go in there I'll I I'll turn on yeah both them yeah turn on yeah test test one two okay yes test test test one two uh I have yes something yeah oh um yeah I got the internet you got bring it up you yeah that because franking this is hold they all have yep I like some stating look I get didn't get a chance to look yet hey yeah I'm okay did I don't know how to do it either okay well we're down here in the council chamber so okay okay okay you know how to switch out CH Staples in a printer what Staples on edone go see Daisy oh hey out uhhuh hey hey 5 propose 5 better than four or three whatever anything I don't think they going to lower it anymore for e sit down e e [Music] testing Jack Jack Jack Jack testing can you hear me can you hear me y streaming have this thing people still don't talk into the mic h [Music] hi um who I'm speaking with speak hey Nathan this is uh Jack with the town Jupiter we have another meeting tonight in our Council chamber can you pull our fee up and see what's [Music] good thanks [Music] video okay awesome thank you very much [Music] byebye relaxing yeah all right so what else we got um oh weo Fe is good overflow room I can't because they in there only other thing is the wireless M which they're not going to use but I'm going to test anyway but I'll be back test test test one two test test test test test don't get too loud you got to go like this you got to like eat the mic e e for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e for e [Music] is e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e with all five people um addon Direction [Laughter] yeah oh I remember that all the time I'm using this I've earn I remember I was there for it it's like I have a that you had a crazy first okay the time is 6: p.m good evening everyone and welcome uh I'd like to call this meeting to order this is the Town Council budget Workshop of June 20th may I have the roll call please mayor kesy vice mayor sunstrom here councelor Delaney councelor for here councelor May here acting Town manager morto here Town attorney bar thank you and do we have any citizen comments no okay all right let's uh turn over to staff great vice mayor we'll have Director of Finance Scott Reynolds presenting this evening uh good evening Scott Reynolds uh Finance director for the town of Jupiter um also want to introduce uh don Clark the assistant Finance director with the town um just want to say uh here we it's here is fiscal year 2025 where it just seemed like we just finished talking about 2024 but starting into 2025 now starting in the budgetary process um I will say um going into looking it out to next year and looking at the projections uh we're implementing the fire department we all know that uh if it wasn't for fire it would probably be regular year uh uh here in the town from an operational standpoint so with that we'll just jump straight into the presentation some of the things I did want to talk about that we've done uh we've talked about over the last few years is inflation uh after covid and how we've handled that as a town specifically focusing in on our employees uh and some of the things that we've done to help them through this process and to uh make sure that we're continuing to attract the best and brightest and uh maintaining our Workforce and staying competitive uh one of the things that we've continue to do is maintain the level of HSA funding uh for our employees in the health plan we also reduce the amount of contribution uh from the employees from an 8020 split of the health insurance premiums to a 9010 split we did that last year uh also in 2023 uh when if you remember right inflation was up around 9% uh we gave the employees a 4% increase and also a $2,800 inflationary subsidy uh October 1 that started on October 1 uh and then in 2024 we gave a 5% increase uh and then what we're proposing for fy2 is a 5% increase uh we'll talk about that a little bit as we go through the presentation because one of the things we use is our Benchmark uh to look to see uh what we should be proposing is the CPI uh you we look at it on the national level but more importantly uh we look at it at the Miami Dade uh West Palm Beach level uh because that's really the the environment that we're uh the employees are living in uh one of the big items uh that we've started uh as a town um is the Jupiter fire rescue Department uh we're now on the implementation phase started that October 1 actually uh last year in in August when the council gave Direction but uh starting in FY 24 we purchased the fire apparatus we've hired a a fire chief chief denado uh We've also hired additional staff uh this year and uh started with a medical director contract uh that's been approved by the Town Council and uh we will soon be applying for the copcn and developing operational protocols throughout the summer one of the big items I wanted to talk about this evening uh a little bit more in detail outside of just the regular operating budget uh is the $20 million uh issuance we'll be bringing before the council as you're aware uh We've started the Engineering Process uh for the new two two new stations fire stations in the town uh we will soon be bringing before Council a Construction contract and in order to approve a contract you have to have the funding uh so one of the things that we've always talked about in as far as the implementation of fire is that we were going to utilize a mixture of fund balance and Debt Service so one of the items we're going to be discussing this evening is how we're going to pay for that $20 million in debt issuance one of the things we're going to be bringing to the Town Council going into next year uh outside of the new Station construction uh continuing on with implementation we'll be hiring additional staff uh for the fire department ordering equipment and continuing with the development of protocols they'll be a number of studies that we'll be doing from the finance end and we'll talk a little bit more about that as well so the budget overview itself uh talking about the revenue assumptions uh we're looking to maintain the millage rate at 23894 uh if you remember right last year we were able to uh reduce the millage uh which we have done and we are currently um asking the council to maintain that level of 2389 four uh we had an early estimate come in from the property appraiser of an 8.8% increase uh in the valuations for the town I'm going to speak a little bit more about that because that's pretty significant also uh the avalor tax increases is just over $3 million uh in taxes which equates to um a $1.4 billion uh increase in Gross valuations for the water fund we're uh um requesting a 3% rate index for the storm water fund we're proposing a 7% rate index which is 49 cents per eru also one of the things I want to point out is the uh implementation of the fire fund uh we told the council that we would segregate the funding for the fire department as we go into implementation and then finally into operation we've been doing that we will be doing a transfer from the general fund I'll talk a little bit more in detail about that but one of the things that we said last year is that again where we using fund balance to help fund some of these ongoing operations and Debt Service what I'm pleased to announce is that we'll be using our interest earnings that we're expected to get next year $2.9 million uh in additional interest earnings that we'll be able to use for the implementation of the fire department next year year another thing that uh we need to point out is the general obligation millage this will be the uh an fy2 this will be the last year uh for the general obligation uh payments by the by the citizens we've accumulated over a very long period of time uh Reserve funding of $595,000 and we want to use that money to buy down the last year of The Debt Service to reduce the millage for the citizens so the avalor revenue assumptions very important uh we're looking at an 88.8% increase this is an early estimate by the property appraiser um one of the things I want to point out is less than 1% again is due to new construction it's like 77% of that 8.8 is new construction but when you start comparing this 8% to our peers around the area such as Palm Beach Gardens West Palm Beach uh that 8% in just value is is the highest theirs is is mainly driven by new construction we're at buildout but our values are very high I think that's very important to note another thing I'd like to note when you look at the have assumptions is the um 1.1 uh one $1,167 th000 that we be receiving from the CRA that's only the town's portion we also receive a portion from Palm Beach County so continuing on with the general fund portion of the revenue forecast uh again we're very healthy uh the state shared revenues uh starting to flatten out in the sales tax which is expected uh and that's primarily due to what the feds are doing with the interest rates we feel that that's equated to one another uh but we won't get those estimates until July August uh this is based on historical data and what we're seeing coming in one of the things I I specifically wanted to point out again was the interest earnings uh an anticipated 2.9% increase or I'm sorry $2.9 million increase in interest earnings over what's projected in 24 so on the expense side of the house for a budget overview uh when you look at the budget and not include the fire department which was a budget amendment on the 3rd of October uh we have a 7 $7.7 million increase in cost but when you add that in it looks as though we've actually had a decrease uh over fy20 24 adopted budget but 7.7 million without the fire department healthc care cost assumptions uh again this is something that the town is very proud of we worked very hard over the last 10 years um we are going to we are anticipate to meet our goal of $10 million that's been the goal of having $10 million in our reserves uh to be able to weather any kind of storms that may come our way that'll allow you as the council to make some decisions on what you can do with some of that extra cash uh you can pay the HSA funding from it right now the different funds contribute uh for that HSA funding for the employees that can come directly from the fund you can have a premium holiday there's a number of different ideas that we can do with that additional funding and we can come back to the council once uh we we reach that number for new positions uh there's total of 4.5 new positions being requested uh you can see from the list of the positions we have an HR technician an auto technician a service worker in the grounds division uh a wreck assistant and a wre coordinator uh these positions are Frontline positions that are being requested uh and we feel that uh they're there to enhance for continue on with the service levels that is anticipated by the citizens total of $371,000 in the general fund the fire positions that are being requested there are five new positions total $833,000 that includes any kind of capital and benefits and you can see the hiring Cadence of those positions included in the uh uh screen below so the salary increase assumption that we talked about earlier with the 5% uh just to make it clear uh I did receive some questions about the 5% that does include a cola and Merit it's all in one uh so there that element is in there uh it's issued effective January 1st uh based on a satisfactory review now this is just the non-union employees uh the union employees they have their approved contract with their step plan but again what we look at uh when we're uh making these assumptions for the budget is we look at the inflationary rates uh back in February when this was drawn up uh we were looking at uh a 4.9% rate uh here in West Palm Beach and uh 3.48% nationally that has since gone down a little bit to about 4.5 but we still feel the 5% is adequate uh for the employees general fund uh we talked quite a bit about the general fund already uh the assess values uh the additional funding that's coming in from the avalum tax along with the uh interest earnings and no use of fund fund balance or reserves one of the things I wanted to talk about specifically was the unassigned fund balance down at the lower leftand corner if you looked at the caffer at year end we had over $52 million in cash uh that was available to be used any way the council saw fit now we have some incumbrances against that balance going forward 11.2 million for the fire apparatus and the implementation of the fire department uh you got 2 million coming back in for the bridge loan repayment from the sir tax fund another $2 million uh coming in 25 along with 750 $50,000 has been obligated from the council for the Roger Dean Stadium project that leaves the remainder of over $44 million to be used that as the council sees fit now we talk about this number every year and one of the things we point out is we have the council that has has indicated they would like to be able to keep three months in reserves just as an Unwritten policy but they would like to see three months where the reserves uh in the fund balance which is just over $19 million if we were to take that out you still had over $24 million uh in reserve funding but overall after the encumbrances over $44 million is available for the proposed expenses of the general fund going into 25 based on current uh projections uh as in any year uh the the largest expense for the general fund is the employees salaries and benefits um we do have the transfer of just over $3 million uh from the general fund to Jupiter fire rescue uh that is indicated in there along with uh reductions due to the town green and Roger Dean contribution but a total of $6.4 million uh increase over fy2 24 so the Jupiter fire rescue Department uh we we we are segregating this out we want the uh the council along with this public to be able to track as we go along uh the expenditures and how we're uh spending the money for the Jupiter fire rescue one thing I want to point out and we're going to be changing this slide uh in the revenues where it says designated from fund balance or designated from a general fund we're going to put in there and say transfer from I think it just makes it a little bit more transparent for people to understand it's a transfer coming in from uh the general fund um us accounting Gees it's this is what it is but I think the word transfer will help people understand exactly what's occurring but what I wanted to show again you have 2.6 million dollar that is being transferred for the operating portion $354,000 is for a Debt Service portion for the new construction of the of the new two new stations so I wanted to talk about that for a minute uh we're currently looking into doing what's called a commercial paper issuance normally if you're going to do a Debt Service there's multiple different things U mechanisms that you can use for funding you can use a general obligation Bond you can do a bank loan or a commercial paper issuance right now looking at the market uh the rates are starting will be declining over the next couple of years we're feeling over the next 18 to 20 months those rates are going to decline so what the commercial paper does it allows us to make this shortterm borrowing at a much less interest rate and then when the interest rates do decline the town can then take advantage of those lesser interest rates going forward for a longer period of time for 15 years 10 years depending on how much we have to borrow the commercial paper uh also allows us to make draws we can make because we don't know if we're going to use all 20 million we may only wind up using 15 16 million based on the cost of the of the stations but it allows us to make those draws as we need need to all we pay is interest and some administ rative charges but those will be coming back to the council if we were to do a uh a bank loan uh we could only maybe do $10 million next year on a bank loan but we'd wind up spending over $900,000 instead of $354,000 but we'll talk a little bit more about that going forward in the next month for the water fund pretty basic again this year uh base index rate of 3% uh we are using some retained earnings $354,000 uh worth of retained earnings includes the 5% salary increases uh no new positions being requested uh there is a slight reduction in the de Service uh there's increases anticipated in the uh epnl charges which is nothing unusual they've had rate increases uh also uh early estimate for chemical cost uh we are out to bid on that we should have those bids back uh next month or the month after uh that that actually could go down a little bit uh and then there's a slight increase in repairs and maintenance storm water um again 7% uh rate increase or um we're looking to um or increase by the rate index of 7% uh designated from retain earning of 443 $443,000 5% uh salary increases and U $170,000 increase in machinery and equipment the J Jupiter River Estates again this is something that we uh indicated to the council that we would hold separately uh so that they could see uh the expenses coming in and out uh the first year um we the the utility actually paid for the cleaning up um there was a presentation on on that a few about a month ago I got to see the success of the cleaning uh and the next we'll actually do the maintenance that's when you'll actually see the expenses coming in uh and also the offsetting uh um revenues that are coming in from the citizens that are uh whose property are being improved due to those that cleaning the building fund uh really pretty much static from last year uh there is a uh $50,000 increase in permit revenues uh but uh again the 5% increase for uh the employees um but very minimal increase in the in the building fund Health Insurance Fund we talked about that uh and some of the benefits that are occurring we really do feel that we will meet the $10 million Mark uh even with the fire fund employ employees being added uh we there's uh right now still minimal cost to the fund uh our employees are very healthy some upcoming important dates uh July 16th will'll be setting trim uh we'll also have on August 14th a CRA budget workshop and the CIP Workshop uh and along with the first reading of the budget of September 3rd and the uh first and final reading of the budget for the CRA uh and then the second and final hearing on September 19th uh one thing I also wanted to point out in relation to the meeting coming up on July uh we we will be asking the council to adopt a resolution in relation to the financing uh which will allow that if we wish to uh any of the current expenses that we're incurring such as like engineering and those type of things that we can go backwards and we can actually incorporate that into the debt service if we wished if we don't do the resolution then we can't do that so it's important that we approve that it gives latitude to the council so policy guidance going forward uh maintaining the proposed flat millage rate of 23894 as being recommended but we'll talk more about that during when you set it at trim the 8 8515 split of the avalor between uh the operating and the CIP health insurance no premium increase maintaining the HSA funding for the employees at $840,000 we have we possibly have some other options for that also the 5% increase for the non-unit employees and the rate indexing of 3% for water and 7% for the storm war and that really concludes my presentation for this evening and uh if you have any questions thank you very much uh Council uh do we have any public comment okay good evening um thank you Scott a lot of the increases the town has is also increases of every other government as I see and displayed I had a chance um about a half an hour before I came here to look this over and I I do have one comment um on the fire fund um you do have to take out the EMS uh once you go to fire assessment because EMS is not allowed to be mingled in with any fire assessment okay I would implore you I would take that out now EMS is a general fund obligation and um even if you set up a separate fund the EMS will be uh paid from Ador General government and any revenues generated from EMS transport so yeah you want me to finish and then yeah okay um and I know there's going to be further you know on on fire assessment but I did need to point that out since this is a draft um also um the fire department currently has no earned revenue and so because there's no earned Revenue usually you set up a special Revenue fund when you have earned revenues coming in from that source and that's why you have an assessment Fe fund we don't have revenues coming in yet as earned revenues they're just being transferred from the general fund so therefore I don't believe especially the MS should go into a different fund than general fund uh when you go to doing a fire assessment fee then you'll have to pull out EMS and it's not a very good look from year to year now you're going to have to change that structure so I'm I'm and I'll be glad to you know talk with you on that um but you know I am concerned I'm very glad that the town has a lot of reserves um a lot of cities have benefited from interest rate increases the millage rates going up values were extremely fortunate in Jupiter to have wonderful values um and I don't blame Finance for wanting to have a lot of reserves that's very common for us Finance people because in the future there's no guarantee that we're going to see all these pluses okay and I understand that and Council has to decide what are we going to do with excess fund are we going to pay down debt are we going to save it um whether I'm for or against fire or any other department that's not really what I came here for tonight I came here because I'm concerned with us having so much money that um there are a lot of different avenues that you can spread the wealth so to speak but when you have a $77 million budget and you have $44 million in reserves you really need to show the town what that's being reserved for um not just a one year what is The Five-Year Plan um I want to know why my millage rate wouldn't go down if I have that much left in reserves okay so I'm just saying if I have a checkbook of $100,000 and I constantly have 70,000 that I don't use I I I want to have a plan if I'm not going to invest it somewhere else or pay down other debt um I understand what you're saying with the loans uh and the uh commercial paper makes a lot of sense you got a very good point uh that is the way to do it if you're going to do that but um I guess I am going to speak on the fire uh because I feel that we do have all this money uh the expenses just keep going up the fire department expenses are are no different I don't know what that fire assessment fee is going to be I really have asked over and over for the methodology we need to know how we're going to be assessed and this needs to be started on one year before you start doing the assessments so I just want to put that out to you I believe the finance department does a good job with minding your money but the fire assessment it we need to know what it is or we can't even determine if you're doing the right thing on the financing for fire for us thank you thank you do we have another public comment good evening my name is constant Holmes I'm a Jupiter resident at 2053 Street I just wanted to sort of piggyback on expenses and ask you to please hold level um the water rate and the storm water rate that affects every single resident in Jupiter and if we have all this money behind us could we please just not raise the increase of 3% and 7% on the residents I know it sounds like a small thing but um that's my my Quest thank you okay thank you uh open put that up to council questions um yes first of all excellent job to both of you very very good looks great especially when we um compare this to what the Auditors told us that not only are we doing good but we're we're matching what we're saying we're doing so excellent job um um to the to the last point the 3% and the 7% what would those add up to in in an amount if you could translate that into a dollar amount Finance director so for the typical resident the storm water fee would increase by 49 cents per month and for the typical water resident it would increase by a131 per month and what would that add up to the gross amount for the city how about $15 per year is that no I mean if you if you took the overall amount what are we by by increasing those 3% and 7% what's the bulk amount that we're talking about okay so the water rate would increase to $448 per month total and the storm water would be $755 still not quite what I'm asking I'm saying the whole town what's the overall amount that we're talking about toal Revenue understood $900,000 for water and 20 280,000 for storm water that's the the 3% and the 7% That's what that adds up to yes so to keep those at zero we'd be looking at an outlay of maybe $1.2 million yes okay I was just trying to keep apples to apples here in my mind what we're talking about to accomplish something like that would be about a 1.2 to 1.3 million um I guess the town would absorb that fee if we saw that as an option the utilities would right absorb those fees okay um also the the EMS fund you were going to talk on that Scott are you you want to talk about it now I guess please what Linda is pointing out is is is correct uh if the if the council wish to do a non- avalor assessment uh that assessment could only be used to pay for fire cannot be used to pay for EMS we do have Lyon in the in the actual book the budget book we have the them segregated by EMS and fire so we do have divisional detail split out that way and we do it on purpose we've started that process early by segregating those two uh types of uh services so that when we start to do the non- avalor assessment study that's required we will have already started capturing those costs for the consultant we do have in the budget to start that process for the non- avalor assessment next year early a whole year early uh it is a very detailed study that will be required it will take a number of months but when we do have it complete it will be in the micro meaning uh Mr may we could look at your house and I could tell you exactly how much you're going to be charged so because it's based on parcel it's it's it's based on the property so we'll be able to see all of that and when do you anticipate that we're going to start the RFP process uh after the first of the year first of the um fiscal year um to the millage rate 2.38 94 how does that compare to other municipalities around us um the the 2.38 94 yes uh I would say you know it's it's very low uh compared to other jurisdictions uh and when we do go to to have our own fire that will increase uh because right now we're not taking into account what's being paid for out out of the mstu which is another 1.65 uh Mills on top of that and that makes sense right um You had pointed out that it was a good thing um that most of our um our uh balances are are based on the property values rather than the uh permits um that the the new permits are kind of flat in Jupiter could you explain how that's a really good thing for us it would take basically um some kind of Market drop of substantial Market drop when you look at the other jurisdictions and I'm you know every every jurisdiction is different uh on each Gardens I'll use them as an example because they're next door they're our nextd door neighbor they have a lot of room for expansion they they're allowing a lot of that new construction to develop so when you look at these increases in the values the the property appraiser will split them out between what is actual increases in the values and new construction and because Jupiter is we're built out essentially those values have remained pretty low less than 1% a year over the last few years uh the majority of our increase is based on value those those those homes hes maintaining that value or increasing in value over time that's a that's a good sign for Jupiter meaning that we're kind of insulated you remember the 2008 housing recession that occurred uh we weren't impervious to uh having it affect us but we didn't get affected as much as other jurisdictions because of those High values that that are there so and that we're very fortunate that I think has a lot to do with the town just it's Jupiter sure and the values here are held were nationally they were plummeting but we all noticed that who lived here property values pretty much held they didn't Retreat much um if we did have a you know there is a lot of there's a lot of concern out there maybe they're saying the sky is falling but there's a lot of people out there saying the real estate markets do for a bubble burst right now are we in a position to absorb a fairly robust burst of the bubble well dep on how robust you you know I wish I had that crystal ball uh but I will tell you listening to the property appraiser um and listening to some of the other uh pundits out there you know right now everything's steady especially here in Florida south Florida specifically uh we're maintaining uh those values uh it's leveling off it's not continuing to grow so we're seeing a leveling off of those values uh that we don't see uh reducing now if we had a large section of of condominium which they are seeing reductions in their values uh as indicated by the property appraiser or even some commercial buildings uh if you if you watch the commercial Market primarily in the larger jurisdictions of North uh Los Angeles bigger cities uh there there there's a lot of vacancies uh and that will affect uh the overall property values but uh here in Jupiter and and and and uh Florida specifically uh South Florida uh we're not seeing those vacancies which is a which is a good sign as well we have a lot of people coming in from other areas of the country uh that are coming in and backfilling uh these vacancies so that's a good sign um but one thing to remember when we're just talking about values that you remember there was a 2-year period when it was over 12% increase well we have save our homes and there's caps of 10% on some property commercial well when you look at at the your market value of your property you know your property value your market value is up here your taxable value will be down here there's a gap well every year that Gap will start to get smaller meaning by Statute we're allowed to start recapturing uh some of that uh market value every year so there's a portion of that 88.8% that's that recapture and that will be happening over a number of years so it's sounds like we're insulated for a couple reasons um it's the home values in Jupiter are unique it's a unique place but we're probably anecdotally it seems a smaller percentage of our value is from commercial properties just looking around we don't seem to have a large commercial property we're about 8020 uh we're we're predominantly residential in Jupiter how is that compared to other municip um well Gardens has a a larger section of of commercial when you look at them so it's fairly strong and fairly comfortable feeling then to to have it based on value than permits um the the reserves we have that is a quite a bit of reserve and um Bas value i' go great hoay a huge amount of Reserve but those are some valid points that were brought up earlier um maybe it's sure it's hard to say too much Reserve because it's my head says keep as much in the bank account as you can but if we could buy that millit rate down or if we could do other things with it sure that make sense and we we've done that in the past now some of this has been a very conscious decision uh of of reducing like the amount of people that we uh that we employ we had a number of vacancies and at the end of the year we have to budget for them and at the end of the year uh those vacancies aren't filled those those values whatever's left over can go back into the reserves uh so there was some of that that was consciously done uh to build up the reserves Co occurred um there was a lot of savings that occurred there the council's very conservative always has been very conservative since I've worked here um so maintain a very low millage rate and uh save when we can we believe in Pay go my experience has been with the council only borrow when you need to uh we've been we've been very good at being able to do that and if we can we try to pay off the debt quicker so that has been kind of the Mantra of of the town to maintain uh low Debt Service uh and also budget conservatively and if we can pay cash and so in order to be able to do that you have to build these reserves and we've always been able to do that whenever something comes along uh we've been able to build this building the PD building large uh commercial our large projects with no debt and we've done that since I've been here and even before best way to do it well we're we're very fortunate best way to do it we're very fortunate it keeps the amount of debt very low but it is uh the council wishing that to be done there's other jurisdictions they believe in a lot of debt you know and they just how they do business but the council I've always found since I've been here has been very conservative uh and the marching orders have been try to build it without debt if we can do that but we we have the ability uh if you remember during the the um presentation from the auditor we have $2.1 billion do worth of debt capacity if we wanted to go out and borrow we could do that but we choose not to excellent excellent that's a great thing to hear um one last point you you um we're pointing out the possible decision to go to um commercial paper yes sir and if we were to do that it's would it be like a standard like a a like a equity loan on a house where you only pay interest on what you've drawn that is correct so there would be a huge savings in doing it that that is correct and the the rates are comparable or or possibly even better we I I will tell you uh we we've been working with our financial advisor and the bank um that would issue the paper uh we received a very favorable rating uh for just a letter of credit that would be issued very low rate an all-in rate of 4.4 is what we're looking at currently that we be bringing to the council uh that's a very low competive rate Inc for that actually that's I think you said we're a AAA rating yes sir that's yes sir now next year we won't have any public debt so when somebody says what are we rated we really won't be rated technically but we've always been triple a no debt to rate I'm sorry no debt to rate right wow that's fantastic good job great job excellent thank you me um I won't go into too much um as I stated um with uh councelor Delaney and the mayor not being here I know this is more presentation for the public right um so I'm not going to go into comments too much or questions right now just I just wanted this to get out there to the public so that they could see it and then obviously come come to us with questions and things like that I would like to request that we maybe in our August meeting for the CIP and the CRA tack on additional time to kind of go through this um to give the mayor and councelor Delaney uh a chance to make their comments and stuff like that as well um so that way we're not you know keeping them out of the conversation because they always have very valuable things to add so I'm just going to leave it at that tonight absolutely because if you remember right councelor we also at the at the beginning of that meeting when we're talking about the CIP first thing we do is we talk about the operations budget and any kind of changes so definitely we will'll be teeing up for that okay all right so a few qu few questions uh first are so what are the sources of revenue for the general fund there's a number of of of sources of revenue uh one thing that we started doing last year uh we're kind of proud of and in fact Dawn works very hard on it we create a revenue manual uh that's part of the budgetary package uh it's out on the uh Jupiter website or the finance website uh for people to look at but for the general fund itself uh the primary uh funding source is avalum dollars accounts for about uh 42% of the overall budget uh and I say this I've said this a number of times when you start looking at the avalum dollars that goes into the uh general fund operating uh those funds are primarily there to pay for the police department police department uh our our avalor dollars this year I believe is $32 million close to $33 million uh the the police department budget is just over $30 million so that's Public Safety abalum it's Public Safety that's that's primarily the way that we've we've we look at it here the rest of the revenue streams the larger is sales tax state shared Revenue interest earning we talked about that this year uh but there's a number of revenue streams some of them restricted uh we talk about that in the uh Revenue manual on how they're to be used uh but another one is franchise fees that we receive from uh like Florida Power and Light uh we get uh utility tax revenue from Florida Power and Light um also uh we have allocations from the Enterprise fund uh for water storm water the building fund that's all for administratively administering those funds so you see that in there so there's a whole host of different revenue streams to help fund uh all the activity that happens in the town thank you for that and uh um the water fund just because we got a question I make want to make sure we discuss that but um the water funds storm water funds so those um are different from the general fund can you explain their differences and sources of revenue sure the the water Enterprise fund I'll just start with the water Enterprise fund it it it is a business Enterprise it has to stand on its own uh it it could not and should not uh utilize tax dollars to prop itself up it has to maintain within itself hence why we have we're requesting a 3% increase in the water rate we have a water master plan uh that we have set aside so much money each year to go into an RNR fund to help pay for future plant improvements water plan improvements that in 2030 this is part of our plan that we will have to do a debt issuance uh to pay for improvements at the plant and what we're hoping to do by the time we get there is pay half of that issuance in cash so that's part of that uh increase that you're seeing there along with paying for the operating expenses of the business Enterprise but it has to stand alone it cannot use tax dollars to operate that goes for the storm water fund along with the building fund wonderful um if we could go could we go quickly to page 10 on uh general fund Reven and this talks to the reserves um uh and the sources of revenue again so I see under interest here it's quite a gap it goes from 3 million to some 2 3.2 million actual 22 2022 to 2023 adopted drops to 973 under a million then goes up again to 3.9 so interest has um grown to an extraordinary degree and that's excellent that we're seeing an increase of 2.9 Million but but adopted for 23 and 24 that seems quite low to me it is okay can you speak to just that difference that's we we've we've deployed a different methodology uh going forward we started this at the end of last year uh and diversifying our cash uh you don't want it sitting in one place so we've done diversification uh into different mutual funds uh which we have seen the benefits to that now going forward uh we should should have probably in 20 uh 24 the current year we're in probably should have budgeted more but we were waiting to see what would occur with the with our strategy that we were invoking with the mutual funds uh and we have definitely benefited from that uh going forward so we wanted to appropr appropriately budget and we were continuing to look at those different strategies and meet with our investment advisors as well that is truly incredible to me especially looking at the actuals for 2122 of $176,000 so incredible thank you we we we've definitely benefited uh from that uh uh those different strategies that we've been employing uh and we do want to celebrate that because uh like uh we just heard that other jurisdictions are also taking advantage of it you want to take advantage of it right now uh as the feds have these rates that are uh High because we do anticipate over the next 18 to 20 months that they're going to start reducing those rates MH okay and then at the bottom of the unassigned fund balance summary says note 20042 2005 Hurricane costs were in excess of $11 million so my understand was the town you know had a lot on its hand it's in 2004 2005 what would the 11 million or correct me if I'm wrong but I I imagine the 11 million in today's dollars being something like over 17 A5 million dollar is that correct that is correct okay and that and just to remind everybody that was two separate storms during that time period as well we're expecting a pretty interesting storm season I hope that things go well was it was it two storms or three Francis Jean and then Wilma I only heard Francis and Jean there may have been wi5 yeah I think that was a lot smaller though yeah yeah yeah oh yeah but there were two right in a row that we got hit with that time period yeah could you move the slides to that just as we're going along Advance SL the slide we're on slide 10 slide 10 thank you sorry it took a number of years uh but yes we we recouped quite a bit of it and just one last question can you uh for the benefit of the public explain what trim is it says on July 16th the council will meet to set trim the it's called Truth and millage uh basically what that is is that's when the Town Council sets the millage rate uh that it intends to adopt going forward now once that rate is set and we report it to the property appraiser uh you can't go up you something in September you decide hey we want to raise the millage can't do it once you set it to trim it goes out it gets sent to the uh Property Owners they they get notified of what the intent is of the council uh to set that millage at uh along with their estimated tax bill uh they'll receive that in the mail uh but at the same time uh you can go down on the millage and that's happened uh in in in the past but you can't go up once you set that millage rate okay thank you uh moving on to discussion any discussion well one way to frame it might just be the last slide um if we go to slide 19 policy guidance items to consider I say that because we've all met individually with staff in our one-on ones but this is kind of our first time getting to get together while missing our colleagues we are going to have another meeting um I completely agree with that I think we need to do that for the benefit of our colleagues but also if there's if we have any initial thoughts sometimes it helps to just have discussion because as we work on this over the summer you know we're going to it's essentially another point of iteration and so it can benefit this Council to iterate over time so if there are thoughts or or anything you have on these policy items that's a good point because we can't talk to each other except for right here ex exactly I personally like the idea of a um premium holiday for employees um maybe skip December's premium give everybody a little break right at the beginning of the Christmas holiday or at the end of the year both of those kind of coincide so a premium holiday for employees I think would be a great idea I'm I'm receptive to that so just follow up on that real quick Scott premium holiday were you talking about doing something like that once we reach the $10 million Mark or is that something that we we we could do that going into next year uh we we we're most likely going to meet the 10 million so if the council wish to do something in December uh we could do that and we can show that reduction and how that would affect the fund balance okay and that's from the insurance fund correct okay um sorry I just wanted to clarify on that so if you had other things that is you have anything else anything else y okay oh okay um can you just between now and the next time we meet just show what a difference in if a instead of a 5% increase for the employees is a 6% sure just I'd like to see what that is just I'm always you know in the business of rewarding our employees and I know they've done a lot this past year and a few of them have gone above and beyond as we saw with the merit awards with stuff like that so I'd like to see you know what that difference would be if it's you know something that we can accomplish just to I'm always in the business of rewarding you know hard work [Music] so that's all that's all I wanted to see not a problem okay um I I wanted to share a little bit of history on the budget uh and a couple of comments on these items uh speaking to the questions just with reserves um and The Reserve balance you know I think uh the point I wanted to make with the storm is just that storm costs are going up and it's not just the inflation that we're feeling locally we know our local level of inflation is higher than our national level of inflation um but also Supply supply chain issues especially around storm so that could potentially be a very expensive cleanup and you had said we wouldn't be reimbursed for years so it is very important to maintain that level of Reserve um another thing that's good about it is um you know I think if you draw on the savings accounts that there's very little balance you have fewer options available to you I know the town is looking at the recreation master plan and we just had a public forum for that that will lead into a series of recommendations that will be expensive um it is a holistic look at the town and Recreation and it will require commitments eventually as public safety and other things do so I think when we have reserves we have more options available to us more freedom to look more comprehensively at the town uh we see that with our fire we were able to respond in part because um respond to you know what what we have before us I we would have been backed into a corner with the exception of we had the freedom to make the change um to save our residents you know quite a few tax dollars over time and and part of that also is you know when I look at I looked at our tax rate our millage rate I looked at all of the other municipalities there was a point where I was obsessed with benchmarking and if you look at the property appraisers list as she goes through it you really have to look at the whole picture all taxes and fees all taxes and fees across the board because we do pay you know attack to the county we pay for the library some don't have a library we do I love it and we pay for it to another entity so when you add them all up the town is really quite low and another municipality that does that is Palm Beach so their financial reports um include the comparison across all taxes and fees um uh I they they will have it in their next report so which is available or I can try to find it and share it with councel through staff yeah yep um so you know that's one way to look at it is just holistically all taxes and fees the mstu for fire is separate it's not in the millage rate it will be eliminated but some millage increase will replace it overall taxes will decrease and we'll be able to show that because we've separated everything out um another thing is just the history uh for newer members on water so we actually did not index our rates for a number of years which is incredible to me for an Enterprise fund um a b a business Enterprise fund that has to stand on its own and so when inflation took off we were kind of caught on a back foot and we did have um we do have a consultant come in we do a water master plan every five years and it's kind of verified um we meet to discuss it and at the time we decided we needed to continue indexing so the 3% is actually below the local index is below the CPI so we're raising it less than the costs are are increasing so we're kind of eating some of it so I just wanted to make that point um because it is an Enterprise fund and not related to avalum or or that kind of thing um on policy guidance uh I agree I think a flat millage makes we did lower it last year um by 3% is that right okay um and we have a tradition of avalum tax distribution of 8515 which I I love um I know in tough times it had been proposed 9010 but I think given our capital projects we want to make sure we continue to invest in them and and that's appropriate um agree with health insurance um and agree with HSA on the 5% I mean I think I'm I'm pretty flexible this year it's a pretty standard year as you said with the exception of you know fire rescue which you had discussed um I would say that we probably need to keep the utility rate index as we were catching up on indexing going forward and we are seeing High inflation locally um that there's no way to meet and I worry about the compounding effects of that over time if we fall behind we've actually looked at that okay in fact we we tapped into our Ray consultant recently uh to go back that that helped us with the master plan uh we make sure our assumptions are holding true uh and he's felt very comfortable with the 3% as well okay to kind of validate what staff's already seeing uh and he did that as well we worked with the Amanda and and and the uh assistant utility director as well looking at the capital projects so uh we feel very comfortable with the 3% rate index but our millage rate will kind of lower because it is millage with debt obligation and you're saying that um so what is the paying off Our obligation early or what what were you saying about our debt obligation the general obligation Bond yes and its effect on our millage rate uh well right now you pay a separate millage rate for Debt Service uh is a general o obligation Bond uh it's been in place uh for the Last 5 Years next year will be the last year uh that the citizens have to pay now we've had a Debt Service fund as long as I've worked here and it goes back a years uh with the open space uh that we've had uh and it's every year it accumulates a little bit more uh uh reserves small amount but over time it is accumulated reserves uh we want to use that debt Serv reserves on that last year to pay off or pay down uh that last amount uh to give that c the citizens A reduced rate on their uh Debt Service millage okay thank you um and one last thing I want to mention and I agree we've we've worked really hard to take care of our employees um over the last few years especially with how inflation has hit um all of us uh but I do want to make sure that we're looking also at um you know our executive staff and our town manager so he did not receive the inflation subsidy that staff received in the past he's actually been compensated less as a percentage of um you know of of what he's paid and and these bonuses and things like that um so now that his period of performance is done I do want to look at something because we've asked a lot of him the past two years and we're really grateful or you know I'm very grateful for um all that he's put into his efforts um some of them largely under a microscope and I just want to make sure that we're appreciating all of our staff um and so those are my comments for now there anything else for this Workshop about the the salaries and and if if you have interest at 6% say whatever it is and your pay stays the same it's as though you got a pay cut right but basically we're giv them a pay cut not him them there's collectively people were talking about that have done a great job and we're giving them a pay cut with an incredible year of performance so I would like to address that deficiency as well Y and we can come up when we get our other members we can come up with something creative to do that M I would like to just say one last final word though about the um the two storm water the water rate and storm water now that it's clarified that those are Standalone we really can't use funds from other sources to pay those so the the 3% and the 7% just provide a little cushion some solvency for those two departments in case of something happens but that makes more sense that those rates would be required just to keep us a cushion we do have a giant pile over here but we can't use that for this Standalone service so that makes sense I'm more comfortable with that now okay the time is 7:01 and this meeting is adjourned you e for