##VIDEO ID:g6O6r7M7iVc## mayor would you do the uh pledge for us of course please stand aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God and indivisible with libery and justice for all uh we got Pastor Derek from The Point Church for invocation probably not till the till the real meeting okay um I would you like to say a prayer yeah but I'm just saying we're going to do the budget meeting first and then we're going to Shi is that correct no it's all it's all together dear Lord thank you uh for all the folks that are here to care about the city thank you for the city staff thank you for these Commissioners doing their homework and um we thank you so far this year you've spared us from many hurricane threats we'd like to go a year with a half that go through that and have couple years trying to get our money back from FEMA it's it's a blessing that the city management already has a plan in place to with the contract to get any any debris or issues that happen in the city taken care of in a timely manner and not have to wait for FEMA um we just ask you to continue to lead and guide this commission and the things that we need to make decisions on for the future coca Beach and uh that's my prayer and I pray in Jesus name amen amen thank you for that detailed prayer um roll call commissioner Jackson here commissioner Williams here commissioner Willis here vice mayor huton here mayor cus here um anybody want to make a motion for the agenda move to approve agenda got a motion to approve the agenda second got a motion in second all in favor all right motion passes 50 um I guess we'll we'll start this budget hearing all right this is the budget hearing item one approve the tentative millage rate of 61644 Mills for fiscal year 2025 the tentative millage rate of 61644 Mills is 8.25 % higher than the roll back rate of 5.69 45 Mills adoption of the millage rate by resolution number 202 24-21 is scheduled for September 19th 2024 at 7 p.m. staff representative Patricia drott Chief Financial Officer Wayne Carino city manager move to approve that 10 m r 61644 which is what our budget is built second all right got a motion in second um any uh public comment or do we want to have a discussion um I can start the discussion it's just that yes it's an 8.25% higher than the if we rolled it back which would have meant that we got the exact same amount of money that we got last year but healthc care costs have gone up the the competitive price of retaining uh city employees including fire and police have gone up the price of materials has gone up just like happened to everybody else in this city and the the city doesn't get to print money so we're in the position where we have to you know keeping the millage rate the same as it was last year it's the first for me because I was I tried to do that many years sitting up here and I got voted down and the millage rate got raised above that above the current millage rate and the current millage rate is always increase because property values went up so we just have to live with it because we can't run the city without the additional funds um I agree with what commissioner Williams said um um I don't think we can afford to uh I mean I want it to go higher but since we capped it at this Village rate I'm for it um I can't see rolling it back anymore um um we need to keep our current services that all our citizens love to have and I love to have and we have to keep maintaining our roads our infrastructure we need this money to keep uh keep everything going so um um I can't see going any lower than this mill rate that we have here and this budget that we have here if we go any lower we're going to have to cut more things and um then that cuts into our services because that's the things that have to go first Leisure Services um and and then it goes down to our roads and um I I just think it's bad for the city to go any lower than we are U that's where I stand with this budget yeah I I'd like to see it come down I'd like to see us spend a lot less money um but at the same time I think as commissioner Williams said and echoing uh commissioner Willis I went through the budget and looked at where are we spending more money and as commissioner William said it's it's cost of living right it's it's our employees being able to continue to stay with the city and serve as they do um it's cost of materials it's projects there's just not a lot of excessive spending right um these are these are cost gross and this is this is challenging the painful part for me is that we've got residents and even more so businesses who are not homesteaded who then take it on the nose for the the increase especially in the ad Borum taxes and that's tough right and I've heard from folks that um that where where they're not seeing increase in their prices and being able to aggressively charge uh vacationers and things like that more money because people just won't pay it it's eating into the business and so those are tough and and hearing from folks it's I understand and agree that personally as a resident I don't want to pay more money right and getting the tax bill in the mail and saying oh this is yet another area where I'm going to be spending more money that's hard um but I the same time appreciate where we're at with the commission that the city is and you know it's a it's a shared Commonwealth set of services that we need right so I don't have to build my own roads so I don't have to do my own water services and treatment and things like that and going through I don't see where the directors of the different departments are doing inappropriate things to aggressively increase their budget in fact I think that there's a number of areas where we're recovering from missed opportunities to invest in our infrastructure to keep it so that we're not paying significantly more down the road for things that we could have maintained and protected so um where folks are are looking at significant percentage increases across service areas digging in and looking at it I couldn't find places that I was looking for to say oh no let's cut this let's cut this that's clearly uneffective or unnecessary spending so agree with both of you Commissioners that well I'd like to see the reductions I can't find them I sounds like you got three for it I I'm always pushing for smaller government I think there is areas to cut I've got details on um C2 but you know I think the rate's going to pass as it is sounds like we've got three for it I'd like to hear if you you found you want to say something I mean I've got some thoughts myself but I I was going to bring it up at C2 which is the details of the budget versus the rate well I'm point of order this is I thought this was the final reading but this is back to the tenative which we already voted on before and then the final is going to be September 19th so the point of order will be we vote for this and then we go to item C2 and talk about the budget and if there is whe room that could bring it back down you can uh reduce it at September 19th that'll work okay all right um any any public comment on this um go ahead jennice and then I'll get you next Dave good evening um could somebody explain uh please the formula for arriving at the tentative millage of 61644 um is 88.2% 8.25% higher from the roll back create of 5.69 45 could you please just tell me how you get to 8.25% cuz I do the increases in the property value and if I'm incorrect no no Patricia can come up no the 5 5.69 * 8.25% should should equal the 61644 I haven't done the math but that's what I would assume um cuz I came up with something like it's it's like 0.9% not 8.25% increase I just want you to correct it before you vote on this if it's an error a typo or something okay yeah I didn't check so clarify close 1.64 yeah so good evening Patricia drott CFO city of Coco what it is is the calculation is the difference between the two divided by the lower number and that's what creates that percentage change between the five the roll back rate and the current rate which is the 8.25 so you just take the 6.1 644 and you subtract the 5 um right 6945 and then divide it by 569455384 yeah okay sounds good um Dave go ahead hi Dave nettis from one yell Drive I haven't been here in a while um part of me says don't go to roll back because that gives me more material for my next mailer but if it can help the community let me give you an idea and I don't expect to jump on it tonight but we have one more opportunity to go back to rollback and I'm requesting that you go back to rollback and I'm going to argue that you can do that without changing anything on the budget other than the accountants would have to figure out how to account for it the budget is based on Full Employment you have $26 million payroll based on Full Employment in reality you're never at full employment uh in fact it's one of the metrics that's in the budget and you like to be under 3% but I would argue that often times it's 5% or even more I think you're currently probably running higher than 5% but let's take 5% on 26 million that's $1.3 million that's approximately what you're giving up by going back to the roll back so I'm just offering to you a way to look at this knowing that and I know that will stress the city manager because that means he has to run tightly and I'm sure he's very capable of doing that but we're not not at full employment there's a little bit of label room in there you guys can honestly say I want to go to roll back knowing that all the promises and the services and and the commitments to the people and the projects will still get done so I offer you guys that thank you guys very much thank you Dave comment you may um we know that there's always going to be turnover in the city employees it's not going to be just because they can find a higher paying job somewhere else in the county or some other state it's going to be because they have life change issues you know family issues need to move closer to their older parents and such so having a gap between where we are now and fully employment is the gap we always need to fill so that when those unexpected departures happen we can still run the city so if you Capp um the budget and the number of employees where we are now and we lost some key employees due to non wage issues then there's a gap in those city services between being able to uh dismiss those employees well I don't mean it in a bad way but you know those offload those employees and find qualified candidates to fill the positions to continue to run the city so it's a good point if it was black and white Dave you could do it but we we always need to be able to hold the opportunity to have full employment so that when we have unexpected reductions in staff we can still maintain the city services that the citizens and the residents and the businesses expect yeah go ahead I Want To Say Too part of the reason we don't have full employment and it's been for for a while now is because our wages are not necessarily competitive with other cities for the same kind of positions so we have a retention problem because we're not paying enough um and I think to reduce the money we have for employment more just contributes to that problem more so I understand where that would we should look we could look at that but that's the whole reason why we're in that situation to begin with we don't have enough money to pay be competitive with other cities for those positions so um yeah I agree with you uh thank you and yeah if if I could we also budget for with the Assumption of Full Employment um because if you don't and you do have full employment then you do not have the budget to cover it in addition if you have a long-term employee who leaves there could be costs like PTO payout which would take up that cost of that gap between when they leave and the new one comes on and so sometimes there really isn't savings while you do the recruitment process um but the budget will still cover that if it happens we don't budget for long-term employees leaving and those payouts because we don't know when people are going to leave to to the commissioner's point we don't always know um so we we we budget to that full amount worst case it happens you do have a gap and you have savings and that'll drop into your Reserves at the end of the year so it's not that the city's losing out it just shows up in a savings at the end of the year thank you P thank you uh any other public comment okay uh Jeremy I'm I have some stuff to say too but I think uh it's more appropriate for the the next um yeah I think M next thing so I think I'm going to go I'm going to I'm going to vote on this and then we'll go down and we'll discuss some other stuff that we might have concerns on all right uh so we got a a motion in a second all in favor to um to keep the uh millage rate the same at 61644 um all in favor I I all opposed n a motion passes 41 um okay item uh two okay this is item two a proposed approve the proposed budget making Appropriations for fiscal year 2025 adoption of the budget by resolution number 20 24-22 is scheduled for September 19th 2024 at 7 p.m. staff representative Patricia drot Chief Financial Officer Wayne Carino city manager move to approve the proposed budget making Appropriations for fiscal year 25 all right got a motion second um let's let's discuss you me either way um there's some stuff I saw in the budget that um just offand do you want first if if you want I can do the presentation it's what would you rather do Patricia it's a I have no preference it say if you want I have numbers actually yeah let's let's see your presentation first and then we'll we'll go into it that way everybody kind of understand what's going on here this is um for the this is from the trim the dr420 so this is the report that comes from the Department of Revenue State of Florida Department of Revenue and it gives the prior year final taxable tax value that's the assessed value that's taxable and then the current year gross taxable value and the change in that so that that change represents 9.06 so there's an increase of 9.06 this is how it looks if you were to go with roll back um when when we calculate the uh projected revenue or collections for the property tax we by state law have to budget for only a 95% collection rate which is what is represented by that total tax levy budgeted at 95% there's a part of that um in that middle column that gets uh moved to the CRA so the net tax revenue to the general fund at rback is 16 milli M1 149,000 and at the current millage rate it's 17,488 so there's an increase uh or difference between rollback and the current tax collections of about 1.3 million when you look at this this is looking at Homestead Properties and how does that affect your Homestead Property and I'm sorry I didn't do this for the non- homesteaders um the commissioner Jackson was talking about and I apologize for that but when you look at that the the homesteaded properties first of all there's a 50,000 or a potential of 50,000 homestead exemption that comes off your taxable value and the second component of that is there is a maximum increase of the values of 3% per year so it doesn't really matter how much your market value changes if your homestead you you cap out at 3% for the amount of additional tax value on your property so if you had say a house that was taxed at 500,000 what that would represent to the the homesteaded uh property taxpayer is an additional $185 for the year at the current millage and I understand that that's not the full tax bill your tax bill Coco Beach represents 20 maybe 25% of your total tax tax bill um the rest of it is County and the school district but the the current millage doesn't actually have a large impact overall for the annual cost and I'm sorry this is a little small this is the changes that have been made so far from when you looked at the budget Workshop um report to where we are today with this proposed document um some of the decreases that were made from that Workshop report to this prepared bu uh proposed budget now one of the things that isn't showing up here that we've done subsequent to this as well is um we we have uh regarding the uh ordinance 1687 we talk you guys um voted to have the Endeavor to commit additional reserves to the capital Improvement fund we don't have sufficient reserves to do the 3% so the city manager asked us to do 1% that represents 555,000 that has been added that I didn't show on here um so that reduces the reserves further from the general fund as we move that Reserve balance to the capital Improvement fund the Personnel Services from 24 approved budget to the 25 propos proposed budget have increased by 7.4% and that's the Citywide that includes the um placeholder for the union negotiations that's been settled now the um contracts will be coming to you for ratification later but um the placeholders are pretty were pretty accurate so I don't see that going down much but that's all of those costs from salaries and wages to the health insurance it covers all of it can I ask you a question on that real quick absolutely um so when we had our booklet before it said 24% or 25 it is that and now it's 7 point something the you're the the number you're talking to about represents general fund only these numbers are looking at Citywide all funds no no for the for the Personnel yeah when the 24% I think was general fund only I I'm not certain I'm not C I'm not certain mayor I'm sorry one Department Aver I was just asking because we were talking about that General the general fund of of Personnel Services this is all the funds is 7 point something the and the the 24% was was what I think I think it was general fund but I'd have to look I'd have to look and I can clarify that and then so this is is this all funds so that includes the Enterprise fund and the storm water fund as well for um for personnel only all Personnel costs so I guess I I I maybe I don't understand um what does general fund mean um and all fund mean for personnel so we have um we have the general fund which is the bulk of the functions that are done by the city and the general fund is most of the Revenue that come to the general fund is through the adalum taxes and it provides the services in your Administration that's me that's city manager HR it it also covers your cost of Public Works Public Safety development services and Leisure Services and include some that are called non-departmental that are Citywide such as our liability insurance costs you also have special Revenue funds which are your cra and they get their funds from special sources um it's your Capital Improvement fund and it's your building permits fund then you have your um proprietary or Enterprise funds which get their revenues from user charges so the users who receive those Services pay for those charges and that's your sewer treatment plant your utilities fund and your Enterprise uh your storm water funds when we talk about General fund it's only those funds and those departments that are covered by the predominantly from the um tax revenues when I'm talking about all funds I'm talking about general fund plus the special Revenue plus the Enterprise okay I think there's maybe a disconnect on what we're talking about I think there might be a disconnect on what we're talking about so um you're talking about the 25% is how much that fund increased from last year that that pays into it and then you're saying that our Personnel Services have cost us an extra 7 um 7 something per right there so then there's a uh a difference of about 18% between what we're taking in and what we're paying no that's just the change between the the adopted fiscal year 24 budget and the proposed 25 okay that's just the change in total between the two budgets as of the proposed budget okay can you go back one slide yep Janice says I have to lean toward my mic or people can't hear me um so on the capital outlier um shows a reduction of 8.6% and like millions of dollars there can you kind of go through that and explain it or do we need help or cuz it looks like you guys did some homework there that's the change from last year that's the change not just because they got removed from the 2025 budget does not mean that their Capital costs that have just gone away they've just been moved out to outline years so it was a combination of um some Public Works lost my glasses there we go um well all I'm kind of saying is that was pretty good sharpening your pencils so one of one of the big costs was 800,000 that was for the financial software package that got moved out to a future year uh we we've moved out some of the fleet we paired down the fleet budget to really just those that items that were already committed as well as the the replacement vehicles for the police um one of the things that also changed from there is we have a squad car and a dump truck that are actually in this year's budget we re-budget it because the com the build won't be completed till next year we pulled that out we'll bring it to you as a carry forward um but it's just been a lot of effort on the behalf of of your departments um just looking at what do they feel that they really have to have for fiscal year 25 and what can they really push out and defer to Future years and I can put together um that information and send it out to all of you exactly what those cuts were but there was quite a few that were made um so I just want to I just want to uh take somebody thought that like we're not replacing our police vehicles there are seven new SUV police vehicles marked police vehicles in the budget there's two that are unmarked and then there's a uh just one K I think just one K9 vehicle so um there are still replacement vehicles for the police yep we've we''ve left those in in the budget and then there's two trucks planned for current and out years for the fire department that are the four-door trucks um another large one that we moved out was the tennis court renovation that was 820 we moved out the uh Marina which was 450 had a question the budget Workshop we were still 2 million unbalance though correct you take 2 million out just to balance it and then this is additional Cuts that's we're still using reserves to balance the budget revenues in general are down and costs are up you can go to the next slide sorry operating is up it's Professional Services it's utilities um FPL is going up by about 8% Coco is 5% our Solid Waste is 5 a 12% Capital we've decreased it's just overall looking at what we can move to Future years well I guess we're done no it's fine but the other slides showed I don't know what happened but the other slides showed where we were with reserves just to recap The Reserve balance looks at for the general fund we have to have um we calculate 19% of your personnel operating and debt service that goes to the disaster recovery it is restricted committed by City commission this year for the or for the fiscal year 2025 uh budget that in the other nonspecified committed reserves uh increase from 1 to 2% for all of the um other funds except the capital Improvement fund best practices uh recommend that you have a minimum of 2 months of reserves um representing a total of your operating cost so divided by 12 time 2 months and with the capital Improvement fund you have a 500,000 that went in this year and the 555 that's going to that's uh in the budget to go into that fund for next year so your Reserve balance in that fund will be just a little over a million dollar with the general fund we are still balancing the budget even with the cuts we are still using reserves to balance the budget and I outside of cutting almost all of the general fund capital and reducing services that is how it's going to be for this year so that Reserve cut is that I mean that's the legally minimum we can hold or I it seems like a pretty significant drop this I got it in my briefing it looks like a pretty significant drop from 23 to 25 yes we need uh the calculation is just a little under 9 million for the minimum requirement for your general fund and I believe the last number we looked at was right around 13 million is our projected ending Reserve balance um I'll go down one more slide 10 there we go so the the current projection is the 13 million in the projected Reserve balance for the general fund of that the 19% is just under 7 million is the requirement for the 2% that's just over 700 um which leaves which means that you have to have a minimum of just just under 7.8 million to be in legal requirement for your general fund Reserve balance and we are currently at the 13 million with the budget as it is in the proposed for your CRA fund their two-month reserve requirement would be 162 um for the building department they should have 137 um the capital Improvement fund that 1.1 million is the 1, 55,000 that went in from this year and is projected to go in for next year to those committed reserves um the remainder of that uh is just investment earnings that are on the current funds that are in that that account for the bicentennial and City Hall construction that 1% you referring to is on top of this or is that bued someone in there no that that 1% is the is 555,000 so that's coming out of the general fund reserves um because it shows as an expense on the general fund side and then it shows as a revenue into the capital Improvement side dropping into the Reserve balance so it's in the 7.7 number on the right no it's in the it's in the 13 million well it's it's showing is coming out of the expenses so it's dropping your Reserve balance otherwise your Reserve balance would have been 13.7 um utility service your utility system fund um he he's asking to increase um one of the projects by a little bit of money so he may not end the fiscal year with that full two-month Reserve but it's only going to be off by about 100,000 if he goes forward with no other savings which typically he does have um the storm water fund is uh projected to have a negative ending Reserve balance and that's a reflection of the number of years that that fund didn't have any increase in the uh user rates um the Commissioners voted to increase those rates two of the three that were recommended and so hopefully that will address some of this issue um I don't think it's going to address all of it um even if uh it does it won't address the need to go forward with the remaining projects that have been sort of scheduled and planned for for that fund what the um storm water fund has is just a grant funded project and then there's the vulnerability study which we have to complete before we're going to be eligible for most of those grants we have to be sort of moving forward with this because we can be failing to comply with state requirements on water quality if we do not so we really need to keep focused on that and making sure that we're getting the user fees necessary to cover those costs but um the state requires that if you go into a negative Reserve balance in one year you have to have a plan for Recovery in the upcoming year which we do have our storm water manager has a plan in place and that is that that utility rate study that was completed and approved by the commission to implement those rate increases so that is the plan to address that the healthare fund is just moving the costs of the health care into this special Revenue fund uh excuse me it's an internal service fund so all of those costs that go for the health care get moved into this fund and then we pay out to the vendors directly and it's just so that we can track exactly what's costing us um clearly without it kind of blending into each of those different levels so what you're looking at there is the total cost of healthcare for all funds question um if we don't use all the Personnel like we said we we budget for at least all of our personnel and then say we don't use that whole budget for the whole year uh will then that extra funds will that be going back into the general Reserve fund yeah okay so if we if we spent less that projected Reserve balance will actually be higher okay thank you or conversely if we generated more Revenue than we're projecting that re that Reserve balance will go up okay Trisha do we know in say the last three years what how we've tracked in terms of expenditure associated with personal costs in terms of uses of funds are we actually expending all of the money that we're setting aside for salary in the odds and ends that you mentioned or are we ending up with more r over it's so we usually yes we not necessarily in Personnel um but sometimes and sometimes in operating sometimes in capital um we can project what a project is going to cost and then we can come in under budget and that then will drop into reserves we all we can do at this point is to estimate based on what what we know today and what we look back on historically to plan for the future sometimes we come out ahead the the costs don't cost as much as we're we're we're projecting they're going to be and sometimes Unfortunately they cost more and we can't predict what the economy is going to do um so for example with the investment interest we had a great year I didn't budget for revenues to be as high as they were because I had to look where we were at the time we were budgeting for this year I'm still not budgeting as high as it might be because you don't know and if the feds cut the rates again that's going to drop so with the revenues we never want to budget what we hope we're going to get we budget what we think we are actually going to get and the same is true with your expenditures we have to budget based on not what we want to budget for but what we think it's really going to cost and we always encourage our staff every single director is encouraging staff find the best price go out there you get we require by our purchasing policy to get three quotes you know find out are you getting the best price go with the best price so they're always trying to come in under budget it's it's every day every month they're trying to come in under budget and Patricia uh um I believe that we went over this and I believe it it's the same I didn't notice the difference but um last year we were at 36 million in debt and this year uh we're projected for 33 million in debt 33 34 right so even though we're using reserves we're still uh this will be the third year in a row that we've dropped from 44 down to 40 down to 36 and then now this next year to 30 3 million we just added for with the city hall that's what this the city hall for that includes the additional debt payment for City Hall so we are we are paying down debt at this point with the current way that we're going through with this so it's not like you know we're just adding to the debt I mean we in the future we're probably going to have projects that will right um you know there there's a fire station that wants to be built and stuff like that which again I think we can still push it off a little bit but yeah that was another part of that large Capital outlay that went down was the fire station which was 5 million so just just keep in mind even though um you know it seems like some of this stuff is higher than it should be we are still moving in the right direction when it comes to debt as well which I know that you know kind of makes a a point for your roll back but in my opinion the more debt we can pay the better off we are for for our future Generations you want to go through the rest of your slides I think that was the last one okay I have a question yep too bad for you um so being on the general employes pension board uh and we know that we're going to have people retire we already know we already have current payout to employees and we know we have an act a warial rate I think it's like 7.5% that we're hoping to get every year out of the market um and we've done pretty good the last few years but um just hypothetically the downside of a bad year how does that affect our budget overall if you look at the pension contributions they've gone up especially for police and fire for this fiscal year 2025 budget and that's because we have the city's contribution is based on the Actuarial report the Actuarial looks at a three-year rolling three-year so for this year we have fiscal year 21 22 and 23 they were all bad years so the contribution this year is higher as a result um but for next year's contributions that'll drop significantly from this year because for next year when they do that calculation that really bad year of 20201 when the feds had the interest rate at zero um that one will drop off that average and this year the 2024 which was a really good year will be on so that percentage of the contribution will go down for 2026 but for 2025 it's very high okay so let me rephrase my question if we have a bad year in the market okay a negative year in the market we still owe all our pensioners the amount of money that we promised them yes okay how would a bad year in the market affect like if if it was 2025 is budget come out of reserves well it doesn't come out of reserves per se but it is a budgeted expense it's part of that Personnel cost so it's one of the drivers that's driving the Personnel costs up there's an increase in the pension because we and I'm saying if you have a negative year where you're not getting as much money into the fund you're just saying that that doesn't matter cuz you're taking money out of that fund whatever the balance is and making those payments on the pensioners and then we just have to worry about the future having enough money to pay the pension so the State of Florida has very um specific statutes on how the pension has to be handled so that's why we have to use the actuarials uh percentage contrib distribution and what the actuarials do is they look based on what's happened to how much is required to keep the account fully funded um is the term they use um but they look out for 100 years when they make that calculation so that fully funded is always changing every single year what that number means and what that percentage that we have to contribute means so when there's a bad year it can mean that the city's contribution goes up the employees contribution stays exactly the same it's 5% of wages so every employee contributes 5% of their wages but with those contributions and with what happens in the market and with what the actuarials estimate is required is how they come up with the percentage that the city has to contribute that goes in addition to so what what you're saying is based on the numbers we're talking about that's kind of a separate issue it's a separate fund and if there was a fluctuation in the markets uh then that fund would change but it wouldn't be like an immediate effect on a future city budget and now we got to replenish money to be able to pay up pensions we do it every year but it's it's over a three year smoothing so even if you've got a bad year like 2021 it's only going to have negative repercussions on our cost okay for a short period of time and then it drops what I'm trying to get at it's a separate pile of money than what you're planning you're running the city Budget on it is a cost it is a cost in the Personnel budget when you look at your personnel costs that pension contribution shows up in there well it's a in there but the negative effect of the market it's not in there because you don't it's not you know you you it's unknown correct each year I don't know what the next year is going to be I know what I have to do for this year and that's based on that actar report there's 33 million dollar in the general employee pension yes okay it's way more than enough to pay next year's and the next 5 years yes pensions and there's money going into it every year yes so so it really doesn't affect the daytoday year-to-year operations of the city there's not a lot going broke and then we would have to deal with it well we have to consider we have to have it fully funded right I mean that's a that's a state state law that we had to we have to pay into it every year but if there was bad years in the market that 33 million went to 28 million it's goes up goes up only if it doesn't balance it it goes up okay yeah it goes up so we see that effect in this year's budget and then because it went up that pension contribution went up for the 2025 over the 2024 contribution but in 2026 it will go down it's just a line out of expense it doesn't draw from Reserve necessarily not necessar it's just part of the benefits I'm sorry I went into all that please excuse me audience uh Jeremy you've got some stuff I will tailor my pitch seeing the the the uh the temperature so if you want index so my biggest concern so I'm looking at this graph here Patricia one last question it I don't know if these numbers don't line this graph looks like reserves got depleted to under 10 but you're saying they're at 20 so I don't know if 13 13 13 this is all fun so it should be that 20 million number right I don't know this is what the basis of this entire pitch is from I don't know if that was off M I'll check this looks like reserves took a huge hit from like 20 down to under 10 but I'm reading the numbers now it's not that big of a change from 24 to 25 but it we are using Reserve balance we are using reserves to balance and that part of that was due to the City Hall project yes so approximately three and a half just under actually just under 3 million has come out of reserves for City Hall construction okay so we're we we were looking at around 5 million that went up to 5 and a half when we took the 500 out to move to the capital so of that 3 million was from just using reserves for the city hall now just correct me if I'm wrong um we have the potential to to put that back in if these um some of these um these projects like the Westend or the Westgate projects come in and they pay in their um their fees to go into that that one fund I guess yes and no so the permitting fees that come from those projects go into a special Revenue fund that's your building permits and inspection utilization fund and that is very strictly regimented by the state of Florida how those funds can be spent they are not available in general to the general fund purposes okay because originally we had planned for our general fund to be or our um that that fund to be at a greater price which is why we had to go to the reserves so the original um projection for contributions uh towards construction from the building permits fund was 2.6 million right um in working with our um development services director Randy Stevenson who's responsible for that fund we cannot get that close to that number not even no matter how hard we try we cannot justify that and any kind of logical mythology whatsoever we have to be able to substantiate our our mythology for those calculations if an auditor from the state were to audit that and I we we have estimated about 748 um ,000 as the contribution from that building permit fund and I cannot see any way to calculate a high guess what I'm getting at is um the previous City man had uh pledged that money in that fund and that's the reason why now we had to take it out of General um fund so that's the reason why that depleted as much as it did and it was just a it was something from previous administration that um had got we had to take care of we had overstated Revenue my understanding Revenue was significantly overstated okay so yeah go ahead I'm sorry so I put these together and we're working as a commission so I'm not I'm trying to highlight things as talking points this is not necessarily my recommendations but I think at least something we can talk to um so bottom line up front it looks like uh We've accelerated or added a good bit of CIP so it was a little bit thrown off uh when we said we deferred Stu it looked like there was quite a bit so there's about 10 charts in here that are all the items that have been added since the 24 CIP that I think that's a needle mover uh it looks like about a million that equates to about a million and a half we talked about the millage roll back 1.5 just to level set so it's not like it's this unachievable number it's battle 1.5 it looks like from the refined numbers it's actually closer to 1.3 you're kind of going too fast for me Jeremy can you maybe uh can you read yeah I can't I can't see it so you don't have your glasses no no from Josh I'm sorry all right go ahead I I'm I'll try to fun it's interesting I was going you'll see the next chart is the graph it looks like it's about 89 so I don't know if it's just a graphical misrepresentation sounds like that number is closer to 30 that we've retained that because that was my biggest concern of we've historically flickered right around 30 million in reserves and it looked like we dropped below 10 um and then if we do any budget cuts it's can doesn't sound like it's going to be a millage reduction but it would obviously just roll to the reserve fund increase so as it's written now I'm not going to vote for I didn't vote for for the millage U but again I want to have these as talking points so we can get discussion going I won't go into minutia like commissioner Williams asked not to so here's the screenshot here I mean I look at that just I'm not a finance guy but look at that it's like wow we're outspending the the red bar is exceeding our Revenue so we're over we're deficit spending and then we're depleting that Reserve so I just want to make sure that's sustainable I pulled a couple benchmarks from Satellite Beach their budget they chopped at 16% they had a nominal millage reduction of negative 1 or I'm sorry 0.131 Indian Harbor had a similar uh budget change and then Coco Beach we've got a a zero Mill change but a 23% uun our budget so food for thought there um similar size cities canaval doesn't have their draft budget out yet but I would have pulled their numbers as well so this was the first alarm that went off it's like wait a minute this is not sustainable um this didn't expect you to see that but the the screen shot left is the capital plan for 25 that we're approving in this Budget on the right tucked in the corner is the budget from 24 the capital plan so I I want to get us to a position as a city as we're accountable to holding to that fiveyear look ahead so when I see numbers I'll call them out on the left side page g15 in your book if you want to get it it's a $46 million capital expenditure for 25 in the 24 CIP plan we said we were going to spend $34 million in 25 so we've up that $12 million so we've accelerated $12 million of Reven of capital plans into 25 again not necessarily A non-starter but it's it's if there's things that in a situation where deficit spending if we're accelerating Capital plans we probably should reconsider that is there a way to push those out again the next eight or nine charts are all of those and I'll I'll walk through the format and I won't go to each line item so it won't be a Death by PowerPoint but basically this is every single line item that was not in the 24 Capital plan to be spent in 25 that's now in the 25 Capital plan so the rows across the right hand side is what was approved in 24 so let's just take the parking kiosk it's a $155,000 ad I know it's a it's not a needle mover but it was nowhere in the 24 plan so we've now placed that into the 24 Capital plan I just want to make sure we all agree that that's something critical we need to bump up to be Priority One if it was never on the radar to be spent anywhere in the 5year look ahead we've now repl it that means to me it's a high priority to get done just go through each one of these um at the bottom another format the radios it I wasn't quite clear if that was carry forward from last year or that's new scope so that XL 95 radio it's a 57k this year was that 171k last year expended and this is new scope or is that just carry forward because it didn't get executed last year I wasn't clear on that but again the message is here if it's critical to get accelerated back into a plan that was never in the 5-year plan to me that means it's the highest priority Capital any questions on this before I go forward mayor or Commissioners I I just just touch on the the parking kiosk yeah I mean when you look at the amount of Revenue we get from parking yeah updating the parking kiosk so we can continue to get that revenue is 100% basically a nit yeah I mean I wanted to include everything this is everything that was not in the plan that was my scrub through and it was not it was not time consuming but I wanted to throw it out there we are a beach environment and you got to replace that yeah but at the same time I also want to start getting to where we have an accurate 5year look ahead that I understand there's going to be flicker as we go throughout the year and execute our our city um I'll touch on a couple so so the the one here that looks like new scope the diesel removal uh for fire station 50 I didn't I didn't know if that was we wanted to do that we talked about not doing the fire station 50 so I don't know if we wanted to add to that or if that was going to get demoed it's in the plan now uh so do we want to spend that and knowing that we're going to demolish that that fire station in a year potentially um again we won't go through this is all accessible but the bottom line is that green box in the left that's the rollup but what my point with all this is I'm trying to illustrate I think there's opportunities that's EX actly why I didn't vote for the mill because I think if we want to vote as a commission there are areas we could either eliminate or defer some of these items um and then again it's the entire budget I put the page number on there so if these are in in public record and you want to retrieve them but is commissioned so for example on the bottom this that sums up to 298k this prior one was 828k so you can see there are some Neil mover ideas that if we want to challenge that we I think we certainly could replan some of this capital that's all the CIP stuff um let's continue CIP I mean my thought on it Jeremy is rather than cut to to bring the millage rate down I would I would rather cut to bring the the the reserves up so what I was saying on the front is is and it's not even necessarily cut it's just a replay does it have to be done in 25 I mean because back to my original chart it looks like there's a pretty significant surge in 25 of 46 million but then it drops off pretty heavily We're Half less than half of that in and some of these projects too you know I don't I haven't delv like really deep into what exactly all these projects are but some stuff um we know that it could cost you know another 10% more next year if we do defer it and stuff like that so there's there's there's give and takes to deferring projects or or putting it in reserves so you know we're guaranteed maybe or at this point close to 4 to 5% you know um interest on our reserves so you know you've got that too if there's a you know a cost increase at least you made it with your reserve uh interest increase but you know it's I'm just cautious if we're spending stuff we've accelerated in 25 it means it's priority and in order to accomplish that we're depleting reserves so I one pulling on that thread though we had a significant amount that we didn't finish last year are we that rolled into the budget this year I funds forwarded are we committing to do scope that we can't accomplish in 25 you know what I mean I mean we're throwing on another $46 million of capital on top of I believe it was 19 and isn't there a lot of that some grant grant fund spending too understand that that that increase in in capital projects isn't it isn't um that Grant uh Grant type uh projects as well yeah so for general fund of that 11.7 million is Grant funded of your Capital Improvement fund there's 9.5 million in there 3.9 of that is the city hall construction that's remaining that's debt proceeds and 3.4 million that's your Bicentennial Park it's grant grant proceeds on your um Revenue in here though Grant revenues so you pull those projects you lose the grant understand but the grant revenues in this spending yeah that's why it went up because we got we got grants of the 16 million in the utilities fund 8.7 8.27 of that is Grant funded and in the storm water fund almost all of hers is Grant funded about a million so yes the capital has gone up in cost from the prior year to this year but also so is your Grant Revenue they've been working very diligently to find and apply for Grants we have um an employee who is really focusing on identifying grants and working with the Departments to get as much grant funding as we can to support these projects could we say I mean I don't know cuz I haven't looked but could we say that the grant funding that we're getting pretty much offsets the difference in the uh the spending you know large component of that Capital yes um I mean you have your one of the largest Capital items in your general fund is the mck capping it's $10 million so when you look at your total general fund Capital it's very large but 10 million of that is your mck capping if you chose not to do that project you would forfeit the grant funds I want to be clear I'm not suggesting we don't do those I was just expecting if the grant is in the revenue I wouldn't see us still exceeding our Revenue you see what I'm saying it would it would they would both increase the revenue as well as expenditure let me I went through this years ago government budgeting and you do government budgeting but and I do government budgeting it's not the same as household budgeting you know the gadsby everything else in the world it the numbers don't always seem to add it but what I would based on your your analysis here what I would ask is that um if we look at last year's 2025 202 the 5-year plan and we look at what they pulled into at 25 how does that affect those oute numbers and they drop way off so we're spending more now but we're going to own more later oh oh less later that's a good thing don't you think it depends I mean that's what I'm saying is do we want deete that's at the risk of depleting Reserves at the cost of depleting reserves okay any other comment from are you done the last one was adding in we had a holiday vot ramp I thought that was in there and it looks like we stripped that out I think I would like to see that put back in Holiday vote ramp renovation make an amendment to add the $75,000 for holiday laye boat ramp into the 2025 budget as part of this approval of the proposed budget and ask uh Patricia to figure out a way to fit that in okay and looking for a second second all right um so are we going to vote on that to amend it or we're just going to add it to the I think that was him amending his motion okay got it all right uh are you are you done Jeremy you got more okay just a quick question I can I can see where this is going so yeah commission where you were showing the Delta between revenue and expenditure did that include roll forward or was that absent roll forward in terms of that Delta we saw from revenue to expenditure I'm going let her answer because done add up sounds like I know we we have funds that don't get expended that move forward year to year and and and I'm I appreciate what you're showing I just wasn't sure if that the funds forward was in the what was the funds forward from last year to this year just to because I agree with you if we're way outspending our our you know our Revenue we're going to put ourselves in a world to hurt real quick but if the role forward the roll forward addresses the Delta and what we're seeing the 19 million of funds forward correct yeah and that's that's always a changing number at some point very soon the end of this week we'll kind of finalize that but keep in mind when I'm finalizing that it's based on actuals only through today so it's you've got almost an entire 45 to 60 days of revenues coming in or costs going out that don't get reflected in that because we haven't finished the year um but the funds forward is in the bar that we see for total revenues no it is not no okay that's just showing the reserves the revenues and the expenditures the revenues plus the funds forward is your total sources of funds and your reserves and your expenditures are total uses of funds what this is showing is just Revenue just expenditures and then a separate line for reserves so it doesn't actually show the funds forward in there at all that's that government map yes so it's another 19 on top of that another 19 added to the total revenues bar is that what you're saying that was the 19 you just mentioned I'm see answer I don't think you're going to resolve it right now Char because that's just revenues and expenditures and the revenues it's not sources and uses okay y um we all get on the commission okay uh public comment anybody yeah actually yeah go ahead Janice you can go first Janice Scott wow those are some generalities up there a lot of money um I'm really disappointed that the golf course was taken out of an Enterprise fund so that we can never see exactly when it was when the golf course was created and all of that it was quite contentious here in the city this the commission voted um to the residents that they would have an Enterprise fund so that we could see revenue and expenses and it wouldn't be always in the dark robbing the general fund so um I see that even the pond over there what what was that thing uh vice mayor had on his slide $95,000 for for the things floating in the pond there so um I have some other comments that have to do um with goals of the different departments every year I think uh Mr mclan would remember he's the only uh employee Still Standing from those days when every Department had had to submit a um report to the manager and the manager would generalize that report and make it into a general monthly report and the employ emplo and the manager everybody could see what the goals are what we've done what goals we didn't accomplish and what we're going to do going forward I would like to see that being considered again in the future so that maybe we could have a better understanding of what's going on in the budget thank you thank you Janice John Los 444 Dempsey drive just a couple thoughts I have you know watching the presentation is you know one of the reasons our budget is going up on the operating side we said it's going up 14.6% fiscal year 25 from 24 14.6% operating and that has a multitude of components in it healthc care professional Services labor costs I mean it's all in there and we made the case that we need more money for operating because all these Services have inflated so we all understand that because that's the world we live in but the point I want to take that too is that the city has many many uh fee Based Services we charge fees for things and it's a long list of things we have to make that same case to the users of these services that hey our costs are going up 14.6% so the users of these Services have to we've got to pay and it's my my thought I can't I can't prove it to you standing here but it's my thought that we're increasing our budget 14.6% because everybody's charging us but we have to make sure to charge everybody else because our costs are going up just like they're telling us our costs are going up our costs are going up too so I don't think our fee Based Services are keeping up with the inflation rate the storm water is a perfect example of that but there's other examples but the storm water is a perfect example of that so we have to be careful about that the other thing with fee Based Services it's the Fe the fee theoretically doesn't only cover your operating and maintenance costs each year not only o and m but it's supposed to cover future cap Capital so if you're charging a fee and you're not even covering the onm you're definitely not covering Capital if there is such a thing under that particular fee service so we have to try to move all these fee structures to cover o m and capital and I don't I don't think we're doing that across the board the other thing is we're we're still using reserves to cover the budget shortfall and I would say that's a no why you can't do that if the if the simulation we're running or the draft budget we've presented draws down the reserves to cover the shortfalls then that's a failed simulation that simulation doesn't work so I don't think that's a good idea to do that I think the didn't that the commission also pass an ordinance or maybe it was non-binding I'm not sure if it was binding or non-binding but we're non-binding but we're supposed to increase the reserves 1% per year so we're not doing that if we're drawing it down just to balance the books so we have like a little conflict there the final comment is I don't think the budget shortfall there's not like an a line item you can go to a line item and say this line item is causing us problems let's focus on this line item this looks just to me as as an observer this looks like a larger issue this is a structural problem there's not one line item we can d drill down on this is a very large problem across all departments I think we have a structural problem here I don't want taxes to go up just like everybody else doesn't want them to go up but I also don't think we can put a budget forward that has structural problems thank you thank you John uh any any other public comment yeah yes sir [Music] Scott County H 2100 North Atlantic Avenue Unit 806 I just want to follow up with my thoughts on John's comments also and you mentioned The Five-Year Plan there was once a very good Five-Year Plan that had City Hall all budgeted out and then we had real life happen we had two calendar years which is really I think effectively three fiscal years impacted by heavy storms and you didn't have the Reserves to cover that so the city reserves got drained down and those Capital plans got moved now what do you like the current city hall it didn't The Old City Hall was derel and it was got that way because in all the previous years that Capital Improvement was delayed delayed delayed delate delate and the reserves we talked about and I think I was part of the encouragement of setting aside and committing to reserves not goals but commitments to prevent that from happening again because you either want to have your capital and have it maintained and and and functioning or you're going to create a situation like the golf course where you're now spending Capital funds to rectify ignored maintenance problems for decades you can't save and spend at the same time and and as far as the tax rate goes I don't know anybody sitting in your position or in the employees position who have been Exempted from the inflation and the and the cost price costs going up so if if it's I don't like the I don't like my taxes going up I don't like gasoline prices going up I don't like milk prices going up but I have no choice and I don't think the city is Exempted from the same kind of pressures I want my police force to be armed and adequate I want my fire fire department to have the resources to respond I want the services and I think the the rest of the citizens do but we have to pay for them and I don't think micromanaging the professionals that we have recommending to you what they need to run the city can be chipped away at nickel and dime I think the city was set up to have a strong city manager and a whole focused policy focused Council I would like you I would like to see the council do that and the city government perform that's the way it was set up and let's not make the same mistakes we made in the past thank you sir all good points thank you yes Mr Anderson Rick Anders 1800 Minute Man Causeway and the thing I hope that we all agree on is that it's just unacceptable to be drawing down Reserve funds to balance a budget in in a non- crisis year this is not a fiscal crisis year this is not a depression that we're in so this is just an ordinary year and we're drawing down Reserve funds now the commission has made a a stand that they don't want to increase the revenues by way of the millage rate but somehow we need to fill that shortfall and I agree with with my friend John Lo that I that I hope that we very soon and very aggressively look at the user fees to cover the to cover the shortfalls in the areas that we're subsidizing thank you and uh we are actually looking into increasing user fees for certain um for certain stuff so a point on that mayor it's interesting cuz I asked one of those questions we're actually forecasting less revenue from parking so I think between rates going up it may have the opposite effect we've between 22 we've raised rates and we're now down to 1.4 instead of 1.7 in terms of revenue forecast so we may be over the the optimal price point so and that's that's a big I don't think raising parking rates is the is the is the from the revenue forecasting side but I think there's also we have some uh users that we've never raised uh rates for example um I think the port for example we you know we're at the same rates that we were I think it was 20 years ago so I think we're looking into that as well for for getting our storm water and all that stuff back up to par and our I mean our um you know what I'm trying to say the we're we're looking at the getting those rates back up to par so um yeah we're looking to to try to get all this stuff and get our rates back in order so that we aren't being taken advantage of as a city uh any other public comments yes state your name and address please L back at 1503 Minuteman Causeway I concur with the gentleman who said that there's a systemic problem I think you're spending level could be reduced by 20% if somebody was mining the store just a bit better it is my opinion that what the city is purchasing in many cases is being overcharged for it number one and on the other side of that we all know how the budget process works staff says we want this because this is our Christmas wish list the way it's supposed to work is our elected officials are supposed to say to them no that's unreasonable you need to come back to us with something that's a little bit more reasonable you're supposed to be the ones telling them no we the citizens our responsibilities are supposed to be the ones telling you all the cool it that's not been happening not been happening at all in this city since I moved here it I'll give you an example in in the previous meeting I spoke at $2.4 million is budgeted for Golf Course irrigation so if you decide you want a 6-in pipe and you need let's say six miles which I think is an overestimate that would require 170 sprinkler heads at $170 a piece to do the entire golf course for the material alone would only be $300,000 where's the rest of it going to now I had a neighbor who is a backhoe operator his job was to lay pipe he retired at as a backo operator laying pipe a good backo operator according to him should be able to lay a mile a pipe a day how much labor should we get for the balance of of $2.4 million what that what I'm saying here is we have a problem in that we have departments who are taking the lazy way out of sourcing these prices and contracts they're not doing the homework I also wonder how many other things are being done that way the lazy way out I am sure that if somebody were to be paying attention to the store this budget could be reduced by 20% and not cut any Services just by figuring out whether we're paying a fair price or not that's my opinion but what we need and let me just ask a question and and and if may continue um if you if you keep it quick okay so I decided to do a public uh Records request what I asked for was a general ledger transaction report what I got was a trial balance and a general ledger summary and I only got it the summary through May what I was looking for was an individual transaction report and and I don't know if anybody knows what it is but what it is is it itemizes everything that was posted to the general ledger there are some samples if you'd like it says who bought it where it was bought from what date it was done what general ledger account it was posted to etc etc etc so that I could get an idea of what the cost we were paying as a city on certain items were what I got was a trial balance and a journal summary okay have any of you no I'm asking if you have any of you looked at a transaction report then how can you how can anybody talk finances without understanding where the money goes item by item it might have been a 65 page report and I know that you're all but unteers your job is to look at how the money is being spent and that's what I'm asking 65 Pages this is not our CFO tracks those ledger accounts on a daily basis with her staff okay I don't track them she tracks him the city manager doesn't track him he oversees her tracking I I and she very competent I rest my case sir this is not a back and forth I rest my case sir I understand your concerns and I and I I do agree with you on some of your points I think we could do better we actually me and the city manager have talked about um looking into certain transactions and and better um spending like that so thank you uh next public comment call question all right um we've got a we've got a motion a second with the amendment um all in favor of the amendment with the amendment yes no you say you vote on the amendment first right you do you do vote on the amendment first okay we vote on the amendment that that he proposed all in favor I I all opposed motion on the main motion okay uh let's vote on the main motion all in favor I I all opposed I motion passes 41 all right City attorney okay this is the City attorney report um see oh special presentations I'm sorry okay first is the proclamation National Suicide Prevention month Kelly has Haskins accepting on behalf of Space Coast Health Foundation all right I've got a special Proclamation here I'm going to read whereas September is designated as National Suicide side prevention month and recognized by the National Association of mental illness and whereas many Health officials and Community leaders locally State and nationally understand that mental illness is a significant issue of concern particularly among Our Youth and whereas we realize that to address the mental health issues requires more open and honest discussions about mental health and whereas one major hurdle is removing the stigma attached to mental health treatment and discussion and whereas individuals businesses organizations public officials and many others recognize the importance of emotional health and now therefore be it resolved that the city of Coco Beach supports efforts on the Space Coast to provide education and resources for mental health problems and be it further resolved that the city of Coco Beach will be uh will encourage a positive effort to uh encourage those with mental health issues to seek help of family members friends colleagues and or licensed uh mental health professionals to assist them in times of need adopted by members of the city of Coco Beach on September uh 4th 2024 yes um and representative Jill Forbes would you like to get your Kelly H Haskins what was that Kelly H Haskins oh oh Kelly sorry K would you like to um take your Proclamation and if you want to say any words or you're more than welcome hi I'm Kelly H Haskins this is Beth Beal uh we are here representing uh our nonprofit called do it for Hunter uh we started this uh a couple of years ago actually not a couple like a year and a half ago maybe uh in honor of my son who we lost uh he was a high school senior actually he was he had just started college at UCF uh we lost him out of the blue uh best friends with uh her son uh but we felt the need to to do something uh to make sure people are aware of the 988 number um make sure people are talking about it it is a tough topic um to talk about um but uh it it's happening um around us people don't talk about it and that's one thing that we do need so this Proclamation is very important thank you Wayne um and Space Coast Health foundation for putting this together um and to help our community be aware um of the resources that are available to anybody um to to talk to call 988 um to seek out resources and seek out tools for your children um to use um so if they do have a panic attack and something happens that they know what to do we do have an event coming up in a couple of weeks called you matter day it's coming up in merid Island September 21st from 10: till 2 happening at merid Island High School this will be our third annual event uh just to bring the community together um and to make sure they know what the resources are and it's just a positive event um with great messages and resources available uh for not just the kids um but for adults too so you all are invited and I hope you come uh it's September 21st at merid Island High School from 10: till 2: so thank you thank you and we can get another picture afterwards if you stick around don't think you're that but I'm not going to make you do that all right um and we also have a another speaker on vacation rentals and ordinances uh representative Jill Forbes just this but oh boy I haven't done this since I retired which one is the one right yeah good evening everybody um probably everybody's watching social media they talk about it all the time but uh in the past year I've had three airbnbs vacation Reynolds open near my house I live at 945 South Atlantic on the beach and it hasn't been the most pleasant experience so what I did was a a little bit of research and I found that there seems to be some non-enforcement of the city ordinance on some of these larger airbnbs in the community so uh the three relative items to this is that uh the ordinance for vacation rentals in the city is that there's a total of eight occupants per vacation rental and with that is four vehicles at these locations the city ordinance also says that there has to be information readily displayed to the max amount of occupants and the number of vehicles I know you're all giggling about now uh so the result of the city non- enforcement is uh vacation rental owners and their agents routinely and do rent to more than eight occupants typically when there's more eight occupants there's more than four vehicles over occupancy of vacation rentals puts undue stress on full-time homeowners and residents who lives who reside adjacent to or nearby vacation rentals in including but not limited to Vehicles improperly parked on streets sidewalks uh Lawns anywhere noise complaints littering um I've seen things where they're doing unsightly things off of people's docks um I know the other day I was sitting at my kitchen table and a gentleman walked in front of my house and proceeded to do in the dunes and then walk back by the vacation rental um trespassing this goes on all the time all up through the dunes in the waterways the Thousand Islands um so um you know it's not been Pleasant for a lot of us that live here all the time so what I did was on August the 1st I just took a random selection of uh um what was being sold for maxan uh occupancy on the website so I just randomly said punched in to airbeam B VRBO stocks or one of them and I said I want a house for 10 or more people a whoa all sorts of one pop up which is over the maximum of eight right then and there and then I went public record I pulled up the address on the city website on permitting and I can see lo and behold only eight are allowed so as an example I hope this person's not here maybe but if they are there is 132 East Park Lane it's up kind of near the pier and the vacation rental website says 14 there is a picture of the city Cocoa Beach vacation rental certificate on the website and that the agent and homeowner has signed to is occupancy of eight so what do they rent it for they rent it for 14 they rent it for 12 six cars eight cars show up right so again I just did a random sample this is just as of August the 1st I did a work with Danielle and cod enforcement three of the homes that are on this list have been reduced to eight she sent out citations but this gives you an idea of one of them's just around the corner here from the fire station 16 plus on the website of a house with like four bedrooms and if you look through the pictures there's bulks in where the dining rooms are there's not even sufficient parking for four cars and you know they all show up so this gives you an idea but like I said if you put in 10 plus 10 on Airbnb or VRBO loads of homes show up so uh based upon what my random selection that I did uh many of the vacation rentals are in violation and these are the ones that are not grandfathered prior to March of 2020 these are all post March 2020 rental owners and their agents are blatantly advertising and renting for more than the occupancy rate and of course like I said you get eight or more people you have more cars than that next door to us we counted one day there were 12 cars they were parked on the sidewalk it was a mess um the amount that can be finded is $500 there are some regulations as you know that the State of Florida has kind of lamp lumped in on the the cities we can't stop the vacation rentals but I believe we can do some ordinances and things but a $500 fine for some of these corporations that are doing the vacation rentals is nothing to them they pay fine and on they go so they just keep doing it um what I'd like to recommend here is five items is the C City needs to perform an annual or random audit on the vacation rentals comparing the occupancy listed on the selling and very often there're are multiple sites the same property and then looking at what the registration is with the city which is eight and then for identified violations you know I'm maybe I'm being too nice they could get immediately the $500 citation I'm saying hey send out the letter you got to reduce your count right now and otherwise uh you know then we'll go on to citations but uh once once it's reduced my opinion is they should cancel any of the future bookings because they were now not allowed to have more than eight to begin with and they're booking 14 and 16 in these houses so you know if after the notification go ahead issue the citation and then there is no section in the ordinance for repeat offenders when they're over occupant Bernie is for the noise ordinance so what I'm saying is hey you're a repeat offender you keep having these parties and all these things hey three times you know you lose your uh rental capability for a year I think that's what the noise ordinance is so um and then I think going forward when they apply for the registration they need to show proof to the city that their own doing it for eight occupants and four vehicles when I went online to look at the registration there's supposed to be a spot there where the rental agent or the owner provides where these cars are going to be Park but I can't there was nothing there on any of them that I saw are they supposed to be parked at the beach crossover are they supposed to be parked up at Lori Wilson where are these you know on the side streets like Esther where do these cars park for the extra they clearly don't have room in the driveways I drove around the other day to look but um anyhow uh that's the end and thank you for your time but um it it hasn't been Pleasant for me living next to the vacation reyolds or across the street so thank you I like it go ahead yeah Miss thank you for putting a very detailed presentation together I don't think there's anybody in this room that disagrees with the vast majority of what you presented okay um we actually and see mandrew can correct me if I'm wrong we had to hire an extra code enforcement officer just to deal with vacation rentals and um that's been ramping up it it takes some time you know to try to look through 1,200 you know U Airbnb or vacation rental type property sorry about the Airbnb thing um to find out you know all that data that you've you've looked up but and then it takes time for a code enforcement officer to to deal with each individual Sy sit and make sure that their website is correct and that they have their parking plan there and all that I do agree that we we as the commission should consider revising the ordinance for increased fines for repeat offenders kind of like what we have for the noise ordinance so $500 first fine second F maybe I don't know if three strikes are out or we could I don't know what the state regulations are Becky could tell me you know how high can you go on the on those fines you know find them every day but you know like I said the majority of the people in this room would would agree with everything you said pretty much yeah if I may where where do residents and homeowners call when there's too many cars and it's out of control is it the non-em number like if I see the house next door who's only supposed to have eight occupancy and there's clearly 20 people there do I call the non-emergency number at 10:00 at night or where what I I don't think it's clear to the residents and I think it would be a really good thing to have to know okay that's a that's a slippery slope because you know I have one right behind my house okay so they may have four four people that are actually going to spend the night there okay but it may be for somebody in those four people's birthday MH and then they bring in 20 people for a birthday party that night and they Park everywhere but they're not the ones that are required to park for the parking plant because they're visitors like if you had a birthday party at your house okay so it it makes it tough to call up and say hey there's 20 people over in the house you know cross from me's backyard and it's only rated for eight go go do something and they go there and find out it's a birthday parties you know or it's a you know but according to the ordinance uh if there's 20 cars there or 10 cars they're they're still supposed to provide only four spots and provide as four people that are staying there are parked in the driveway then they're legal okay um we're it's a it's a tough one but definitely get the websites cleaned up and give the give the code enforcement people and the city management a chance to work that out it's it's going to take some time we're going to move forward but I I agree with your recommendations um I think if if they are advertising more than a maximum of eight Yep they're not only are they out of absolutely out of compliance because they they are trying to get more than that but it's not fair to the other airb and beers that are trying to play it by the rules because they're going to be getting uh they're going to be getting the bulk of the of the business because they're advertising that they can do something that the others can't so I think what you proposed could probably actually be done in day of just looking on the Airbnb website and and the vrbr website taking the list of what those are and then sending them all letters like you said to do your thing I agree with you I think this is something that we I mean I'm trying to be nice I was a business person and all that but I just think it's gotten out of hand yeah I agree so thank you for your time and uh I will I will work with the city myself to try to make sure that we get all this uh in place or or or I guess um and Randy if you want to say anything I think it's happen that day but thank you mayor commissioner Randy Stevenson director of development services just real briefly uh I appreciate people bringing this to our attention believe me we are well aware of it we have uh one full-time code enforcement officer and one half one part-time code enforcement officer uh just to give you an idea of the problem I'm just talking about rs1 right now we currently have identified 297 separate units 169 of those are registered 111 are undergoing various uh their various positions in the process some of them have been to the to the magistrate some of them are insided some of them we have a a legal process that we have to go through I can assure you though uh we're getting out somewhere between 12 to 15 letters a month uh that's about what we can handle right now going through the process I would totally agree with M Forbes that we had a situation two weeks ago two or three weeks ago 16 cars and 40 people it was a party and that disrupts single family neighborhoods we understand that but I want this commission to be assured that your staff is working on this and they're pursuing this at the uh biggest rate we can we've had several contentious cases Becky I would say at the magistrate where fines have exceeded uh those we do have fines in place those fines were put into place by a lot of calculations because we can't really make a profit we have to be able to justify those fines uh just so you'll know though uh we had a 58% compliance rate on single family in May we're now up to 63% so we are headed in the right direction uh we through our U through our through uh citizens observing and reporting to us as well as the software we're using we think we are getting most of those at least in the bucket the rate at which we can address those depends on what the workload will will allow because remember we've got to site them we've got to wait some time we've got to you know there are a lot of legal Hoops we have to hop through if we process them all the way to the magistrate we have to make sure we have a case against them and yes this is for parking outside of the parking plan A lot of them are over occupancy we understand that and we are trying to address that uh to the greatest extent possible just to give you an idea it's not just us the fire department's done uh about 300 inspections since last this fiscal year that was as of the end of August so we've got another month to go so the fire department's involved in this with us as well uh pursuant to the commission's direction we are in the process of writing additional code to expand not only the BTR but the registration of short-term rentals to the rm1 and the rm2 districts right now it's just the rs1 so we are going to expanding that which will add to this workload and uh we're also working with a City attorney right now to put some language in place that would greatly uh simplify the process of over occupancy if we find out in any sites there advertising for 14 that in itself s Becky and you'll help me with this that in itself is proof enough to take these things to the magistrate so we're trying to uh shorten that process as well because we understand it's frustrating for everybody especially if you have them near he you yeah I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have I just wanted to provide you with a couple of couple of pieces of information there about what we are doing sure so her first thing I mean basically seems pretty straightforward and easy just pull up an Airbnb or a vbo website type in uh Cocoa Beach uh you know property with that will have that will fit up to nine people all those ones that pop up should instantly be written down and so that's something that and again we're processing that anywhere from 12 to 15 letters a month okay uh again I said 297 rs1 if you look at all of them it's approaching 1,600 so I know when we go to rm1 rm2 we will add to that 297 number and that's increased by 30 since May just in the rs1 okay thank you thank you appreciate that all right uh any public comments about items that are not on the agenda Janna Scott Coco Beach well I really support any um improvements uh to make the vacation rentals in the single family neighborhoods in particular more livable for us and um thank you commissioner Williams for responding to the public comments about that and uh the director of the building department as well um I keep hearing about oh only one code enforcement person but um now we have two so we will be able to take care of that um some of those places in the neighborhoods also uh don't hire a good landscaper that will put the trash the Landscaping debris in the container because they want to I guess have somebody come back and put the container away but I think that needs to be enforced too because I don't think our contract with Waste Management says that their job is to clean up everybody's front yard um last but not least September 28th Coco Beach Library 10:00 a.m. the political Forum of the uh this election cycle um six people are running for the city commission and I hope you will all come it's open to the public that again that's 10:00 a.m. Saturday September 28th at the cooko beach library thank you jennice any other public comment about items not on the [Music] agenda uh Tim tumble Koko Beach uh thank you Jill um that was very good presentation uh I just looked it up airbnbs or just actually short-term rentals there was over 700 short-term rentals in coko Beach that's just one you know um Google search but I guarantee there's over th there's a couple thousand in Coca Beach a one or one or one and a half um you know people trying to handle that is is not realistic uh we I was actually on the commission when we adopted this order ordinance a couple years ago and I was under the impression that we were going to it was going to come back to us after a short term to to adjust for these things like we didn't um see that happening we were more concerned about noise than we were about hey the actual number of people and finding in that in that U capacity um on another side note from the from the previous meeting um I just would like for the the Commissioners um the new Commissioners I know Skip you've been on this for quite a while and and you you made a statement during that meeting that this is this is not your home budget the city budget is not your home budget and you need to understand the the differences and the fact that if we got down to a zero debt which would be great if you're on your home budget right zero debt start uh making more money than more money in the bank and go on vacations do other things like that that's that's wonderful um but for Coco Beach then what you're saying is okay all of us right now are paying for everything for the next 20 and 30 years rather than those folks for the next 20 and 30 years actually paying for it there needs to be debt for that and for that reason I don't know if youall understand that and if if it's really set in but I don't want to pay for all of the debt for the next 30 Years it needs to be paid over the next 30 Years by the people that are living here in 30 years from now because it may or may not be me because um you know I'm getting up in age right skip I mean we're we're right there right so it's got to move forward in that direction and I would appreciate you all looking into it and um having that point of view looking at from that point of view thank you thank you Tim I don't think the goal is to get to zero debt I think the goal is to be responsible with our money uh any other public comment all right um staff reports nothing this evening mayor uh City attorney um I just wanted to mention that I have drafted an ordinance and I've sent it to um uh Randy and his group to with regard to miss leading advertising um and that will be another tool that we'll have in our toolbox and that is a very effective way of ramping down the number of people um I drafted an ordinance like that in city of Anam Maria and it was it was very impactful there so you'll be getting that within the next couple weeks month thank you that's all I've got all right uh City commission any reports or announcements one sure anybody that thought they missed the annual nkf Labor Day Surf contests at the pier uh as of I think it was last year or the year before they decided to move it in October because it was so dang hot and it was usually pretty darn flat unless we had a hurricane which there was a couple years that they actually had to cancel the you know 15t surf but anyway it's uh uh fortunately they didn't have it this past weekend there wasn't much for surf maybe if you paddle real hard with the long board you could have c a little bit of short break but um it's October uh 12th through the 14th as it appear the nkf rich stall Memorial surf contest urge anybody to support that organization I'll be surfing that for sure um I wanted to mention the quanas is putting on the masquerade ball uh this September 7th um so if you guys want to support a good cause they raise money for uh Charities and all stuff like that uh I've volunteered myself as as well as the first lady to be auctioned off and also some in the in the fire and the police as well so it'll be a fun time um don't don't let me just sit there without any [Music] bids crush your ego okay that's all I got to say about that um consent agenda okay this is the consent agenda um item one approve the August 15th City commission minute staff representative city clerk's office item two adopt resolution 2024-25 to approve amendments to the Community Development block grant policy staff representative Devon tally director of Grants and special projects item four approved fiscal year 2025 liquid sodium hypochlorite bulk supply piggyback agreement on Bay County contract bid number 22-27 for an odyssey manufacturing company to supply wastewater treatment plant at a price of $165 per gallon Stafford representative Brad czo water rep director item five request permission to contract with firms for the recer service in storage RFQ staff representative de Devon tally director of Grants and special projects item six approve a one-year memorandum of understanding mou between the city of Koka Beach and the City of Cape Canaveral to share the cost of the school resource officer SRO assigned to Coco Beach Junior Senior High School for the 2024 2025 school year staff representative Patricia drott Chief Financial Officer West Mullins police chief item seven cancellation of gray Robinson lobbying Services contract staff representative Devin tally director of Grants and special projects move to approve the consent agenda is read second got a motion in a second all in favor I all opposed motion passes 5 um unfinished business okay this is um unfinished business uh item one adopt the second reading of ordinance 1692 an ordinance of the city of coka Beach Florida amending section 1-8 General penalty continuing violation adjudging fines and imprisonments of chapter 1 General Provisions in section 5- 49.1 penalty for violation of article of article 3B ocean front buildings restriction line and seaw wall line of chapter 5 beaches fills boats and waterways in section 26-7 illegally parked Motor Vehicles in a toway Zone removing storage restoration of Article 1 in general of chapter 26 traffic of the Cocoa Beach code of ordinances updating penalty Provisions for violations of the city code and eliminating all outdated references to Municipal judges from the city code in providing for codification conflict severability and effective date ordinance 1692 is an administrative ordinance removing Municipal judges and municipal courts from those ordinances the first reading was held on August 15 2024 staff representative Becky V City attorney Randy Stevenson director of development services Mo ordinance 1692 on second reading second got a motion second okay com yeah do we have any public comment on this all right roll call commissioner Jackson hi commissioner Williams all commissioner will I vice mayor hon I mayor capy I motion passes [Applause] 5 okay we're at new business now yes yes new business okay item one approve ordinance 1693 on first reading an ordinance of the city of Coca Beach Florida amending city of Coca Beach code of ordinances section 15-17 restrictions on camping and section 30-29 classes of violations and Associated civil penalties providing for findings and intent prohibiting overnight public camping and sleeping providing for exceptions to the prohibition providing for enforcement of section 15-17 providing General cleanup changes and providing for severability conflicts codification in an effective date this ordinance is to prevent potential conflicts with the county or the new state law section 125.0 231 forward the statutes it's recommended that the city commission adopt by ordinance of prohibition of public camping or sleeping adopting a zero tolerance policy for camping or sleeping on Municipal property will head off any potential costs associated with potential litigation from citizens or business owners negatively impacted by camping or sleeping on city property staff representative Becky B City attorney move to approve ordinance 1693 on F first reading second got a motion and second any public comment on this all in favor I I I all opposed motion pass 550 okay item two authorize CK contractors A continuing service contractor with the city to replace the 8 in sewer gravity main from the corner of First Street North in Atlantic Avenue to the northern property line of 101 North Atlantic Avenue the work will be done in conjunction with the fdot drainage project and 101 North Atlantic storm water utility upgrades total price will be 69,7 $44 this is not a budgeted item contingency funds will be used to cover expenses and the current fund account balance is $1 145,146 staff representative Brad cza water W director move to approve is red second we got a motion and a second any public comment I just I just like to say one thing because we were talking budget earlier yeah is Brad first of all stellar and you know getting grants and taking care of business and everything uh Water Reclamation but um you know he he's admitting it wasn't a budgeted item which requires uh a little bit of contingency funds to come out of his his funds which he can afford so he made made the right decision and instead of this just getting kind of slept on the carpet like I got the money I'm going to do it it brings it to our attention so we're aware of it cut and dry and thanks for doing that BR support it any other the um commission comments on that I appreciate you Notting that that's good and Brad works incredibly hard and effectively all right uh Motion in a second all in favor um public comment yeah we already did nobody sorry uh all opposed motion passes 50 um let's see next that's it that was it okay yeah there we go all right let's uh let's adjourn for