We're ready. Start right. Good evening. Today is the second budget hearing. Today is Wednesday, September 24th, 2025 at 6:00 p.m.
We have call to order. Roll call. Miss Frank. Mayor Goodman. I am here. President Hines here. Vice President Cox here. Council member Jones here.
Council member Rikio running late. Council member Martin here. City Manager Su Bodet here. Attorney Kirsten Belaloo here. Finance Director Steven Bloom here.
City Clerk Latricia Wright I am here. And all other staff present. Thank you. We'll have the opening prayer. Pledge of allegiance to the flag of Mayor Charles. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Join me if you choose. Lord, we come here today to try to do the business of our community, to try to do the best we can for the citizens of our community, to do diligence and to move forward with
purpose and with understanding of the impact that our decisions have on everybody else. We ask that you give each of these council members wisdom and understanding of the issues and that
they make the best decision that they have to make in your name. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We're going to open public hearing at this time is the intro of the tax issue. The city of Wilson proposes to levy milit rate of 6.75. This is a 5.8%
increase from the roll back rate of 6.3784 mills. Um the general public must be allowed to speak and to ask questions prior to the adoption of any measure by the governing body
and the city of will then proposes the adoption of the final rate of 6.75. Do I have any questions? Do I have a motion? Not yet. It'll be item three. Item three.
Public comment participation regarding the proposed tax rate. Do we have anyone who has anything to say? Okay. Item four, resolution 2025-113, a resolution of the city council of the
city of Wilson for adopting a final palum tax rate for the city of Wils, Florida for fiscal year 2025/2026. Item five, you'll need a vote on that resolution. I move approval of resolution 2025-113.
A second. We have a first and second. Any discussion from the public? If you'll come to the mic on six point tax six whatever I don't have.
75 is the Aalor tax nowhere where it shows an Aalorum number on the paperwork. Is that separate or is that included in the 6.75
the site? Anything from the council? Seeing none, move to vote. I mean, can I get a motion? Move to vote. All those in favor? I. I.
All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. All right. Now we've gone to item five. Introduce the tenative budget. The city of Williston proposes to adopt a budget with total appropriate expenditures,
expenses, and reserves of 200 I mean 28 million 842,94 a 0.4% increase compared to the current year's adopted budget. Public comments, participation regarding
to the budget. Yes, sir. Hello everybody. My name is Matt Marino. I live at 834 Northwest 4th Avenue. Um, I've been taking a look at the budget lately and sorry I'm kind of late to the game. I know this is the second reading.
Um, but anyway, I guess my concerns are just looking back at historical budgets. I don't know if you guys have, you know, looked back over the last 5, 10, 15 years, but it seems like we've had a pretty steady increase in the budget. Um, prior to COVID, the budget generally
raised anywhere from 3 to 8% year-over-year. And that's expected, you know, whether you've got cost increases or, you know, different missions from the city, that kind of thing. But since COVID, we've seen budget increases almost 20% year-over-year.
Um, the typical budget from 2012 to 2019 was anywhere from 11 to 13 million. And now we're staring at 28 million. That's a pretty big increase in that time span. And while some may have their reasons for that, I look at other municipalities
nearby such as Denellan, Newberry, and even more comparable cities like Bluntstown, and none of those cities saw increases to this magnitude. As a matter of fact, most of those cities have budgets still in that 13 to 15 million range, or if you calculate it on per
capita, it kind of gives you that typical rate. And the other thing is the amount of staffing. Right now we're proposing over 30 something positions. Um 130 I got
131 FTE positions. Yeah, that that's a lot of people. Uh that equates to basically one one employee at the city for every about 25 people that live within the city limits when that limit is usually 1 to 75 as compared to other municipalities in our
in our local area in the state of Florida. So, uh, I would challenge the board to review that information and understand that because to put this burden on the citizens to come up with this cost, I think is a pretty big ask, especially considering that the cities I
just named are, you know, generally successful cities. I would like to think that they're, you know, they're doing a pretty decent job of what they do. Uh, and not to mention, I think I may have left out, most of those cities tend to run on a, uh, what I say. I said the 125
to 175 stat. Um, most of the cities run with about a staff of about 45 total. That's police, fire, admin, public works, the whole gamut. And they all have some form of utility that they provide within the city. U specifically
Blunttown. Blunttown provides the exact same number of utilities that city Wilson does, yet they seem to operate at a 50% cost. So, I really think you should consider looking at that before moving forward with any uh budget resolutions.
Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? See if Steven has Sorry. So I think a couple things come to mind. One is our fire department as
we have let me just look that up here. They're not it's not it's volunteer fire department. It's not 100% you know full-time people. Um and my summary here like 35 or so do be my guess. I'm
looking at Lamar probably 35 right there. We have in here um 35. Yes. So again, you take 35 out, that's volunteer. Um the other big number in terms of our budget is police, which police, you
know, a code enforcement. Uh that's 27. So that between those two, that's 62 and a half of the 131. And I would say some of those 27 are reserve officers. Four or five of them are are reserve officers. Um and again even one of them
I believe is is again part-time. Um you know beyond that the other thing comment I wanted to make and we've talked about this at some of our workshops for the utility departments. I mean we have compliance you know agencies that have come in and
again this has happened over you know kind of why has it grown over the last couple years um and you know the team can talk through this that have come in and said hey you have to add additional staff to these particular utilities because we were running them very bare
bone. So then those were not op you know wasn't an option we had to put those in and that's where the growth in the utility department has been as you know for that and I would add and ask if you agree um that the dollars that we have u a lot of
it is grant dollars and that the revenue that comes in that is spent if you get if you take in revenue that is grant money and you then spend that grant money say the $4.1 million we got for the airport for example. Um that is
counted in the budget but I think we bought the furniture in the airport. We paid not one penny more other than that. So and a lot of a lot of the airport grants, a lot of the sewer grants, the water grants, all those things that we get, they come in as revenue, they go
out as an expenditure and it makes it look like we're spending a lot of money because we are. But a lot of it was grant funded. And Stephen might give you that number. It's 3.1 for for next year. Um, but that
that is a good point. And I just wanted to show uh give you the numbers on just the the general fund by itself because again you you have a couple um projects in there, but not a whole lot. Um but
year-over-year you're at about 11.8% um for the general fund. And again, the airport supports itself with the revenue. Obviously, the utility fund is being supported with the um you know, utility billing. The taxes that we're
talking about is supporting the general fund. Um and again, even within the general fund, you've added additional revenue. Um you know, the the traffic cameras is new. um our millage rate next year will be five years where we have
not had we have not increased the millage rate for five straight years. Um you know and again we've been able to manage the general fund without doing that through other sources of revenue whether it's from the state or you know gas tax all that good stuff.
Thank you. Thank you. If if I may. Yes sir. Uh, one difference between all those other municipalities is that we have people that are diligently working to get grant money,
which makes our budget appear skewed when in reality it is less than it appears unless you know all the inner grants and and the things that Steve and the council are talking about.
uh it is difficult to decipher and I understand the concern 20% is huge uh and but at least our citizens that are listening to this think that we're taking in 20% on their backs. It's not
correct. Thank you. May I thank you sir question as well because in in item number five it specifically says there's a 0.4% 4% increase compared to our current year's adopted budget. So our
upcoming year is only 0.4% increase. That's correct with all projects and grants and that's every fund including now right your you know your internet um fund as well which again you had to add staff
for that as well um do repositions that were put in there for that particular again another self- sustaining fund that's not uh coming through with property taxes I just wanted to make sure because that was not the number that was quoted at
the at the podium and I Just want to make sure that understanding that math correctly. Any other comments? If none, we'll move forward. Item number seven, resolution 2025-114, a resolution of the city council of the
city of Wilson, Florida, adopting the final budget for the fiscal year 2024 to 2025. I apologize. I say error should be 2025 2026 year. So fiscal year 2025-202
Make a motion that we approve resolution 2025-114. I have a first and a second. A motion and a second. Um, any comment from the public? Any comment from
the council? Seeing none, I move to vote. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed, nay. Motion passes 4 to zero.
I will close the public public hearing. Item number eight, adjournment. I make a motion that we got a motion. Can I get a second? Second. Have a motion and a second. All those in
favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes 4 to zero at 6:17 p.m.