Let's go a little Patrick said he'll be here right at 6 is what he told me. So, he must be on his way. Is there [Music] But they're very nice. Yours says not
get the button thing. For the button now. Okay. Yep. Hey, good evening everyone. It's 6:01 p.m. I'd like to go ahead and call this meeting to order. It's June 16th, 2025 and this is our budget
workshop. Lori, can I get roll call? Mayor Young here. Vice Mayor Story here. Council member French here. Council member Brandon here. Member Painter here. Thank you. All right. And I will hand it off to Manager Allen to go
through the budget presentation. All right. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, tonight we have our first look at the budget um for the 2526. This is pretty rough. It's usually is this first uh presentation. Go through it. Uh try to
be brief but thorough. Um and so if there's something you miss or uh have a a quick question, let me know. Um I think most of the questions if we can reserve those for the end, I can try to get through it pretty quick and we can always come back if needed. So um with
that, um some of this um is stuff that we went over. Each year we are required to set a budget and u the maximum advorum tax rate which you guys will set in July and you can always go down just can't go up. Um
types of funds that we have um this is most more of a reminder we have the general fund which is most of our service like police, fire, parks planning, finance, IT administration and we have our enterprise funds water utilities, storm water utility, refues and recycling.
um a couple internal service funds. One that we set up last year was a vehicle replacement fund. Um these and we have a slide, a dedicated slide for what vehicles we plan on replacing this year. And then the capital improvement fund. We have two capital improvement funds. We have the 301 fund which is funded
from the sir tax, the 1 cent penny sales tax, which is suns setting in December. Uh we typically collect $650,000. We're only expecting to collect 154,000. and then it will sunset. So, uh, if you can imagine the hole that'll be in our budget moving forward with capital
improvement fund, that's one of them. Um, we have a water utility tax that also funds that that fund. We we collect around $270,000 a year in that fund. 135,000 we're going to be transferring the storm water. We talked a little bit about that in the strategic planning
workshop. That's the way we've done it in this budget. Second capital projects fund is a 303 fund. This fund is funded mostly through general fund or it is funded through general fund uh revenues and we'll go over the details of that $2.5 million.
We also have the building fund and special law enforcement fund. Couple items that will are outstanding to just kind of keep an eye on the next month or so. The certified ad valorum taxes we have uh the estimate they give us in June uh July 1. they will give us our
certified values. And then we also are still working through our final health insurance numbers. Right now we have a a budget placeholder of 12% increase. Um and we'll detail that in a minute. Um final property and casualty insurance, PBA contract negotiations are ongoing.
The CWA and and non-UN salaries, we need to kind of touch those up. You guys got a presentation on the non-union salaries at the last meeting that we had with from our consultant. Um just some of the highlights from the 24 25. We've done a lot of good things for the village.
These are just a few. Um didn't didn't we have a lot more slides, double the slides if we talk about all the good things that were going on in Questa. But um Remembrance Park phase one, I got dirt on my shoes from being out there today. It's coming along really well. I think uh right around the first week in
July, we're going to be talking about a ribbon cutting. So, we haven't finalized that date yet, but um that is coming to conclusion soon. Uh sidewalk improvement program, $170,000. Um we do have those improvements underway. Uh $770,000 for road
maintenance program. Uh just some of the policy things that we've done throughout the year. Um Questa Park maintenance, pickle ball court maintenance, field maintenance. We are in the progress uh in progress of removing the dugouts that are not ADA compliant out there at
Sequesta Park. And then um state appropriation. We just signed the agreement for the $340,000 for park planning. Other highlights um uh we have successfully migrated 365 to the village. That was a a big project and it
was costly, but we are through that. Um council chambers upgrades. I think that's we'll say that's in progress still. Hopefully iron out most of the kinks. Mobility planning. Um, we should see the final mobility plan in August, uh, for council approval. As you guys
know, that was partially grant funded. We established a vehicle replacement fund, new K9. Um, this year, uh, the PD did receive new computers in their u in their cars, new community programs with the gun safety course and boater safety
course been a big hit uh for both of those. And then electronic knockboxes for the fire department and fire department trailer. This just talks a little bit about the budget process. And I will take a minute just to stop here and just thank the staff for all the work that they've done. Uh the budget
cycle, you know, it doesn't just start in March or April. It goes year round. And so we really have two budget process going on. The the current one that we're in continuing to maintain and purchase and do all the things to go with and then start the new process. So, uh, the process really never stops around the
village and I think our staff and just do a good job being good stewards of the money and our directors putting in a lot of time and and especially finance and Jeff and their team for help put together. So, um, just want to thank them. July, we do set the maximum tax
rate uh, millage rate um, at the council meeting. Uh, you can always go down but you can't go up. Um and then in in August we'll set the non-advelorum um will be set and that's refuge and recycling and storm water. We are proposing a 6.4595
which is the millage rate that we currently have. So we're not uh we that's our recommendations to keep the millage rate the same. Just the next slide kind of show the history of our millage rate whether it was us going down or other other taxing entities. We
have a a very steady decline in millage rate. We did in 2020 had a little bit of a bump, but everything else has been going down. So, um you know, we think we've done really good with with keeping our millage rate steady and stable
with the current tax mill rate the way it is, 2.9% increase uh for homesteaded properties. Um, and so if you take a look at what that means for the average homeowner, $600,000, that's $109 a year, uh, roughly about $9
a month, um, for for an increase. This slide represents where we stand in Palm Beach County compared to the other municipalities. Uh, 39, we're right in the middle, 22. Um, the the ones in blue and yellow, those are the the municipalities that have their own
police and fire, just to give a comparison because you can have a low tax rate, right? if you don't if you don't provide the services that we provide. So, it allows us to kind of compare against the other. So, nine municipalities have their own police and fire. Of those nine, seven of them have their own police, fire, and water
department. And so, we're one of the seven in in Palm Beach County. And I think we take a lot of pride in that. This is the general fund u relative size by department. So, you'll see out of all all the numbers up there, it kind of gives the relative percentage. most of
our our um budgets come from police or fire. 49% is public safety. So, I think you'll see that we've we've taken a a value to public safety in the village over the years. And I think it it shows in the general fund.
This relative to that same $600,000 is kind of going back to that um to the other side that 351 $3,555. If you take that same the average homeowner is paying this much for service for each of these um these
departments. So if you look at fire or let's say police $821 a year for police services which works out to $225 a day for police services and for fire services it's it's$ 251 a day u for for
all of our service in the village you can pay under $10 a day for all of our service. So I think we do a very good job of of trying to maintain the budget and the military the way it is and provide a great value for our residents. Uh this is the relative change um per
per fund and we have some details to go into this but um these are the the changes from year to year. And then this is the um expenditures by department. the the changes in the expenditures by department. You'll see
that most of uh the expenses or the increase in expenses are coming from police, fire or public works. Um and we have some details of some of those expenditures. As you guys know, the police and fire contracts and and the salaries have went up and so that's a
big part of that. And then I can detail some of the public works increases with with some of the projects we're doing. Um, just the highlights of the general fund. The property tax revenue is up 7.91% mainly due to sales and new construction. Homestead property
increase is capped at 2.9%. Um, the sales tax, we've kept it pretty steady in this budget. We didn't we kept uh knowing what the state's doing and I know some of that's getting ironed out right now at the state probably as we speak or or tonight. Um um so we haven't
estimated a lot for for sales tax and I think in the future we'll have discussions about what property tax will look like but um we've we've been pretty conservative with that leisure services as you guys know we did a budget amendment uh we are seeing increased uh usage of the facility through our
program so um that's a change from last year this year we're estimating additional $51,000 in revenue and then our transport services we switched over to a third party biller. Um, and we've seen uh significant increases in revenue. U we're expecting additional
$80,000 um just from from that service. Some of the expenditures proposing uh increase in $98,000 for technology improvements. There's a huge threat landscape within the state or even the nation. Um and so Brad and what his team
does does an amazing job. Um so we we do have some increases in technology. I know that there's a one of our contracts over a three-year period. We're paying it up front. So, that's a little bit of the balance there. And we also have some revenue that's associated with those expenditures that uh Brad does a good
job working with the state to get some funds. Um the $710,000 for street improvements, $170,000 for sidewalk improvements. We're continuing with those. We are proposing to meet the strategic plan. Uh there's the next couple items. Meet that. We're are proposing a $1.3 million
construction using reserves for Remembrance Park. Um, and then $100,000 using reserves for Old Dixie Beautifification. We have uh a plan for station 11 to improve that. But the first step in that is to uh provide a rec uh recreation
maintenance facility. Most of our equipment used to be behind the old YMCA building. When we move over to the new building, we move all of our equipment over to station 11. Um, so we need to be able to put that equipment somewhere. After we do that, relocate those. The building department and the the police
department through the special law enforcement fund is going to fix that building up and and make it usable and and hopefully improve the some facade over there. Um, and then the concert series, U. Greg is proposing a $35,000 for the concert series. He is going to
offset some of that with $35,000 revenue. This will be an exchange of the food truck event. We've had some some troubles and participation from the food truck vendors. We we think this will be a good addition and a good change um to have a concert series over at the park. It still be four or five times a year
just like the food trucks that we had. Some of the other expenditures, health insurance increase, we have a placeholder of 12%. They gave us a quote uh or an estimate anywhere between 8 and 16%. We chose to have a placeholder of 12%. That's a $268,000
increase. Um, police officer salaries, we have an offer to the PBA of 13%. That's a $280,000 increase to the budget. Um, firefighter salaries for year two is 140 $445,000.
Um, and then the 5% that you guys uh got a presentation from for from the consultant uh was $170,000. We are proposing adding a police officer this year. Um, as you guys remember, when one of our officers moved over DEA,
we've kind of left a gap in one of our shifts. We've been able to manage that. Um, it does put a little stress on our on our officers, especially when we have some out on either FMLA or sick or vacations. And so, we are proposing to bring the shifts back to fully staffed
on all three or all four shifts. This is just a little uh a slide that I thought would be good to show. Um just when we start talking about adding officer or adding staff I mean we do usually do a full analysis when we when we're adding staff but uh the national
average for local government is 23.2 employees per thousand to Quest is at 16.7. So we're under the national average by quite a bit actually for national average for police police officers 3.5 per thousand. Um u we're at
even with the increase for the new officer, we're going to be at 20.5 or 3.35 uh uh per thousand. And then just the fun tidbit is our we're at eight man shifts for fire. We're assuming a sevenman shifts. We're at 1.14 which is
right along with the national averages. This slide just represents uh that same kind of the same graphic. While our population has increased, our staffing has increased. We've always stayed under 17 per thousand. And so we've always kept a pretty good number of staff for
for the level of service that we provide to the village. Next slide. And you guys have seen these these slides, but it's just a pie chart of where our revenues come from. A majority of our revenues come from property taxes. This slide is a little different this year because we have that little green one and that's
the the reserves that we plan on using um to to fund remembrance park phase 2 and to uh improve Old Dixie. The proposed expenditures you'll see uh 62% of our expenditures go towards salary or employee benefits and then
debt service and some operating expenses. This slide kind of shows uh the trajectory for our personnel services and our capital outlay and our operating expenses. So I see why we we typically stay pretty flat or at least from last
year to this year pretty flat with operating expenses. Our personnel costs have went up. Um something to we'll continue to to look at that as we move forward. This slide was a was a a slide that I've added since I think I don't know if most of you guys have seen this
slide. I know we went over this presentation, but this is a change in taxable value. So, you can see over the years we've had that taxable value, you know, kind of fluctuate in 2004, five started going up. 2009, 10, most people are aware of that big dip. We're seeing
that we're seeing in 20 what 2023 24 we had big spikes. Now, we're coming back down to where our millage rate's only 7.91%. Um we are estimating pretty flat in the future. As we look at this next slide, we have five years our five-year
projections. We're pretty flat. We're at 3 and a half 4% increase where in the last couple years we've been seeing you know double digits or even even this year with 7.91%. We are not projecting that in the future. Uh we do not see that uh coming. Um as you'll see as we
get into like 28 29 we start to see a little negative still manageable. Um the reason why we're not projecting is what we've seen is, you know, over the past couple years, we've seen some big projects come through that's really helped keep our millage rate high. Obviously, everybody knows the the sales
market with homes, but uh as we look at 26 and 27, that very bottom line, we, you know, we're not seeing any projects. We don't have any major projects coming online. um where in the past we always had you know seaglass or some of the you know some of these other projects we
don't have those coming in the next couple years. So we got to be mindful of the you know the staff the the salary increases but also a flat millage rate. This next slide kind of shows what our salaries have done over the last uh several years and so you see that trend
climbing up where our our trend for our millage rate is going to be very flat. So this when we talk about taking $1.4 million out of reserves, you'll see in gray you have our threemonth operating target um is $4.7 million. On top of the
4.75 and 25 we're projecting. On top of that we have an additional $1.9 million. So we're going to uh be taking 1.4 or we proposing to take 1.4 to pay for remembrance park. Typically this is how projects get funded. you you build up
your your unassigned fund balance. You either you either bond it, which we're not going to do, um or you get grants, which you know we don't have. So the the third option to pay for these things is typically through your unassigned fund balance.
As we kind of close out the general fund, um we start into the building fund. And and the highlight of this really is probably the next slide is that even through 2026, we still have a positive balance. still show still showing positive. You know, depending on, you know, our projects that are
coming through through the building department, we may have to, you know, make some adjustments on our building permit fees. Um, but as we promised four or five years ago when we first adjusted those down, we will look at these every year and and determine what we need to
do for building permits. some of our enterprise funds, refues and recycling. Um, just as an explanation, um, for those that haven't followed our, we're one of the only municipalities that have refugees and recycling as part
of our tax bill. So, if your refues and recycling bill, and I'm just throwing out a number. I don't know what what it really is, but $250, if you pay that early, um, you pay your tax bill early, that's 5% discount that you get. So every year we're losing on
average about 3% of our our revenue for refues and recycling. So we still have to pay waste management, but then we lose 3% of our revenue. So we are proposing a three and a half% administrative cost um on top of the the user fees for waste management works out
to about $11 for the year. Um, and so that'll be coming to you guys when we do our non-advelorum uh fees. With that increase of the additional three and a half percent, you will see that our our balance is estimated end of 26 to be
16,000. Um, which is about where the sweet spot is. We don't need to have um, you know, any more than a dollar in this account. However, we just need to make sure it stays positive so our general fund doesn't have to uh, support this fund. utilities. Um, as we switch gears to
water, uh, we have a list of, uh, and I've cut this list down by about five slides that Marjorie gave me, but we have a a highlight of, um, of of some of the things that we're doing. I think the big takeaway for water is we're really switching from, you know, planning to
really doing some projects. And I think some big projects coming online. and I'll highlight those, but these are just some of the highlights that that Marjorie has and her team have completed this year. Um, so I think we're really trying to move the needle. Obviously, she's going to be reporting these as we
go through. Um, um, some of just our our net uh our un unrestricted net position at the end of the year, at the end of 26, we're very healthy. We are expecting and I think it's it's highlighting this next year over $10 million in the SRF funds. We're going to have about $12
million in capital funds that that we have. So, we're going to do some pay as you go and then some of the SRF funding. This is a breakdown of just our our revenue. Um you see the $845,000. That's that $10 capital charge that does help fund our capital projects. So, it
is helping move the needle. And then this is the breakdown per per section. We have um our water department is broken down to administration, production, distribution, customer service. So just shows the the the cost breakdown for those and obviously the capital improvement renewal and
replacement and then this is breaks it down by personnel and operating cost obviously some debt funding um and then the principal and interest we've broken that down. These are estimates at this point. Um, as we lock those rates in, get their
SRF funding, we will have uh more of a complete number, but we feel like they're they're good placeholders. Water main, these are just the highlights of what the projects that are really coming online, and you guys know some of these. I think you guys have had some decision points already for these.
Toquesta Drive, uh, that project is the bid is underway. Water man, uh, Beach Road phase two, um, that agreement is underway. estimate $5.9 million. Some of that was offset by a developer agreement and then the other parts going to be SRF
funding. Um and then RO membrane replacement bid is underway for that. And then water treatment plant um filter media replacement. Uh something we've been talking around talking about for maybe four, three, four, maybe even five years is the water
treatment plant improvements and we're finally getting there. the the loan agreement is underway and be getting that SRF funding and I know um just my conversations from a high level you know there's a lot of things that you know especially like the SCADA needs to be improved and so I think this will be a a
great investment for the water utility department and the last fund uh to go through is a storm water fund as you guys know this has been a fund that's uh we've been challenged with with uh several of the the rains and storms going back to like
2021, we've had to make a lot of uh significant emergency repairs which has depleted this fund. Um this year that we're currently in, we're really trying to hold the line. Um I think we had some some light maintenance uh money that we that we allocate in this fund. Um
obviously some of the do project that that we're looking forward to, we have money set aside from for that. Um and that's currently out to bid. hopefully be getting that award out soon. And then so this year we're transferring $135,000
from that water utility tax over here. So hopefully by the end of 26 we'll have that fund to be a little start to see a little bit of health, a little bit of life um um and hopefully we don't have to supplement any major expenditures um to this fund.
next slides and you guys can go through it's in your backup of just some of the the five-year capital improvement uh plan some of the requests that we have that we're funding in in this budget and I have probably some more detail uh in the next couple slides. Um and then
obviously I can we can always come back to if you have any questions about any of these projects. Uh this is the vehicle replacement fund. These are proposed purchase that we're doing. So you'll see, you know, the probably the highlight one because it costs the most money is the rescue uh
vehicle for fire. It's 15-y old vehicle. We are making that commitment this year. We've talked about it for the last, I think, year or two. Um and then the the continued replacement of our police patrol vehicles. We've done a really good job of trying to keep them up to speed. I think we've really switched
more of to a purchase instead of a lease, uh, which I think'll we'll see some some additional revenue come back to us when we sell those vehicles. U, so just the last couple slides, you know, every year we we do our strategic
plan. I like to to show this these next couple slides is to show how we have tied our budget to these strategic priorities that council has lined out. Um just the the the number one priority on the list was provide additional match
funding for the state appropriation to Questa Park. As you guys know, we just approved that grant agreement, $340,000. We do have $250 set aside. We are bringing back to the July meeting, $14,000 amendment um to to get that done.
Identify additional CIP funding. Part of what we've done with the water department is we've taken uh 21% of the revenues and set it aside for capital improvement uh funding. And so that kind of checks the box for this. We still need to do something for the general fund. And we'll continue to look for
grants and other funding mechanisms for that. But I think this is a big step to try to help, you know, cover some of the capital. That 21% works out to about $2 million. Um and that'll hopefully help with some payo and and not rely on on borrowing money.
And then number three, I still haven't yellow because I think we're still, you know, teetering on trying to get that stood up, but we did we did uh check a box with putting 50% of the water utility tax, 135,000 towards storm water maintenance. Um, and so I think that
that one I think we just need to keep an eye on. Employee retention and recruitment. You guys know some of the numbers that we're looking at for that. It's on the slide. I think we're doing a good job of trying to maintain and recruit uh good employees. Uh considering remembrance park phase two,
this is uh priority number five. We have um put some money taking money out of the reserves to fund that as a one-time expenditures. Typically with those reserves, you don't want to you don't want to take them out to cover recurring costs. And so um this one's I think a good use of the the
one-time expenditures. Develop future master plan $30,000 in utilities. And this is to fund a a facility analysis, a space plan. Um long-term goal is to move our water distribution team out to the water treatment plant with a facility.
This will help us determine the the space needed and if it'll fit out there. Um we are estimating uh $250,000 in our C CIP and then the building and PD will help improve station 11. Um 15year road
and sidewalks. Doug's done a great job of maintaining and keeping that going. Um we are number eight expanding improve critical land areas to serve maintain the village distinctive features through land acquisition and park improvements. Um we do have some money in the in the
uh budget for improved park maintenance constitution park of 25,000 um and then to Quest a park of 22,000. We are going to look to improve linear trail which is a beautifification that we've talked about with Old Dixie. I think there'll be some beautifification
along Old Dixie plus some gateway kind of improvements into Questa Drive and as people come into the village hopefully really notice that those differences. Um continue to education toward policy on golf carts and ebikes. Have a list of some of the stuff we done. You guys know
I I sent an email recently that the state did pass a a bill um and I don't even know how how or why how it got through, but um it got tagged on to a transportation bill. And so we're going to be looking at that bill once the governor signs to see if there's
something that, you know, the village wants to add as far as ebike safety, expand tree planting efforts. We've talked about this at the last uh I think last workshop. Um we we do have in the budget $10,000 which is a $2,500
increase from last year's budget for help improvement beautifification. We hope this will kind of move the needle with um and give some incentive for residents to um put in trees. And then 11 and 14 are kind of tied together just like 12 and 13 are tied
together. 11 and 14 this is the mobility plan and then the highle transportation plan mobility. we'll have a better idea of what that looks like in July and August when council um ultimately approves that. Um so we don't have any budget items tied to those. Um but we
would come back either next year or at some point depending on council's temperature on for a budget uh any kind of budget uh items for those two items. And then 12 and 13, same $100,000, but it's really to improve the gateways and beautifification of Old Dixie. Um,
that's a project that we will be pulling out of reserves as one-time expenditures. Last, uh, just other priorities. These were not top priorities for council, but we left them in because they were still something that we were working on. Uh, consider the policy of cross connection control compliance. U, we have budget
$60,000 in utilities um to help us find those uh those um areas where we don't have compliance. And then also this consultant will help us educate the public and help us come come in line with where we want to be. Uh we do have
$850,000 in CIP for necessary bridge maintenance. That's well overdue. I don't think we've done much bridge maintenance to to that thing since it was uh since we built built it back um what 2009ish
whenever it was built. Um, so I think this $850,000 was the infrastructure sir tax. This pretty much exhausts that. We talked about it sun setting December. This $850,000 is coming out of that established safe and quiet uh railroad
crossing. We do have u a matching or I say matching a reimburseable grant of $200,000 set aside. Um once we make the safety improvements the railroad they will reimburse us um the $200,000. So it should be a net zero. Um and then
utility project timeless reporting. Marjgery's already started that and you know hopefully you'll see the fruits of the labor with with projects actually hitting the ground this year. Um and moving forward and then improved communication with development community. We've done a few things already with with a workshop for county
line and I know our building department's really trying to reach out appreciation day. Um if there is a big project that comes down, we'll have additional conversations about a sharet or uh a more meaningful some of the direction that council gave in the
strategic plan. But at this point, you know, I don't know that there's a lot of action for that one, but I think it's in the future we could have some additional discussion for that. Just the next steps, um talked about July 1st. Um the taxable values will
come in. will uh re-evaluate the budget at that point. And then we do I think we just set a date for July 22nd for the next budget workshop. Um and then we'll need to set our storm water and solid waste rates um at the July meeting and
then maximum tax rate will be set in July and we can always go down. We can't go up. Um just a few other consideration. I believe it's my last slide. Um but you know you guys heard a presentation from public safety pension. we are going to have a negative impact on the budget moving forward. Mortality
rates is is probably going to require us to contribute more and also the lower expected rate of return that the that the board is setting will have an impact on our budget moving forward. We will have to contribute more into that pension plan to make sure it stays
healthy and funded. Just most of the other ones I think you guys know about, you know, the economy, making sure that we stay on top of that, health insurance, job markets. Um hopefully we'll see a flattening of that a little bit um and and not see the big jumps in salaries. Obviously whatever the state
is doing at the state level hopefully, you know, keep an eye on make sure it doesn't have a huge impact on the village and try to continue to be advocates for home rule. And then um capital needs, we we still have a lot of them and uh you know with us sunsetting that money um in the capital fund, just
something to be keep an eye on as we go forward. With that, I'm gonna need a drink of water. So, um, any questions, thoughts, and Jeff's here, um, and we can answer any questions you have on the budget. Thank you, Jeremy. All right, council. I'll open it up for questions
and discussion. Feel free to start. Do we just any part of this is fair game? Do we have any Okay, let's start with uh Jeff on unreserved funds balance 7.2 million.
I'm calculating that as eight months of reserves. I'm guessing the goal is three months, but what's the what is the um target for that fund as far as months? The amount and I say that um because I don't want residents to
think we have too much in cash reserves. So then what are we doing with that? Is it capital? Three months of um expenditures is our target for reserves. And then this year it will be $4.7 million and some change and we're going
to have uh we're estimating at this point in time we're going to have 5.4 or $700,000 over our amount. But we are excited about the park and uh the uh beautifification projects.
Thank you for that straightforward answer. I have a quick and this like kind of like open discussion brainstorming. So I'm going to chime in if someone brings up an item. I had a question so we're not like moving on and going back to the same thing. Um, so I
on the the three months target, I know um that's a great target and I from speaking to cities that have had um been impacted on the west coast from the hurricanes, they blew through that three months in a hot minute, right? And so it
is really important to have that and I think even more of a cushion. I agree with you. There's a fine line with having too much reserves like you're not being like you're hoarding taxpayer dollars, but I do agree with the manager too. you look at other cities that is how they've been able to pay all cash with huge capital projects. Um, so I do
want to keep that in mind. Like three months is good, but I think a larger cushion is better, especially considering what we know some of our, uh, cities have gone through with the hurricanes. Kind of, if I may, uh, it's kind of best practices is three months. Uh, part of
that will allow FEMA to get in if we get hit really hard. We'll have cash to be able to continue to operate and do the things we need to, and then they'll start pitching in. So that's the three months is kind of that cushion before FEMA shows up.
So I I don't agree I agree 100% that more money is better, but that's just because I'm very conservative. Yeah. And there's uncertainty uncertainty with FEMA right now and what the response is going to be like too um which is being heavily discussed uh at the local
regional, you know, state levels too. So I think that's in the back of my mind. We have potential changes there. That's why I just want to throw that out there just for thought. Yeah, my thoughts on the reserves. I was here when we didn't have any reserves. I first came on council, we didn't really have any
raised to live like that, you know, my own personal budget. So, I like to hold on to that warm and fuzzy and I try not to really touch it unless we absolutely need to. But also watching what other miss palies go through. But I understand
that balance of what's too much. But just so my fellow council members know, I definitely support that we have, you know, a very smart amount so that we have, you know, everything we need covered just in case because that is what the residents
expect us to do. And I would never put my family in that predicament either. So, cheers. I think we even talked about even a fourmonth at one point, but the three-month became the target. I I very much enjoy those three-month reserves.
I can continue on the question. I know if anyone has any additional we talked about remembrance park phase two uh for our capital budget and and reserve funds. Is there any way to bring that into the mobility plan if the
timing is right because it does connect Riverside and Seabbrook and if there's grants or other county funding that we can link that up to and maybe save some dollars on that project. Uh and if this is the first time it's said then might not have an answer but if we could look
into that in the future to save a few bucks on the uh remeance park phase 2 budget. So just uh I mean I think it's a good suggestion. We haven't looked too much outside of like TPA for that mobility grant. I mean that was going to be big thing, but they really like you know uh
complete street projects. That's those are the things that they're trying to fund. So we'll have to look different avenues that we haven't necessarily looked but the funding that we were targeting with that particular mobility stuff was going to be some TPA funding. So we'll look at some others. Just as we
were talking I was like wait a second these are connecting streets. We have connection problems. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Do we have a comparison on what other cities are charging on water? I didn't see that in there. We can get you that. We we have provided that in
the past. We did a rate structure, but we can freshen that up, I'm sure, and and get you that. Thank you. And while we're on water, when I look at the comparison or the study that's done between other municipalities that have their own fire, uh, police and water, I think I don't think that's the
best study because a lot of those municipalities, they don't actually have their own water. They have water utility team, but they don't necessarily create their own water and the water plant. Um, and then they also have fire assessment fees, which we do not have. So, I get the miller rate and I get the study, but
I don't think it tells the whole story. And I'm only giving kudos to um the village staff and the water department and that I think we're ranked a lot better on that study than it shows. Which study? So when you go back to the
millage rates and he village manager highlighted blues than Yeah, we're yellow in the blues chart like where we're ranked. It says the millage rate, right? But there's a lot more to that story because those other municipalities have a fire assessment fee. Town of Palm
Beach doesn't have their own water. They have their own team, but they don't have water and there's a few other misnomers in there. But our I mean our water is not in our military, the enterprise fund. So yeah, that's not the water's not even wrapped up in that, right? So So those are the total mil I I mean I
100% agree. It doesn't tell the story of what our staff do every day. I I mean I think that's a great point. Um, you know, I had one slide to kind of to represent this, but I think, you know, the ones in blue, uh, those are just the ones that have their own police and fire. I don't I didn't highlight this
the seven that have their own police, fire, and water. I just said it. So, um, and I think whatever total millage rate in there is the fire service as well. So, it's what if it's it's everything. It's their total millage rate that we pulled right off the appraisal district
site. So, um, that should be a complete picture as far as the millage rate, but not the services that, you know, the amount that we do with the with the limited staff that we have. So, thank you. Uh, Jeff, we talked about mortality rates coming up and that's an unknown
number. Uh, the whole state will be affected by it. Something I've seen in the past is that fire and police have a high divorce rate before retirement. Uh, and I know it's a sad thing, but when it comes to pension uh, and actuary tables, it usually is a benefit to the village.
And I would assume that the actuary and whoever's dealing with that puts that in the play. But maybe just in the back of your mind, keep that on there that they've gone back and redone the study of what how many people retired, divorced, or married. And it makes a
difference in the positive manner. Usually, I know it's a negative thing to bring, but it helps during budget talks. Bear with me as I go through my notes. Uh, mill rate. Are we on to talk about tax rate, millage rate?
Is that open and fair game? Yeah, anything's fair game. So, we have a great millage rate and um I would support reducing the millage rate if we had a long-term plan on what that looks like, not just to reduce it for a year and then decide next uh year what that
would be. I think if we did reduce it for a year that we wouldn't be necessarily doing the residents or uh village staff uh and resources um we wouldn't be making a positive decision for that year. So, for a
one-year change, I would not support reducing the military, but if we were to have a better plan for a 10-year, I'd be willing to listen to that. Uh, I do think that being that we do not have new development and highrises, we do not have the cash reserves uh that some of
these other municipalities around here have, and although we're not in competition with these municipalities, we are indirectly with sometime residents, but also employees. Um, so as you saw on the millage rates, some of these mills rates are much higher than ours. And if you look at their water
rates, I think their water rates are much higher also. So our ability to recruit uh employees and and pay the bills without new development and highrises, I think creates a tough environment for Tqua. And I think, well, I'm not going to say it for everybody. I
support keeping in the way we've been developing responsibly in Tqua. So, for a one-year change, I do not support uh reducing the military. That's all my notes. Thank you. On that topic, real quick, the slide I'm trying to find it
quickly. I just found it. Hold on. What's the lab? Uh the general fund five-year financial forecast. I mean, could you update that? Like say we lower the millage rate. Could you update that show showing lower mill rate and that would be a really good picture of like what
the impact would be for the next five years? Is that an easy task? Um it would be if we have an idea of uh what we want to lower it where we go or I can just do pieces and maybe just for all intents
and purposes do the roll back rate. Do the roll back rate which would be the most right because I know last time we lowered it was not the roll back rate. It was like Well, then we can I mean I guess do whatever you think is appropriate. Okay, that's an easy number and that would be
I'll give you some numbers. Some that would be done. We did not go back to the roll back rate the last time we lowered the millage. But I'm just saying some kind of or if you guys want to do like two mills like what do you think would be appropriate? It and maybe even what's the number if we can get to it that's an
actual reduction in taxes, right? because we can roll back the mills say we reduce taxes but my tax bill still go increases right so that average citizen goes wait a second you know they said they reduced my taxes but my taxes went up you know so I kind of struggle with that
short-term benefit um or if it's a $50 benefit for the individual you know what kind of reaction does that have to village services and I think that um anywhere from water to the concert series we really appreciate these village services
just as a and I think I shared this um you know just as a I guess we'll say high level ugly look at something you know if you were to take $118,000 on a $700,000 home the average home
payer would would save $41 but you look at that homestead exemption like to your point you're going to see $109 increase so there's still going to be you're still going to see an increase even even with that. So um but we can we can play
with a number like that tie it into this. Um I think you know these are best guesses like I said with this slide and I don't know how much I elaborated when I when I was talking it was kind of a blur. I was losing losing consciousness was talking so much but uh we kept the
property taxes you know moving forward I think three and a half 4% because we're not going to see huge jumps uh that we've had in the past. Um, and then we've also kept personnel cost pretty flat, which is probably a little we probably should have went a little
more a little more aggressive with personnel costs with with what we've seen. But, um, you know, I think both of those could probably be adjusted. Um, but you're only looking at 4% property tax increase for revenue or three and a half. So, it doesn't really have a lot
to play with when you talk about we're already in the negative for our five-year projection. So, if we were to turn turn our millage rate on 2026 and turn it down to this number, the 6.4, you're going to see just more negative numbers as we move forward in the
future. Where did the 3 and a half 4% where did that assumption come from? Is it like economic forecasting that you guys researched or like where did you come up with a three and a half 4%? Um generally it's been running along
that lines. I mean 3% to three and a half% seems to be CPI over time over a long period of time. We gave it a little extra because a lot of houses have been turning over and then
that helps us because it resets the taxable value. If you see like the increase 2.9% is capped and a majority or a big part of what our revenue has been has been commercial or redevelopment, we're not seeing that. So take the 2.9 go up, you
know, go up a rate. I mean, you're looking at three and a half, 4% without new construction. I mean, that's pretty conservative. I mean, we can we can be a lot I mean, we can be a lot more aggressive and go five or 6%, but then, you know, just to make our numbers look good. But we've over the period of time that I've been here, we've always been
conservative and we try to beat those numbers and and we've been successful. If we start getting too aggressive and and looking at five or 6%, I think we're setting oursel up for failure. Agree. Yes. We don't want to make the numbers look good. That is not good practice for what we're doing. And then just to
comment on what you said, Council Member French, is, you know, I and and Council Member Brandon knows I've been beating this drum since I've been on council. Like to me any reduction is helpful. Um you know that offsets the $11 a month extra charge they're going to have on
refuge and recycling. You know we had concerned residents in here last year um that were really concerned about the raises with the WM contract and our storm water. So to me I do feel like anything you can help you know it can offset other costs because our utility
bills are going up. Not the water but you know um like electricity right? Everything's going up. So if we can provide any relief, I think in general it's going to help. That's kind of how I've always operated. Anyone else on the military or anything?
No. Like this is like kind of a brainstorming. I mean it's like Yeah. Just throw anything out there that you want to talk about on the mill rate since we're talking about it. No, I I I definitely agree that we should keep the military flat where it's at. I think um I don't think the reduction if any is
worth it to all of your points. I'm not going to restate it all, but I am definitely there. Um generally, I as always, I feel like I say this every time, but I think you guys did an awesome job, not only on the budget, but putting this all together to make it digestible. I will be the first
to admit numbers are not my strong suit, and I was able to understand it after probably four reviews, so it's not too bad. Um, and really hats off to staff for that and you, of course, Jeremy. Um, just you do a great job at it. Uh, very
clear. I appreciate the conservative approach. I think that is the right approach. Um, there's always, you know, you never know what's around um the corner. listening to um the mayor of Santael was just like I mean at um the
league of League of Cities lunch it was just I mean it could be us so easily you know and um I think we just always have to be thinking you know worst not worst case scenario but plan for the worst I guess is the best way to put it. So I appreciate that.
Um, I also think you guys did an awesome job as always aligning the overall budget with our uh annual strategic plan goals. You know, you hit a lot of those and and to see Remembrance Park phase 2 and the old Dixie beautifification. I agree. That's awesome to see. Um, that's
going to be those are going to be two very just like impactful projects for our village from a someone who lives here every day and someone who's never been here. It's going to make a difference. And I I think that's great. So, um, and all of this while
maintaining, if not improving, you know, the the current high level of service that that we always provide. So, um, I don't have any specific questions, but those are my those are my notes. So to piggy back on that, I agree this
has probably been out of all my years of budget season, this has probably been the best presentation and slides put together to understand where we're at and where we've been. Since we're on this slide in particular, so this just to clarify, this is what
you guys are roughly predicting for the next few years for the property taxes, correct? And the fact that it's kind of it's kind of staying the same makes me nervous. Yes, ma'am. Now, if we flip back to that slide that you so generously gave us about like the big
projects that used to be coming on, but there's some hiccups. So, we were expecting some of the other buildings that we did vote on the past like two two and a half years and some of those buildings aren't even one of them I think even sold again. So that's why I get very concerned when I hear any
elected official start planning using money that isn't even there yet. So I'm glad we didn't do that. But thank you for providing this because this I think is going to be very transparent on we don't have what we thought we had coming from this kind of stuff. So again I go
back to like with my own family. What can we do to enhance things that we can try and get money from? I don't want to increase the market and the housing. However, if we keep the town infrastructure safe, clean, nice. We
keep our water plant up. We are building a park. I mean, I'm kind of torn on some degrees on that remembrance park phase 2. However, parks increase home values and a lot of the homes right in that area, they don't have water access. They don't have a
community dock or a boat ramp. They don't not necessarily walkable to the beach. So, what can we do to help enhance those homes inside the village? And then that helps us not have to raise taxes if we're kind of balancing
everything out. So, I'm kind of all over the place. Um because this frightens me that we don't have some of those buildings. Like three years ago, we thought they were coming and now they're not. So, I'm glad we didn't use those funds that didn't exist yet.
but also watching the market inflation still everything else in the higher government. U I would be very conservative and very cautious about doing anything with our millage rate as of right now especially since we don't have a lot of solidified numbers till
July even like healthcare numbers and stuff. I'm going to sit sit still for now until I have better data and information and then I can make a better decision and kind of give you guys a better temperature of where I'm going with our millage rate. But
again, I don't think we're fully there yet. We are still rebuilding a lot of the water manes and that again that's infrastructure and for me that increases property values and what people are willing to pay to be here. You know, when I visit other mun municipalities, I'm always reminded, oh, that's what I
pay for. Got it. And you know, my husband's one of the biggest sticklers like, I pay so much in taxes. But then we go other places and we're reminded by the good schools, the safe communities, the infrastructure, the town looks pretty, we have events. I mean, it's everything wrapped into one. So, it's
kind of going back to you get what you pay for. So, that's where I am right now. No specific questions because again, you did a great job. making this very understandable and I appreciate that because I know you're kind of a numbers guy. You could have probably gone really crazy with it but I
appreciate that. He always reigns me in. I thank him for that because you're probably like, "Oh, that's a little bit too much." So, thank you, Jeremy. I'll echo the same comments as my colleagues. Just great job by staff and and everyone. And I know that you're already working on next year's budget and last
year's budget and doing all that. So, thank you. Um just a a random question for you. Um the note on the rec center that's a fixed rate. Yes sir. Okay. I thought so. We saw the interest going down and then just minimal increase in the principal we expect and that's just a timing thing I would imagine. Yeah.
Our principal doesn't go up. The payments wouldn't go up. Typically it fluctuate a little bit but not depends on the calendar. Um our health insurance we're hold placeholder. Um do our do we pay 100% of our employees? We pay 100% of our
employees. employees, but employee plus family, they I think it's 25% a week. We we we 25% to the family. Um and really the only other comment I have is that anything we could ever do to continue the great work that we're seeing this
year on the storm water and the water to get rid of that 10 that capital improvement charge of $10 would be you we tried to find creative ways to get rid of it last year and the year prior when we first put it in there. So that would be the one thing I think that would be um noticeable to our
residents just to chime in on on the advorum, you know, not enough information like Lori mentioned yet. Um but also I I think to to cut it the what I think would be the minimal amount that we can with everybody's insurance going
up and property value go up, they won't see it. You know, if it goes down $5 a month or $10 a month, whatever go down. So I'm not saying that's not important because it is critical. But when if you think look two years out and we think some of the changes that are coming with some of our staffing
models for some of our public safety and things like that, they're they're going to feel because then we we take away $6 or $7 a month, we got to add it back and then add another 12 to that. So then you're looking at a $20 a month increase and that really is going to sting. So I'd rather just see us maintain based on the information that we know right now.
It's a 6, you know, 4595 is where I'm at with that. So but again to the entire team, great job as always. Thank you. If I can just add one point to it. So with that um you know when you talked about the water and and trying to get rid of that I mean this is to me this is the first step of trying to reduce that $10
capital charge. We're nowhere near there yet but the first step is really trying to set aside money so we can do payo projects really can get some some of that built up. So this is the first step and we're still we're still some time off so I'm not making promises but um
that that's the intent of the of what we're doing. Yeah, I recognize that and in the steps that we are taking and continue to take on the vehicle replacement fund, I think is one of the best things that decisions that staff has made. So, congratulations to everybody that's a lot smarter than me in the room to do that. So,
um on the water utility and the recovery charge that vice mayor brought up, do we have Well, first of all, that study that repatilies I can't I can never remember their name. Reptiles. Reptiles. That was close. They That was like a 20-year plan or something, wasn't it? A 20-year
projection. I haven't looked at that for a while. Um, do we have like a fiveyear projection though on like where we're at now? What that recovery charge will bring in and capital projects? I don't I don't know that there was a five-year projection here. We know it's bringing in $845,000 a year is what that's
bringing in. And it's pretty flat because it's $10 per per resident per month. So, plus the fee increase because we do like 8% something. Yeah. But that $10 capital charge won't won't be the fee increase, but yes, there is a fee increase that we have fiveyear. So, we
have that that we already have approved. I think we're in year three of that fiveyear fiveyear uh rate. So, in I guess I would say in two years we'd be looking at that again. Okay. Unless there's I don't know if it's if you have it, it's not too difficult. Maybe a five-year projection would be helpful on
that kind of to see like where we've landed since we've done that. That would be some good data to look at. Um and then on on using the reserves for phase two of Remembrance Park this year, I fully support phase two of Remembrance
Park. I want to see it happen. I know I've said this up here multiple times. I think I don't know that I'm in favor eararking that money from reserves for this next year. I would really like to see how phase one is utilized and also understand what those maintenance costs
are going to be so we can maybe better plan a little bit. So I would like to take the pause on that. Um especially as $1.3 million is a good chunk of change. Um you know we do have the uncertain economy, the slowdown in development that we've seen. Um the potential
property tax reform and these kind of atypical you know salary wage trends that we've been seeing. I kind of a little hesitant to commit to that 1.3 this year. Um, next year I probably would feel a little more comfortable, especially knowing how phase one um
turned out and what those mainten maintenance costs are on the 100k for old Dixie. That's just for linear trail. Um, yeah, it's linear trail. Um, and then like the gateways maybe on the what is that? The south side, you know, like
the the entrance coming into Questa. So, all on Old Dixie. Okay. Okay. And is that 100,000 something is that kind of like throwing paint at a wall or is there do we have kind of a plan plan on what that 100,000 would include or entail? Right now, I mean, we could probably
spend a half million dollars out there. We just threw out $100,000. We can do a lot with $100,000, but I don't think it'll be the full paint picture. I mean, I think there's a lot more to do out there, but I think it's a good good start and it'll be a good representation what we want to do. A lot of it, you
know, you look at if I go back to like the Treasure Coast plan, I mean, they they lined out some of that. We had the U streetscaping that uh EAC did. So, I mean, there's already good foundation for what that's going to look like. If you just look across the street on on
some of those bare spots on the east side, I mean, you have a pretty good collection of those trees and those plants that you want. So, um, we feel like that was a good number when we first put it together. Okay. But considering potentially we could spend
more than 100,000 on Old Dixie this next year depending on what we want to do. Maybe another reason to maybe you know take a pause on the phase two for Mebrance Park and push it a year on the uh refuge and recycling. I know so you
said it's going to be $11 additional a month. Um we had that 25 cents a month recovery charge this past year. Correct? Okay. So, I know at um our last November workshop, you guys had I think like three good
options of like phasing in a recovery charge, a higher recovery charge. Is that Can we see that again in the July workshop and maybe update it? I'm not sure what you're referring to, but we can we can figure out what it was and we can bring it back. Yeah, it was from the November the November workshop.
um it would it had different like percentages and different years and kind of outlaid what that cash flow would look like. I think for me personally, it would help me kind of revisiting those options to make sure we're making the best choice for the residents on that one. We we went back to the drawing
board and we we found that we are losing roughly 3% Yeah. of revenue. So that's how we came up with a three and a half%. And you you stated that at the November workshop too. So that like I said it was at 3%. you had like we do 2% this year, 1%. It was just several options that
were kind of mapped out. I I personally think it'd be helpful for us to have Excuse me, mayor. Is that the the dollar amount you said is $11? Is that a month or a year per household? A year. A year. Per year. Oh, it's a year. Okay. An
extra $11 a year. Let me Okay. All right. So I think you know when and and we can bring that back. I don't even I don't really recall the options but we can we can definitely bring that back. I think you know three and a half% you see that we're roughly 16,000. I mean u so we'll
we'll look at what our options were that we brought you guys. Thank you. Um on the vulnerability assessment what are I know we've talked about this. I'm maybe not recalling. What were the next steps on that? Are we starting to
plan for any of the proposed improvements on that? I I do believe we've talked about looking for grants for some of that stuff, but is any anything from there part of this budget? Margie, do you want to take a shot at that?
Marjorie Craig, utilities director. Um the results of the vulnerability assessment, the the um the primary recommendations that they made were to uh raise the generators at the uh at
village hall and also at public services building and also to harden things at the water treatment plant like um some of the generators which we have portable generators. Also, we put in there the um swale
reclamation um and so far we have not been able to find a grant where we meet that criteria for the um swale restoration for the storm water specific items. The other um uh priority they had was to
uh monitor support what Lockahhatchee River District has does as far as uh potential sanitary sewer overflows um due to elevation uh elevated uh water
in the sto in the uh wastewater system. Those were really the like I can go back and look at the list again, but those were the um priority uh projects for the vulnerability assessment.
Do you recall if I missed anything there? Oh, and Dover Ditch as well. So, Dover Ditch definitely it's going to start this year, may extend into next year. Um and then we'll be looking to try to get a grant for Dover Ditch phase two.
Okay. Um, I do think when we were doing our strategic planning, we did talk about the VA when we were discussing the storm water item. Um, but yeah, I don't Does council feel like we should start kind of mapping out some of those requested improvements and potentially
budget budgeting for them in the future? Maybe not this year, but I think it'd be great to have a plan if we can lay them all out. um the cost of each one and the priority or what um village staff believes the priority are give us the cost and see how we can
maneuver those if if I may. So um the vulnerabil the assessment is just one tool right. So, as you may recall, it's an extremely prescriptive method of analyzing the
inundation and all the modeling that shows the high high, you know, hundredy year, bazillion year high. Um, and how it's going to impact the village, the village, very very flat. Um and um so that's just like one tool, but we
also have in the storm water utility system uh a master plan with a prioritized list of uh pipelining projects. And right now, as I continue to stand before you, annually the
pipelining is the biggest bang for the buck right now for it's it uh extends that storm water pipe that may be failing or near its life span for another 20 to 30 years beyond. But we
also have storm water swale reclamation projects that we have like for the next year or two. And then we're developing a prioritized list for into the future and then also small projects.
So it's kind of that part's separate. Uh but uh the grants so far that we found will not fund anything that is um should have been like a maintenance project. But like with Dover Ditch, we were able
to get a legislative appropriation uh through the Lockache River Preservation Initiative. And I see doing that again, pursuing that again. And any other project that we think would help improve the Lockahhatchee River water
quality and further investigate if we can do that with the swale reclamation as well. We might be able to. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, again, not for this year, but um and we can maybe bring it up again when we do our strategic
planning next March, but it might it might help to kind of have it on paper, have that plan. Yeah. Together. Like I said, maybe we decide for a couple more years to keep going for grants and then if we continue not be successful, like really start budgeting for some of them. Totally agree. Appreciate the support.
The manager has also been working with us to come up with a some maps to be able to show you kind of what this tell our what we've done in the past, what we have planned for the coming year and what we have planned for the future. Okay. And don't you go away because my
next two questions are utility related. The the 100,000 for swailes, what what swailes are we reclaiming? So, that would pay for three swailes and uh I think it's no um North Dover Road. Um oh
gosh, I sort of looked at these before I came. Oh, she's out. Um I'll have to come back to you with the three projects, but we've got them unless the manager sees them. I was trying to pull it up. I put them in the CI. You want to jump back? Let me see if I can find it.
Are these are these Well, there are it's all an R right away, but are these like in front of people's houses or is it more Some of them are. Um it's just where we've found some ponding, localized ponding, and we want to um improve that. And I know one of them is
on North Do um and we put the three they're like little maps and everything for the three projects in our capital project uh budget list. Okay. because I I've been I've had concerned citizens reach out about the village reclaiming
the swailes and I was told at the time that we weren't going to be just going in and redoing swailes in front of people's homes. Technically, it's the homeowner's responsibility to maintain that swale. Correct. Yes, that is correct. So, I think it's extremely important to get the flooding off the
road, especially if it's a problem area. But I mean, is that typical practice to use taxpayer dollars to pay for someone's swale that should be maintaining on their own or this isn't taxpayer dollars. This would be user fees from the uh storm the
storm water or the water tax utility wherever this one's technically coming from. But still, it's other people's, you know, collective village money and we're paying for specific properties soil improvement when they should be maintaining it themselves. I don't know. I just I'm kind of like going back and forth on that one because it's really important to get the water off the
roads. Now, these swailes though could affect the neighbors. So, just like the water devices we spoke about, it's it's a public health safety, right? They're in charge of it. They should be maintaining properly, but if they do not, it could flood the neighbor's house. And now, you know, how do we deal
with that as a village? We're trying to save those neighbors because that person's not taking care of them. So, do you find that person for their swale or do you reclaim it? I and I don't know. I just But it sounds like the water device issue over again. Let me let me just
take a shot. The these three that um that Marjorie and their team and I've been on site with all three of them. These three are all pretty unique in that it's not just like one property. They didn't take care of it. One which is over on Fair View. Um has been a
problem since I've been here. We've had massive flooding over there. So you do start talking about health and safety. We're not talking about one property. we're talking about trying to grade multiple properties down there. So, um, these three are all, I think, priorities that we've had issues with over time. And so, while we'll work with property
owners to try to, you know, um, make sure it's maintained, I think over time it's been a collective either, you know, permitting or letting people fill it in, but it's be become a problem where we have health and safety issues. Quick question on swailes. Is it
possible to give us an estimate of what it would cost a resident to redo their swale on their own? Like maybe say every 20 ft or something like give a range of it. And I'd just like to compare that cost because I'm trying to figure out why it's going to cost you guys $33,000 for
each section. And maybe without spending this money on it for those if it was cost affordable, maybe those there are some that might be willing to do it on their own. I'm just curious what that number would be so we can educate. We can we can do that. I know that David
got these the estimates for the three projects. As the manager mentioned, it is um more than just in front of one house. It's along and and the idea is to allow it to flow into our storm water system. Um and the project number one's
Garden Street. Um uh number two is no north do road and then nor project number three is do circle. Okay. So and it's it's more than just one house. But I can give you and I get that. I'm just actually just curious for our residents. It's very possible
that even a couple of residents in a row like let's say they get a lot of flooding and they say we need to fix this and it if it comes out cost effective for them they might be in a position to do it themselves. I appreciate that. And then water's off the road and we have a partnership with the residents. I appreciate that
opportunity. I I could be wrong. I don't know where on Northtover it is and I for total disclosure I live on Northtover. Um, but I also have the the sewer. I have the manhole cover in my front yard and and whenever that was put in um years ago, I'm sure um you can see the
cut that goes almost parallel to so north over from my house to about six or seven more past Mayor Brennan's there. You can see the cut in the road and our yard was never and I'm assuming that was Lockachi River or whoever put that in.
I'm not quite sure. Um, my mine is as flat as the street. You I just bought my house three years ago, so I had nothing to do with that. But I can see why that happened. And it does impact a lot. If you look at just the the concrete cut that it goes across to the manhole caddy corner about three houses down, that's
just where the water Yeah, they're terrible with their manholes. And and I have said on the record like my house is one. I've been in that house for quite some time now. And even the owner before me, I mean, my soil has never been maintenanced necessarily. And I could see it most likely has filled in over
the decades. So, I get that. But again, there might be some other houses. And that's not anything that someone did wrong. Just I didn't even know we were supposed to be making sure it's a certain depth and a certain width. And I just thought my Christmas lights just
started to not be as Okay. And is there like these three locations, is it is it like getting close to people's homes? Is getting inside their homes? Is the water staying for days after like a rain event? I've not seen anywhere where it's
of these locations where it's getting in someone's home in in those locations. Um the um it's not um and the manager may know more information over his you know over the time, but I've been here almost three
years and it's not getting in their homes there. Um but it is ponding. Um really I haven't seen anywhere in the village that the ponding doesn't dissipate within the 48 hours which is
kind of a design criteria for water to go away within 48 hours. But still, if we have ponding, um people have trouble driving through the areas and so we want to make sure we
can make it as as um smooth as possible. Yeah. I mean, I don't disagree with that. Um maybe for the next meeting, we can have a little more detail like is it are we ripping out shrubs and bushes or is it are they all grass? You know, are they are there driveways in it? If the driveways don't have a soil, is that
going to be less effective? Um, and again, I think that's a slippery slope to start paying for these swailes. And is like everyone gonna expect us to redo their swailes or we're paying for all of them that need redone? I don't know. I'm just feel like I just need a little more information on that. And maybe the
long-term master plan because I could see where some residents like, well, the village paid to redo these fills. Like, why aren't you redoing mine? I don't know. It's a slippery slope for me. So, maybe just have some more information the next meeting. Very good point. I don't disagree that it's a problem that needs to be addressed throughout the
village. Right. So, and then on some of the utility projects, you can have this for next time too or or you can email me between the meetings. Um, some of the projects, we kind of talked about this last year with, you know, making sure we're kind of cash flowing the capital
projects the best we can. Some of them, like the um relocate of the concentrate disposal, this is at the bridge, right? Mhm. It's last year we had 1.3 and this year you're doing 660,000. Is this is
some of this rollover or it wasn't clear on this report if this is in addition to that 1.3 we planned last year or if this is rollover and same with like the beach road. I think we had 4.5 last year and now we're at 4.7. I don't think that's an addition. I think that's roll over
two. Could you maybe just kind of clear up and clarify what's roll over from this year and any um uh estimate changes? Mayor, those are great. That's a great question. Um we expect to complete the um concentrate
pipe, but just in case because remember last year we they didn't DOT didn't allow us in. So we did rebudget it. It wasn't a rollover, it was like a rebudgeting. So it's it's we we don't roll over
unless we encumber the money. So if we don't encumber the money, we have to rebudget it or it won't be there in the budget. And if DOT doesn't allow allow us to get in there and do the project, then we don't want to be caught without
money to make sure that project gets done. And it's the same with um the other project that you mentioned, which is I think Beach Road maybe. Um, do we think we're spending the 1.3 this year? Yeah. And this is an addition and we think it's less than that. We think it's
going to be less than that. So that's why the price went down because that was a an updated C for once the price went down. Okay. Yeah. Maybe just uh if between the meetings just a better comparison on some of the bigger ticket from last year because like I said some
of those didn't have any money planned for this year last year. So I just want to understand kind of where we're at. No problem. And in the case of Beach Road, we thought we would be able to get funded and get the agreement through D, but as we've seen with the water
treatment plant project, it took six months for D to send us back the agreement. And so I we didn't want to be caught without money to get that project done. So we rebudgeted. It's not a rollover because we haven't encumbered any money, but we've rebudgeted that
project. And then the price that you're seeing, the cost you're seeing is um the latest estimate for that project. And in that case, that project kind of stayed the same one up maybe a little bit. Um000 and but that also means that we
would not expend those dollars this fiscal year. Right. Again, which kind of it's like a moving target with kind of that capital recovery charge. And that's a tricky one because I do understand the challenges you face because a lot of times you're waiting on other
jurisdictions and or you know external parties but um but yeah it would help just at least for me to have a better understanding of last year versus this year. Utilities is a marathon and not a sprint. And I would tell you that I love utilities because you it's there's
always some it's just excite you know there's always something going on always something going on always. It's frustrating. It can be frustrating, but sure, we love it. So, I love what I do. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mar. Um, I think this vehicle
replacement spreadsheet where those aren't all budgeted for this year, are they? Yes, ma'am. Oh, all of these are okay. On the rescue vehicle, what's the lead time on that one? Uh, last time I saw was 18 to 24 months. Um we when we
get ready to probably they'll start gearing up now and trying to you know work with the company get all the specs and then we'll have a better idea of what is what it's going to cost. But most of and I think this is nationwide. This isn't just one company. This is everywhere. You're looking at 18 to 24
months to build a vehicle. Maybe more, maybe less, but we'll get you as we start to turn the page on that we'll get you a better estimate. Okay. Then do what are the current maintenance costs on that vehicle? I'll have to email it later. Okay.
And then I kind of my last comment and just general on the general fund um as I understand it there will be more Doge efforts this you know continuing and so as we look at our budget this is more for staff and I think I've said this
every year um just be real nitpicky on some of the line items on the budget report like in my opinion say like the past two years you haven't used more than 60% of that on maybe just reduce that line item. Um because I do
everything I've heard that DOA is going to continue to reach out to the cities and try to look for waste and stuff. So I want to make sure we want to be conservative and I know um you know staff wants to and should have a contingency, you know, we should have a buffer, but we have built back our reserves which we should take into
account. But um I just want to throw that out there because everything I'm hearing that's still going to be a thing going forward. Great point. What was the line item that we haven't used more than 60% of? No, I'm just saying in general, and I'm not going to lie, I have not finished going through every line item of the budget report yet, but um it just
in general if something that and I'm talking about the things we kind of regularly budget for every year. Obviously, there's always going to be miscellaneous items every year, but kind of the standard ones that every single year we budget for. like if there's a trend and we haven't used, you know, I don't know, I'm just saying 60% like
maybe just reduce that line item because I think we just want to make sure that um if we're going to keep having, you know, Doge oversight that we are really, you know, taking a look at every line item and making sure that we don't have any waste. I'm not suggesting there's
waste. I'm just saying it's real and it's happening from everything I've been hearing. It's not going away anytime soon. Anything else? I have no more comments. Any public comment,
Marca? I'm so glad you mentioned remembrance part because I was going to bring it up too. I think it's a very good idea to let it be. You know, no one's a bigger booster for remembrance than I am. You know that. But on phase two, I was
looking at it and it really doesn't add that much value. Um, there's no parking. It's just a bunch of trees. It'll be beautiful. I'm not saying it won't be, but I think it might be wise to kind of table that for a year and see what the traffic is once we get the park going
and what our numbers look like and then come back and look at that at maybe next year. Thank you, Arthur. Thank you, Miss Watkins. Good evening everyone. I I would agree with Marcia. You know, we've been all about Remembrance Park, but it might be
interesting to see how it's used uh once this phase is is done and it's going to be beautiful, but it is trial and error over there is not a lot of parking to see if you get pedestrian traffic with it kind of how it's used and maybe it might even influence what you do with
that 1.3 million in the next phase. The other thing I would uh just like to offer, back in my day, we did reduce the military and when we did it, Jodie Fos Foresight, who was our um uh um
financial director, just about passed out that night when we did it. And it was at a time that everything was down. As I recollect, it was like 07 or ' 08, something like that. And we did have at that time
futures building was affectionately known around here as the pink elephant. It had stood for a long time. Oh, it's coming. It's going to be something never did happen. So, you really have to be careful and you can see where your expenses are going to go up with
salaries another right and I think a lot of this building phase is going to coil. It has to. We built out you know we're doing a lot of replacement but that that's going to be defined pretty soon and you have to really look down the
road which maybe we didn't do a very good job of at the time to see 101 15 years down any reduction in the millage rate has quite an effect even if you think it's not much it does and the village
fortunately if you tell people you're going to save $11 here or $50 here it's not the impact that it might have in another municipality And I think it's another thing that you just need to watch what's going on. We're kind of in an uncertain time on a
lot of levels right now and I would just caution you to hold tight and see what's going on. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Any other council comments, questions, discussion?
None. Okay. With that, can I get a motion to adjurnn? So moved. So moved. Second. All in favor? I