ready? Everybody good? Well, good morning everybody. Uh, it's good to see everybody here. This is our Carlos. I believe this will be our last budget meeting if everything goes right. Is that right? Hopefully. Hopefully. Good. Look at Jim. I guess it
will be our last. So, it's good to see everybody this uh this morning and uh thank you for those of you who participated or joined us in the Fourth of July festivities and Carl, thank you to you and your group for uh spearheading that. It was a terrific day. It always is. And and uh so, thank
you very much. Council, are we ready to start? Yes. Okay, Mr. Be, you're on. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Uh good morning everybody. Uh so we're going to be as the as the mayor mentioned u hopefully holding our last workshop today although we have an optional one scheduled should the
council feel we need it today it's I'm calling it the omnibus workshop because I've always wanted to use that term um and it's going to cover everything primarily what we're going to be doing is um talking about the final property appraiser valuation talking uh in detail
about the proposed rates for the enterprise funds we'll be summarizing the other funds but no changes really have happened in in the other funds. We'll also be answering earlier council questions and we'll be highlighting some changes and in changes here what we
found is when we were going through the early workshops and we recall those were preliminary. Um we had all the numbers put in the budget. So Jim and his team did a great job but there was a couple of items that didn't make it into my slides but they were actually already in the numbers. So I'm going to be talking
about those today. So, let's start with the questions. Um, so I'm going to be going down. There's no specific order here necessarily. We tried to capture everything in this slide and the next one as well. So, um, question actually from council member
Kravitz about the Lightfoot generator. Um, and it actually dates to 2012. Uh, was also asked about the potential value. Um, depending on whether it's scrapped or auctioned off, we're estimating somewhere between $500 to $5,000 for that generator. in the street
improvement fund. Question was asked uh by the mayor about the life cycle of the street sweeper would regular maintenance. It's estimated to last 6 to8 years. I wanted to also just remind the council as I mentioned that our plan is to go out and issue the bid for this
to see if the bids come in and it makes sense from a costbenefit analysis. And one of the costs we're going to be contemplating is not just the cost of the street sweeper, but it would be the cost to staff it. we'd have to hire somebody in the FY27 budget. And we mentioned that last time, but we have a number now associated with that, which
is an estimated $60,000 in wages and benefits. Again, that would be in FY27 should the council wish us to pursue this direction. and sanitation. Uh we are if the council approves, we are purchasing two rear rear end uh loader trucks uh sanitation
trucks and they are uh the anticipated scrap and auction value of of the two existing trucks is probably 15 to $20,000 we estimate total and the building fund. Council member Fernandez asked about what other communities if they are supporting their building fund
through the general fund. uh we managed to make contact with the city of Tampa and Hillsboro County and in those instances they are not supporting it through the general fund. Caveat there of course you realize those are the scale of Tampa and Hillsboro County is much much larger than ours and with all
the development and land area that they have. It doesn't surprise me that there's no support uh from the general fund and we're going to be talking about a possible uh remedy to help sort of lessen that that support u from coming from the general fund.
question has also been asked about our street resurfacing methodology. Council member Kravitz has asked and and council member Fernandez has also followed up with me on this. So five years ago there was a plan that was approved by the council. It was based on a uh you'll hear pavement
condition index, PCI index. Uh so that's basically different communities do it different ways. Historically, you might even have interns that go around and they just look at the condition of payment and they assess it. Today, there's a much more modern technique which is actually illustrated here by
the picture. This is a uh contracted van uh with with sensitive equipment on the back and in fact, we're going to be using that starting in August. You'll see the community will see this van driving around and they were going to be testing the pavement and measuring the pavement through all the city streets.
uh they will then come up with a we're asking them to do a three-year plan basically help us put together a three-year plan based on that index. So the index goes from zero to 100. So 100 would be the equivalent of a brand new street. Zero would be a place where the pavement is completely at failure rate.
So um so that's how we did the the the plan 5 years ago. There are exceptions to the plan. So, for example, um it was mentioned at the meeting, you know, Brentwood and Sunnyside, those those streets are are as not as bad condition as other streets in the city, for example. But what happens is in
Brentwood and Sunnyside, it's also coinciding with other projects. So, Brentwood, there's a storm water project that we're going to be doing that the council is uh you approved the design for in the 25 budget. Hopefully, you'll approve the construction in 26. So, we're co coinciding the pavement of that
street with that project to just to make the most efficient use of resources. Sunnyside largely the same. There's some trenching patches that were done several years ago with some infrastructure work on Sunnyside. Next year, you've got traffic calming projected improvements to be built on Sunnyside. So, that's why
that street has been moved up in terms of paving. So, when that happens, other streets kind of get bounced back and they go to the bottom of the list or they go to the next order on the list. So, so that's how the plan is managed. Uh, as I was mentioning, we're going to be the new doing the new measurements of
the payment condition starting in August. We'll get that data back to our staff probably in October. And then if everything goes well, probably first part of 2026, possibly January, we'll be before the council with a list of streets for the next three-year plan.
Now let's talk about the general fund and the property valuation. When we did the first round of workshops, we were anticipating based on the property appraisers initial numbers a 3.4% growth in our taxable value based on the 95% collection rate. That number
um fortunately for us went up. So it's 4.3%. That leads to a taxable value at 95% of 3 bill218,218 million, excuse me, $733,959, which would generate $19,748,581 in Advalorum revenue, which would be a
difference of $186,73 from the original estimate in June. So if we tie that to our proposed budget, we have a total general fund budget of 40,810,47. In that number, there is a contribution
to the unassigned fund balance of $59,716. Again, we are not proposing any new FTEEs in the general fund and there is no increase in millillage proposed. The current mill rate will would stay the same, $6.45, 455 and that would be the ninth year that the city has not
increased its millage. Now, as I mentioned at the outset of the presentation, there were several items that that were contemplated from a financial perspective but didn't make the original slides. So, I wanted to uh make sure the council was aware of these. Uh using unassigned fund balance,
we have several items in it. Um we have two Vibe smartboards that we're looking to acquire for the conference rooms. These are interactive boards that can be used for video conferencing but also basically serve as whiteboards. You can do trainings with them, things like that. Uh we are also looking to refresh
our hardware, our IT hardware. The last time we did a major refresh was uh using CO dollars back in 2020 21 that in that time frame. So we're coming up on five years now. So, we have uh 42 Dell PCs scheduled um at $65,000,
60 Dell laptops, $111,000, seven Dell XPS laptops at $26,000, and then replacing the five council iPads at $2,100. Again, uh funded through unassigned fund balance.
In public safety, a couple items again that didn't make the original slides. Uh the police department is looking to refresh its rifle inventory. Ultimately, we're going to be acquiring, if the council approves, 14 rifles over three years. The rifles that we have now date back to the 1990s from what I
understand. Uh this first phase would be five six-hour rifles at $23,217. The fire department also is looking to acquire protective ballistic gear. This was what's pictured here. Basically, it's basically a a bulletproof vest that
will be on each of the apparatus um should the firefighters have to respond to call where there's an active threat. And as as we saw what happened just last week actually across the country, this is something that has more salience today than probably ever. Um and that would be $31,000. And again, both these items would be acquired through an
assigned fund balance. Also in leisure services, uh, looking to acquire 20 garbage cans for parks and athletic fields using unassigned fund balance, and that would be $18,000. Any questions on the general fund before we move on?
Council member Fernandez. Um, so just to clarify, these items that are in the slides right now that you're highlighting were already actually factored into the numbers that we saw at the original workshop. They were. Okay. And then I do want to just make
the comment that um for those who might be watching who have concerns about street repaving um we just we did talk about the process and how we're going to get the streets repaved. But if they have specific
questions about specific streets, what should should they just call your office or email? Sure. I think if they have concerns about specific streets, what they should do is um send a note to Mr. Warrenfelts, okay, in public works and he'll make sure that it it gets when I say gets addressed at
least make sure that their concerns are reflected so when we have the contractor coming out and doing the PCI testing, we can make sure that we correlate whatever they find with those concerns. Okay. Okay. And then I just have one more comment that's that's about the the millage rate that we are clear that we
are not increasing the actual millage rate itself. However, people are going to see an increase in their property tax based on the fact that the value of their property has increased from last year. Even if you're homesteaded, it's
going to increase a a small amount. So just just to just so that if somebody's watching and they get their tax bill and they say they didn't increase my millage rate but my taxes went up that people understand that that's the difference.
Yes, that could be it. Also, I'm not sure what the county and the other taxing authorities are going to be doing with their rates and they could be increasing their rate then do the same. But correct, they could still have a higher overall rate because the other jurisdictions might be increasing their rate, but ours is our rate is staying
the same. However, the property valuations might increase for individual owners. That's all. That's it. Mr. Chambers. No, Vice Mayor. Yes. Uh, how many a couple questions.
How many additional how many vests is that going to be the ballistic vest? One for each apparatus. Chief, do you mind taking just one? One on each apparatus. So, depends on how many apparatus if you count your your command vehicles as well in that number. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Members of
council, there's enough gear. There's a helmet and vest for every person on the truck. So, a rescue has two sets of ballistic gear. An engine has four. The ladder has four. Okay. Enough for everybody. All right. Cool. Yeah. They they they're not assigned to each individual person. It's just part of that truck. The gear for the truck.
How much weight does that add to the bunker gear as it is? Uh, typically we wouldn't have it on with our bunker gear. No. If if it's for like an active shooter or some kind of a salent situation, then we wouldn't have our bunker gear on. It is heavy, but but it would not be worn with or or an air pack or anything like that.
Okay. All right. Thank you. The last question I had is on the the streets. It's always been uh an issue. How does this tie into the striping as as well? Sure. Where is that? Are you going to cover that later? If you don't cover that later, that's fine. I can address the striping. So, so
typically what what we would do is we would try to stripe streets that are in decent condition, for example. So, if we know a street still has several more years of life ahead of it, then it would it would make sense to to stripe it and refresh it. Now, if a street's on the on
its last legs from a pavement condition, um we'd probably think twice before we stripe that street if it's going to be, you know, addressed in the next year's budget, for example, in terms of the paving cycle. But if you'd allow me, I have a city engineer sitting in the room. Maybe I could bring him up and
have him if I if I'd said something on the school because that that's as big a big an issue as the the actual paving of the street is whether it's whether they can actually see where they're supposed to be. Yep. No, he's he's saying I I got it correct. So, uh that's typically what we do.
Well, we going to do this. Are we going to do this internally or we going to still farm it out to We we would Well, I think we farm it out. Correct. Yeah, we farm it out because some of the equipment for the long lines striping is not stuff we would have in on house. So, how much do we have planned for striping?
We're going to get He's going to come up anyway sooner or later. Good morning, Mayor, City Council. Uh Brian McCarthy, city engineer. Um, in terms of how much um, in terms of dollar values or well $8 value, I believe this year there's somewhere
between 25 and 30,000 is what's budgeted. And how many linear feet will that cover us? Uh, it depends again with like a double yellow line versus a yellow skip. It's just going to vary. Well, I mean, we have, you know, 15,000
intersections. How many of these are we, you know, how many What's our plan on on the striping? the the the plan for the resurfing surfacing is one, but the plan for striping that uh is is a different evaluation, a different schedule, I'm sure.
Yes, that's correct. And how are we addressing that? Um, right now we're we're more reactive than we are proactive with the striping. And so we do have um quantities already in place. We're reaching out to contractors right
now, which is unfortunately out of the the four that we've reached out to, none of them are interested in doing the work. So, we're continuing to reach out to other contractors because I think going forward that's going to be an important source of information to the public like, okay, we have this list of
intersections or streets or whatever that we're that our plan is to to to attempt to address in the next fiscal year. That might be something that would be interesting for the at least they'll know whether their area or their their their uh hot spot is is listed on that.
That's all I'm saying. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Council member Kravitz. Yeah. Um thank you. Just a quick question about the generator at Lightoot. Um given the scrap value being a maximum of around 5,000, was there an examination made about whether leaving it in place as a backup might make
sense? I know it's been unreliable, but even an unreliable backup can be handy. This is a big generator um in a whole building generator, so I wouldn't think so. Um Mr. Warmerfelt, you want to come up and I see the I see the head shaking. That's fine. All right. Just checking to see if
it was it was looked at. That's fine. Um and um personally, no council iPad for me. And I also wanted to ask trash cans. Um great that we're adding them. Have there been any motions made in the direction of
potentially adding some downtown. Good morning, Mayor, city council members. Carl Lang for leisure services director. Uh that the trash cans that that we have ordered or and are in the budget at this point are replacements and additions for our current inventory.
Uh we have not budgeted for the addition of trash cans in the downtown area. Uh that's certainly something that we can explore. So if we don't explore that today, is there any facility for doing that? I guess it would depend on where in the downtown we're talking how many trash
cans. Um if if you have if you have specific locations. I mean I'm just trying to get a grasp of the the the breadth of the request. I I I have ideas. I don't have any specific locations in mind. I know that we own some property downtown
still. I don't know if that's the place to put trash cans. Um uh what we discussed previously in emails was uh potentially a program where we maybe incentivized the developers who are in downtown to accept a public trash can and maybe help administer it. So empty
it. You know, we provide sort of a little bit of infrastructure and then they do a little bit more of the grunt work maybe for a cash incentive. That's a small one. Uh and that would probably bring the trash cans closer to where the people are actually moving around and throwing their trash away. That that was kind of the thought that I had. Um I
know that trash downtown is a big sore point for a lot of people and I just saw the line item for trash cans. Fantastic. A lot of people like that idea, but uh moving them into the downtown area where the trash is most obnoxious might be uh might be smart. And that's why I'm
asking about whether today is the only opportunity to address that. Are there other are there other funds that we could maybe tap into in in a program of that nature? Well, I mean, we may include that in the actually might probably be included in
the sanitation fund. Um, it's where I would imagine we would put that because it'd have to be our sanitation. I I understand what you're requesting about the the merchants doing it. My experience with merchants not necessarily here. So, you know, take that as what it is. But, uh, my past
experience with merchants is that they will never do that. They don't there they never have their staffs take care of it. And by and sometimes when it's overflowing, you know, and they say they were going to take care of, they don't. So, it's really inconsistent. So, the public has an expectation that the trash will be picked up. So, ultimately,
cities end up ends up doing it. Um, so I think we'd probably want to go into it with the notion that, okay, this whatever the number of trash cans and where we locate them, that it would be our probably our either our streets uh um units or our sanitation folks just
picking them up along their route. Um, yeah. So, I mean, if that's what the council wants us to do, that's what we'll do. I mean, I'd be I'd be interested in doing a bit of a pilot program there, maybe just with a few trash cans to try and pick up a little bit of the extra trash that's being discarded downtown and and
not being addressed by the trash cans that the merchants currently have out there. Is anyone else interested in that? Downtown is a, like I said, a bit of a sore point for most people. They go down there, they don't like the aesthetics, they don't like the trash being out in the parking lots. So, I mean, I think if the
merchants aren't going to do it, as the city manager says, I think we can try incentivizing them. We could try using some sort of a legal structure to find them if they don't follow through on their obligations if we give them these trash cans. As an alternative to that, if we're not going to put any obligations on the merchants, then I can see a scenario where we just take
responsibility for cleaning up downtown because I think it's it's too critical to fail. So, well, my only comment about this at this moment is that it's private property and I do have concerns about the city taking over an
aspect of maintaining private property as in this particular private property. Well, what about other private property shopping centers? Why aren't you doing this here? Why? You know, so I I have a concern about that and I would like to I
agree the the aesthetics is very important and I would like to try to work through the code enforcement system and the other systems that we have in place for trying to encourage private property to maintain their property
before we went to something like this because I don't want to do unequal treatment or unequal behavior on somebody's private property. That's my concern. I I agree with some of that except that in addition I I would want to see what
the cost of it would be for streets or sanitation to to um have to step in that that's going to be either personnel and or equipment or time and uh and and in the long haul there will be additional costs
associated with that. Um, again, I don't like doing interfering with the private property, but the public areas that we have down there, um, you know, it's it uh how bad is it in that area? Is is it really, you know, is is it going to
require it? But I'd like to see the dollars before we commit to anything involved with that. May I? Sure. So, the I just make want to understand in my mind I was understanding something else. I just want to be clear. So, Council Member Kravitz, are you talking
about like Bertha Palmer Boulevard, basically trash cans along the boulevard in the right of way and the public's right ofway, or are you talking about some sort of trash cans on the private properties themselves? I'd like to see both if possible. I
think uh it's a it's a bit of a problem down there. So, um I I fully acknowledge the point about private property. You don't want to interfere in that. When it comes to code enforcement, we've had that infrastructure for as long as downtown has existed. So, from my perspective, it's had years to try and
succeed in addressing the trash issue, and it it hasn't really succeeded to our expectations or at least the expectations of the public. And so what I'd like to see in downtown is some sort of a different approach, whether it's even more code enforcement, in which
case I'm happy to talk about what that might look like. Or alternatively, we go the route that I was just discussing where we take a little bit more responsibility for cleaning downtown up and making sure that it is aesthetically what we expect of it. And even though we're putting in our own money and our
own effort, maybe our own staff time, we will be rewarded for that because if the downtown flourishes, it'll lead to more tax revenue for us. Uh, and it's a benefit to everyone. So, I I fully acknowledge I don't want to incentivize merchants who are behaving poorly. I don't know what their legal obligations are in terms of trash cans. I know some
merchants put trash cans outside in front of their businesses. I'm not sure if they're doing that because they're required to or whether they're doing it because they're nice. Um, sometimes they're full, other times they're not. I know that there's a lot of trash laying about in general there because people don't have enough trash cans and they're
not always available to use. So, this is the this is the strategic topic that I'm trying to address with this. And since the topic of trash cans came up just now, the budget, it seemed appropo. So, that's that's all I'm going for here. So, if anyone has any ideas about maybe enhancing code enforcement down there,
I'm happy to go that route. If anyone wants to put aside a budget for a pilot project, maybe with a few public trash cans down there that we take care of. I mean, a lot of cities in the world do that. Um, whatever it is, I'm happy to do it, but I don't think that the status quo downtown is serving anyone well. So, some questions I would have, um, is
this an issue only with the southeast corner quadrant, or is this an issue on all four quadrants of downtown? Is it okay on the west side of 56th Street, but not on the east? Those are the things I would like to know. Is there problems on overflowing trash cans on the other side? I know we have issues
somewhat sometimes around the bus stops and stuff. So, it it is an issue down there, but uh I can't agree to do anything other than maybe us get a report way later on. Yeah. I mean, I think uh to the vice mayor's point, looking at the cost is a
good idea. I think getting a report, seeing where the need is greatest is also a good idea because otherwise it's just sort of my anecdotal information. So, I don't know if that's the best. Council member, I agree with council member Fernandez on the private property issue. It's that's opening up uh a lot of different scenarios.
Yeah. Well, in that case, we could maybe look into the u covenants that we have governing downtown and see whether there's any obligation there for maintenance that people aren't meeting and then it would become a legal issue. So, you know, I' I'd always rather work with incentives rather than trying to
enforce against merchants who are maybe not doing what they're supposed to do because it's usually less efficient to go that second route. But, um, you know, I I can understand the arguments. Yeah, I'm happy to happy to support whatever. So, can we decide then that we would
like to see what a plan might look like to enhance trash uh pickup downtown? maybe either through more code enforcement or through some sort of a mechanism for deploying trash cans. Is that something that we can all get on board with? Well, yes and no. For me, I we have we
have all the stuff's already exists. This isn't we have codes that require PE property, private property owners to maintain their property to a certain condition. If they're not doing it, we should be citing them. That doesn't require a new study. That just requires a citation, right? We have the structure
already exists. If there's trash in the public property areas along Bertha of Palmer um or other property that we own and we need to put trash receptacles out there, then yes, put trash recepticles out there and
pick them pick them up. I mean, if that's where the trash I don't know if that's where the trash is or not. Maybe it is, but I'm adamantly against and I don't need a study and I don't need to put you guys to work and to tell us about putting trash cans on private property. I don't think that's a good idea for a number of reasons. We don't
do that to other people and so we're rewarding private property owners for not maintaining their property because we just relieve them of the problem and do it for them at taxpayer expense. And we don't do that for Kurabas and we don't do that for anybody else. We're
just going to do it there. Um, I don't need a study to tell me that that that I won't support that. But I mean, if we have trash along Bertha Palmer or on other properties that we own, then I don't think we need council
action to for you guys to put trash cans out there and pick it up. So, I think you can clearly hear that this is on the council's mind as the condition of litter on public property.
I don't don't know that we need to take formal action to get you to so if I could so I I agree I we can if it's on the public property we can obviously locate the hotspots where there might be more trash accumulating
and try and strategically locate um trash cans there and we we can work that into our either a sanitation or a streets program. Yes. Yes. I'm getting the nod from Mr. Warren Fuss that we can do that. uh the the private property as the mayor was alluding to it that's the reason I was
asking for the clarification because I didn't understand it as private property initially I would not recommend the private property because again sanitation fund is a it's a business so if you're going to now do it for free for them where is the incentive for them to to continue to pay for us for the services and the use of the dumpsters
and multiple pickups and things like that um but we can address the other issue relatively quickly great I have a go ahead please member crevice. No, no, you had the floor. Well, are we done with this issue? Because I was going to move it to the next one.
I did have one more comment then on it. Thank you. Um, about the nature of downtown, I think it's it's sort of a mixed space. We have a large public space down there that we're planning on developing into a mixeduse community slash uh um public use area for um people who want to come down there and
do pedestrian events and so on. Uh, so I think there are some sorry the the large empty space right now we just gave a contract to the broker with a modified instruction that we're supposed to entertain offers that don't maximize the cash value of the property but rather include a community aspect. That was my
recollection of what we instructed the broker to do. Okay. Right. That's what I'm referring to. A little different than what I just heard, but that's okay. Go ahead. So if we're going to pursue that angle, what that means is that we're going to have externalities downtown that these merchants aren't fully responsible for. And so I think that there's an argument
to be made that we could in include more public involvement in the structuring of downtown and in also in the infrastructure aspects keeping them clean and uh making sure that the the trash doesn't get uncontrolled there. So I I I agree there's a p public property
private property clash there a little bit or there will be increasingly if all goes well and so that's why I'm I'm interested in this. Uh but I think it's fantastic. Let's start with trash cans in the public areas. That's wonderful. I'll take whatever I can get on that point and um that I think addresses some of the other concerns. So, I'm really
happy to hear that. And now I'm done. Thank you. Have questions about some of the things that are being funded through on assigned fund balance. And I'm just I'm not opposed to the purchases. I'm just would like a little if you can walk us through the reason we're funding that
through on assigned fund balance. I'm assuming it's to kind of lower the general fund. But the items that I'm talking about are like computers, the rifles, um the the trash cans. I'm not opposed to these purchases, but I know that all of these items are
typically on like a replacement schedule, just like our vehicles and trash cans and police cars and everything else. And so my question is, why are we opting to fund these through unassigned fund balance as opposed to the traditional line items within those
respective budgets? So I think the answer is twofold. One you hit on initially which is we're obviously sensitive to the millage rate. Um second is these are not annually recurring costs. You were correct that there is a refresh schedule. For example the IT
items every 5 years. We look to change out the hardware. So right now we're doing it under signed fund balance again because next year we don't plan to do it. So in 5 years from now if the council approves it this time around then we'd have to revisit and figure out do we do it through
unassigned at that point and do some other mechanism perhaps through the uh general fund uh through the line items in the general fund. Um the other items the public safety items for example the rifles as I mentioned they hadn't been changed out since the '9s. Um we're now on a on a program again it's a program
we in three years if the council approves this phase program in three fiscal years we would be done and we'd probably be set for another two to three decades. So we wouldn't have to come back to that item. So again, thought process was not to burden the miller rate with that and we had the flexibility to use unassigned. That's
why we chose uh to do it that way. Um the trash cans again we looked at it as again we don't buy trash cans on a regular basis. This would be a pretty large aotment of of those receptacles. We'd buy them now probably wouldn't buy another set for years to come. So we
felt that it would make sense to to do it using an assigned fund balance. Okay. Thank you, Chief Merly. Would you mind coming up? I have a couple questions about your vests. So, I'm I'm not opposed to these purchases either. I'm just trying to
understand a little better. What is the protocol? because it typically if there's an active shooter in a situation traditionally I mean I don't um fire usually would retreat until that threat is kind of neutralized if they can but
so what's the I'm I'm curious about the protocols when you would intentionally stay in the danger zone and I'm also curious about how this these protective vests would work if you had to be in the danger zone
because you're fighting ing a fire that's immediately dangerous to life and health. And so would you be able to dawn the ballistic vest with the bunker gear? And so I'm just trying to figure out the practicality part of this. So we we've had the ballistic gear on the trucks for some time. When you have
Yes. They're the ones that we have now are dated manufactured June of 2018. The lifespan is about 5 years. Okay. So this is a replacement, not a new program, correct? Okay. Well, then forget all my questions then. Okay. Okay. Okay. I thought we were embarking on a new program.
No, we're looking to replace uh gear that we have now that's updated. All right, I won't bother your time then. Thank you. Oh, sure. Thank you, Mr. Preu. We okay to proceed? Yep. Okay. So, next up, we're going to be
talking about sanitation. Um, we are not proposing any changes from the first round of the of the workshops. the recommended rate increase as we mentioned last time it was 5% and we're maintaining that I'm going to draw your attention now to the proformer this is a 5-year proform
so a few things here this is uh has several assumptions if you look at the footnotes on the slide you'll see that u we and this is going to be the same for the the water and sewer fund as well these assumptions so we're assuming the personnel expenses if you take uh all the wages across contracts general
employees as well as all the benefits We're anticipating about 8% per year increase in personnel expense. Uh operating expense we programmed out five year 5% per year increase. U the growth rate is 2% in the first the current fiscal year that we're looking at fiscal
26 and then 1% subsequently thereafter. So we we've always tried to be conservative in that in that uh element. Um, so if you look at the uh ratio, the the bottom row, which is the reserve ratio, as the council knows, when we
talked about it here many times before, we always like to be at 25%, which is basically, you know, 3 months of reserves if you need it. Obviously, we're not hitting 25% here in sanitation. And uh that's because part partly because again, we're not proposing it.
We don't we want to keep the rate manageable. We feel like 5% is a is a is a manageable number. It's what we've talked about in the past. Secondly, unlike the water and sewer fund, in this case, the reserve to us is it's important, but it's not quite as critical. And the reason I say that is
uh in sanitation typically, okay, if a truck breaks down, we know how much a new truck costs. In water and sewer on the other hand, if we have a pipe that bursts underground, think about Fowler Avenue, it that cost could be monumental because there could be conflicts underground. There could be other things
you you discover, there could be now you've created cavities. So that reserve in water and sewer is very very important and we'd want to make sure that that reserve is always kept at at least at that 25% goal. So in sanitation here, we we're a little bit more comfortable. Uh we also know that this fund of all
our funds, this one operates most like a business. So every time the sanitation manager, Mr. Munoz, adds new commercial accounts, that's new revenue coming in so that it helps uh grow and expand the business. Um so for those reasons, we are we're comfortable with this. Again,
just to remind the council, the FY26 sanitation budget includes the uh again the two vehicles uh as well as adding a driver and two maintenance attendants. Um it also reflects absorbing the 18%
increase from the county for disposal. We have uh believe that contract expires in 2028. We we should seriously look at an alternative and before we get to 2028. Um at this point I would not suggest renewing a contract with the county just
based on the experience we've had. we've had with the FY26 number they gave us that 18% it's going to be 111% increase over the last 5 years. Um and that is incredibly hard to swallow. Um and not only that from an efficiency perspective
and I have lots of respect for the county personnel. I know they're trying to do their best but their operation does not prioritize our sanitation vehicles. Um, and so what that means is that uh the county vehicles, they get a transponder that allows them go to cut the line, if you will, go right to the
front of the line. We've asked for that. We were told we could get that and then at the last minute they took it away from us. So there are times we'll sit there and it it may be an hour, two hours and we're just sitting waiting to get through that. And then in the meantime, we're going to be incurring overtime costs because we're not able to
finish our routes. So for efficiency and for the cost, just putting it out there that again before we get to 2028, we're going to need to have a conversation about what we're going to do and maybe it's just go on the free market and and maybe that's the best avenue for us, but that's that's down the road. Um again,
just wanted to note here primarily again that we are at a 5% recommendation for sanitation. We feel that that'll address our needs moving forward. Any questions, Vice Mayor? Okay. Um, with with regards to the
options for 2028, can you give me a 30 secondond summary of what those options might be? Sure. Uh, well, if we want to go into a contract, I mean, we could look at potentially the city of Tampa. We've used the city of Tampa facilities. Oh, as opposed to the county. All right. Okay.
There might be, and this is just me speaking, not necessarily based on any in research I've done with the team, but we we could also consider perhaps being on the market. Um because when we went to the city of Tampa, we didn't have a contract with them. We just went because their rates were cheaper and they could
get us through the process and they gave us the transponders and so that we got primary attention when we got through there. So it was in and out. Um again, without benefit of contract. So there's different things we're going to be looking at. Uh again, that's a couple years down the road, but I just want to
sort of lay lay the groundwork here for that conversation. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Kravitz. Okay, I do. So, I just want to confirm the tipping fee or the the disposal fee that
the increase of the 18% that is a known entity at this time. It is. Okay. And the next increase from that uh from Hillsboro County would come in time to prepare next year's budget, fiscal year 2027. That's our expectation.
Okay. I mean, theoretically, I guess they could increase it, but we know, we've already been told we're not basing our budget on an estimated disposal fee. No, that the number they gave us several weeks ago was going to it's going to be for FY26 it was going to be 18%. If you allow me, has that changed or is that
still the same? Oh, the number changed. Yeah. After they told us Okay. Yeah, that that's my concern because the increases have been so large and we're we're establishing our budget and our fees right now and I'm just
concerned that if we are faced with we we have established that we're accommodating an 18% increase but if it actually goes up to 25% you know what does that do to our service? And then uh
my other question for you is yes we can bring in new revenue with new commercial accounts but what's the offset between our increase so adding an account and then what the required additional either
manpower or infrastructure in trucks you know do we if we bring in a bunch of new accounts do we then have to just offset it by new employees So it basically washes out. So good question. And but what I would I think the most illustrating point for
that would be we are in that 26 budget. You know, we're looking again to buy to buy vehicles and to add staff and do all that and only do a 5% rate increase. If we didn't have the new accounts, we wouldn't be able to do those things. I mean, if we didn't have the growth and
the sales and and that they've done and grown the sanitation fund. Um so we're always going to have to do more. It's a business, right? So, you grow, you got to you're going to have some expenses to make. But in this case, the only reason we've been allowed to grow is because of that, because of the
the revenue that's coming in, the new revenue that's adding to the fund. So, that that's been helpful. Otherwise, you'd be we wouldn't be proposing this to you. And in fact, we'd probably say, "Well, let's try and band-aid these trucks together, keep it going. We wouldn't have the staff." Um, so that would be the concern. So I think the
fund in that perspective is doing a lot better because it allows us the flexibility to really address some of those critical issues. If you recall last year there were a number of times where we had the residential routes that were delayed and I was sending notes to the council because the trucks broke
down. There was one day if I'm not mistaken I think we had three if not four trucks all broke down at the same time. So, we're trying to get rid of those, you know, 20 year old vehicles and modernize the fleet. So, we're we're able to do that and still keep the rates. If you look out in this proform
right now, you look at year one is 5%. We're still projecting 5% going forward. Now, of course, this is out year, so you know, it's a take it with a grain of salt, but it's usually pretty solid understanding of where we plan to go.
Um, so again, that would not be possible without the the work of adding and selling new accounts and things like that. Okay. Thank you, Mr. B. I hate I have a question. Actually, it's a request for um some information, which I really hate to do to you because I know you guys are
rather busy, but I know this is um the results of this have helped in the past to show that we're still in a favorable and competitive market. And so I'd like to see if we could get and share it with all of us. The residential costs, not
commercial cuz there's a thousand variables that go into commercial rates. It's almost impossible to do that. But residential costs, what they'll be with our 5% increase um compared to unincorporated in Tampa and maybe Plant
City. Um, and also the I'd like something on there to a reminder of this is this is a real big caveat here is we visit your home four times a week in Temple Terrace, whereas for instance in Tampa, you have the same size trash barrel, but I think
they come once a week in in Tampa if I'm not mistaken. But we come for trash twice a week, yard waste once a week, and recycling once a week. So, we're at your home four days a week. So, if we could get like a one pager that says in
Tampa, you pay X and you get one visit, one recycling, and whatever you get. And then Hillsburg County, this is what you get. I think that would go a long way toward, you know, we we've had to raise these rates for the past few years and we've
proactively kind of explained to the public what the drivers of this increase were. And as a result, the public kind of we haven't gotten a lot of backlash from that because I think we've done a good job of explaining what the you know what what the costs are. This is a great
analysis. Um, I think all of us are always hesitant about raising fees or taxes on anything, but um, you know, we have to do it. And that it is worth the public remembering that we gave you a 95 gallon
trash barrel, which for most households is sufficient for once a week pickup, but the public here doesn't want that. When we talked about that, they would no, no, no, no, we want the twice a week. And so that's why we continue to do that. But there's a cost to that, too. So if we could get something like
that as a like an FAQ kind of thing, just a comparison, not just within Hillsbor County. Yep. So I was actually trying to get that in time for today, but the other entities, they're not there yet. They're so we're a little bit ahead in terms of our budget process because of some of
the council member vacations. We kind of expedited this a little bit. Um so I was planning to have that in time for the hearings. It was actually going to be one of the slides for the for the actually the budget hearings in September. I can provide it ahead of time to the council as soon as I can get it from the other entities. Good. Thank you.
Oh, Jim has a comment here, too. Mr. Ingram. Um, thank you. We we do this microphone. Mike, I'm sorry. Yeah, we do this every year. So, we will be prepared. Of course, we will separately
apart from the budget, we will need to have the council adopt a resolution in September for the increase of utility rates. Uh currently this year I know that we
are uh for residential sanitation rates we are lower than Tampa. City of Tampa and the county plant city I believe is a little lower than us. So like Mr. Ba has said we don't know what they're going to
propose. Uh, I believe they already have they may already have a structure in place where they're going to raise it so much every year. Uh,
we'll take a look at that though and and provide that for you. I do know that 5% of our current residential rate would be a dollar an additional $1.77 to the sanitation
monthly charges. Thank you. Yeah, usually this comparison shows us in a pretty favorable light, which is a good reason to to do it. So, okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. All right. Moving on.
water and sewer funds. Now, so uh just like we did a short while ago, there were a couple items again that were factored in uh financially, but again did not make the slide decks. Uh so from water and sewer, the first item here is as I think the the the members of
council have been around for a little bit. They know that our staff, there are staff that work in water and sewer, staff that work in sanitation, staff that work in the general fund, and some staff that traverse multiple funds. So, when that happens, when there's staff that works in multiple funds, we
allocate their time to different budgets. Um, and we have to take a look at that every year because, uh, depending on practice and what's going on in the department, sometimes that staff person that was supposed to be halftime in water and sewer and halftime in general fund ends up being entirely in water sewer in terms of what they do
on a daily basis. And that's what we found here. We have a couple of employees that part of their time was still in general fund, but they've evolved now into primarily just working in the water and sewer fund. So, we have moved $70,710 in basically wage benefit costs for
those for that change from the general fund into the water and sewer fund. Um, the second item is an easy link meter reading box which is actually pictured here. So, uh this allows our our meter texts to read our our meters remotely. We have one already. This would be the
second one. Um so, when they go through the field, they can pick up all their information this way. And then the last item is uh in the first presentation we had talked about SCADA which is the remote operating system for our lift stations. And I'd mentioned we had $100,000. This is a multi-year phased
approach for updating uh those systems. And that was for 100,000 was 20,000 for each of our five lift stations. One thing that was left out was because I saw the $100,000 number. I'll be very I'll admit it. And I thought, oh, this must be just a mistake, right? We have it twice. But no, it had to be twice
because there's also $100,000 for the Whiteway treatment plant for their SCADA upgrade as well. So that that's why this is here. Now moving on to the proforma for the water and sewer fund. So uh this one it has a a little bit more detail. So the
footnotes would all be the same. So as I mentioned last time, personal expenses 8% per year in terms of assumptions. Operating expense 5% per year. uh growth rate 2% in the first year and then 1% each subsequent year. Now uh one thing
that's also on this uh proforma is noted at the top that there's a minimum of $4 million in capital programmed here every year. Uh, and then at the top left, you'll see that it also contemplates
$500,000 in water and sewer fund capital moving to the CIT, which is what we talked about at the last time. And we're going to the mayor had asked for some examples of incremental changes to that, which we're going to show you in just a sec. But I do want to make mention of a couple of things here as well. The
reserve ratio, which I talked about in sanitation here, as I mentioned, is critical in water and sewer particularly. So, uh, thanks to the great work that Jim's done, we we're able to hit that reserve ratio four out of the five years in the last year, last out year right now, it would drop a little bit. So, that rate would probably
need to be adjusted in the you'll look if you look at the revenue where the rate line is uh you'll see it's 5% uh except for next year. Right now, it's projected to be 6% based on what's in capital. But let me talk about the capital side. The capital plan that's in here is based
on a capital plan that we've been working with for several years. As council knows, we have a water facility master plan study that's um going on right now. When that study comes out, we assume that there will be a list of capital projects that will probably tend
be tens of millions of dollars of improvements over the next several years that we'll have to contemplate. So, that will change this capital program. Um secondly uh as we've talked about depending on the EPA regulations
regarding PAS and water systems if those regulations stay as they've been presented today they are being challenged in in court but if they stay as being presented today we will have to acquire some sort of treatment system uh based on just preliminary research right now those treatment systems for a
facility our size with a $5 million$5 million gallon output those will not be cheap. So again, that will also impact some of these outy years in this five-year proform. So that's just a mean a means of me telling you that this five-year performant right now is a
vision in time. Next year when we come to you, I think it'll be much more reflective of some of the more pressing needs that have been identified in the last, you know, 365 days basically. Um so that will that will change that and so some of these uh revenue projections may also change because of that. we may
have to increase the rate at a different pace than what we contemplate today. So the the FY26 year will really be a year for us to get our bearings and understand you know where we need to go over the next 5 years. Any questions on this portion
capital are we taking out of this budget and putting and charging to CIT in 26? How much money? Sure. $500,000 based on this proform. And if you allow me, I go to the next slide, which I think it's at where you're going, Mr. Mayor.
So, um, the, uh, the mayor had asked at the last time to present you with some incremental scenarios here. So what we've got here, and again I want to recognize Jim for the work he did putting this together, is if we kept the capital program in 26 the way it is, we
didn't make any changes there and we did not propose taking a half million dollars of capital and moving it to the CIT, then the rate we would need to have the rate increase would be 8%. In order to get that 25% reserve ratio, right? If
we want to keep that 25%, we need an 8% rate uh increase. And what you see in that in that chart, if you go down just progressively, you'll see, you know, if you moved $100,000 worth of capital to CIT, 200, 300, etc., progressively, you'd see that the rate diminishes.
Um, and the column on the right, the third column is what it would do to the CIT. So, the CIT reserve, that's the amount of money that's left over after all the FY26 CIT projects are accounted for. those dollars would be noted there on the third column. So based on this um
we looked at it and we felt comfortable uh and and Jim did check with the county again to just make sure that what we were doing what we were suggesting to be done here was was acceptable. They indicated that it was it was it was similar to the practices they have there at the county. So because of that, we
suggested in FY26 doing a 5% increase and not necessarily an 8% increase. Now, if council wants us to do something differently, obviously we can. One thing I'd like to note as well is that when we first presented these the projects for the CIT from water and sewer, there were two
projects, if you remember, it was a Queensway gravity main repair and then a um a SCADA upgrade for the lift stations. They 400,000 for the Queensway project and 100,000 for the SCADA. When Jim was going through this, he suggested and I totally agreed from an accounting perspective to track these
things later. It would just make more sense to have one project that's 500,000 then rather than try and track two projects and assign them to the CIT. So, what we're suggesting if council wants to go with this plan is if we're going to move $500,000 that we just move the Montrose Avenue gravity main replacement
project and that will be the project that will go to CIT. So I have a quick question before and thank you for this analysis. This is this is exactly what I was hoping to see. So thank you for that. So
what if any projects will be lost from is there anything that we would have normally done out of CIT that we're not going to be doing because of this? In other words, it's replacing we we use CIT for police cars and fire
trucks and park equipment, playground equipment, um you know, things at the rec center, those types of things. Did we cancel any proposals that we would have normally done in order to displace this $500,000 to this?
No. And we uh Mr. Ingram and I talked about that after the last workshop and we are funding every request that came to us from the departments this year uh for basically for items that would be for example under CIT we're funding all the requests um there are some items
that you see an unassigned fund balance you might ask well could those go to CIT and actually Jim corrected me since the last workshop he said no no because there's certain things CIT in our minds is really more about infrastructure and then if you start getting into and sometimes as a gray area between what's
infrastructure and what's equipment, but Jim's trying to make sure that equipment side doesn't go to CIT, but infrastructure does. Um, so you'll see that mostly with the CIT. And in the questionable ones where we feel like really that's more of like a operating equipment thing, we've put in unassigned
fund balance. So that's how we've approached that situation. Okay. I just wouldn't want a situation where okay, we saved you 2% on your water bill, but no, we're not buying police cars on schedule or I mean, so we're not in that position.
No, I think and they're here, the two chiefs, so they can attest to it and come up if you want, but finding everything they've asked for. Okay, good. So, Council Member Kravitz, anything? Just a small comment which seems like
we're taking a relatively flexible fund which is CIT and then we're using it to subsidize a fund that isn't flexible. I don't really care where the money goes and which pot it is. Just for the record, I don't have a problem with this plan, but the CIT money could be used for a variety of things whereas a sanitation fund can only really be used
for sanitation projects. So, um, if we do this, we should be aware that we're not losing flexibility right now, but we might lose flexibility down the line. Vice Mayor, your co your comment that you just you just made regarding the uh usage of the
CIT fund that if I was listening to what if I'm understanding your your definition then you're saying we're not you we couldn't and I know we can we can't use the uh CIT fund for buying police cars.
Can you clarify what you what your comment was on that? I know we can use it for that. Okay. Yeah. uh within the definition of CIT, uh public safety expenses are a little broader in that vehicles are definitely
allowed for fire, police, right? We wouldn't use it to buy a for instance a community development vehicle. They are specifically in the CIT plan code that the county put out some
almost 30 years ago now. They specifically mention public safety vehicles uh equipment associated with uh public safety um that that that you answer my question because you said you your your
comment was infrastructure and I know we've done the other and I know and I just wanted on the record that there is a u a crossover if you I'm not the it's not the right word but we we we can use it and have used it for that in the past. It's not strictly infrastructure,
but it there is opportunity. There's times where we're using a free equipment. I just want to make sure everybody everybody here is on the same page. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. Yeah, my mind I was thinking about leisure services. Agreed. Agreed. That's one that gets a little gray. I I just I just, you know, this is this
is recorded, so just wanted to make sure that that made it into the record, too. Yes. Um, no questions, but a couple comments to the colleagues here. So, we've got uh do we keep the monthly
rates down, moving this 500,000 project uh to CIT, or do we uh operate that fund like the business and don't do that and raise the from 5% to 8% to the uh monthly bills? If we do that though, we're we're going
to have some bigger increases down the road when we have to address some of the regulatory issues that we've got coming up. So, I don't have a solution to it. Those are the, you know, two somewhat choices I see. I'm not opposed to the $500,000 move right now to keep the
monthly rates a little low because they're going to go up in the years future. So, I have a a couple questions here. So, uh to begin with, the CIT balance that you showed, the $1.8 8 million. Is that the
ending balance of all of our anticipated CIT collections through this next cycle of the because the CIT will sunset at a certain time. So is that just got renewed, right? It did just get renewed, but it's
it is it will sunset into the future. So what I'm asking is this 1.8 8 million balance the end the ending balance at the end of fiscal year 2026 or is this the ending balance of our anticipated collection of CIT?
You want to take that one? It's through the end of fiscal year 26 which includes the revenues and the expenditures of 2026 of 2026 and the ongoing ones okay we currently are doing but through the rest of the time period
that this community investment tax is in effect there will be more revenue coming in that's not the ending balance that's what I wanted to clarify correct correct so as um I think I may even mentioned it last time based on projections from the county when they
were renewing the uh the the CIT putting it back on the ballot. Uh the city of Temple Terrace was scheduled um to receive $53 million over 15 years. So again, that's numbers they they provided to us. Um so yes, this will continue to grow at this point.
Okay. So, and then do the CIT funds have an expiration? And this I I know the answer, but I just want to make sure that people know that um for is is there like the ARPA funds had a a expiration. Do the CIT funds have an
expiration that we have to spend them by a particular time? Not that I'm aware of. No. Okay. And then um question for you. Right now, the city of Tampa treats all of our wastewater and we know we've we've explored other options and we know
that this is the direction we need to go. However, do we they have increased their cost that they charge the city uh pretty substantially in past years. Do we know what our actual
bill will be for 2026 or are we basing this on an estimated cost? So, so the actual bill is based on meterage. So, the this the sewage is metered. It goes out. So, that aggregate number will change, but the rate they've told us their increase. Jim, you want to fill in?
Yeah, it's uh 3%. They've actually got I think it's a 10year out schedule where they have that fixed. Every year we will get a 3% increase on our wastewater
bill that the city pays to Tampa. Okay. All right. So that is So we do have knowledge of what our rate will be and of course I know it's an estimate because we don't know exactly how many gallons will go through at this time but
I was talking more about the rate. Um, okay. So, my biggest concern is the age of our infrastructure and I know that we're doing a study for the to
establish where the infrastructure is on its lifespan and not obviously not taking into account the emergencies that may come up. But when we've established these rates and
this budget, do we have any inkling of the the costs that might I just want to make sure that we're establishing rates and a budget based on a reality of what we really might need
to spend to bring our infrastructure current versus coming back in and saying, "Oh, well, it turns out all our pipes are 70 years old and they're collapsing and we're going to need a a massive overhaul
and your rates are going to be 32% increase." You know, so that's my concern. It's a fair concern. I think this year, as I mentioned, is going to be very um telling for us because not only will we get the the water facilities study and
we're al also going through some of those EPA regulations, but we have new management in utilities. So, people looking at it with a fresh set of eyes, uh we're also going to be doing a little bit more of the proactive sort of trying to find where some of these hotspots are and trying to address things in a more proactive fashion.
So right now all I can say is that the number is going to be tens of millions of dollars in terms of capital and however we phase that over several years with that's information I don't have in in my disposal just yet. Now there may also be grants and things like that that could def defay some of those costs but
again I I don't have that. I will have that by next year's budget what we anticipate based upon the timing of these studies. Um, and at this point, I think I know what you're you're you're trying to get at, council members, you know, is there a way to prepare for that even starting this year? You know, a
gradual progression of the rate, right? So, I mean, should we basically set a 7% rate in anticipation of knowing that we're probably going to be putting out $10 million over multiple years to
improve this versus all at once? Sure. And I mean, obviously that's the council's discretion. If you want to if you want to basically increase a a reserve bank of funds to start to address this these these major capital items that are coming down the road, if you would like to start that in this
year's budget, obviously you could do that. Um I just wouldn't be able to provide you with all the costs, correct? That buttress that rate increase. That those are my questions. Okay. I have a quick followup just real real quick. I know I All right. We've been down the Dest.
Okay. Go ahead. I know. I'm sorry. I just thought of this. Are we auditing the um inflow what we're actually processing through the city of Tampa versus what we're actually pumping so that we're we're eliminating the ins issues that we've had in the past?
Mr. Warfeld, can you come up and try and address that? Mayor, council member Jason. Um this is the auditing process be the meter calibrations and as we recently discovered some of those have um it's not been done as annually as we had
liked it to been. So as far as flows um I am working with Hillsboro County on some flow items um as far as how much we receive and how much we pass on and then what we build them for. But it is on a horizon. It is. It absolutely is. All right. Cool. Okay. Because I know
it's been a problem in the past. I just make sure that new eyes have seen looking at that issue also. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of discovery that's happening. It's not bad. It's just it's good. Um it just brings us up to where we need to be in places that we need to go. So,
okay. Thank you, sir. Council member Trevitz not not addressing um might be also worth thinking about financing these costs coming down the line over 30 years maybe with a bond because asking the current rateayers to pay for infrastructure that'll outlast them
probably is not necessarily fair. So I don't know if it's possible but what we could do is issue a bond and then perhaps use revenue from the sanitation fees to pay for the bond. So water and sewer fees, right? Yes. So, uh, I I think that's what
you're going to have to do. The magnitude of these costs are are going to be such that I can't imagine we would ever have the cash on hand to make that happen. The rate your rate increase would be too dramatic. But just keep in mind, even if you do bond it, I mean, if you're talking tens of millions of
dollars and you do a bond at today's rates, that's still going to be a pretty big draw on the fund on an annual basis for debt service. Yeah. Okay. Is the council okay with the recommendation then? Is just before we
move on or I Yes, I think so. Okay. All right. On the street improvement fund, this is just meant to just refresh everybody's uh memories here. The total capital outlay in street improvement is $5,250,000.
There were no changes made since the initial presentation. The fund balance at the end of 26 after all that uh expense will be just under a million dollars. Mobility fee fund. This is the fund that used to be in street improvement. All
these these projects were in street improvement. We've pulled them out because they're funded not from gas tax. They're funded from impact fees. So they have to be used for adding capacity, addressing growth. So in the FY26 budget, what we presented to you last time, there's two projects, the
Ferncliff Avenue sidewalk construction and an additional 50,000 for new segments of sidewalk that we may want to build. We identify certain areas for a total capital outlay of $175,000. That leaves a mobility fee fund balance at the end of fiscal 26 of $3.5 million.
That's a big number. So, what I am proposing is that if you uh if the council agrees, we're going to talk to our our public works team over the next several months and try and find areas we can build, for example, new sidewalk um and bring you a more robust capital
program in the future for this. This is an area we've been doing repairs, but I feel like we really need to look at this a little bit better and think about, okay, where do we want to be in terms of this network and what can we build? Because again, these dollars are very restrictive. So, you can only use it for building new sections, large sections of
sidewalk basically, or roads if you wanted to do that. Um, so next year's program will probably in my mind hopefully be better and more robust for you to consider. So, just to confirm, we can build new sidewalks out of this money, but we
can't repair existing sidewalks out of this. That is correct. We have dollars in the street improvement fund, if you recall, that we put in there to do those repairs. These would be for example if you you know like in telecom there's a section of sidewalk that's been talked about for us to build we would use these
dollars for that for example. I do have a question member Fernandez. Um, when you're building the sidewalks or repairing them, we have a lot of trees and one of the issues that we find is they may look
very uh easily navigated initially, but the tree roots tend to move the sidewalks around. Um, in either case, building new or uh fixing established, are there other products or other
techniques that might be better for certain areas of sidewalk that help reduce the problems that we do have where, you know, we're and I mean, if you walk anywhere in the city, you see parts of the sidewalk are are elevated
and and moved. Um, and then we obviously have to go back and repair them. But is there any kind of other product that we could put down uh when we're building new or when we're repairing them that might help in that situation? So, two parts to the answer to that
question. I think the first thing is as council probably will remember, we we're putting in this budget a grinder, a sidewalk grinder to help us proactively address when there's heaves in the panels to grind out the edges so that we don't have those trip hazards. Yes. the the the issue and I'll ask Mr.
McCarthy to come up um with the material is the ADA compliance you're supposed to maintain a certain grade with the ADA in terms of you know walkability. Um even with the other materials if the roots are under the the sidewalk I don't know if you'd be able to still do that
because there's still going to be some trip hazards that you're going or heaves that are going to happen. They might not be heaves in terms of the concrete panels, but it could be still heaving in in a sense that creates the same trip hazard that we still have to address. But maybe Brian, if you know there's other products out there, we can you can
talk to those. Um, you pretty much summarized it very well. Um, right now we are looking at a new product related to storm water. Um, more like a plastic rubberized allows the percolation. And I know that was one of
uh your priorities regarding the materials rather than doing everything out of concrete. Um but when it comes to ADA materials, um we're pretty much restricted to um concrete, asphalt or like a boardwalk just because of the way
the tree roots will even lift up some of that rubber material. Okay. Thank you, Chambers. Yeah. Vice Mayor, member Kravitz. So I just have a comment is this has been consistent comment I make every
year budget. I I am an advocate of us increasing improving our sidewalk maintenance program which we did a few years ago and and I think there's a lot more work to be done on that. I know we can't use the mobility fee money to do that
but um some of it's been a funding thing and some of it's just been a programming thing. I know we're looking, you know, we're trying to bundle 15 repairs together so that we get economy of scale, but um we have a number of really
poor conditioned sidewalks in and throughout the city and that have been that way for a long time. And the sidewalk grinder I'm happy to hear because that that will help. But I I would like and I'll bring this up at
goal setting too. I just like to see us get a little more robust on our sidewalk maintenance and repair. We We have It's just a It's the nature of the kind of city we have, which is a really I guess other cities would be envious of this problem. We have a lot
of sidewalks and a lot of beautiful trees, but they don't go well together. And u you know, it's a good problem to have from a certain perspective, but it's also a maintenance nightmare. And so I I still think that needs to be
elevated in priority in my opinion. But I I know as someone who walks around the city a lot, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. We've had people injured because they're tripping over them and stuff and we and Mr. Warrenfel recognizes that urgency. Um so we are working towards
having a program that's a little bit uh faster is not the right term necessarily, but a little bit more proactive I guess than than in the past. And you're absolutely correct with the trees. I mean, if if you'll um recall at the last workshop, we talked about there's a there's a street that we're
making an a sidewalk repair to. We're probably going to have to build a boardwalk because we don't we're trying to avoid the three trees that are in a stand right by that sidewalk. So, that's the kind of things we do here. Other communities would just tear those trees down. That'd be their first reaction to it. Okay, Brian, our monitors have
switched up here to something. We're not seeing what you're seeing on our monitors. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. So, the building fund, as I mentioned at the uh introduction today,
there is still a general fund contribution of $37,328 to the building fund. We are proposing fee changes. Um, we're trying to get that work done, have the study completed, and get you fee changes at some point during the FY26 year. So,
those fee change rates have not been calculated in this budget. So, whatever they they end up being will actually hopefully reduce this number, this contribution number. Um, my understanding is that we've not changed our fees in many, many years, perhaps even two decades. Um, so we we're gonna
that'll probably be a dramatic change. Now, it'd be more dramatic if we, you know, had a lot more development going on also. Uh, but it'll help make this this number smaller. Uh, next item is the
tax increment of finance district or our CRA. Our total uh CRA uh revenue for FY26 is projected to be $2,92,800. that includes the city's general fund contribution of $910,615.
Um, so the city contributes, the county contributes, and the Tampa Port Authority are the three entities that provide funding for our CRA. In terms of expenditures, we have $3,000 for the CRA audit. We have a capital outlay of $400,000. This is to uh an
additional um um investment in the Riverside Park project. Now, I've been talking about Riverside Park and the budget. We had asked half to give us u early budget numbers and they did and I mentioned Mr. Langfel and I were going through those numbers trying to come up
with a you know more reasonable approach and um they've recently in the last couple of weeks talked to Mr. blankful again and said if you give them until the end of July they'll be at a design point there where the numbers will be much more refined because right now there's a large contingency they built
into their initial numbers because they were too early in their process because we had requested it. Um so now they've asked for that extra time. I'm okay with that. I I still propose putting this $400,000 here because I can't imagine that the number
will still be 3.4 million. It's going to be more than that. I just don't know the magnitude of what that will end up being at this point. So, I'm comfortable if the council will accept uh investing an additional 400,026. That money is just a set aside. It's not going anywhere, right? It won't go anywhere unless we
actually, you know, the council says, "Yeah, go ahead and move up move forward with this." Uh debt service out of that uh budget. So, debt service is 97,00 97,38 in debt service. And then the ending balance in the CRA fund at the end of
September 26 will be $782,662. Vice Mayor questions. Okay. Thank you. Now, we we had the uh we we were very fortunate to have the uh legislature support and approve funding of our legislative request for uh hurricane
resistant funding uh projects, I should say. Unfortunately, the governor vetoed that city's award. Uh we had put in the sandbag machine in fiscal 26's budget already at using unassigned fund balance for $60,000. We had the two fuel
trailers in the fleet fund at $70,000 and we had one Starlink um um component in the CIT at $14,000. So right now those are still in there and will remain in there unless council wants us to do something different
critical. So Mr. be the sandbag machine. Is there any opportunity to purchase that now? And then even if we pay for it out of 26 and I don't know how that would work, but I
there's there's an offset to this. So, we spend $60,000 to buy a sandbag machine, and I can't quantify the overtime hours that we spend filling sandbags, but there's a huge offset to Now, I know at the end of the day, sometime in the future, FEMA might pay
us back for some of that. Or they might not because a lot of times we fill sandbags in anticipation of so, you know, they're not always recovering all of our expenses for the sandbag. So,
I really hate to wait another hurricane season to get this machine. In fact, I would if we' had in a perfect world, we would have ordered this machine the day after we found out we were vetoed. So, I don't know if there's any
sure there's there's a way we we can do it. Jim, do you want to talk to the mayor's question? Yes. We could actually do a budget amendment in this year to use unassigned fund balance. It would be the same as
doing it next year. We just do it earlier. Um and yeah, that that would work. We could do that. Just just personally, I mean, I don't know how the others feel, but we can't
do all of it. But the sandbag thing, I mean, rarely do we go through a hurricane season where we don't have at least one sandbag event. Now, the fuel trailers, that's not an every season thing, but the sandbag thing is almost I mean, I'll be shocked if we make it through a
hurricane season and we don't have one. So, council member, well, technically you could fund everything provided you have the cash in unassigned fund balance. You could you could fund all of those items in fiscal year 2025
and then they just wouldn't appear in fiscal year 2026 because they're technically not coming out of fiscal year 2026 revenue. They're coming out of the fund balance that we've already accumulated. So, we could do a budget amendment for fiscal year 2025, fund
what purchase what needs to be purchased going into the uh hurricane season that we're starting and then they just wouldn't appear at all in the fiscal year 2026 budget as uses of unassigned fund balance.
I just don't know if they would recommend spending that much money on assigned fund balance. But technically, we can. Well, we could. It's just a I just don't know if that I I would have to but we could. I just don't know if we want to spend $800,000 or almost 900 is
what the request was. So I don't I mean that's Yeah, we could. Council member Chambers, I agree with Council Member Fernandez. Uh certainly with the uh maybe one fuel trailer or some contingency for us to
have pre-rened ones or something. I don't want us to be caught like we were last year. Um and and and also uh with the sandbag machine, we could certainly do that now. I mean, the fund balance I don't know what your unassigned fund balances now. I don't remember. Uh but I don't ever
remember a year where the fund balance is less after the end of the budget season than before. We always accumulate a little bit more during the year because we don't always pay salaries and you know people leave and there's the gaps. So I think that money will be there. Um, but I don't know all the
numbers either. Mayor, I agree given the fact that we only budgeted 95% of our our our revenues coming in at least through the general fund for through our adorum and so forth. And we never spend 100% of what
we actually budget. There's there's enough of a of a of a surplus that would that would be able to I think cover at least those two items, the sandbag machine and the uh the um the trail the the fuel trailers. I think
those are critical. I think that that uh we we we got very lucky dodged the bullet and I know I' I've bagged sandbags before and it's killer. So I would agree we should do this as soon as get that done this year and and and get it out of get it out of out of the mix
all together. We don't have to worry about it. It's done. Council member Kings. Yeah. Fully in favor of anything we can do for hurricane preparedness. Absolutely. The only thing I would say is just we they're doing a terrific job, but we're
also taking some of that slack out of the system that we're used to being there. They're getting a lot more surgical with the budget. So, we've always like, well, we we'll budget $100,000, but we know we're only going to spend 70,000 of it every year, but we still budget. A lot of that slack is
being taken out of the budget process. So, I I I think uh anyway, I I guess we're looking for some recommendations of So, what we can do, what I'm hearing is yes, on the sandbag machine using FY25 unassigned fund balance. Uh fuel
trailers as well. Yes, you want the fuel. I mean personally if the current unassigned fund balance for fiscal year 2025 can handle the purchase in 2025, then
I'm in favor of being as prepared as we can and still fiscally responsible. So Jim, the fuel trailers are in fleet. Um, could we accommodate that through the unassigned instead and then we'd
make the adjustments to the fleet fund? Yes, we could. the um just uh to speak on I think it was Mayor Ross's point. Uh Jamie was pointing out we spent what was it 21,000
in overtime total in total wages for for sandbag just the sandbagging last year. So I think is if we could get that ASAP and you're correct, we have
the funds. We could do it now. It would just be doing it now rather than later. We do a budget amendment. Same with the the utility trailers. They are uh they're programmed into the 26 proposed
budget out of the fleet fund. Um we'll have to look at the numbers there. I I think it's it's total of 60,000 70 70,000 I'm sorry. So it's not a huge number. I think we can make that work.
Okay. Thank you, Jim. So that's what council's okay. That's what we'll propose. We can make it work. I mean, I'm in favor of it. Sounds like everybody's in favor of it. It works. Okay. Okay. So, if we make that word, just one thing, the the the fleet fund numbers will look different when you get
the actual budget in in August from what you you may have seen today because right now the trailers are in the fleet fund. So, when that comes out, you might see it, but we'll get them cheaper now than we will next year, too. I mean, there's a time value to your Yeah. Yeah. Buying anything when the storm's upon us is right not good. Okay.
Well, that's that's also assuming you can get everything before hurricane season ends. Well, that is assuming. So right now we checked on the sandbag machine at least and there's a 7 to 10 day lead time from the from one of the vendors. So that's not too bad until a storm forms in the Atlantic. So
we need to get on this pretty quick. I just I do have one comment about the $20,000 in wages and the sandbag machine is $60,000. I would anticipate that we would have the sandbag machine more than one year. Therefore, if you factor in
$20,000, you've now covered for doing this the required activity, you've covered the cost of the sandbag machine versus labor. So, it's an offset. There may be multiple storms in a given year. So, correct. Yeah, you you'll get that money back.
Yeah. And now it still takes labor for this process. machine and then we've got to take the sandbags out to the distribution and we've got to distribute them to I mean so there's still going to be some but it'll be a fraction of what it costs to have those crews out there
you know 12 hours a day just shoveling I mean that you you've seen it I mean some of us have done it it's be a quick payback and not only that but those crews when they're doing the sandbag machine they're not doing other work right so that's part of it too okay and we'll leave the Starlink in the
26 budget that is not as critical in our mind. So if you're okay with that. Yes. Okay. CIT anywhere. Okay. Uh next steps. So uh like we said at the beginning, this might be the last council workshop. Hopefully if you feel
you're pretty confident where we are with everything we've discussed, it could be. If you felt like you needed another one, uh July 15th would have been tenderly scheduled as the optional council budget workshop that evening. um later on that day and that evening in city council meeting we're going to be
uh if setting the millage rate hopefully if the council again is comfortable with that. July 17th was set aside as the special meeting to set the millage rate. If you didn't want to do it on the 15th um but to do that you'd have to take a vote at the 15th regular meeting to
schedule the 17th and then by August 15th you'll be delivered the final finalized proposed budget. Uh and then it'll be posted on the CE's website. And then in uh September, we'll have the millage and budget ordinances and hearings. And just as a reminder, what
we're talking about, this video will be put on today. Typically, it's just within hours of this of event so the public can watch the same thing that we're going through today. Council, everybody okay with the schedule? One one question. So when you say setting the millage rate on July 15th or
the 17th special meeting, that's the tenative millage rate, correct? Yes. Not the not the real millage rate. What? That's later on. Okay. Thank you. It's basically not to exceed millage rate. Not to exceed. Yeah. I just But you'll need that. You need that for trim notices. Correct. Yeah.
Brian, can you put the schedule back up so I can Everybody can Does that work for everybody? Is that a reminder? I'm not here on either the 15th or the 17th. So I'm not here on the 17th. I'm not here on the 17th probably. Okay. So we would want to shoot then for
the 15th to set the mill rate. Yes. Okay. Are you comfortable with this is the last budget workshop? Yes, I am. Council member Kravitz got two or three deserata here that I could address about the budget. And since we're moving into scheduling, it
sounds like we're in the process of wrapping up. I was wondering if I could bring up those points. Okay, you can take this slide down, Brian, and we'll put it back up at the end. It'll just be a minute. Yep. Go ahead. Um, first point was about the Tampa Bay Falcons. They were here last uh council meeting, little football team, and I
think um we found out from them that they're paying about $5,000 for the uh uh field that they use. I was wondering if we could add something in there under line 82 aid to private organizations currently budgeted with $40,000. Would we be able would that be an item where we have to subsidize them to pay us
5,000 or would be sufficient to just offer them the field for free or what would be the process for helping them? So I have not had this conversation yet with Mr. Langfeld about that issue. That's something we're going to report back to you. Okay. Um I can tell you just from experience, I'm sure Mr. Langfield can tell you from
experience dealing with uh the different organizations that use fields is very very delicate. Um it's something you really want to think about. So I'm not prepared to answer that right now. Oh, okay. Council member Chambers would agree with the difficulty issue. Yeah.
If he were here, one more item then. Um I was looking at the uh CIT funding that's being used for um fire department bunker gear. Uh $81,200 and I was curious if this is going to be the non-P fast gear that's going to become legally required.
That's Yes, that's so Chief Merly spoke at the last meeting. So that's what they're looking at. They're still trying to work through with the vendor. Um the the the P the non-PAS gear has not proven itself yet so far to be as sturdy
and resilient as the typical gear had been in in the past. So they're working with the vendor to see about getting to a point where that that gear now will meet the standards that they expect. Uh but that is the goal. The goal that Chief Kemp expressed to me is the goal would be to start buying the nonpast gear to be in compliance with the uh
state law. Got it. Okay. Um I was looking at the legal department budget and I saw that there is uh $23,000 proposed for outside legal services. I believe 31 professional services or is there a different line for our money that we spend on outside counsel? No, that's probably that's probably correct. Yeah,
it just seems surprisingly low to me. That's all. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. And then one more item here about the pipelining. Um, I looked at the uh uh public works budget of $200,000 for pipelining and I was curious if 200,000 is sufficient. I
mean, I remember we were discussing a much more extensive pipelining effort. So, so right now uh we we we've had 200,000 for for this for the sanitary lining in the past and that's still in there as well. We have $200,000 for storm water lining which we've not done in the past.
So, that would be a new item. um with any new item and Mr. Warrenfelt particularly is is I'm sure he's the same page as I am until we really get a handle on how much it's truly going to cost. We felt like let's go in with a reasonable number and if we find that
you know we're we need to do a whole larger section. We'll come back to the council at that point and and and address that issue. Okay. And as far as the can I address the outside legal services number too. So, we did increase the outside legal services number um this year in the budget. Uh and it may not again I I
appreciate what you're saying. Um and if we find it would you know under Mr. Mueller's leadership over the next year that you know this is something that perhaps we could add more dollars to in the future and it it'd be a good wise use of those funds then we'd bring that to you as well next fiscal year. Okay. Great. Thank you for the
clarification. Then my final one here uh relates to the general obligation bond um line item of $10,000 for public education. Um just as a clarification, it says department police, but my understanding was in discussions that we've had that there is an option at least for also including a fire
department uh element to that new building. So I was wondering if it should be qualified as fire plus police. We just put in as police just to have a home for it. Um, but it's yes, we we we've never hidden the fact that we're looking at a third fire station
potential on that site. The uh and as I've mentioned, the analysis can't just be about the capital side, the construction side. It's going to have to be about the operating costs going forward and whether that that station needs to be online with its full
operating complement of of staff day one or whether we can still hold off based on the responses. That's analysis that we still have not yet done. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure that we weren't precluding that by categorizing. No, no, we're not precluding and I've had conversations with members of the fire department over this issue and I've told them the same thing I just told you.
Great. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you. Okay, council. We're good with the tenative schedule. I took Okay, we're good with that. Everybody good? All right. So, we this is the last workshop then. So, the Yes. Okay. And then July 15th regular council
meeting, we'll have the tenative millage not to exceed millage. Okay. Yes. And we really ought to shoot for that because there's people that can't be here on the 17th. So, absolutely. Next Tuesday. Yeah, we we'd want a full house for that one. Yep. Okay. Anything else, Mr. Beu?
Anything else? Directors, finance, anything. Okay. Thank you very much. Very well done. Um much smoother than I mean this has been a great uh process. You guys are doing a fantastic job and thank you all for all your hard work on this.
Thank you, Mr. Bea. We will stand a journal. Heat up here.