--------- scared me. Good afternoon. We are missing the mayor, but uh we'll go ahead and kick the kick the tires on this thing. Do we need a agenda? Roll call. Roll call. Roll call, please. City clerk. Commissioner Dolison
here. Commissioner Mercer here, Commissioner Gansler here, Mayor Prom Yates here, and Mayor Bzong, who is not present at the moment. Sorry, there's not an agenda in front of me. So, basically, you just It's right here.
City manager, just wing it. Yeah, city manager. That's good. Uh, good evening, commissioners. Good evening. Keep hearing the door open behind me.
I'm waiting to see the mayor come dashing in all of a sudden. So, this evening, uh, we are going to have a presentation on the budget proposal for fiscal year 2526.
Um, I've had the pleasure of speaking with each of you over the past month on the budget, but not collectively as a board. So, that is the purpose of this evening and to answer any questions you may have and certainly um reiterate some of the
points that you shared during individual briefings that I had with you. Um, starting off, make sure my mouse is working here. Okay. I want to say thank you to the commission for your work last year in
adopting and creating and and adopting our strategic plan. As you know, our strategic plan lays out the six pillars that appear on your screen. um these have guided the financial
decisions that we've made in the preparation of the budget book as well as the delivery of services that we've provided over the last year as well as what will go into the next year. I just want to touch on a couple things with respect to these of how these influence
how we look at the budget. So, in terms of quality of life, a couple things that that we are working on presently and that will appear within the budget include the RFA, request for
applications for local government areas of opportunity as it pertains to affordable housing, the acquisition of new parkland to address the growing population that we have, um our continued funding of
affordable housing initiatives through the affordable housing trust fund. The grant aid program funds 44 different agencies this year. When we look at community safety, this year's budget includes the development and completion of fire station number five at Lake
Cartridge Park. It also increases staffing levels in terms of law enforcement officers and firefighters. It also focuses on uh expanding improvements to sidewalks and to transportation systems that are geared towards ensuring a safe uh
transportation system. In terms of infrastructure, number of complete street projects, you have several on your agenda this evening that you'll review for Monday's meeting. We also have a number of projects that pertain to the airport, including an airport master plan update. is which is also on
your agenda for this evening in the area of responsible government. This very meeting I think exemplifies how we go about doing business in Winterh Haven. Um I'm going to share with you at the end of the presentation a quick walkth through of open gov which
is our new budgeting platform that creates a certain level of um enhanced transparency and accessibility for our residents. You're all familiar with the Doge initiative at the federal level. I think you may also know that there is a Doge
initiative at the state level. Just uh this past Monday, we were required to complete a very comprehensive report to the governor's Doge office. I think we had about seven or eight days in which to gather a tremendous amount of
information on the past four years of fiscal operations of the city to submit. happy to say that we we met that requirement and that deadline and we're happy to provide that. Um, also point out is I as I'll get into a little
further, your fund balance speaks very much so to your uh responsible government uh pillar in terms of environmental stewardship, new initiatives with Keep Pole County Clean and Beautiful, our efforts to restore the astute property up on North
US 17, the implementation of more smart covers to address spills that can happen during inclement weather events and certainly during natural disasters. In terms of economic sustainability, we're making moves towards um exploring additional incentives for small
businesses to support support that segment of our economic uh community. Funding for a community development financial institute in partnership with Hart for Winterhaven. Exploring downtown parking to ensure a
resilient downtown and and an accessible downtown as we continue to grow. and um the development of our rail spur at the Winter Haven Industrial Park, which I'm happy to say we have, I think, finalized our agreement with um the state of
Florida, the Florida Florida Department of Commerce, and we'll be ready to execute that grant in the coming days. So, all those are just examples of how these pillars are guiding some of the decisions that we're making. When we look at the budget this year,
I'll start off by saying your overall budget for Winter Haven as proposed is 250,280,12. Um, that represents a difference of about 45.9 million less than what it is in the current year. That's about a
15.5% reduction in the overall budget from 2025 to 2026. Most of that is tied to capital projects that we were able to advance in fiscal year 25. It is a balanced budget. We have to have a balanced budget and it is balanced
based upon the the millage rate of 6.59 mills which is what our millage rate has been since 2022. Uh prior to that it was higher. So, we actually lowered our millage rate in 2022 and have maintained that since. Our property values, gross taxable
property values in Winter Haven have increased by 12.3% over last year. Of that 12.3%, 9.10% of the increase overall is associated with new growth. uh
properties that have come online during that window whether that's single family homes, multifamily properties, commercial businesses, the like. That is what's helping guide that. The adorum revenues increase by about $3.4 million based upon that growth
within the system. Um, the other thing that contributes to that, keep in mind, is if a property sells and gets revalued at the time of sale, that will also impact the overall taxable value within the community.
CRAAS are both doing very well. Um, 4.2 million in the downtown district in terms of revenues, 1.56 million in Florence Villa. Uh combined those increases are just a little over $800,000 compared to a year ago.
We, as I mentioned, continue to set aside $250,000 each year to go into the affordable housing trust fund that serves as our local match to projects that are pursuing tax credit financing options through the Florida uh Florida Housing
Corporation. It's also for other projects that may come before you that you want to be involved in uh that don't necessarily go through that process but that have merits in terms of assisting with affordable housing. One of the things I I just had a meeting yesterday with the folks from Blue Sky um just to
get some insights on on a project that they're working on and as we were talking about that certainly if you if you were to to develop a affordable housing project you may choose as a commission to assign some of your affordable housing trust fund dollars to
further support transit in in service to those. you know, a bus pulloff or a expanded bus uh stop to to help meet the needs of that community. The uh budget includes the continuation of our step.
Can I stop you? Did you say we can use affordable housing trust fund to up? It's your money within the trust fund and if it supports the development and services of affordable housing, I would say that you could use that as part of the infrastructure to support that
investment, a bus potentially. Let's say a new affordable housing apartment develops and there's not um there's not service to it or it needs a bus pulloff because of the size of it. The infrastructure to
do that becomes part of that pro that property and that project. I would advocate that you can use it to support that. It's your affordable housing trust fund. It's not your ship dollars. These are dollars that you are setting aside in your budget to support affordable housing.
But didn't we approved some sort of standards and mores and laws and fundamentals that to to guide us on that and I'm not sure that's part of it or is it I'm I'm generally curious because I hope that's the case but to me it seems like we might be getting off the beat
path there but maybe I'm wrong. So we'll we can bring that back for further discussion, but it would be my position that if you're doing if you're putting money towards the match dollars to develop an affordable housing project and there's infrastructure needed to support that specifically for the
affordable housing aspect of it. You you're mitigating some uh additional issue there that that would comply with that. We'll work with John and CJ and verify that that is within this is your affordable housing trust fund to use as you as you see appropriate to meet the
needs of your community. The um I mentioned the step plan is included. This is uh something that we put into play in 2022 I believe it was um that moves our employees within the pay grade on their annual anniversary.
We also did a market adjustment uh in the in the budget that is based upon a compensation and benefit study that we had completed this past spring. I'll elaborate on that as we get to it. And then finally, the number of budgeted positions uh for the city of Winter
Haven for fiscal year 26 is 766. You can see the breakdown here between what is uh full-time and part-time. Of that 766, it includes 23 new full-time positions.
Nine of those live within the general fund. And we always try and talk about the general fund a little differently because of how it's it is it's where its revenues come from. And there are a total of six new part-time positions, one of which exists within the general
fund. Millage rates, we remain, as I mentioned, 6.59. Um, last uh time we made an adjustment was in fiscal year 22 when we dropped it from 6.79 to 6.59. You can see we're
still waiting on details from a number of municipalities around us. I expect that by next Friday certainly we'll be able to fill in all that information as everybody has to submit their tenative millage rates to the state by August 4th. So we'll we'll continue to fill
this in as we get. You can see where we sit um of the 18 taxing jurisdictions here in Pulk County, we are uh on the the lower end, the bottom half. And and I I mentioned uh in conversations with each of you, my
recommendation is that you don't do anything to change this. The uncertainty of property taxes in the state of Florida remains. Um any increase in that certainly would give you potentially short-term win, but the long-term cost of having to peel that back uh should
there be a change in property taxes could be very destructive to services we provide. There's a recent article we received from um city of Orlando uh basically taking the exact same approach that the uncertainty of property taxes.
You're you're the feel amongst municipalities is leave them where they are because they're they're certainly within the crosshairs. Um and any changes to that are going to make make the the discussion a lot more challenging with our legislators.
funding partners, uh, four community partners that we fund each year. That includes Pulk Vision, uh, who advocates on behalf of a number of communitywide issues throughout Pulk County, Main Street, Winter Haven, which focuses predominantly in the downtown core, Chamber of Commerce, which is the
business arm addressing the needs of our community uh, and the business side. That one I did increase based upon a request from this year them this year to by $10,000. So it goes from 60,000 to to 70,000. Um and then the EDC we continue
to fund at 200,000. I will tell you that I had the pleasure of attending the Chamber of Commerce retreat along with Bruce Lion from the EDC. Uh Nita Strang from Main Street was there along with all the board members had a very effective and productive uh chamber
retreat last Friday and Saturday uh to help guide their efforts over the next year. And at the request of one of the commissioners, I've arranged for president and CEO Betsy Cleveland to come and give a presentation to the commission. I believe it will occur in August on just some of the things that
are happening within the chamber. Under service delivery partners, these are the folks that we uh bring in to work alongside us in helping meet our objectives and mission. So, keep Winter Haven clean and beautiful. Uh that is funded out of solid waste. A lot of that goes towards lake cleanups and litter
control. uh we are working with them to expand that program to have a greater frequency of litter control programs along our lakes. Keep pole county beautiful that is the adopt a highway adopt a roadway program that was presented to you uh earlier this month. And so that is a new partner that comes
in with us. the Marching Wolverines Community Band uh will will start back up at in at full step once we have the recreation center reopened and Ridge Art Association and their presence at Chain of Lakes Park. External partners that we work with
include Lamb, which is the Mass Transit. So, we pay about $294,000 each year for the fixed route system that services Winter Haven. That includes the Legoland route. that is the same amount that it is in the current year and if I'm not mistaken it is the
same amount it was in 2024. So you know our our contribution to that remains consistent. Um the only thing that would change within that we anticipate going forward would be addition or elimination of routes which we don't have any recommendations to do so as of yet. I
will say that we do have money set aside within the downtown CRA and the Florence Villa CRA to create a more localized circulator route that will service within the two CRAAS and provide access to those residing in within those areas
to get to um medical facilities, government facilities, commercial, shopping, uh recreation, some of the schools that exist within the CRAAS. It doesn't necessarily just serve those residents. It will circulate through that picks up those residents, but
anybody uh who can access a bus stop anywhere that can get into the downtown CRA would be able to get on that bus and ride it. And the um I think from what I recall from our CRA advisory committee Monday, the anticipated frequency of that is about every 40 minutes that
route will run through the the area. So that really came about from, you know, some feedback we received from the medical community about transportation being one of the biggest barriers of getting people to their facilities. And then we included again funding for Hartford for Winter Haven and the work
that they're doing not only in in in helping those that are homeless, but even more so keeping people from becoming homeless by assisting them with um utilities and rent and and deposits and the things that come up uh that are
that are a little easier to deal with. Uh but their program I think uh you all would agree has has proven very successful and they continue to target specifically families with school age children and we'll have a presentation from them lined up probably within the
next 60 days as well. Have they have they give a report in the past? Yeah, they give reports to us throughout the year. They um since the onboarding of Cedric Cox within our uh economic opportunity community investment, he meets with them every quarter to go
through their programs. Um and then annually we have them come present to the commission. Your nonprofit organizations that are funded this year, as I mentioned, there's 44 agencies. That is up from LA this current year it was 40. Last year
it was 33. uh the dollar amount $347,000 that's about a $30,000 increase year-over-year from last year to what's being or this current year to what's being proposed for next year. So that program continues to um really you know attract a lot of folks to it. Your grant
a application review committee will meet later this fall. Uh go through the process again of reviewing all the all the steps and all the protocols and all the policies and procedures and bring back recommendations on where they think we need to make some adjustments to that. Those checks are issued to these
agencies on or about the 1 of October. When we look at the revenues that come into the city, this is for all funds. So this is the entire city budget. You can see uh between the utility fund and the general fund, it's a it's a neck andneck
there. Utility fund, most of their revenues, if not all of them, are associated with user fees, connection fees. Certainly, there's some grant dollars that come in as well. Um in the general fund, I'll get into that a little further. There's a number of of revenue sources that feed that. Solid
waste is going to be your um your your service fees, you know, we or monthly service fees we charge. Um, airport has funds that are coming in from the uh, FAA, from FDOT, hanger rents, uh, fuel
sales, um, transportation fund, uh, impact fee fund. Um, certainly impact fee fund, we just talked about impact fees this earlier this summer. Transportation fund has contributions that are being made by the general fund as well as grant dollars. So, on and on
it goes. But um you can see that the bulk of the revenue does exist within the utility fund which is your water and sewer and your general fund. And again at any time throughout this if you have questions please stop me. I'm I'm happy to to answer wherever I can and call up
on staff where I cannot. If you look at how we spend our money and I think any business that's out there looks at okay where's the where's the money going out the door through. Um, as we look across the entire organization, capital consumes the
greatest uh greatest slice of the pie at about 29%. Capital projects can be very costly, certainly when we're dealing with a major recreation project, a major roadway project or a water sewer project. Uh, those dollars become very big very fast. Um, so you can see what
that's what's reflected there. That's followed by personnel and then operating. I'll tell you um you know this this final number here at $250 million. I mentioned that last year or present year 25 we're at $296 million.
So I you know of course that piques my interest. Why how are we shaving off so much money from one year to the next? Well, if you look at capital this year it's at 72.5 million. In fiscal year 25 it was over $133 million.
So we we took care of a lot of big capital projects in fiscal year 25 that don't show up in fiscal year 26. So that came down pretty significantly. Um personnel expenses go up a little bit
this year. Operating goes up a little bit this year. Pretty much everything else is going to see a slight tick up. The um the only one that that's remains actually came down a little bit or remains relatively flat is debt service. But capital is, you know, where we were
able to to shave off quite a bit uh going forward. Are there are there main projects within that 72 or There are and I'll and I'll discuss it as we get to it. A lot of those mayor prom will not show
up tonight. Those will be part of the water budget which we'll do on August 6th. Uh but certainly everything that's in the special funds and in the uh general fund and airport fund, things like that will will go through tonight. So, I remember we had a conversation at
length about this last year and that was, you know, looked like we had a lot of a big inflated budget and we're just spending a lot of money, but like you say, a lot of that was due to capital and we were trying to back those out to try to figure out, okay, if we didn't
have these big capital projects, what is our actual budget? Do we do we have that? We can we can gather that. I mean, we can do we just minus the full seven. You don't minus the full 72, right? You wouldn't because not all of that is
capital is not always a big bricks and mortar thing. Vehicles are capital. Garbage trucks are capital. So, there's some of it that is it's capital essential for the delivery of day-to-day services. We fund the replacement of
vehicles. um some your your roadway maintenance, you know, tip, things like that, complete streets that falls within it. You know, in the current year, you know, the the big big ones that I think of Lake Elbert Trail,
145 million, Chain of Lakes Park, $24 million. Winter Haven Recreation Cultural Center, 23 million, give or take. Um, we had some big projects at the airport. So, it it it we can we can show you what's bricks and sticks and
what's everyday stuff if if you'd like us to bring that back to you. Yeah. I don't I don't think I I'm not looking for anything in depth necessarily, but I think it would just be good to like if we can get to the nuts and bolts and then
compare that year-over-year. That's what I I like to see what that comparison and because year to year you're going to have a $20 million project over here or a new fire station for 10 million or you're going to have all these things that really move that Neil but what your
core nut of where you're at where does that stand over to previous years right okay we can certainly do that um the other thing I want to point out within this under grants and aid you see a a pretty
high number this here at 4.65. Um that includes not only your grant and aid to your nonprofits, but that's the money that goes to the community partners. That's the um it's also the CDFI funding. You know, I mentioned
Hartford for Winter Haven establishing a community development financial institution and we have included in the budget $500,000 to serve as seed money to get that program up and running. Um, so there's, you know, there's some new
things that we're doing within grant aid to to better the community at the end of the day. In the little further dive into the total expenditures by all funds, um, you know, when we talk about non-departmental funds or expenses,
these are things that you have to pay for, but they don't necessarily assign themselves to any single department. So, our property and liability insurance, uh, some of our internal service allocations to fund our operations in HR, IT, facility maintenance, um, our
audit, you know, some of our financial processes fall within that as well. And then also under debt services, we note all of our uh, debt that we are paying on at present time is reflected within
this across the entire organization. looking more specifically the general fund and I always like to start off by saying you know keep in mind your general fund is those everyday municipal services that are not of a business type. Business types are water, sewer,
solid waste. Um in in this case when you talk about general fund this is police this is fire parks streets you all my office uh finance the the the every planning department the things that we deal with day in day out um to operate
the city. So when we look at all the revenues that feed into the $78 million budget that that the general fund has, you can see advalorum is the biggest piece, $31.5 million. Current year, that's about $27.8
million. So as I mentioned, it went up a little over $3 million from fiscal year 25 going into 26. Um this total revenue at the end of the day, it's 78.3 million. the current year's budget it's
at about $72 million. So overall about a $6 million increase spread out through all these about half of that's going to be within adalorum. Um you know we're still waiting on state shared revenues. We won't have that number probably until sometime late July
early August. Um other things that that rise and fall within that certainly interest we uh were showing about a million dollars in interest earnings. We continue to budget our interest earnings extremely conservative because we don't want to bank on something big there and
then it not coming through because we can't control the market. Um, but you can, you know, certainly answer I can answer any questions you may have regarding where your revenues come from, but I always want to point out that 31.5 that's what your property owners are
paying in terms of taxes. that that $4 million increase is primarily a lot of the growth that's come online over the last several years and that that's it. Obviously, homes have continued to rise
in in assessed value. Is there any have we looked at any numbers just indicating you know what that previous homeowner what what that percentage increase looks like for them? Well, if they're homesteaded,
well, I guess so if you have if you have if you're part of Save Our Homes, that's a 3%. Right. Okay. But that's not automatic. You have to you have to be you have it has to be a homesteaded property. So you it also gets you your exemption and you
have save our homes is is applied to your your homestead. Is it an automatic 3% increase or is it I believe it is an automatic. Is is it automatic or is it capped at 3%. It's capped at 3%. Yeah. It can't rise above 3%. That's what I'm saying. I don't think everybody goes up by three.
It could be less. Yeah. It can't increase by more than three. More than three. Yes. But I guess what I'm getting at or trying to clarify is that that $4 million isn't on the backs of I don't want to say legacy Winter
Havenites, but the people that have been here for a long time. And that's that $4 million is on the new folks. It's on uh primarily it is going to be on new property that's developed. So keep in mind if you look
at the commercial the multif family properties that are on Cypress Gardens Boulevard. Those are some significant large taxable you know parcels. Those hit the tax roles this year. They opened, you
know, they they were coed prior to now, but they don't hit until till this cycle. Um, you have some commercial properties elsewhere that come online. You have I don't know, Eric, thousand single family home permits. So, that's a
those are new homes that weren't part of the inventory before. Those come on. If you have a house that sells um and you bought that house for $250,000 20 years ago and you have, you know, your your Save Our Homes cap on that,
it's only increased by so much and now it sells and it's not yet homesteaded, the taxable value on that property is going to go up. So all that contributes within that, but it's not on the person who's been in that house, you know, the
past 10 years and has had no major improvements to it or anything like that. Right. And the millillage hasn't changed. Right. It gets confusing. That's why I just wanted to kind of talk through the and get a little clarity on it.
Yes, sir. Okay. on um a little further into the general fund, some things to point out. So, there are some transfers that come into the general fund. The downtown CRA has some debt service that they pay into uh the general fund for improvements
that were funded within the CRA district. There's some revenue that comes in off the federal building. We still lease that space out um so that we have revenue that comes in. The uh impact fees at $925,000. Remember, if we have projects, capital projects that
expand the level of service, we can use impact fees to transfer in for that. Your utility fund makes a transfer, a dividend transfer of 12% of their operating revenues. Uh that is $6.1 million and we've been you that is a
policy that the uh commission established in 2017 and we have held strong to the meeting that 12%. We were significantly higher that when we started and the goal was to get it down to 12 and not let it go above 12 and we have continued to be able to do that.
There's also a dividend transfer from the solid waste fund. These two together total about 7.3 million um and I didn't run the calculation on that but this utility fund transfer you know that is another thing that is constantly in the
crosshairs of the of the state legislators. Um if if the that were to be eliminated to make that up in new revenue via ad valorum taxes it would be an that's equivalent to about 1.29 mills. So that
is uh pretty significant at the end of the day. So again something that we continue to advocate for. Um, you know, if this was a private utility, you're you're getting off of all of their assets and resources as a private utility, you'd be getting taxes. Uh,
because it's a municipal, you don't receive taxes. And that's part of the the justification for that transfer back in within the general funds expenditures. Again, we look at, okay, what's what's it cost? Mayor Prom Yates, maybe this speaks to your question of this is
within just the general fund. Most of the capital other than those things that are essential to day-to-day operations lives in a construction fund. So what's showing here um in capital at 4.79
$4.73 million that's a lot of the uh equipment that we have to purchase to deliver services. That's garbage trucks, fire trucks, police cars, um some small, you know, um construction projects, but the big things that affect the everyday
general operations, we pull those out and those are in a construction fund or a transportation fund. So maybe this answers your question about, you know, what's that true cost? general fund's usually a good place to look at that about $80 million
and that's for again police, fire, parks, streets, planning, code compliance and the like. Sir, are you suggesting you take the 72 minus the 4.7 and the No, I would say that this is this is
what your operational costs are inclusive of your personnel. So there's your your bodies your operating as those consumables that you go through, fuel, uh office supplies, materials, and the
like. The capital is going to be things that are uh replacement of vehicles, that type of stuff. And when I get to the construction fund, you'll see, you know, fire station five at $5 million. That doesn't show up in here. Okay.
I did run some calculations on these percentages and they are almost identical to what they are in the current fiscal year of how the money is distributed amongst these categories ranging from personal down through grants and aid.
a little further into the expenditures within the general fund. Um, under non-EP departmental costs, again I mentioned earlier the bus service is a non-EP departmental cost. The general fund pays for it. Doesn't belong to any department, but it's part of the general fund's expense. Insurance, uh, the
internal service charges. So, we have a handful of departments that serve all departments, HR, F, um, IT, engineering, facilities maintenance. Those get funded by the general fund. They also get funded by solid waste, by water, sewer,
and the like. Um, audit and bank fees. They don't belong to any one department. They belong to all departments. So, those show up within there. The general fund also pushes money out to support some other funds that are some other funds in departments. So about $950,000
to the library, 1.3 million to the airport, $775,000 to cemetery, $275,000 this year for Willoughbrook. They move money out to fund the transportation improvement projects, $2 million that is specifically for the uh
resurfacing tip program. Um I mentioned fire station 5. There's a contribution from the general fund for that. the um Winter Haven h Winter Haven affordable housing fund that 250,000 that we spoke of earlier. That's another expense that
goes out is a support to other funds. And you can see totally that comes out to about 8.3 almost $ 8.4 million capital that's included within this. Again, Mayor Promier, I go back to your question. So when we look at this 4, you
know, $7 million, and this isn't all of it, but you can see about $762,000 for vehicles, that is acquisition of new vehicles. Um, funding the the delta that is needed to replace certain vehicles shows up within
that. Repainting the fieldhouse, you that's not really a bricks and sticks expense, but it's considered a capital expense, $300,000. A playground replacement at $250,000. an HVAC replacement at $120,000.
Those are kind of the dayto-day things. And I'm going to tell you, we get our lunch eaten on HVAC, as I'm sure just about every business does, particularly with the uh the weather conditions that we've had as of late. And just the quality of product that is out on the market today, it seems like we're
replacing HVAC systems every year. Maybe not in the same facility, but throughout all of our facilities. By the time we hit probably 2030, every one of our buildings will have had a new new ACS within a 10-year period. How that money gets spent within the
general fund. So again, keep in mind non-EP departmental expenses. That's going to be debt service and um transfers to support those other smaller departments that that help all departments. So we really start at where police is and you can see police at about 19.4 4 million. Fire at 15.3.
Uh parks and recreation follows that. Then then the streets division, our finance department, the city clerk, legal and commission we group together, city manager and so on and so on. The important point here, public safety for
next year is proposed to cost $ 34.78 million. That is to keep our community safe. Advalarmor revenues will generate $31.5 million. That means we do we fall short of
funding public safety with tax dollars by $3.23 million. And I say that and I say this to our legislative body at the state level at the same time. The taxes we collect under the current system don't even
fully offset the cost of providing police and fire. And if you factor in the cost associated with parks and recreation, add that to it, you're now at $16 million delta. Add in streets, you're at a $20 million delta.
So taxes, while they're significant in what we do, we do we have to depend upon so many other sources because it doesn't even cover it. Now, we're not saying go tax more. Certainly, we're not asking for that. But if you start dwindling away at what you are able to to uh bring
in in terms of revenue from your an appropriate millage rate, if you start taking that away, your ability to provide the other services is going to be greatly impacted. By the way, that delta within what what we're not covering police and fire with with taxes, if you were to raise the
taxes to cover police and fire for next year, not saying do that, please don't do that. You'd have to increase your millage rate by just shy of 7/10en of a mill. Is that pretty common throughout the state?
that what I just explained where tax revenues are are a shortfall to yes to public safety. And I'll tell you, we are um working with Florida League of Cities and um I know that they would have no no qualms of me sharing this. you know, we've
we've identified uh cities that fall within the districts of every member of the House Committee, the special committee on on property tax reform to be able to pull
those numbers. And I think the league is actually their intent is to do this for all 411 cities throughout the state. Um there will be some anomalies where that's not the case because they don't provide police or they don't provide fire. So it's it's a county service
that's being provided. But in those that are full service cities, that is the theme consistently throughout the state. Your first priority is police and fire. And you're you're covering that with whatever you can through your your advorum revenues.
And then you're depending upon every other source of revenue you can find to offset costs. And that may be fees and charges. Parks and recreation, right? So we have we have fees for everything we do in parks and recreation. I can't charge a fee for mowing grass in a park, but summer camps, swim lessons, pool
admissions, those types of things. You become more dependent upon that. And I think you all will head to the Florida League of Cities conference in two weeks, three weeks thereabout. This I believe will be a primary topic of discussion and the data sets that have
been run for all cities will be shared. City is self-insured when it comes to our health insurance program. Um we have seen an uptick in 2024 and what we estimate for 2025. You know, this is unfortunate in in really in the
sense of this is driven by one or two significant health crises that one of our employees or someone on our plan has experienced. We're trying to do everything we possibly can to ensure the healthiest workforce and we've in included some new initiatives within our
budget um for screening of our employees to help them catch health issues earlier on. Uh but you don't catch everything unfortunately and uh you know one or two claims you know it's not unusual to have something be a million-dollar hit on a
medical claim. Um so you know we we manage that and we mitigate it as best we can and certainly we budget for it but that that spike um I can say with certainty is associated with as I said one to two claims that we experienced
late in 2024 and early 2025. Pension boards all just met today and uh from what I understand from some pension board members they had really good news reported to them on how the pensions are performing. I know Commissioner Mercer, you're a a member of the pension board
as a commission liaison and as is Mayor Birdong. Um but we expect these numbers to continue to improve. Um we'll see what happens, you know, in the in the immediate future. Maybe Commissioner Dancer can read the tea leaves and tell us what the market's going to do, but it
really comes down to this lower corner down here as to what the assumption is for the plan and what the actual performance is. So this is your general employee pension plan. This plan is closed to new members. Um they have a current uh contribution of percentage of
payroll at 35.9%. That's down a little bit from what it is in fiscal year 25. They're funded at about 82.3% which is better than they were a year ago. Uh and as I said that that performance continues to uh outperform
what the assumptions are. unfunded liability of about $17 million, which is down about $3 million from what it was a year ago. In the firefighter pension, um their percentage is a a contribution of or percentage of payroll went up slightly.
Um they're also performing well, not quite at the same level, although their assumption rate is a little higher than it is for the general fund. about 84% funded plan ratio with an unfunded liability of about 88.3 million almost identical to what it was a year ago.
And then the police pension plan um this one is the the lowest contribution in terms of percent of payroll. They're at 15.2%. That's that's incredible to see and and we're grateful for that. They are funded at about 85.8% good performance above what the
assumption is. Again, they have a pretty high assumption compared to the general fund and their liability sits at about 6.7. Pension plans are doing well and you know, no major changes there. I don't know that anything I've not had a full report on the three pension boards
that met today, but I don't anticipate any um great pronouncements or modifications to those uh moving forward. Who who's at fault for that? who who's whose responsibility does that fall on the shortfall of when you look at the
the general plan, it's a very conservative assumption rate. And if you look at the actuals, it looks like it's just about evened out. I couldn't do the math in my head quite that fast, but it looks like that's pretty much evened out. But but these because the
assumptions are so high you know the actuarial is the best I could say is you know they look at the investments they look at the the liabilities they look at how the plan performs who's involved you know who's who's a member of that plan and forecasting it out set
those assumptions. So, do they come banging on our door one day saying it's unfunded or or does that stay within that? I don't know if that's if it's within the unions issue or or
It has nothing to do with unions. It's it's it's the pension itself. Does you have a pension board? Somebody someday somebody's going to come and knock and look for $6.7 million. Assuming this doesn't change. I you know you want to speak to it you or CJ.
Yeah. So um where you might go Foster and Foster is our actuaries and every other they'll do a brief overview one year and then the next year a full-blown overview analysis. Um so they
look at mortality rates, they look at interest rates. Um, and according to Doug Lozer, who's our actuary, um, as long as we're hitting like there's not a special target, but he would like to see
a as a rule of thumb 80% um, for the plan funded ratio and the unfunded liability. That's like if we were to shut down tomorrow what we owe, but that is just an estimate. you know,
some people will um pass away before um we um the last person is in the general pension fund. So, that's just an estimate. Um but there's not going to be somebody coming and knocking on our door. This is going to be a long plan.
Um so, um and we are funding it. So, does that answer your question? Kind of does. And I just I've never been part of a pension plan. never will be part of a pension plan because those are have gone out the window at this point for the most part. So I was just
I mean you see the concern is I just don't want that to fall back on us one day because on the city of Winter Haven one day because someone else is you know guessing wrong and guessing I can speak to that briefly because when
we did pension reform we had an assumeum assumption of well over 8% and that was part of the negotiations that we did and we brought it down I think 25 basis points. points until we're at 6.7 or 6.5. I don't know where we ended up, but it's where we are now. We finally
We are 6.5. 6.5 is where we took it down from I think from 8% down to 6.5, but we did it 25 basis points a year. So that's where we are now. But ultimately, this plan will run out of money. And I use T MJ as
the as the as the loan survivor that one day the pension fund will run out of money. And it may be the younger guys that end up but the the city is on the hook to make up the difference. And so if the actuaries are doing their job right, which I think they are, I' i've
watched what they've done. They use a smoothing technique for informance per performance. And um but ultimately we're going to eventually get to the point where the plan's going to start going downhill and hopefully that's when MJ dies and the plan we don't run out of
plan. What my question was is what happens if MJ dies and and there's nobody left and there's money left in the pension plan. If it doesn't run out of money, that was a discussion we had several months ago. Where does where where does that money go? Because it's
potent, it is it is potentially feasible that the plan that the money there is money in the plan. Say we have a pandemic and everybody dies or you know, I mean, I'm just trying to I'm just trying to give you some perspective. there is it is possible that our last person in the pension plan dies and
there's still several million dollars left over. Where does that money go? And we had that discussion and I think you came back and said or where does that money comes back to the city? Comes back to the city because the city's on the hook for if it doesn't make if that doesn't happen, if we're
short, we still have to pay MJ till he dies. So that's the way it's going to work. But ultimately, we're going to hit this we're going to hit this period and it's going to start going like this rather dramatically because there's nobody putting more money in
and there if you have a bunch of people that are still alive taking money out, it's going to start going down the hill rather quickly. But that was a decision we made 10 years ago when we did pension reform. It's it was a right decision. I still think it was. So the end of the
day, I mean, Auburnale is 20 years into pension reform and it hadn't affected them. We're like 10 years in. Lakeland's in it. I mean, we all we all did it kind of at the same time, but it's uh it's yet to be seen how it's actually going
to work out because we don't know how long everybody's going to live. It's a long game. It's a long game. MJ lives to be a hundred. The city's going to be on the hook for a long time. But if he dies, I didn't even know MJ was sick and now I'm getting I got to make it that long. We want MJ to live for a long time. But
really, it's the only way to explain it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, MJ is a euphemism for all the young people in the plan, you know, that are still that are going to live to be a hundred. The older people, they're going to die soon enough while there's still money left. It's the young people that are going to be the ones that are kind of on the
hook, but the city's on the hook for them. Just if everybody lives to be 100, it it's doesn't work, you know, but those projections, I mean, they can usually average those out as they do in all actuaries. I mean, so there's got to be some breaking point where that, you
know, that is known. It's not it's not something that well, it's all it's all a function of how much money the per how much what kind of performance and how long everybody lives. But there will come a time when there's not enough money in there. It's going to it's going to it's going to eventually going to tip over,
but again, it won't happen overnight. We'll we'll see it coming. The actuaries see it coming. They'll know when it's going to happen, but it's going to be gradual because we have a smoothing we use a smoothing technique and that will make it gradual. But, you know,
at this at this point, it's not something that this commission can can deal with or we can't do anything at this point. It's got to play out. It's going to play out over 50 years because MJ's going to live to be a hundred. So it's not it's not
it's going it's going to play out over a long period of time. Where the challenge is going to be is a commission 30 years 20 years down the road start seeing it start seeing this delta going down and they start say oh we got to start getting more people put money in because that's what it is. people put money in
to pay people that have retired social security. So they're going to try to ultimately try to come back and say we need to reinstate this and that's where the challenges are going to be is that they because ultimately this will work itself out but it's going to take 30 or 40 years. When did we uh stop the pension plan?
What year? 2017 we stopped it for the general employees. So we closed it. We closed it to new members. And so everybody that came on uh from that point forward and Sean if I'm not mistaken we went back a few years if they were in it they went
to the 401A. I know new employ new employees that came on after that point went to 401A. That's correct. Okay. And so if you start employment with us today as a nonsworn firefighter nonsworn law enforcement officer you go into a defined
contribution. If you're a law enforcement or police officer or a firefighter, their defined benefit continues. That was it. We left those two alone. Yeah, they're still in. It's just the general employees. And maybe those Commissioner Gates, if you want to be a
firefighter, you can get a you can have a pinch. So, so since those maybe that's an explanation is that since those are still being funded, that's why the assumption is higher. Is that right? I smiling
the assumption is is the assumption is determined as we've noted as commissioner dancer noted by the actuary and that's a function that yeah and so that that's going to be an analysis or review of bunch of stuff so yeah I think pro you know I don't
want to I don't want to speculate but the uh those two plans the firefighter pension plan and the police pension plan are still alive they're they're still active the fine benefit plans and so people are still coming in and people are still contributing. Foreseeably that would not change. Is
that correct? That's foreseeable. That is a political how how would that change if 120 it's if people lived it's like any kind of I'm talking about the benefit to the fire and to that would be a decision of the body. That's what I'm saying. So that that was a decision was made that they would
continue fire and and uh police. Yeah. I mean, you all ultimately as the commission determine whether there's a defined benefit or a defined contribution and pension in there, there's no problem. It's if you run out of money, what happens? And that doesn't happen unless people start living to be 120. You know what I
mean? We make these assumptions that people are going to live to be 100. But if now everybody starts living to being 120, 130, then we run out of money and we have to re go back to the drawing board. But that's the assumption we made. And and truth be told, when we did this 10 years ago, we were at about an
80% funding ratio. We're still about there, aren't we? Aren't we about 80%. So, it's general for 10 years. 82 82%. So, we've got 82% of the money required. Okay. And that's about what we had 10 years ago. So, it's working. It's just going to it's just there's going to come a
time, not in our lifetime, when it's going to drop start dropping off, but that's to be expected. We just we plan for that. The other thing that happens within your police and fire is if people leave before they're vested, you know, then there's not a draw on the
pension and the pension actually makes some money off of that. We don't want that to happen. We want people to join our team and stay with us. But the pensions do benefit somewhat when that happens. Unfortunately, you know, it's the lesser of two evils, I guess. I don't know. But, um,
good good conversation. It's interesting. For the past three days, MJ's been doing everything possible to keep me alive so that he didn't have to give the presentation tonight. And here you guys are talking about his demise. His mom's going to be calling me tomorrow.
I already said he's living to be a hundred. We got a plan for it. Okay. So talk a little bit about compensation and where we we're proposing with that for the year ahead. Um I shared this with this chart with
you all during briefings. We've been able to add the June CPI number of 2.67 to the uh to the overall graph. You can see what what's happened with the consumer price index year-over-year, month over month. And I always think,
you know, when we start back in 2021 in the COVID window, you know, inflation really started to tick up around April of 2021, things start coming back online and businesses start cranking back up and CPI and inflation start going
haywire. Got really bad in May and June and July of um 2022. Kind of tapered off a little bit as we got into 23. And we've been pretty steady at right around 3% since I'd say what since June of last year to through
present day. We're seeing about a two to 3% CPI year over year or month over month from year-over-year. The um the living wage in PK County did go up this year. It's now at 21.08. This is an MIT
formula that calculates this. does it by every county in every municipality or every count, I'm sorry, every county but in every state and um so in PK County that number is at $218 is what you would need to make to be able to account for your typical
expenses of basic needs. So child care, civic engagement, food, health care, housing, internet, mobile communication, transportation, and other necessities. So, you got to be making 43 almost $44,000 a year uh to live on your own and not be dependent upon any other
source of income or or assistance. The um the other thing I think I shared with you when we look at this, you know, we CPI is based upon a a particular basket of taxable goods and how much that costs today versus what it was a year ago. at the same time. Well, if you
bought that basket of goods in May of 2021, uh $100 worth of items, whatever they may have been, if you bought the exact same things in 2025, you would have paid instead of $100, $125.37
over a four-year period. So significant what that impact has and that's what's driving that number for the the wage. We um we engaged Dr. Dr. John Daly, who is a professor with University of South Florida and also a consultant. We've
used Dr. Daly a number of years. Those of you that were here in 2021 may recall he he did a uh pay compensation analysis for us at that point. He does these for a number of cities throughout the entire state and beyond. Um some places he does
it every year. We do it every few years. and we asked him to look at our positions in comparison to the local labor market and the regional labor market. So the first thing that Dr. Daly identified for us was we have 19
positions 19 job classifications that when compared to their counterparts in other jurisdictions they need to be moved to a different pay grade. Now that doesn't mean necessarily they get more money. It just means that the base and
the cap and the range within that pay grade, they're not in the right one based upon that job in all these other cities we're looking at. So 19 different positions or job titles, as you can see listed there, need to be adjusted by either one or two paygrades. This is
just to get people in the right seats on the bus. So they're they're in the wrong seat right now in terms of pay grade. Let's get them into the right seat. My recommendation is that we uh we do just that, but we don't wait until October 1st to do it.
We do it effective August 1st. This is not a change in their job. This is they're doing the exact same job they're doing today, but we need to get them into the right pay grade as soon as possible. Those that do have some financial impact with that, meaning that they get the slightest adjustment within
their pay because they're below whatever that pay grade is that they're going to, the total cost that we've calculated to cover that expense between now and the end of fiscal year is $4,850 involving 38 positions.
So, you know, it's it's pennies at the end of the day when we look at the incumbent positions that are in there. So, this is really just right sizing. there's no financial impact of any significance in doing it and it is aligning us with what the industry says these positions should be at.
The next step that um Dr. Daly does is he takes those positions all of our positions that we assign to him and we pick positions within every pay grade to compare them against other communities in the local labor market that we try and recruit against uh or compete
against in recruitment as well as where we may lose employees to. We also look at the regional market. We do have some positions that would be more um likely to be impacted by the regional market. Police and fire at times can fall within that. Highly specialized positions. A a
water plant manager or an engineer could fall within the regional market. But what Dr. Daly's report revealed to us is that on average we are 5 a half% below the local labor market. That means when you take a fleet mechanic or a
landscaper or a librarian and you compare them to their counterparts in um Auburnale, Hannes City, Lake Wales, Pulk County, uh Plant City, Casemi, St. Cloud, we're about 5 and a half% below
where they are. So, um we did remove from our PACE study. We we did not look although we have all the data for it. We we specifically removed the city of Lakeland uh because of how they're paid and what they don't contribute in terms of social security taxes and we removed
the city of Barto because they're going to a new pay study that is very different from ours and so it would be an apples to oranges comparison that I was not comfortable making. Um, at the end of the day, what we what we've accounted for within the budget and what
we've factored in financially is to adjust the base rate of pay for all of our positions by 5%. That means the starting entry position of a vacant slot today would go from instead of $16 an hour, it would be at
$16.80. And that makes us competitive on those open vacant positions with everybody else that we're we're battling against. you know, puts us right neck andneck, if not a little higher on some positions with Pulk County. That's probably one of the places that we um you know, people
if they live within the county, they've got some options. You know, a landscape position, a librarian, a recreation worker, a utility serer, um they're not likely to be leaving your county to drive through traffic to get to Orange County or Hillsboro County. They're
going to look here locally. And so, we've got to make sure we're competitive on wages there. In doing that, we're recommending that we adjust the incumbent positions by 6%. That is to it 1% higher so that we don't have compression. Because if I have
positions that move by 5% and everybody moves by the same percentage point, new employees and more tenured employees start backing up against each other and that creates significant problems in terms of morale and uh just within the workforce overall. So we have accounted
for this in in the budget. Now be very clear and I want to say this as loud and as clear as I possibly can. We have not gone to the table yet. Meaning we have not negotiated with the fire union. We have not negotiated with the um the
police union. Uh we have uh negotiations coming up. Fire this year is a full contract negotiation meaning all articles are on the table. uh police will be a wage reopener plus two. Um and so we've got to go through that process. So I don't want to give any suggestion
or indication that this is a done deal in terms of the unions, but this is what we have financially included in the budget as its balance today. Okay. The um minimum wage throughout the state, just so you all are aware, uh at
present time today is $13 an hour. That'll jump to $14 on September 30th. And then next year, uh September 30th of 26. That's the last increase that the state established when they rolled this
out, I think, in 2021, 2020 when they they put into play their their escalation of minimum wage. Um, so that's just for comparison purposes. And if you have, you know, kids that are starting to go get jobs out there, you
know, there's places that are paying $13 an hour to as a starting wage. Just just sharing that for what it's worth. You said you need 21 need to live. I'm sorry, sir. Said they need 21 to live in P County, though. Yeah. Yeah. You need 21 to live. So, you
can imagine a teen a teenager doesn't need 21 to live, though. be living in your house. They will I got one. Trust me, you need That's a good point. And I don't you I wish I had this that I could just pull out of my head and I know I've got it
written down somewhere. How many of our positions are below that 21? And how dependent are we on those employees? These are the folks that are um keeping our parks safe, that are keeping our roads safe, that are making sure the
water gets to your house, right? And if you're not if you're not married or don't have a roommate, you know, these are folks that are making 35 $36,000 a year, you know, it's it's it's tough to go. Forget about buying a house. Ain't no
way anybody's making that's going to buy a house around here. So, it's a conundrum. Couple new positions I mentioned we've uh included in the budget. So start with the general fund. Um first and foremost, police officers recommending the addition of three more police officers
as our community grows. Um challenges, you know, our crime rate, knock on wood, I want to thank Vance and the the fine men and women at at the police department. We are at a I believe an all-time low in terms of our crime rate per thousand. Um we are at like 1.7 in
change right now. So, we're doing great things there, but we continue to grow. You know, we're more and more people coming in, and the types of challenges we face are are evolving as well. So, I want to make sure that we have sufficient law enforcement. They're also adding in a a part-time property and
evidence technician. With crime comes property and evidence, and managing that is a massive undertaking. Um, fire department recommending the addition of four firefighters to come on at the middle of the year. So, we fund them for 50% of this coming year and then they'll
be on, you know, in 27's budget, they'll be fully uh accounted for. And that is really to make sure we have staffing coverage when we have employees that are out on Kelly days or out on sick or on uh light duty because of a work injury, whatever the case may be, that we've got
resiliency within the organization. in parks and grounds. Um, a maintenance operator, uh, again helping maintain our public spaces, which are more active this summer than we've ever seen. And then a recreation manager, which is an administrative role to provide
additional oversight and guidance to the operations at the Fieldhouse, at the Winter Haven Recreation and Cultural Center, the senior center, all of our recreation programming. So, that is a new body that is uh coming on. Um, I will tell you that we are wrapping up uh
all of our um hiring processes for leadership at the Winter Haven Recreation and Cultural Center. It's not quite done deal, but I hope to be able to share that information with you uh within the next few weeks. So, all these positions are full-time, correct? Except for this property and evidence
position. So, there's nine full-time, one part-time that come on within the uh general fund. And four of those those full-time will only be for half a year. In the IT department, there are three
full-time and two part-time. Smart city data analyst. You guys hear us talk about smart covers and AMI and uh traffic management data. We collect all this different data. We have to be able to analyze that for the best decision making. Uh that's what this role does.
is it helps callull all that data and and assemble it in a way that we can use it for better decision- making. Business technology support specialist. Every one of you has a city cell phone. Everyone has an iPad. You've got computers in front of you. There's 700 and some odd employees throughout the organization
that depend upon much the same technology and all the servers and everything that supports that. This is the hardware person that helps make sure the printers print and the computers boot up and the cell phones work. really maintaining the inventory of equipment and then a smart city computer engineer
as we see new technologies come online. Uh that is the person to help us navigate that and make sure that all those software packages that we fold in talk to each other and do what they're supposed to do. Our interns, most of our interns right now are coming out of Florida Poly and these are um some of
the smartest people that you could ever imagine. These are people that have degrees yet they don't have the experience necessary to go out and land the job. So they come work for us um in a in a very reduced role. Some of them come and work for us for free. Some of them are paid, but they get a chance to
build a resume and experience that they can use to launch to higher things and hopefully join our team eventually in the building division. Building division uh service representative, two permit specialists, and a permit specialist supervisor. Uh projects
aren't slowing down despite what we may see throughout the country. There was just an article within the Ledger I think two days ago about the Lakeland Winter Haven metro area remains one of the 10 fastest growing areas in the nation. Um it's not number one anymore
or number three. I think we're like number eight, but we are uh us and Northport remain the two fastest growing within the state of Florida. Um and as we have more projects coming on, you know, Advent will start their hospital before too long. We expect to see some
more development at the ILC, you know, having support to make that work. And then an part-time library assistant, that is an additional body to join the team uh associated with the Winter Haven Recreation and Cultural Center just in forecasting what the need is going to be
there. The water department, and I'll talk more about water on August 6, but a couple positions that we've included there. Fiscal manager, they've got about an 80 plus million dollar budget. a lot of capital within that, a lot of grant management that has to take place and
compliance. We need somebody that can help manage that and take some of that workload off of our finance department and other staff that are helping doing that today. Two additional utility servicesers. Every time a new subdivision comes in, there's lines in the ground. There's a lift station. There's meters. So, that is to help
support that expanding infrastructure. An additional customer service representative for across the street in account services. and then a part-time electrician. Electrician and water doesn't seem to make sense, but keep in mind every one of those lift stations has an electrical panel that has to be serviced and maintained. So, having
somebody that can assist us in that regard in fleet MJ, do you know how many vehicles we have now within fleet? 600 and some 600 plus pieces of rolling stock um of rolling stock. So, you know, going to add some fire or some uh uh uh
garbage trucks, going to add some police cars. You know, again, having enough people to maintain all that. So, we're adding one mechanic. And then we're also getting younger people into that field that don't necessarily have the experience on how to work on some of the older stuff. So, trying to land a somebody that maybe has retired from the
fleet industry that can come in and be a trainer to these younger mechanics and give them some insights and tricks of the trade to make their job more effective and more fulfilling. And then finally in solid waste, two additional driver collectors. About every 3,400 homes that gets built or comes online,
we're adding uh we have to service that with realistically three new routes. A garbage route, a horiculture route, and a uh a junk and debris route. And so this is just continually prepping for continued growth and meeting the expanded need there. So all in all, 29
positions, um 23 full-time, six part-time. There are three positions that are recommended for reclassification this year. One is the uh vacant position of director of diversity and inclusivity. This would become a community engagement manager that would serve as a conduit of
communication out to various organizations within the community, whether that be neighborhood associations, homeowners associations, faith group based groups, nonprofits, um civic organizations, the like to share help share our message out to them
and and disseminate information as well as collect insights on issues that they're facing and bring that back so we can kind of help navigate that. That was a key component in what we did under Christine Samuel and something that I think we need to continue and reach out to make sure we're touching these
neighborhoods. You they have HOA issues, you know, and those are those are probably more frequent than you all may realize. You know, if they have a a major storm water issue and it's a private storm water system, helping them navigate that can be very tricky. So, having somebody that can help us be a a conduit there.
T, quick question on that. I know there's been all kinds of push back about DEI from the state and I think you and I talked about this and they're I think Tallahassee is coming back and they're trying to lift up the hood a
little bit and see if people are fudging a little bit. Are we comfortable that this is not going to be something that's going to create the eyeire of the Absolutely. Absolutely. this is this is um good government 101 that we've got to engage with the community. We've have to
be responsive. We do a lot of that now through uh through myself, through MJ, through Charlie, through the department directors. But what we don't do a good job of is really being able to um I guess callull all those different
organizations together and and share with them pertinent information. Give you an example. One of the things that I would expect this position to do, we have a hurricane come, we have to get um a uh an authorization of sorts um a
right of entry agreement from every gated subdivision in order for us to go pick up storm debris within those subdivisions. Well, I that's the kind of thing this person does. No, I I totally agree with the position. I'm not saying that. I just want to make sure that we couch it the right way that it's not that it that when when they
when they do what they do that they don't come back and we have to defend ourselves. Right. And that's again community engagement manager is the position title. I think um the job description certainly aligns with with that body of thought dancer.
in the uh planning division. Um taking uh creating a senior planner on top of all the invoicing and all of the maintenance contracts to make sure that everybody is in compliance as they're doing work for us. So that is everything in terms of the
personnel. I'll go quickly through um just some highlights within the balance of this presentation. When it comes to the general fund, uh, as I mentioned, you have a general fund budget of $79.6 million. That's an
increase of about $2 million over the year prior in terms of expenditures. Um, I don't, you know, given what we're facing in terms of operational cost increases and personnel costs, you can see, um, you know, capital is about the
same, Commissioner Mayor Prom Yates, year-over-year. it. That's that that everyday operating capital that I mentioned. That's not the the big sticks and bricks type stuff, but no major changes within the general fund collective.
Um in the city commission, uh slight increase of about $42,000. One of the things that we did this year, and this is so we make sure we account for it, five of you travel to different conferences. Um, we budgeted for you. If there's a conference that is available
for the commission to attend, Florida League of Cities, maybe it's the uh um uh FB the Florida Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials or National League of Cities or the Flyin, whatever you're eligible to attend. We budget for that anticipating that you'll attend. Not
everybody always signs up to go to those things and then we back those dollars out at the end of the year, but we want to make sure we account for that. City clerk's office goes up by about $80,000. Uh, in case you forgot, there's an election in November that we'll have to do. And Vanessa, if I'm not mistaken, that's about a $75,000 expense each year
that we have to do that. So, this is one of those on years that we have to f factor that in. Uh, no change in our legal fees year-over-year. Um, keep in mind that within that that is not just the uh your city attorney and John Murphy, but that is also access to Drew
Crawford uh who helps us on major issues particularly when we're dealing with economic development and land transactions, Seth Claytor who handles a lot of our code compliance, David Carmichael who handles I think just about all of our uh uh risk protection orders and then the various other
attorneys that we call into the fold on matters that are beyond what we normally deal with the uh city manager's office goes down a little bit because of moving that position of director of diversity out and hence public affairs and
communication goes up a little bit uh by adding that position in finance. Uh no major change there. It's actually um I guess about a 4% increase year-over-year. Planning about a 1.8%
increase year-over-year. Again, not a lot of capital, not a lot of consumables that that happen there. So, those stay relatively flat. Safe neighborhoods actually goes down just a hair. Um, police goes up the most of any department by about $1.9 million.
There's three new police officers. And there's also um with those officers comes vehicles. There's also the funding of vehicle replacements. We're going to replace, I want to say about 25 vehicles this year
um that are scheduled for replacement. Those cost of vehicles have gone up. So, we've been funding them year-over-year, but there's a slight delta that we have to factor in there. So, that is included within the budget. Fire department about a $786,000 increase. Uh again, uh personnel and
four new offic firefighters coming on midyear. And then in capital, um, just a slight increase of about $94,000 tied to HVAC work, a new vehicle for one of the administrative positions that was brought on this current year. Parks and
recreation goes up by about 1.5% which is pretty amazing considering how much we've grown parks and recreation over the past two years. Um, but we've been able to account for those positions in the years that we're building the facilities. And then streets uh has a pretty
significant decrease of about $1.1 million. It's about a 23% decrease year-over-year. This is one of those I'll go back to it. In this operating account in the current year, they have a lot of money that's set aside for uh bridge refurbishment
along the Chainlakes Trail. That's one time expense money that shows up here, but doesn't show up in next year's budget. So, you see what that difference is. talk about fund balance for a few minutes. Um, so this is your this is your safety net. This is your rainy day
fund, your emergency relief uh should you need it. The commission has a set policy that you will have no less than 17% in your general fund fund balance. Two and a half years ago, the commission
adopted as a target goal 30%. Based upon what indust industry recommendations were and what we were experiencing in terms of natural disasters and what the forecast was going forward, anything that would be above 30%, we come back to
you sometime thereafter and recommend that that be moved to a construction fund to offset um cost escalation within capital projects. We just did that a few months back. You may recall we transferred, I believe it was $1.4 million from the fund balance into the
construction fund for fire station 5. That kept us at 30%. We anticipate at the end of next year we'll have about $641,000 above that 30%. Um, we did some checking around. I can't remember which commissioner had asked me
for this, but we did reach out to see what is the fund balance that policy that other cities have. So, we looked here within Pulk County. They range from anywhere from 17% to 25%.
Um the um city of Lakeland's is done on a continuous uh daily cash flow analysis and they tend to hold between 45 and 60 days of of reserves. Um we weren't able
to get anything from from one of the cities that we reached from and one of them actually reported their policy is just to maintain a healthy reserve without a definition of what healthy means. My recommendation is that you stay at 30% as your target goal. Um certainly
what we're seeing happen with FEMA right now and the uncertainty of what it's going to you what dollars are going to be able to come our way for reimbursement on projects that are the result of hurricanes. We don't know what that's going to look like going forward. You may recall that Pulk County just
recently increased their tipping fee at the landfill. Um how does that relate to this? Well, they recognize that when it comes to debris management post storm, the impact that that has and the potential uh challenges of getting FEMA
reimbursement for that that they I think it's their magic number is $30 million for debris management countywide. And they're anticipating needing to have enough for three storms, which is not unheard of. Um that's just another
example of good financial planning and making sure that if we have some major crisis whether it is a recession of ultimate you know just horrendous magnitude a natural disaster a COVID whatever that scenario is that we're well positioned to continue meeting the
service needs of the community. Some of the significant things that are included in the general fund. So again, these are capital. These are those little things that come up. So vehicles and and a fence installation within the police department, HVAC at the fire station, uh the self-contained breathing
apparatus, communication systems, uh in parks and grounds. Um this is not capital, but it's it's a contractual service. Rights away contractual services. That's to help us maintain some of our rights away. We farm that out to um private sector to to help us
maintain those areas. We do anticipate getting a second uh Pulk Correctional Institution crew uh this year. That will give us a total of four. Um so that that cost is factored in. We've got some park projects that we're working on at Lions
Park. Um we're also doing a comprehensive emergency management plan update within parks and recreation. There is $25,000 set aside for the cultural arts advisory committee to invest in an art project within the community. Uh, I mentioned the exterior painting at
the at the uh fieldhouse, $300,000. That building is now five years old. Um, and and in need of painting. Tennis court resurfacing. I think you just heard a great presentation from Dave Saltman two weeks ago on what's happening at the tennis courts. And then uh at the Winter
Haven Recreation and Cultural Center, when that facility comes online, we need to have a dedicated facility uh staff vehicle for that facility. improvements at Rotary. Again, HVAC, you'll see that come up an awful lot. They uh they don't make them like they
used to, that's for sure. Uh it in the activity fields, Sertoma Park baseball, uh safety netting over all the spectator areas that are out there. Um they have some vehicle replacements. We have some planning studies uh and support for uh
planning studies budgeted for in in the planning division. We also have to use a third-party surveyor to review plats when they come in. So that's reflected there. And then within the streets division, u the ADA transition plan. Apologize, my mouse is giving me a fit
here for some reason. I don't know what it's doing. Um the first street traffic analysis and signal timing that is looking at the corridor that we maintain, which is Central Avenue South to Cypress Gardens Boulevard. We will also be looking at traffic signal timing
and analysis along Sixth Street as was requested recently um from Cypress Gardens Boulevard all the way down to Central Avenue. Airport is doing great things. Um happy to report that their uh their investment from the city this year comes down a
little bit about $75,000. Overall, their budget drops in terms of expenditures by a little more than half. Again, look at the capital line. Last year, they had $6.1 million in capital. This year, it's 577,000.
So, um that's where a lot of that is made up. They have a couple projects that are significant. So, some obstruction clearing that is at the end of the runways and that is something that the FAA and FDOT require us to comply with. cost associated with the remote control
tower. You see all of that being funded by FDOT development of the infrastructure for the commerce commerce park phase one that is just to the west of the existing terminal. That is the area where Blue Line Aviation is expected to build their permanent facilities. The T-Her taxi
lane rehab, we just talked about that recently and the grant efforts there. And then I mentioned the master plan update. That's actually on your agenda for Monday night, the grant agreement for that. the end of the day, we'll invest about two point or $7.3 million in projects at the airport, of which the
city will contribute just over a million dollars. That means for every roughly 84.5 cents that everybody else contributes, we kick in about 14.5 cents. Um, which is a pretty sweet deal. If we could get that everywhere, we
would be we'd be very very happy. But we're grateful for FAA and FDOT and what they're able to help us with. I do want to point out at the bottom here this $300,000 that you see for air traffic control services. I think I explained to you that prior prior to us taking on the
digital remote air traffic control tower, we're going to have to have some level of traditional air traffic control at the airport utilizing our mobile air traffic control uh structure that's out there. And our intent is to contract with the Barto airport authority to
provide those services. And that's what this $300,000 reflects library. Um big exciting thing here is this other revenues that you see. So you see a pretty significant increase of $319,000.
Commissioner Dancer, you certainly remember this and I believe uh Commissioner Dles, are you on the library board now? So, you've probably heard about the the funding uh formula that the county uses of the cooperative funds. Um with the onset of a new library at Winter Haven Recreation
Cultural Center, we have a little more money coming to us from the cooperative. So, nice. That's a good thing to see. Um I also found it interesting, you'll see in the footnote here, uh almost 442,000 visitations in 2024 to your library
downtown. That's an awful lot of foot traffic. Um they're doing great things there and certainly with that here we go again HVAC equipment replacement uh and then replacing the carpet in the main library. That library was opened on Jul
July 5th 2004. So we're just over 21 years now and we built it for a 21-year lifespan and know that we would have to do something to expand when we got to that. And lo and behold, you all made the wise decision to include a branch library in the new
recreation and cultural center. So, very consistent with what the plan was 21 years ago. Cemeteries, um, you know, there's there's no great pronouncements within the cemeteries. This is something that your revenues eb and flow based upon really what the
economy is. When the economy is high, people tend to do a lot more end of life planning. uh when the economy is is tough, they put that's one of the things that gets put off. Um when COVID hits, you see numbers go crazy here. We don't want every want to see that. You know,
it's great to say, "Hey, we're making a lot of money at the cemetery," but that usually means because a lot of people need cemetery services, and that's not good. Um we do have some projects that will take place within the cemeteries this year. The roadways within Chris Brown Cemetery, which is just north of the Winter Haven Recreation and Cultural
Center, will all be redone. will open up or begin preparing to open up a new section at Rolling Hills Cemetery along with irrigation improvements. And then one of the biggest challenges we have within cemeteries is trees. Hurricanes come through and they decimate those cemeteries. So we need to do some tree
service throughout our cemeteries. And this will apply to um as needed wherever within the five cemeteries. Keep in mind we maintain four from internments all the way through perpetual care. At the Lake Mod Cemetery, we only do the
landscape maintenance. And then, as I always like to joke, the sixth cemetery that nobody ever talks about is Inman Park. Um although we don't do any interament there, that's certainly another place that we have to be mindful of and make sure we're giving a lot of love and care to. That's true.
Capital project fund. So those big ticket items that belong to the general fund, we pull out and we stick them somewhere else. We do this because they take longer. They're harder to track if they're within the general fund. We set them up in a construction fund. So, I'd
like to just talk about a couple of these real quick. Chain of lakes parking. This is a extension of the um Chain of Lakes Park phase 2 baseball fields. If you've been down there, you've probably seen the the
concession stands and the vertical buildings coming up out of the ground. I'm hoping there'll be paving at some point within the next two weeks, all the additional parking that's associated with that. But we know that we continue to have parking issues there, and we anticipate that being the case going
forward. Our staff was able to coordinate with Pulk County Sports Marketing and identify funds to pave and establish additional parking that we were not preparing to do just as of yet. we were going to do it um at a later phase, but county said that they would
be willing to fund half of that for us. So for $1.2 million, half of which will come in the form of an interlocal agreement from the Pulk County Board of County Commissioners, we will add 200 358 additional parking spaces to that facility of which about
230 are paved. So a significant improvement to address and mitigate a current issue there. Um, Diamond Plex. Those renovations include lighting upgrades to LED systems as well as fencing improvements. I mentioned fire
station 5 at Lake Cartridge Park. I expect probably within the next 30 or 45 days you all to give consideration to a um uh guaranteed maximum price for that project. And then the city hall annex and renovation, that is the building
division going into the space just to the north of us. And um that project uh I've seen conceptual plans for that. That's going to be an outstanding facility and we're excited to bring that online. Transportation fund. Couple of these come to you tonight in your agenda.
Third Street Northwest. We're going to be able to show you a conceptual drawing of what that looks like. That is a DOT funded project. The um as well as Roosevelt Drive. Uh that one is also on your agenda for this evening. And I believe we also have on the agenda this
evening the design work award for Sixth Street Southwest which is down near our water department and venue 650. Um lots of good things happening within our complete street projects. The one mill for capital projects provides $2 million
for tip. Um some tip work is now underway for this year. We're doing some crack sealing around town and that is funded out of the current year, but we'll have an additional $2 million for roadway enhancements next year. And MJ just
shared with me this evening, quiet zones, the JP Powell memorial quiet zone project. Uh we're getting very, very close. I expect to see a purchase order come across my desk at any moment now to pay for the permit that we have to uh
purchase from CSX. And then we will procure the uh the finish out the design work and the CI design's done. CI is what we have to uh procure and then put that project out for bid and knock it out. I think and it's about a 90-day
window. Is that correct MJ? So it's coming to be and uh we'll celebrate that in JP Pal's memory. No doubt. CRAAS the downtown CRA just had their meeting Monday evening. Mayor Prom Yates was in attendance at that. Uh Florence
Villa met few weeks back on on their budget preliminary uh discussions. Um valuation in the downtown CRA increased by about 9.6%. In Florenceville by about 15.5%.
Um I think and Eric can correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sure that the Florence Place, which is a taxable property, contributed to that increase within the uh Florence Villa CRA. Their budgets um are laid out based
upon, you know, the personnel that they pay for that are city staff. They have some operating expenses and then their capital, which I'll talk about a little bit more. I do want to point out in economic development the $ 1.5 million in the downtown CRA that does include it
does include the $400,000 um commitment to Grand Central. So that is factored in there should they meet their milestones and that project move forward. Uh we have to factor that in.
So we're we're good to go there. There is within capital in the downtown CRA. These are the the projects that they have lined up for next year. There are some projects that will also roll over the DOT pond. This
is down at the um intersections of Fourth and Fifth Street and Avenue C by Bowen Yard. This is our beautifification efforts with some grant money from DOT. Water tower lighting is an effort to use up lighting to create some ambiance and
um I guess entertained feel around the water tower that is there at um Magnolia Park. Really activate and beautify that um cafe expansion that hinges upon if we get requests from businesses that want
to do sidewalk cafe. There's no plan as to where those would go, but there's funding set aside should those requests come in. The downtown CRA also has about $192,000 in unobligated capital projects and that
is set aside for if there's additional capital projects that come up. They have funding to do that. That is money that I'm also going to direct staff to explore what opportunities may exist for incentive programs to help small businesses within the CRA.
T are we also putting um some of Main Street's money from CRA and some from the general fund? Is that how we're so Main Street's getting 20,000 from um the general fund and I believe 55,000 55,000 they have budgeted from the CRA. So they're getting 75
75 and I think five of five of what they get from the CRAAS for city works specifically. And then both um downtown CRA and and the Florenceville CRA have funding included to pay for that circulator
route that I mentioned. um within Florence Villa, a big chunk of their money goes it it gets added to what's already set aside for the neighborhood service center project to modernize that facility. Uh property acquisition,
sidewalk enhancements, bus shelters, uh micro vehicle is is microtransit that's not the circulator. Um and they have all their grants and everything. facade grants, commercial grants, missing middle housing grant. Um
they just recently adopted a a business development grant. They also have about $100,000 that's available to uh dedicate towards additional capital or small business incentive programs of some sort. I shared that with all of you when
we looked at the budget initially during briefings. um that number was a lot higher and that was because we hadn't yet rolled over the projects that weren't completed yet this year. So once we did that, we end up with just shy of $200,000 available in downtown and about a h 100red,000 in
the Florence Villa CRA. Willoughbrook um I'm not going to dwell on that. You just heard a presentation on Willoughbrook. That project of renovating that space is underway. Um that's why their budget dropped so much from 3.7 million to 1.4 4 million, you
know, 2.4 million of that is um or 2.2 million of that is is tied to the uh the capital improvements we're making out there. Solid waste, again, no major changes. We are adding uh a handful of vehicles this year. Um doing some unique things that I
I do want to point out. So, we do have to buy a new garbage truck this year. Um the uh we also are replacing one of our rear loaders um or I'm sorry, one of our our our knuckle boom grappling trucks, but they're also buying a kind of a cool
little utility vehicle with a vacuum system on it that will help us within our parks and along some of our rights of way. That bridge that goes over US17 to help with litter control. Um trying to employ some new technologies and resources to keep our community as clean
as possible. um on on solid waste. Back up one second. You know, their rates will go up by two and a half% uh October 1st. That's part of the ordinances we have in place. We are going to engage in a rate study for solid waste in consideration
of the tipping fee increases that are taking place at PK County and the anticipation that those will increase again by PK County in the following year. They are trying to get up to a a more accurate rate for their tipping fees. So, we are going to have to factor
that in to a rate study for solid waste, but there's no increase beyond the two and a half that is already prescribed for this year. Storm water um had a number of projects in fiscal year 25 uh a little bit less
in fiscal year 26. The storm water fund is funded through a fee that is assessed on properties for storm water quality and storm water maintenance. Um that is where all their funding comes from unless it's from grants. They don't get a contribution from the general fund. So they are they are pretty much
self-sufficient as a proprietary fund. They will be doing some additional work at South Lake Howard Park uh continuing that project. And then also we talked recently about the lake idle sediment uh project to improve water quality there.
In 2018, city commission actually raised the millillage by one mill with a commitment that you would dedicate the value of one mill to nothing but capital investment. It couldn't go towards operations and it couldn't go towards personnel. So, uh, for fiscal year 26,
that one mill yields $4.4 million. And you can see how it's broken out. 2 million goes to the transportation improvement project, roadway resurfacing and and the like. $500,000 goes towards playground replacement program
to make sure our playgrounds within our parks are safe. That includes this year um Lake H Lake I'm sorry, Girl Scout Park uh is included within that Diamond Plex renovations. This is the second year of two years of funding that go towards the replacement of and re uh
configuration of the lighting system at those fields and fencing. And then $780,000 that gets contributed to fire station 5. Looking ahead next year, just to kind of get your thoughts going, we have about um we anticipate about $4.6
million next year. We'll have about $819,000 to dedicate towards capital projects. and then two years out approximately $1.7 million. So that's a a very wise program that gives you uh some resources to tackle big capital projects primarily
within the general fund operations. So in conclusion, balanced budget based upon 6.59 mills approximately $250 million which is about $49 million less than it is at
present time. no change in the millillage. The CRAAS in both downtown and Florenceville saw growth and are programming those revenues accordingly. You continue to fund your your affordable housing trust
fund. You continue to care for your employees uh based upon what's proposed within here. um we have a total headcount of employees of 766 at the end of the day and um
yeah so I think it's it's as good of a budget as um I've had the pleasure of of presenting to you. I do want to just take a a moment of privilege thank the commission. Your guidance and leadership this year through the strategic uh momentum session was very important in helping us understand what some of your
priorities were. We try to address those to the to the best of our ability within this. Um I want to thank finance staff particularly CJ and Allan I mentioned to all of you and I'm going to show you in just a second um that we started a new budget platform this year called open
gov and um they were running two budgets simultaneously building this budget in two different platforms so that we could launch the open gov system and that is no easy task. Uh I'm I'm grateful for the work that they and their their their team did. Uh Sean and and MJ put an
awful lot of time in really analyzing the work that Dr. Daly did with our compensation study. Sean from the HR technical standpoint, MJ being able to do massive amounts of data analysis on very complicated files to get us to where we needed to be. And then
certainly Katrina has helped put this presentation together in our in our budget book that we will launch here. uh come September. And of course, all the staff, all your department directors, um they came in with, you know, what they they were they were realistic in their
requests. We did not fund everything that they asked for. We left over $20 million on the cutting room floor when it was all said and done. It does not come in as a balanced budget. It has to be, you know, massaged and and manipulated to get it to what we can actually afford. And that is exactly
what you have. So, this is the last piece of my presentation. This is our open gov platform um in web in web browser format. So we wanted to make sure again from a responsible government that we put
everything out there to make it as accessible and easy to navigate for the public as we possibly can. And OpenGub is a very reputable company um works closely with the ICMA and the NLC and others in numerous cities across the
country and beyond uh for budgeting software that allows us to do things like this. So when you go to our website and this has not gone is this on the website yet Katrina? This is what will go on. So, this show reflects our tenative budget and you're looking for
information. If you want to see the budget letter, it's going to work for me. Put your I may have to have you do it. There you go. So, our budget letter shows up in here. And this is the budget letter for fiscal year 26 that you see. If you'll
take me back, please. Every department, every fund is listed out within this. So, within the general fund, let me see if I can drive from here, Cat. So, in the general fund, there's an overview. Um, if I wanted to
pull up and I'll just pick on today. Let's go to the parks and recreation department and look at the aquatics operations. It brings up their budget. It shows me all their personnel or personal service expenses from fiscal
year 24, 25, and 26. I can scroll all the way through that. I can see what all their operating expenses are by account. All their capital will show up as well. I'm not able to navigate very well here.
So, I can see what all their capital ends up being for this year. Um, their personnel that's authorized within that budget, if they have accounts that are detailed. So, I want to know what that capital is for is Joe Citizen. I can
scroll down through here and I can see that. Oh, they're spending $70,000 on new pool covers for Rowdy Gains Pool. This is everything that's in that 500page budget book you get each year is online in a very navigable, easy
to read format for our citizens and our our our visitors. Um, when the state talks about transparency and making things available, it doesn't get any any more transparent than this. There's nothing there's nothing to hide.
There's only things to be proud of and say, "This is how we're spending your money." The other piece with this is that you as commissioners and we as staff will also be able to create very specific dashboards
that tell us that that that that aggregate data and allow us to look at things. If I want to see what all the overtime is in the organization, I can pull that in a very specific data set and have it sh populate my my screen
every morning or how much did we spend on electricity in the month of December? How much did we spend on um on part-time personnel in the month of June? whatever it may be, the ability to manipulate and pull data from different places is something we've not been able to do
before. So, we're excited to launch that. This is just kind of a a test drive of it for you this evening. Um, but this will be a link directly from our website that when people click on it, it will take them to the open gov website and it is our information that
will be provided. When do you think it'll be? Cat, when do you think it'll go live? couple tweaks to make within the finance department and then it'll go live with a tenative budget and um you know certainly we want to have that up in
anticipation of your budget hearings in September so that people can see everything that's in there and then once the budget's finalized it will be reloaded with the final budget pending any changes there may be and uh that will happen you know there about October
1st. So with that, I stand for any questions you have and I thank you for your patience with me this evening, commissioners. All right, if there are no questions, then we will join the uh budget
workshop. Thank you. Great job, Chief. Let's take a 10 minute five minutes 10 minutes five minutes recess. So, we'll start back at 6
50. Part: 2
Roll call. >> Yes, sir. >> Commissioner Dolison >> here. >> Commissioner Mercer >> here. >> Commissioner Dansler >> here. >> Mayor Prom Yates >> here. >> And Mayor Bson >> here. Then we will have our pledge of allegiance.
This presentation is that going to be tonight? >> That'll be Monday evening, sir. >> Okay, that's fine. Then we have the minutes. Then we have some ordinances second reading. Uh has anything changed. Uh,
>> nothing's changed. I do want to point out um item 9C if I could. This is the annexation of property that the city purchased uh out by wastewater treatment plant 3. This came to you about four weeks ago instead of two weeks ago. We had a an an issue
in the advertisement for second reading. So, we had to delay that. It's coming back to you. I just didn't want you to think that this was one something that had to go through, you know, uh, Florida Commerce or, you know, any of those folks. It just, um, just got delayed by two weeks and we were the applicant, so
there's no issue with it. >> Oh, okay. >> Everything else is is the same as it was on First Streets. >> So now, nothing changed. >> Yep. >> All right. Consent agenda. So the first item is a um facilities master plan and extension
of staff uh for funding department assistance. This is a uh contract or scope of work with Lee Hail and Hail Innovations LLC. Mr. Hail has worked with us on a number of different grant opportunities and grant management over the years. Um and this is for scope of
work for a facilities master plan which is crucial for providing funding through state revolving fund and D programs. His scope will involve evaluating upcoming projects from our five se fiveyear CIP that qualify for state revolving fund
loan program and preparing the detailed reports necessary for the required requests for inclusion in those funding cycles. His services include identifying potential grant opportunities, assisting with authorizing grant applications, and providing administration for awarded
grants. We're piggybacking this off of a similar agreement that Hail Innovation has with Monroe County. Um we do have money budgeted in this current fiscal year. Uh however, this is over two fiscal years and since we don't have the fiscical year 26 budget approved as of
yet, um I wanted to bring this before the commission. The total cost for this work is uh $79,890, a portion of which is in the current year's budget. So it will be spread out over two years.
>> 10B >> 10B is uh the cured in place annual contract. So we went out and did an invitation to bid in May for cured in place pipe lining services. Um we've done this for a number of years and I think we have an image if I'm not
mistaken. AJ, this is we're so we're going to be doing this within Cypresswood and Mark or Gary, I'm gonna ask you. I think if I'm not mistaken, everything that's in orange is where we're doing the cured in place. What's in yellow is um uh not part of that
process and what's in red is not part. I think from what Mark had shared with me, it's everything in orange. >> Correct. >> So this is uh we did get six bids for this. Uh the contract recommendation is for insitu technologies. They've done a number of
projects for us over the years to our satisfaction. easy to work with. They had the low bid of $629,656. Um overall, this will include about $11,844 linear feet of cured in place pipe uh
within the Cypress Wood utility area. Uh this is budgeted in uh fiscal year 25 and will also be budgeted in fiscal year 26. AJ, can you go to the next slide for me? And this I think the next one just gives you a an idea of what how that
works. They put a a a membrane within the pipe. They use heat to inflate that and it seals cracks and crevices within the pipes so that we don't have the infiltration that happens through groundwater and storms and the like.
>> All right. Thank you. 10 C. >> 10 C is the award of design services for the Sixth Street complete streets project. So it's the area noted on your map. The water department is about midway up on the left hand side of that hash mark and you can see where venue
650 is. So this is a uh DOT lap funding agreement. Uh we've been awarded just shy of $115,000 by DOT to begin the design on this project. The improvements are intended to include tra traffic calming measures,
new pavement conditions, landscaping enhancements, and drainage features such as rain gardens. Additional pedestrian infrastructure will also be designed. We posted this out as a request for qualifications in March and received six responses. A professional services
review committee met to review those and selected Carter K Engineering to provide that service. Uh we currently have budgeted $285,000 for this design of which $115,000 will be reimbursable by DOT. And so
we're recommending the award to Carter K to commence the uh design work. >> Tend with me. This is a resiliency or vulnerability assessment adoption adaptation plan.
This one a little more in depth. In August of 24, the commission authorized staff to submit a grant to Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Resiliency and Coastal Protection in support of community planning efforts that address risks associated with flooding, sea level
rise, and increased precipitation. We were awarded a grant of $360,000 from D to complete a comprehensive vulnerability assessment and adaptation plan. Uh this will be to develop a plan that updates hydra hydraologic and
hydraulic modeling to evaluate flood risks and other climate related exposures. That plan will identify priority risk areas within the community and provide a strategic framework for improving local resiliency. The assessment will also position the city to compete for future grants and funding
programs aimed at implementing risk mitigation projects. There is no match associated with this. It is a grant of $360,000 to complete the assessment. Um staff is going to recommend the commission authorize the city manager to execute
that grant agreement and take the actions necessary related there too. >> All right. 10. >> 10 E is the um project I mentioned in my budget presentation. So, this is the acceptance of an FAA grant to fund the
airport master plan. Uh Troy Hidle is with us this evening. Troy's done a great job in in securing FAA grant dollars to support the mission of the airport. Our last update to the master plan was initiated in 2014 and updated in 2016. So, a lot's happened since
then. This updated effort will allow the airport to reassess priorities and ensure that future development aligns with current and projected aviation needs, economic opportunities, and community goals. In May of this year, the commission passed a resolution
authorizing a grant agreement with DOT to fund 5% of the project with the city providing a a matching 5%. Since that time, FAA has come back and has agreed to fund 95% of
this project. So that reduces DOS's and the city shares each to uh 2 and a.5%. So total estimated cost $656,553. Uh DOT and the city will each contribute $16,414 towards that effort. So this is a a
great opportunity and a great funding uh mechanism for updating the master plan. >> Thank you. Resolution R2533. >> This pertains to our acquisition of land to build out Logistics Parkway/Pollard
Road. So in April this year, the commission entered into an agreement for sale and purchase of property with Florida Can. Uh that closing occurred on May 28th and uh for the amount of $438,900. This resolution accepts the formally
accepts the real property from Florida Can Manufacturing. >> All right. R2537. >> This is a very important one for this evening. So, as you know, when we hold our budget hearings, we cannot be on the same day as the school board or the county. Uh usually we only have to move
it by one day from a Monday to a Tuesday. However, this year the school board had or the the county has theirs on Monday the 8th. The school board has theirs on Tuesday the 9th. We would have normally met on the 8th. So, we are uh have a resolution to move our meeting
from Monday to Wednesday, September 10th. >> All right. >> And this is required per our ordinances. >> R 2538 >> 38 is with me. This is a reimbursement resolution. So,
I've discussed with the commission um a number of projects, two in particular, that we anticipate issuing debt for in the coming year. Uh one is for the development of a downtown parking garage to uh supplement existing funding that we have and then also to have funds to
pursue acquisition of land for a future park somewhere in Southeast Winterh Haven. The reimbursement resolution is a proactive step that allows us to consider costs that may be incurred in either of those projects prior to the
issuance of debt to be reimbursible through that debt. So it it safeguards us. It doesn't say you have to go borrow the money. It doesn't say any of that. But should you expend dollars on either of those two efforts in advance of issuing debt, they are reimburseable
from the proceeds. >> All right. Can >> we do that? I think we've done that with every debt service since I've been here. >> Okay. Thank you. R 2539. >> So, this is another LAP agreement. Uh, this one is for a little bit more money,
$1.69 million that was awarded to the city by DOT for complete street enhancements along Third Street Northwest. This is right in front of city hall. So, you've got an image, conceptual drawing on your screen. You can see we've called out the Winter Haven City Hall and the annex. You can
see where Noromeo and the tennis courts are. Uh this is to improve Third Street to be more of a functional road right here in front of of these properties. Incorporates two different roundabouts. Uh enhances some parking in certain areas and just cleans up the flow
through that area. This is a pretty heavy um traveled area. It's a very wide roadway which creates some unsafe conditions for both vehicles and pedestrians. Um part of the process of doing lap agreements is a resolution uh
associated with those agreements. So in this case um it's a again a grant agreement for $1.69 million. There's no city match unless the cost of construction exceeds what DOT has uh provided. The design work has already
been contemplated separately to the amount of $282,600. As you can see, the project includes traffic calming and intersection improvements, enhanced pedestrian facilities, some landscaping improvements, additional on street parking, and roadway improvements that
enhance drivability. Um, construction must be complete by December 31st of 2028. So, we have about three little over three years to get this done. I don't certainly don't expect it to take that long. We've talked with staff about the need for significant coordination
with all of the different uses that happen within this corridor to make sure that we still have access to all of our facilities and our customers can come and go as they normally do. Um and so this is again a resolution approving that lap agreement. >> Okay.
>> I have a question. >> Does um this design um have in any effect on if um I know at one point in time there was um that city hall maybe the area of city hall and some of these
um the annex and things may be surrounded um you know included in part of the downtown area. >> Yes ma'am. This is actually consistent with the plan that Stron Trout had
proposed for a city hall campus that involved the renovation of this space, the construction of a new city hall across the street where the building division presently sits. Um, that design I remember quite clearly that roundabout
right at at Avenue E being a center point within that. So it certainly lends itself to if we're able to pursue that at a future point um this portion will already have been taken care of. >> Great question. Thank you.
>> R2540. >> This is a third uh FDOT item this evening. This is in the lap agreement pertaining to an award of 920 I'll call it $927,000 for complete street enhancements along
Roosevelt Drive. Again, we demonstrate that with the hash mark here. This is out in southeast Winter Haven near Legoland and where the new Best Western Plus Hotel is. This also does not require any city match unless the project exceeds the DOT funding. The
design work that uh the city will have expended will be $145,000 um in our local funds for that design. So this lap agreement speaks specifically to the construction. Uh the improvements that come with this include
uh roadway connecting with register road which you can see on the far right hand of your screen. There's a little dirt path through there now but there is not a a traditional or formalized connection at present time. the adest addition of pedestrian facilities, improved drainage
and resurfacing of that roadway. Uh, Commissioner Dancer had asked about can we make improvements with this project to the intersection of Cypress Gardens Boulevard that was vetted with DOT. Um, they uh declined including that within
this project. But as they look at their Cypress Gardens Boulevard corridor improvements, they have that as an area of concern from us to consider should something happen with closing that off or how best to to mitigate the concerns we have there. >> So does that mean they're going to
continue to allow left turn lanes off of Register Road? >> They that it will remain as is and Register will be the improved corridor. They won't do anything on Cypress Gardens Boulevard as of yet. >> Well, I think you're making a mistake, but whatever. I know it's DOT's decision, but I see it all the time
because I drive back and forth there. People come flying out of there and it's dangerous, >> but whatever. >> All right, we have no ordinances. First reading, new business 13A. >> Thank you, sir. Uh so our ordinance has
authorized the code compliance division to notify property owners of certain nuisance conditions that exist on property and provide them reasonable time to to make those corrections. You're all very familiar with how code compliance works. Um oftentimes those conditions generally apply to vacant,
abandoned or neglected property and can include overgrowth, junk, debris, dangerous structures. um upon failure, neglect or refusal of the owner to take care of that, the code compliance division is authorized to abate the nuisance. We we may hire a
contractor to go in and mow a property or we may demolish a property. And so we incur a cost with that. Back in 2012, the commission authorized implementing the uniform method of collecting non-advelor assessments um where these
assessment leans would be assigned to the property bills. The city has entered into local interlocal agreements with the property appraiser and the tax collector to have unpaid special assessments included on the annual tax bill that gets sent out November 1st of
each year. In order to do that, one of the prerequisites is a public hearing before the city commission to allow any of the affected property owners an opportunity to present testimony or file objections. So, notice of this hearing was published in the newspaper and
mailed to the affected property owners who will have NAVA assessments assigned to them um notifying them of this meeting on Monday and so that they can come forward and and present testimony if they so choose. The cost to do this from our
end, there's an administrative cost to the property appraiser for their time and energy. Totals $330. There's also a a fee charged by the tax collector for their role in the process that is $660. So roughly $1,000 for us
to use the NAVA process. Um but ultimately what it does is it puts those leans on the property tax bill to help us ensure we we recover those costs. This one's a little unique, Mr. Mayor, and I just preface this so you're you're uh prepared for Monday. Our
recommendation is that after you hear testimony from those that are affected by this or receive any evidence, we ask that the um the commission uh deems as you deem necessary perfect all unpaid charges for corrective action as special
assessments. Um and so then we process that through the the tax collector and property appraiser. We will bring back a separate resolution sometime in September. uh that will be the next step in this process that will allow us to
transmit those advalorum nonadvalorum assessments to um uh to those agencies for collection. So we have I don't think we did this in 2024 um but we've done this a number of times over the years as a way to make sure
that you know those those leans are are accounted for and that we're we're able to receive our uh monies due through code compliance. So, I'm trying to follow the recommendation. I understand it. But don't we already
have that or >> Well, you have to do the testimony first. So, that's what we're doing on on Monday is allowing we've notified those specific property owners >> who may come. >> They come they can come forward. Um I don't I don't recall Tanya, have we ever
had anyone actually come? We have >> I was trying to remember that. >> Yes. >> Good evening. Yes, we have on a few occasions had folks come up and what we typically do is if they have an objection, we continue on with the
hearing and and approval, but we will go back and we will look into whatever their objection is and if necessary, I'll consult with the city attorney's office and if they have a valid objection, then we would remove it from the tax role for the coming year. Oh,
>> okay. All right. So this is just one step in that you know due process effort before we perfect everything and send it on to be assigned as a nonadvalorum tax assessment. >> All right. >> I have a question on it. Um
explain the 330 and then the the 660 for the tax collector >> because one charges 1% of whatever our estimated uh nav roll is going to be for that year. The other charge is 2%. So it's
just an estimate based on what the total is whenever I originally submit it to them. >> So it's on a percentage basis. >> Yes. >> Any other questions? >> All right. Oh, Tanya, you're saying people have because I've been up here 13
years and I don't remember it ever happening. Has that happened >> recently or just I'm trying to remember. Well, the last time that we did this was in 2022. Um, and I believe it was that year that we had somebody who came in and disputed a demolition lean that was
being placed on the tax role. Um, and there's been one other person that has showed up since we started doing this in 2013. >> Okay. Yeah, I stand corrected. I don't remember it. >> I didn't either. >> Yeah, I recall it and and as Miss Ayers has indicated, they presented
information. We were able to demonstrate to you all. You're really sitting as the equalization board at this meeting on July 28th. Yeah. >> You then adopt the role or certif and then on September 10th, we'll bring back a resolution that then adopts the role
and that then gets transmitted out to the tax collector or property appraiser >> to the property appraiser. >> Tax collector. they share the information >> and then they they input it and then it's on the bill the tax bill that's rendered on November 1st.
>> Yes. And just for a little extra information, uh, so since we started doing this, we have placed 675 assessments on the role and there's the total cost of that was 345,345
um, $345,345. Um, the total that we've received back since we started doing this is $266,000 by 266579. Sorry, big numbers. Um, so we've
received back 77% of what we've placed on the tax bills. We've only got 17% of that outstanding and 6% of that has been basically extinguished through estatement of these properties to the
county and then they've come back to the city. So, it's it's very successful. >> Wonder about that. >> All right. Any other questions? And then 13B, we'll just be adopting the proposed military, right?
>> Yeah. The um Yeah, this is the within the time frame that the state requires us to do that by. Um we have to have that submitted by I believe it's August 4th. um you you've gotten the presentation on the budget hopefully and
certainly if you have questions beyond um we'll submit that on or about August 1st I think is our intent uh as soon as we possibly can. We do have to advertise that as a tax increase >> you know every year unless you're going
to do the roll back rate. Um our roll back rate for this year would be 6.1754. Um, so you know, we'll we'll follow all of the procedures within uh the trim requirements and uh carry forward. And
we also have to establish we we did this last under new business because we have to notify within the trim notice the date of that public hearing which your resolution to change the date is has to occur for that. >> All right. Questions?
>> Any other items? Entertain a motion to adjourn. I move.