights go out frequently.
That's kind of what I think that item is, but I can I know how many of those we have in town now I do not we'll get that. But there's there's a lot
of them. Yeah. Well and now we brought up poles and stuff like that. It all clicked. And Mr. Cod has been talking with some residents and you know, those
utility poles where the the power's gotten switched over, but yet the utility poles are. And it's this war between who has the right or responsibility for removing them. They're
starting to make our town look a little bit, you know, clunky, you know, in in certain areas. How can we tackle this situation is, you know, is it a budget situation or do we have to be firm about it? Because
I'd like to see something like that get cleaned up in some of these areas relatively, you know, this year, you know, sooner. So that's a project
that I have started working on. We got a, you know, a citizen that was had expressed some concerns about it. And
essentially, there's a series of parties that have to review each pole that's abandoned or going to be abandoned. And each one of those parties has, I
think, 90 days to, you know, take off their stuff or say that they, they don't need to remove it. You know, that being, you know, cable utilities, that sounds terrible. It doesn't.
Yeah. It sounds like something simple, but it's never been. I guess it hasn't changed since I've been gone. I guess it's still that. So the the party that coordinates all that is Duke energy. And so I've been
working with their representative for the city's account. And I did send them a list of poles for one street already. We've made some
additional lists of poles, and I did notice that they've taken a couple out on Spring Boulevard. So there has been a little bit of movement there. But it's a you're correct that
it's a widespread problem here. And I think, you know, public Works is going to apply a little pressure and see if we can get some motion on that. But if if we can't, then we
really don't have a, a lever to move them with. You know, it might have to go up above the above us and get some action at the commission level. Okay. And
on page 81, sir, we're going operating supplies. This is like traffic supplies, crosswalks, the signage sign,
printing track, traffic beacons, water markers, all that. We're about $200,000. You. And this is going to go relatively to a lot of departments. Is there a
way to reduce that ten, 5 to 10% from operating expenditures? I'm just trying to give a general idea with with staff that that's my expectations and some of the operating
expenditures. I know it's tough, but we got to gear up for the following year too as well. Well, I can tell you, Chris Carter is one of my stars on budget cutting. When you see
this budget here. He has done some tremendous things with with cutting. Okay. In fact, he's going to be exempted of some of the other departments on some things he's doing. So
he looks at everything and has already come back. And probably with the most cuts in this budget. You see from what the original one, if we gave it to you 3 or 4 weeks ago, he has
probably found ways. And I'm sure in the time we have between now, if there's if there's other ways, he'll find one, because that's okay. He is very good at that. So. Well,
thank you, sir, for doing that.
And it's my God. Two. My
grandmother. Okay. I have no more questions for the general fund. Thank you all. Okay.
Let's go on to capital projects. Can I mayor, can I make a couple of comments? Sure. Thank you. First of all, I did want to answer your question on the
polls. Once Duke puts the new electric on it, they need to get all the cable companies to transfer it on before they could remove it. And a lot of
the those companies are not responding to it. So when they are there, sometimes they will just disconnect it and pull the pole, but they can't pull the pole until all the wires are
disconnected from it. In front of my house I had three poles for a while, and luckily I did have them take out two. But I did ask that question because it is pretty bad. But that was
the issue. They they do. You know, frontier has to do with spectrum has to do it. All of these. And they're very lax in coming out. I had a question
for Chris, which you just took off too quickly there. Your salary was missing a few digits, I think. So I know you may have
taken yourself a a cut in pay, but was there an issue with that? Because, you know, I didn't add all the numbers up, but I think I'm spread out over several departments. Is that what it is? You remember we had
that before with we have several. I don't know if it's still like that, but they're spread over their budgets, spread over several different departments. I forget who the other other department, you
always used to say what how you cut her so much or him. And it was, I forget who it was. I have a few people. Sherry's not in finance. Frank's in the. I just saw one page that was
$26,000, and I said, what a bargain you are. That's all. But I didn't also didn't know that we were going to go line, line by line. So what happened
with Duke Energy? Because there were $156,000 over what what they were last year. Is that just all an increase? That's on
page seven. Oh, I'm not done yet. I'm sure that was one peak missed. So I was going to fill in for you. Remember? I mean, you guys can do what you want
tonight. But tonight was the initial introduction of the budget. I thought this was supposed to be a, you know, a macro overview of the budget. Again, we're going to have
plenty of time to get into details. I'll just ask that one. Let me we got we got something started here. But I, I mean, we again, we're going to have a lot of opportunity to go dive
deep. And that doesn't preclude anyone, any commissioner from talking to through Mark and staff and getting some of these answers in advance. But go ahead. Go ahead. The line item
you're looking at is the revenue. It is in the general fund. Yes. So that's the the fees that we get from Duke Energy. So it's a revenue and
sort of just based off of prior year and how fiscal year 26 is, we're getting 156 more than we did last year. That's what I budgeted. Yeah. Okay. I guess that's what happened with the
Duke Energy plant out there. But well, you know, for water pricing, I'd have to look more into that. Okay. I'll stop. I wanted to bring up page 92, the
dog park. We got 20 grand going to fix that. I mean, it's granite shell ground covering crimson clay sand. I mean, is that an every year thing? I
mean, the dog's going to notice a difference between the ground. I think in the past that's over. It's split over budgets. I again, I don't know what was
done last year, if anything was done last year. Yeah. I don't I don't think that 20,000 is all for the dog park. I think the
5000 is some rock for the dog park. And then the other the other materials are just for whatever project in parks happens to need need it. Thank
you sir. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to go into capital projects? Okay. Do you? So you want me to skip over the reserves part? Which part? The
general fund reserves. Oh, no no, no. Go ahead. Okay. Okay. So this is a worksheet that I used to assist me in forecasting the future years.
The Budget Advisory Committee requested to see our reserves. So this is kind of the best way for me to show it. We've got fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25 actuals. And that ties out
to our financial statements. At the very bottom in the yellow you can see that's our ending unassigned fund balance. And then just below that is the
percentage of the fund balance, percentage of operating budget. So 24 or about 27%. 25. We went
down to 24%. The next column is the budget, as it was adopted for fiscal year 26. And then the the next column is
estimated. So I've gone through and relooked at the revenues at mid-year, as well as under expenditures. This includes any
approved or pending resolutions for fiscal year 26. So I needed to come up with the ending or where I think we're going to end in fiscal year 26. So right
now we're looking at will be at about 8.3 million in ending fund balance. That's almost 23%. And kind of getting back to what Mark was saying, like
we're we're trying to build that up going into these next few years. So that's, that's rolling over into fiscal year 27, fiscal year 27. These are
the numbers that are in the book before you. So we're looking at ending 27 as of right now, right at 20%. We got
to make up 13,000. But like I said, we've got still ins and outs that we're we're working through. But again, so what we're really, what I use this for is looking at future years.
So at the very top in red, you can see the property taxes. So right now this is as if the property tax bill does not pass.
At the very bottom. You can see that our dollars over or under the reserve, it compounds each year. So even though it's in
red and it looks like scary numbers, it's really not. That's manageable. However. If the property tax bill does pass,
we see severe impacts on our general fund. So that $3 million the first year, another 5 million. Again this compounds. So if you fix it in year one,
you know, the the rest of the years benefit from it. I've mentioned it before. You know, there's only three ways to fix it. Find another revenue source,
cut costs. Or at this point, I mean, it would be services or find a combination, a balance between the two. So again, I wanted to show that really quick because it was requested
that I show the reserves. So if you guys have questions on that, I can do that. Or we can move into CIP. Lori first, if she
has one, it's fine. Did you have a question? Thank you. Thank you. Reserves are has been my main thing since I campaigned 13 years ago. I
think we finally, unfortunately got an example of why they're important in 24. I mean, we spent, what, 4 million on Halloween and that was not even hurricane force winds 100 miles
out. So if we ever get direct hit by something, I mean, you know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist, right? So I believe by charter we have to have 20%,
right? Mark, is that true? 20% is the minimum. Okay. And right now we're at actually we're at 23% with 8.3. Is that what you're projecting? Yeah, for 26.
And I'm sorry, I just can't see that far. And, and I can't find this on, on my machine. If this property bill passes which, which, which it's going to let, let, let's just all be honest
with each other. Okay. What's that impact year one. So this time next year. So we drop down to 10%, 10%. I mean that would
that's I mean and that's is that assuming we take the entire hit against the unassigned fund balance and don't like, like, like you said, cut, you know. ET cetera.
That's only reducing property taxes. That's. And anything that we've saved up to this point, it's not making any changes in fiscal year 28. It's not increasing in another
revenue source. It's not cutting a service. This is just showing you if we leave everything as is, we just took the hit and continued forward. Yes. Okay. Obviously we can't
do that. Right? So and then it gets further on down the line, right. What about year two? What do you have up there. So it increases by another excuse me. Fund balance decreases by
another 5.5 million. So now we're -10 million. Now we got to make up $10 million to get us back to our 20%. Yeah. No we can't do that. Yeah. So I
assume hopefully this mark, this would be offset in some way, shape or form by the changes we're going to we're going to have to make correct. It has to I mean we we can't go
below 20%. And 20% is really a spit in the bucket. I think I was uncomfortable in 2024 when we're at 27%. I like being in the 30s or more. So I was upset
at 27%. And, and I think the budget advisory back then brought it up about putting a fund to start out for that, because you got to remember, yeah, it's, it's when your budget goes way up, then, you
know, it's been the rising of our total budget because that's a different ratio. The 20% on a $10 million is different. If you go to a 12 as you go up and
it wasn't increasing, wasn't increasing for the reserve as it was increasing with the budget. So 27 was scary. So you can imagine what coming back seeing these numbers are to me
and stuff. And we've got to fix it and we have to. It's we have to be it. I mean, the 20% is, you know, that's, that's like paying the minimum on your credit card, right? You can't, you just can't do that. I mean,
it works, but it's not sustainable. Ashley, again, thank you for being very transparent and not and not and not sugarcoating this. Thank
you. Okay. I want to move on. Okay. And these are our dates moving forward. So we've got second budget workshop, August 4th, a third if we need it,
August 18th. And then our two public hearings. First one's September 9th and the second is
September 23rd. So just give me one second here. Okay. This is
a look at our five year CIP plan. This is still very draft form. Mark and I have a lot of work to do with the departments on this, but I wanted to give
you guys a snapshot of where we're at right now. So this is by fund, the general fund basically is holding any kind
of more repair and maintenance type projects, because you don't really want to push those to the Penny fund, because the Penny fund is really supposed to be more for capital. You start getting into that repair
and maintenance. It's sort of a gray area that I'd like to avoid. If we can. I'm going to skip over to the Penny fund. I think I am. Here you go. Come
on. So we'll start with the Penny fund. We've got our police vehicles in here. All of
our our fire. We've got the in 27. We've got fire station 71 mock alert system. Continuing with the fire ladder truck
reserve. Fire marine rescue fireboat 70,000. Fire. Polaris utility vehicle. Stretcher.
Fire. Staff. Vehicle. And then going down to Parks and Rec. We've got a truck in here, a community center restroom, indoor remodel. I think that
was anything in orange is something that is either partially or fully grant funded. We've got a Ford Transit van,
North Anclote Nature Park, dock replacement, Riverside tennis court replacement. And then we
get down to streets. We do have a truck there, and then we've got East Kerley Place in 27
Jasmine Road resurfacing. The big one here is the Lime Street Banana Spring Construction, a 2.5 million. That's definitely something we need to look at
because that increased a lot. And I think Chris that's for a brick, right. And if we did asphalt it would of course be
less. And then at the bottom the sponge dock flood abatement. So I'm not sure how you guys want to go through this. You want me to stop here or again?
That's something again, remember, these are all in my language placeholders and subject to some serious changes.
I can also tell you that there is no way Orange Street can be funded in the CRA, and we're going to have to deal with where in the projects and the borrowing and the the capital
where Orange Street is going to be, and I'll have more information on that later on. But that putting it, putting that in the CRA in my mind is a
bankrupting of the CRA and it can't be there and stay there. And there may be some other reasons that can't be there and stay there, but that's just an example of another project. All these projects you're talking
about are all open and fair game, if that if that passes in November. So they're all I consider them right now, placeholders that that are subject to move, especially if
we get the phase two of this budget after November of that passes is going to be a whole nother story of what years, what where these things go and where we can use the little
money we have because the cuts we have to make. So, I mean, we can discuss a lot of stuff, but right now I just consider them placeholders. And I wouldn't go on any of these projects until we know where we stand and then
have very long conversation, and all of us have to figure out what the new future is and the timing to let the public know the timing of things. Just like some things that we've
kind of got out there and promised, now they're all they're all on hold until we find out. Some have placeholders, some don't have placeholders. But again, all these are just spots where the
money is going to be sitting there for us to decide what to do when it comes changes. So again, we can discuss all of them, but they'll be a future conversation of what we do,
what the timing or what we don't do. I mean, you know, I know we love Brecken, but maybe some of the ones we want to do it, we can't brick them again. Our street, I don't know how we're going to fund Orange
Street with what we've got in there. And I know we designed it, you know, with all the amenities and stuff. But Orange Street may become a simple thing where we go in and fix the bricks and do a simple
brick fixing project, because we can't afford three, 2.3 million to do the whole curbing and everything that was approved on Orange Street. So all these are we're going to be back in future meetings with a
lot of these individually to make some tough decisions, and that are necessary from all of these. So again, we discuss them. But you know, there's going to be a lot of future
with these. They're I think we're going to have to have a CIP workshop that where we only talk about these capital improvements. But like the city manager says, November 3rd is
going to be the day that's going to change everything. So and no matter what we do with this budget, it's going to be a whole redo. When we hit November 3rd, we're going to have to reconvene. And then if
if in fact that passes, then we're going to have to get our chisels out and start chiseling away. So just remember, if it doesn't pass, we still have to look at all this stuff because
we don't know. We don't know where they're going. If this thing fails, where are they? So we just can't say. And everybody don't expect, wow, it didn't pass. We're back to all the spending and stuff we have
planned. We. We are still going to have. It won't be a drastic reevaluation like we do with passes, but we're still going to need to look at these things and projects and kind of timing more around where we have the
money to do them, because there's going to be problems in my mind, trying to go out and borrow more money that's going to that is going to be an issue. So we've got a lot of
discussions to go forward. And some even if it doesn't pass, we're going to still have some conversations of where we have to go because it might not be done. It might be done for this
year, but who knows what's coming back. So. Commissioner Weaver, do you have any comments on any of this? You know, I neglected to ask one
question. There's a line item on page eight. I just want to have a better understanding. So when I start to look through this call, the plan checking
fees 003, zero zero. And the numbers are rather high. I'm not I'm not sure what that covers. I believe it's
permitting fees, but I will double check for you permitting fees that we're paying now. That's revenue coming in. Okay,
so so it's so that revenue you expect to decrease. I'll double check on that. Okay. I don't
have the detail in front of me, so it's fine. I'll put it in the you know why, why you consider it, you know, decreasing over time. Sure.
Absolutely. Thank you. And again, I just want to point out, you know, you haven't had those books that long. It's a big book and you haven't had that long between now and the next
budget meeting, which which is in August. Please set up either to meet with us, send us questions, give us a time to sit and go through a lot of more individual questions and stuff. We'll be available the
whole time, the next month before our next meeting to do that. If we don't get a cover tonight. Again, it's not fair. You know, you you've had a very little time to go through this
big, thick book. So I'm sure as you go through it more and instead of waiting till August, let's try to get all your questions answered. If there's something I think that all the commissioners need to know, because there's a question and
answer that the others, then I'll pass it on and send the answer that we gave you to all of you Board of Commissioners. So you have that answered too. So it's not just one commissioner we're giving the
answer to. We'll forward to you, Ashley. I'll forward to you. And again, as you see from that report she did that she sent you, she's real good at about
putting things in plain language and English instead of some of the things we see in these charts sometimes do. And we can get that to you in that language. So I encourage you to
utilize that next month to, to do that. And again, we'll get those answers out to all the commissioners because there's something you may need answers on to. Commissioner Panther.
Yes, I just again, Mark, Mark, Mark already said it. But you know, obviously, Mark, we're all we're all depending on you for this list and to advise what has to be delayed or canceled or, or changed,
depending upon what happens with our income. And, you know, obviously none of us like this, but I, I still think this is a good exercise for us to go through. We had the waves of the good years after Covid and
had lots of money coming in. And, but I think, you know, regardless if this passes or not, I think it's going to put us on sound, sound, sound, sound, sound footing to be able to know how we can, you know,
cut the budget and just be a wise. You are user of taxpayer dollars. And, and as far as I'm concerned, you know, if, if, if a miracle happens and that
doesn't pass, we have to we have to look at growing these, these, these reserve numbers because they're pitifully low. And if we get hit by a major
hurricane, we're going to be in some deep crap. So thank you, Commissioner Eisner. Thank you. Mayor. You know, as I look into
the audience here, I see 2 or 3 people. Most of the town does not know what we're up against. And I don't think that we can just put this on Facebook. A
lot of people are not on Facebook. Is there any idea or thought about doing a town hall meeting where we have people coming in to discuss, you know,
the the issues, as commissioner said earlier, there's there's a lot of argument and fighting about this flock of cameras. There's issues. I mean, I could
sit here for ten minutes and give you all the quotations of every kind of nonsense comment that's out there. And just people are uninformed. They
really are. So I think to it's not going to help the state of Florida, but it will help, you know, Tarpon Springs at least understand what we're up against. So who would run that
town hall meeting? I don't know, but you know, we can have that. I know when we offered the budget public input, we had one
person speaking and it was all to do with the property tax. It had nothing to do with the individual questions of what was needed, what's not. So I
think we do have to get out there and do more information to let people know whether it passes, it passes. If it fails, it fails. But people should
know at least what they're getting into before, you know, before that November 4th, where everybody turns to us and goes, oh, look at that commission. We need to get rid of them all.
And, you know, they don't even understand what depth we've had to go into to try to think both which ways of if it passes, if it doesn't pass. So I just
think it's best to get a town hall meeting scheduled. And in addition, Mark, all I will tell you is I've heard more of you tonight than this past City Manager. The whole year that we.
Year and a half, you actually do input a lot of information. So I wanted to thank you for that. Thank you. It's actually on my second page here. I, I
spoke with the mayor of Dunedin today, and they've already had two public hearings on the impact of the referendum. So I think I agree, I think we
should have a public hearing. We I mean, again, we we can run it here and invite the public to come in and and it would be, I think, fruitful. So I have
that on my agenda. So I will figure out a day that. So, you know, it's. Mark 2.0 yeah. I can tell you. You know, all
these years in the past years and the agony about lack of transparency and a lot of stuff, you know, we just had a thing that was, you know, really
touted about citizen input before the budget and stuff. And we see last year and this year, you know, town hall meetings are fine, but we've seen them before of
accomplishing. Now we have something in place, then it'll be a short meeting. No, won't be a short meeting. We'll hear a lot of stuff like you're seeing on the Tarpon community page. We'll have a lot of that stuff, and we'll get some
substance of the real problems here, because most of the time you have people coming to those that don't get the substance. There is opportunity, as we said, and we're going to advertise. There's an open forum on our on our connect
tarpon, on our forum for people to daily put in that input and, and put on those things. And also, there's going to be another side coming out of this meeting about us putting information out. Remember, we
can't endorse or not endorse, but we can post articles, we can post news things, we can post everything there close to being ready to put on there, to post information about about
what's going on. And that is also a big source of getting put. I can predict you can do them, but I can almost predict what's going on at the meeting.
And we have the information out there. We're getting the information out there. You do what you want because your commission will do what you want and stuff. But, you know,
we've seen the past of these and what they produce. We really want people to contribute and go and give us the information. And when we put this out within the next week or so, the information.
And again, we got to be careful because we still got to be careful in our conversations back and forth that we're being neutral because we've got restrictions on us about how we do with this referendum, about
not promoting it one way or another. It's ridiculous, unfair advantage that that the state has put on us, like many other ones. But it's not like
we can plead a case. We have to we have to throw, you know, information out there and do it. So we're trying to work on ways to do it. We just got to be careful from our input on our end. Everything we say and do
could be scrutinized and we could have issues with us promoting issues, stuff. So there's just a lot of issues we need. We need to think about.
And, and I can see given given, you know, a meeting of all the information we have, but I don't know if the back and forth is going to be productive to the the problems that we
have the elected this board to do it. And these are these are really difficult, deep problems that the pet peeves of people coming forward and stuff is not going to solve. This is a real
serious situation. And this is some serious things we need to do. So I'm not saying anything otherwise, but we we've got a lot to do and, and time to do
it. So we just got to be careful, especially what we put out that were following the law on, on doing this and giving factual information about what
that referendum is. I agree. Yeah, I don't I think that everything we are presenting or will present is going to be
factual. I don't think I, I again, I'm not I haven't editorialized on this on this referendum. All we're talking
about is what the effects will be. Okay. And I think that it is imperative upon us to lay the facts out and the residents will make their decisions. They don't need, you know,
Commissioner Eisner, Commissioner Weaver or Banther to tell them how to vote or think. And I don't think that's what we're going to do. But I think that we again, going back
to what we had talked about at the last time you presented here, when we went through that general, the general fund, and we looked at all the spending in the general fund. Okay. So
when you, you know, again, we had $39 million in the general fund, right? Somewhere there. And then we when you exclude
fire and police and all the items that we will have to, we're going to have a, you know, we need a finance department. Somebody's got to pay the bills.
We need a, we have a, we need a city manager by charter. We need a city attorney by charter. We need a city clerk by charter. When you take all these things
off and and that's where, again, we as a commission, there will be some discretionary things, right. Certain certain things are by charter and and we and
we I'm sure we'll all have an agreement that we have to have a fire and have to have a police because we're not allowed to touch those anyways. So by charter or. By charter by
charter. Yeah. So, so as we go through it. So then again, it's going to be limited to, you know, some items. I don't want to name them off now and freak everybody out at this point,
but it's going to be very clear what those items are. Okay. And I think that it's at some point we're going to have to get super clear, put it on the screen, here's what it is.
Here's the items that will be affected by this. I know we're going to go into the CRA next. And I had a meeting with one of this county commissioners. And
he, he basically told me that's the lowest hanging fruit is CRA. And, and, and there, you know, when they get because they're going to get hit too. So, you know, they're not that matching stuff and all that that's going
to be. He said that's low hanging fruit for them. So again, we it's I think it's important and imperative to us. And it's just like, you know, when I was talking to the mayor
of Dunedin and they've already started doing it is just laying out the facts so people know, okay, if I vote yes, these are the things that could most likely be affected. And if I
vote no, then here you go. So that's all we are trying to do is let the residents you know, I I'm, I'm very conscious of, you know, giving tax relief to
people. And I think it's, you know, there's a lot of merit to that. There's also a lot of merit to having the things that we want to offer in the services we provide. We don't believe we're squandering money. You know, maybe maybe the state
thinks we have. We are. But that's that's up for debate. Yeah. So I think that that's what we need to do. So to have like commission, the commissioner, Eisner said
having some kind of a either town hall hearing, whatever you want to call it and laying out these facts, letting people come. If they don't come, then it's a short meeting. If they if they show up and they want
to talk, we can have information for them. I think that's what we at some point we're going to have it's going to have to be crystallized because again, it's even, you know, at. People ask me, why
are you guys. Why is this such a big deal? 3 million out of 39, 3 million out of 100 million. That doesn't seem like much of a deal. Why are you guys freaking out? Because they don't realize what it zeros
into, okay. And that's what we need to be able to, to, to clarify. And then and the voters vote the way they vote. And I'm not we're not, I don't think at any point we're going to tell them, oh, you need to
vote yes or you need to vote no. They just need to see it. We should probably show it. Not a revenue though too. So there are multiple departments that let's just use fire as an example. We get reimbursement from the county so that offsets
their costs. Same thing with like the library and the library co-op. So should we show it that way? You know, net of any revenue? Well, no, no. Again remember you had the 39
million. Yeah. Well that's the expense side. But if you get rid of the expense, we get rid of the revenue to exclude fire. We exclude police. We you know, again, all the things that we
have by charter and the things that are just by just common sense, you know, we have to have a fire. We have to have a finance department. We have to have general government services, you know, then what's
left? Because really that's where the, the, the, the, that's where we're going to have to make our calls. Now. We can, we can go in here and, you know, micromanage the, the budget and I'm sure we will and
get it and get it as tight as we can. Things like we talked about jobs that are budgeted but yet not filled, you know, either we just eliminate them from the budget and then that
frees up money and that could help. And there's a lot of things we're going to have to do. But again, at some point we need be because all this that we're doing is like the
commissioner is spot on. It's so abstract to everybody out there. They it's, it's so abstract. And, and it and it would be okay to be abstract. It is every, every budget season, it's abstract. They
just they assume we're making good decisions. They assume we're getting good numbers. They assume that we're doing that now they're participating because they're going to vote on something that's going to
affect this. So they need to be educated. They it's not abstract anymore. It's going to be an actual vote by by people. So that's all I'm saying. And I,
I'm in favor of having some form of a public workshop or hearing on this. I think it's important. Again, like I said, I already have two on there. They think it's important. So
anyways, that's all that's all I want to say. And we can and we can talk about how you present it and what you have, but later. Okay. Do you want to go on to CRA? I got a few
things I'd like to, you know, as we talked about the general fund, I'm pretty serious. Like I'm real serious. I'd like to see five, 10% serious. Okay,
well, I'm really serious. I want to I'm really, really serious. Really serious. All right. Okay. We can go through. So this this here's a problem. We have a few ways to go about
it. Like we talked about, if we didn't have this loan, we could just cut our capital improvement projects back and sit and roll with this stuff and deal with simple government issues, you know, and have these quick meetings. I want to
know I'm seeing this penny fund, but we're forced now to do storm water and sewer projects because of the so-called need, which looking back a year ago,
I, I was pretty firm and I came out to be right on that for many reasons. But absolutely. And so, yeah, absolutely. We would we would be in such
fiscal we are in fiscal trouble. We are in fiscal. We had to pay $6 million for a fire station cash, you know, fiscal smart. Did we not have the money set to the side for the fire
station, the loan, the loan, the loan. We had the money set to the side for the fire station. You don't want to hear it because you understand the dilemma we're in now. Well, now we're paying for these water
sewer funds that we have to pay for these projects because we borrowed the money, and now we're gonna have to pay $4 million in interest over the next ten years to that million
is something we need now. But instead of pushing off capital improvement projects and letting things slow down for a little bit While we balance things. Know we had to borrow
interest for loans the citizens didn't approve. And for another thing, I was going to bring up during my annual reviews, our old city manager thought it didn't matter what, that only
10% or 15% of the people vote would have voted on an issue that. That was his reaction. That's a garbage statement. And so it does matter when people vote on decisions like that,
because we sense everybody want to jump up and get out of place. We would have never ran our personal businesses like that. Like we ran the city. We gave somebody without the experience,
the opportunity four months later into a ten year loan. It blew up. So it all it failed. It failed. Did you read this that you that you got? Yeah, I
read it very well. Where's the money? I right there. I read it very well. So don't you guys are costing $4 million in interest for this. No it's not. You are trying to incite the
residents. You got a report that the money sitting there. We've earned more interest on the money than we're spending in in, in in interest expense for three years. That yet you
continue to spread false narrative. There ain't nothing false. Everything's false. Everything I mayor, the report, the mayor. What is the report? Make a motion to pay all the loan back. Take it. Money's
right there. You can't. We have to pay it back in 2030. Can you tell Miss Kimpton what the rule is? So we cannot, with our CPA, our finance forensic forensic auditor, until October 1st, 2030. That's the soonest we can
do a prepayment. So 20 what? 30? Okay, so we're stuck with this loan. We're stuck on store on projects, and we're making money on the interest that we're paying on the on the expense. And, you know, no,
we're not. Look at look at the numbers. Look at the loan. Look at the interest. You're not making $4 million in interest. You're not you're not making $4 million in interest, $4 million
over ten years. No. Yeah. And look at the deficit. Look at what the what what's the inflation rate? Well, look at the property taxes, inflation. You guys knew about all this, but your egos won't accept the
fact that y'all borrowed money without the citizens permission. There you go. So that is that. And, Mark, when we did that fire station was the money not budgeted for and set to the
side? Yes. And do we have somewhere in here the document you gave. Where? The money from the funded fire. Where? Where did they look at? To see. Where
that money got transferred to the due projects was when the fire department went into the loan. The money we had to do the fire station went to due project. Where is that? In there where they can see that
in. That is not prepared in here, but I can put it in the follow up memo. In a nutshell, that $5 million in fund balance. And as these projects are going
on, like, you know, projects here and they're eating up gross, you know, that took a little hit of it. So it's been kind of it's not gone, but
projects have been using that money. I think that's the, I think the big question here on that is where did that, if that money was budgeted and then we put it into a loan, what was that money used for to do
immediate projects and stuff, or what is still there to do? Maybe some of these projects we say we can't fund. I'll pull something together for you guys for the follow up memo. Okay. Because that's $7 million that
went towards projects that we shouldn't be paying interest on for projects. That's why it freed up the money was to pay for the projects without paying interest on it. And it was a facade because we already had
the money. But you guys, since you guys wanted to, you guys would thought it'd look better for this community. Oh, we're borrowing money for the fire station when we didn't need to, and so it blew up in your
guys's face while I sat here trying to be conservative, responsible for these residents. And look, now we have to do capital improvement projects that aren't going to make a dent into 5% of our stormwater
issues and our roads, and we're going to have to pay interest on top of it with this payback and this deficit. So you guys wouldn't have ran your personal businesses like that. You decided to run the city and you
didn't even get the residents the approval. And another thing, last year when we approved the budget, 2 or 3 weeks later, there were two change orders and big drastic amounts for the
off the city clerk's office and grocery. I don't want to see those change orders come 2 or 3 weeks afterwards. Whatever change orders you guys are assuming on capital improvement projects that are currently open, get them now into the
budget. Get them now into the budget. There's one was like 600,000. The other one was close to 800, 900,000. After we approved that budget with the
big loan and circus that it was. So I've made my peace, but everything I said ended up being right. And the bottom line is, when we think about it being other people's money and
having them consider, we won't run into these issues. Thank you Commissioner. Thank you. Mayor, it's okay to just stay up here and rant with wrong
information. So we had a situation back where we could have bought our spill site, our dump site for God knows what back in the day, $1 million,
whatever. We paid $50,000 a month to hold on to it until it went to $5 million. If that's the kind of decisions that we're up here making, we
shouldn't be up here. As far as this $19 million. I'm looking at interest of on one thing,
$81,000. I have interest of $27,000. I have interest of $32,000. There is a couple of facts that have been left out of the equation that I just
listened to. Interest rates are not at 9%. Now they're at 3%. So if we can get a project done now, you would have to increase 3% of each one of those
projects on the ten years. And that's how it came to saving of the $4 million that we're supposedly paying in interest.
And we're not paying that interest until we actually use the money. So if we don't use the money, we're not actually paying the interest. We're getting interest, which is what the mayor was trying to explain
earlier. So it isn't a cost until you use the money. It's for argument's sake. If you have a roof that needs to be done and you don't have $30,000
and you know that roof is going to be $40,000 down the road, you borrow the money. Now you have the roof put on, and you are then able to pay off that
roof. And then by the time that roof is needing to be replaced somewhere down the road, it could be $40,000. Case in point when I built my house, my cage
was, I think it was about 10 or $12,000. It's now $40,000 for the same exact thing. So if we wanted to kick the can down the road, like was done with the
spill site, that would cost us so much more than this 19,000. Nobody likes to borrow money and have the citizens pay it back, but it's a wise business
decision. Every single, every single city, every single state, they all have outstanding debt. It pays to get stuff done. I
don't know if I can't understand how he doesn't understand that there are residents constantly posting
orange water, urine colored water, tea colored water that we decided to do this so as to pick up and change the pipes that are the infrastructure.
Everybody in this town runs on infrastructure. If we don't change this now, you again, you're just telling people, well, you know, you just stuck with the yellow water. You just
stuck with the rusty water. I don't know how what was done in prior to me being a commissioner, but I know I have no issues with making sure that
we borrow the money to try to give people as clean a water as comes out of that plant, and I don't think that we made a mistake at all. And if we wanted to kick the can down the
road and do this ten years later, it would only be, I don't know, four, 4 million more, 5 million more. We don't know where the interest rate could go. We know what it is
now, so we borrowed it now. And that's the way this thing works. I have no issues with the decision we made. Thank you. So
again, the the and I am a fiscally responsible person. I run my life fiscally responsible and I'm very successful and I'm proud of it, making good decisions. So the
when you go to when I sat with the, the, the mayor and the city manager of Dunedin today, and obviously they have incurred debt. They are they
they, they actually laughed when they said, what was all that fuss about your your 19 million. And it's like, what's your debt? What's your debt service to general fund? And I
think, what is it, 5%, 6%, maybe not even. It's very small, right? Very small. Theirs is somewhere around 12. Their, their, their goal is to keep it
under 18. New Port Richey is around is like 14 so and ours is like 4 or 5. It's much ado about nothing. It's, it's really again, you can, you can
get on a soapbox and, and just yell that it's that it's a big deal. But, you know, again, I, I'm fiscally responsible human being. I am a CPA, I am a
forensic accountant. You can bring up my professional. You want, I'm proud of it. And I would never, ever I have not only do I have my family here,
I've got my kids here. I've got my grandkids here. I would never jeopardize the financial future of this city to to do some grandiose things. I'm
going to as each of these things are being done, like we have the Craig Park and this and all that being fixed and all the different things that are going to happen that I believe are necessities. We
can't stop and not address flood, water, flood, storm issues. And again, I think we're totally fiscally responsible. That's all I'm going to say about that. Let's
go on to your next item, which you say your miscellaneous. Siri, Siri, just one slide on Siri says by category. So they
had a slight increase in personnel and that's that half of an FTE that got moved from the general fund under operating, they had a significant decrease. So there
were some items in fiscal year 26 that are not in 2730 5000 for plant landscaping, 30,000 in promotional and 90,000 in operating supplies under
capital. Again, this is mostly Orange Street. It was budgeted at 2.5 million and 26. And we are reallocating 2.275 million
to 27. And then they have some additional projects in 27 as well. Gateway signage, 100,000 lemon Pinellas beautification lights of 350,000. Stafford
from Orange Street to Live Oak Street lights 230,000. Again, these are all still draft numbers. Mark and I still need
to meet and discuss if any of these get cut or moved out. And yep, you can see that the majority of the expenses fall
under capital. So that's all I have for CRA. And again, just a note on that. All those are just placeholders because in my mind, and until you say
otherwise they're on, they're all on hold. And yeah, but again, they're, they're if they roll over, they roll over. They're there because they were put there and people were told
those projects are going. But again, and I'll talk about this more, I'm really concerned about the CRA budget and and what it was done. So again, I want to give a little more time
for myself to study it and stuff, but I can tell you definitely orange is going to have to come out of there. So but we'll, we'll talk more about that at next meeting. Commissioner Weaver, do you
have any questions on CRA? No questions. Okay. Commissioner Panther, Commissioner Eisner yes, I have a question for the city manager. 99 times out of
100, when we pull these bricks, they're not reusable, correct? Yes. Or they are reusable. Now you're accelerating the maintenance cost in the future because it's not going to last.
They don't realize. Yeah, maybe it can be put. But we'll have city crews and and thousands of dollars in maintenance and stuff going back and trying to, to do those things more than
what I wanted to ask. But thank you. Sorry. That's come up a couple times and I've tried to. So if we're not going to go through with this whole $2.9 million. And I don't want to
hear people complaining, this is a temporary. The same thing we did on Canal. We tarred over it. And just to make it smooth for the time being. And when we
have the funds, we could rip it out and do that. That would be a band aid, correct? Yes. So I just wanted to put that out there so that there is a a
venue to correct the problem to not to go in full fledged into the 2.9 million. That can't be too much money, correct? Correct. Thank you. Okay. Good
question. Vice Mayor. I know we hired that CRA representative. I just she better hit the ground running because there will be some cuts. That's that's all I'm going to say
that we better see some changes happen. If not, we're going to make some decisions. Thank you. Okay. Do you have your miscellaneous issue? Is there
nothing on that? I don't have any. Miscellaneous is mainly for you to give us some homework to work on next time. If there's anything else you want us to do homework in again,
you know you can call tomorrow, the next day with them, but that's usually put on there in case there's anything else that you want from us by the time the next meeting goes. So you've already given us some
things you want for the next meeting. So under miscellaneous, any other direction you have. And again, if you come up with something later on, just send an email to Ashley and myself
and we'll get that together for you and get that have that information ready for you next time. Okay. All right. I think you got your marching orders.
No. No marching. I don't think there's any commissioner comments on this one. We just unless there's anything else, we're going to adjourn at 807.
I was going to call you out, mayor. Commissioner Coleman,
lucky day. Embarrassing. Oh.