##VIDEO ID:B36wXbFJ2os## e Bruce I believe Bruce said he wasn't feeling well Bruce oh Bruce isn't oh I didn't realize is he coming tomorrow or is he um I don't know I'll follow with him there has been a bit of covid going around yeah no it's monkey box [Music] now and something else oh my gosh I saw Tik Tok the other guy the guy had a mask on he like yeah I had  M oh my God amazing we're live whenever you're ready to call the meeting to okay um this is the continuation of our fact from last week and I don't know the date August whatever last week um so if we want we can stand for the pledge got a oh what time uh it is 602 bring the Mee to order the flag of the United States of America to The Republic stands indivisible andice call the RO at this time I'll call the role Committee Member Manish Su yes Committee Member Tracy roitz yes Committee Member Frederick who Committee Member Bruce Cunningham is absent uh chair Comm committee chair Cassie sui here Jeff Jeffrey Kur project coordinator still here superintendent Craig laow should be on his way uh no Craig is not going to come today because he came last week and we went over the Public Works uh budget okay so neither he or um or Richard will be here Richard is attending a conference um down south both of them will be available at the Joint meeting um tomorrow Al righty and Sammy Brown town clerk assistant is present and Chris Wallace is also present Madame chair we have a quum you may proceed okay um I'd like to get a motion to approve the agenda continuation tonight motion to approve the agenda for Monday motion all in favor I all opposed um okay before we start I'd like to I guess I need to make a motion or ask the the rest of the committee since we are supposed to be here tomorrow I'd like to cap this meeting at two hours max so we don't go till 10 um third keep keep long winded answers if we can kind of just stick to the what we're doing um I'd like to make to make a motion maybe to cap it two hours and then since we're going to be here tomorrow maybe not much I don't see a lot happening in an hour and since the entire meeting tomorrow is going to be budget perhaps we can bring up during the meeting to include the fact in the discussion I don't know how that works can we do that or do I make first of all do I make a motion to cap the meeting at two two hours I you don't have to make a a motion um I think everybody's in approval of that and when we get to the two-hour Mark we'll remind you of what you had suggested okay tomorrow do I need to make a motion um the consensus from from the fact committee tomorrow we have an hour at 5:00 with the council um I don't know about anybody up here if but they're having a whole meeting after the five o'clock hour that's going to be to budget what is your consensus of maybe including fa in on that as well you can you can request um anything you could request anything of the the council if you want to make it a formal um motion of the fat committee that would be fine remembering that the uh Council um also has limited time and they need to concentrate on getting things done and so I think everybody it is a public meeting everybody would be welcome to to stay absolutely have that right the thought process is um they're probably anticipating just amongst themselves a two to a three hour meeting so right and it does it doesn't get shorter with more people bringing it out the other I just I just I'm making that point so nobody gets offended if they say we've got to do our thing it tomorrow at 5 and see where they yes and and and if you want to take if you want to have a motion a second and a vote on that we will relay to them um that there was a request from the entirety of the fact okay what do you think do you guys want to make do we want to take a motion all in favor to request the council that we could be included if we don't get stuff done sure I need a motion I'm going to make a motion okay a motion to have the towns to include to include the fact if we don't get a lot done in that first hour to request the council if they could consider it if they would consider allowing us at the same time I I would recommend that we kind of uh Focus on the key things that we want to pass on to them so we get that done in the a lot of time and not encroach on their time because their their time is CR well if we don't come up with a budget then they're not going to okay do we want to request them to ask them tomorrow that's the motion on the floor do we have a second to that yeah second okay all in favor okay could say no moot right yeah okay so let's dive into where we're at um okay where where where we are where we are at is at your last meeting you reviewed the CIP um that's the capital Improvement plan there was um consensus in favor of the projects um you did not dis on the expense side you did not discuss um the revenue everything was subject to to revenue you thought it was a good cap Capital Improvement plan um but uh um you were indicating that that was a lower priority from a revenue standpoint um with respect to you also went through the Public Works budget in detail um uh there was a motion um that was moved and passed unanimously as I recall um Mr who was absent at that point in time because he had to deal with his uh emergency on the farm and um your motion was supportive once again on all the expense side of the um Public Works budget you had gone through that in detail and were supportive of the expenditures that were outlined therein um so what we we're going to focus on first today was the uh general fund um and go over that uh and once again probably go over the expenses um and take any questions that you have um and then we can talk about the revenues once you've gotten all those three uh expense side budgets in uh in place um can I bring one thing up as I think you left out I I I believe from the last meeting and the the consensus was um we did we agreed with the budgeting and what the projects however we were not in agreement with any type of raising taxes on the residents to accomplish that so if it can't be accomplished then it can't be done so I think in in my understanding that was left out and we were all in agreement with that so I need that needs to be included that was very that was a point that everybody agreed on I I don't think everybody uh agreed on that my recollection was explicitly um Mr Cunningham uh was supportive of increasing the revenues in order to fund the the budget he W the thing that he was um thought if there were going to be Cuts there would be um cuts to the CIP first but what I would suggest is let's if you want to go through revenues first and talk about revenues we can do that um there is right now what you have proposed before you on the revenue side is a $250 um assessment uh Road and drainage assessment a $450 um Solid Waste assessment um and three Mills um is the way this budget has been put together that what we have demonstrated um to you through this is that uh there is a need if you're going to fund the budget at the level that is proposed for $375,000 um and you can raise well plus the the 450 the I'm sorry the extra money on the um garbage side um so the way that you can get that $375,000 um is as we proposed $50 increase in the assessment if you don't want to increase the assessment at all 65 um increase in the millage rate will raise uh the same amount of Revenue the if you do not want to raise the millage or the assessment the funding source that is available in this budget is to reduce the um the reserves in the general fund down to uh the 25 or 26% level as we've indicated the the the um the amount of money that we're projecting in the reserves is about 36 to 37% in the general fund um and so if you took an addition if you took 10% from those reserves that's a way that you can get another $375,000 and you would not increase millage or the assessment um on uh Road and drainage you still have uh the $50 increase that we are proposing on uh the solid waste uh to deal with to fund this budget without doing any sort of increase um you're in a situation in which or the town's in a situation in which they would have to lower reserves somewhere below the 25% um level that is our minimum recommended uh level um or um you have to to seek uh or give direction on recommended Cuts in the the programs so that's the overall framework of where we are at um and so I we can approach it however the the committee wants to um uh but that's the that's the situation if you're going to a a zero increase um on anything um then would you recommend uh the the use of all um general fund Reserve um revenues down to the 25% level is that something this board would um recommend okay can I go ahead all right have you focused on Revenue P post is that is that's what we're start starting with well I think that's that's probably a better framework because if there if there truly is no additional monies that you're talking about what pages are we on I need right now I'm on page 22 of the uh previous budget which is the line [Music] item uh the beginning of the line item budget in your package from last week well if you have that from last week yeah get himed something today that was explaining why raises in the town are needed for employees and I don't disagree with raises I think to keep people happy it's very important but I don't feel that with our economic situation that we're in that we need to put the burden on our town residents period we need to figure out with this budget what we can do to cut back other places and not have this Harbor on our town on on the people that live here they want money they want increases 10% 5% 4% whatever it is but what about the people that live in this town the economic hardships are just not for the people that work here they're the people that live here and work here in our town so I'm against raising any taxes and I don't know if we as a council or as a committee figure out or if we have to figure out where to cut go ahead Manish okay good good good opening so let let me first give you let me give you a little bit of a bigger picture analysis first so I think in 2025 General funds which is our main money-making fund we are making $537,000 and change more than the last year so people are going to pay taxes anyways higher taxes because property values have increased by 133% and Palm Beach County as an example as I mentioned last time decreased their millage rate from 4.7 uh to 4.5 or 4.7% decrease because they did not want the County residents to have too much of a tax increase now what we are saying is even if we keep our existing millit rate uh we are generating additional half a million dollar so that's Point number one point number two is that Solid Waste we we were collecting lesser fee and we will go into why we did that but our residents have been paying less and we have been paying this vendor more so the general fund has been subsidizing the solid Bas so we'll talk about this where is the opportunity but I do agree that we need to as a responsible budget people are doing very poorly in the town and I have to say that speaking of the speaking with the neighbors and residents acin season cost of food cost of animal food everything is up and they don't have increase in income in fact people are spending Less on their horses and so forth so I think we are seeing decrease in AGR tourism renue as well and I can speak that from my personal experience if we compare this year to the last year so I I would be surprised to say if anybody comes here and says I am making much more money than the last year I would say tell them tell us something that we don't know so the point is we're making half a million dollar more and the town has proposed that increase the acreage rate which will hit our senior citizens veterans people who cannot afford everybody based on the size of their land it will generate additional $400,000 so all in all um what I'm saying is we have five half a million dollar change already there to work with our additional growing needs and I think one of the thing that I would say on the general fund side is that um there is increase in salaries and I do agree that we have to retain the talent but I'm more focused on the productivity part of it if they are doing more work with less and they are saving Town cost or they're bringing revenue from someone else somewhere else we are all for I am all for increases I think one point that I would like the town staff management to consider is there are other avenues of increasing revenue for example a lot of increase in the general fund salary budget is because there are three people in the building department as I noticed in the new proposed budget there is a um there is a building official building permit technician I'm looking at the big budget file that was shared pay plan that was shared over the weekend so if we hiring those three guys we we are increasing some Code Compliance people then we need to make sure that the fees that we collect permit fees and other fees so if I am increasing my house size or if I'm building a new building I am making money from additional sales I am happy to pay extra to the town right so I think the question is if you are providing added services so that Engineers can go and inspect new buildings being constructed they can go and inspect new RVs being put in the fields they can inspect you know new commercial projects being added then those guys who are using such Services have to pay more to make sure that not only the salaries of these engineers and code enforcement Etc are paid and and accounted for but also the overhead cost the cost of the office software vehicles and all that extra benefits everything and the management time that goes in managing those people we make enough Revenue so my suggestion on the revenue side is you have half a million coming from increasing the property values anyways find ways to increase revenue and make sure you're Val you're accounting for these fees and permits and so forth get revenue from that side get revenue from commercial with all the activity on Southern and Boulevard and do not indiscriminately increase taxes on everyone we don't need the last thing you want to do is increase Road and drainage fund tax which is going to hit everyone no matter you are homestead or veteran or senior citizen do not do that if at all you should look at just the increase in the fees and permits and commercial or maybe millage if very much needed so I definitely do not Advocate digging into the reserves actually the chart that you provided today on the reserves it shows that our reserves are as low as has been in 2022 2021 levels so it's not like we are flush with the money we are just about right in the money in fact we should actually build our reserves if we could so please do not dip into the reserves there's that that shouldn't even be on the agenda anymore I also want to make a point I submitted an analysis in the last meeting where I showed there was a I I wasn't trying to show the budget Gap that was not the point I was showing how much revenue are we producing and how much we are spending and where the money is coming from so basically our revenues are still 8.4 million and our expenses are still $8.9 million and yes we are making up the shortfall 528,000 by pulling in backup money from the last year 420,000 from the last year and some other reserves and fun but the point remains we are still spending half a million more in 2025 just looking at 2025 revenue and 2025 expenses that fact is unchanged whether it is funding from the previous year or fund reserves that's secondary to the whole thing so all in all I would say no tax increase especially definitely not Road and drainage uh assessment increase uh solid based maybe yes because we have been subsidizing that but maybe this RV thing that we are doing maybe we want to make it mandatory that those Ries pay for some uh trash removal which is their you know they make 2,500 a month maybe they should pay something towards solid waste so we don't have to increase our rate of from 450 for $50 increase we don't have to do it if we can recover it from commercial and so forth and focus on the fee and permits and Commercial so I agree no increase on the residents other than 133% automatic increase thank you if I could if I could if I could just address a couple things because I don't want anybody to be misled um first of all the amount of money that is increased because of the increase in property tax values is two $225,000 overall your number is absolutely correct but we don't we aren't getting another half million dollar from property tax revenues we're getting $225,000 the majority of that money is not coming from folks who have been here on homesteaded property or been here on um property that has an agricultural classification it's coming from new commercial commercial transfers in um ownership on the residential side um because you've got the homestead exemption and the agricultural classifications that artificially holds down um the tax values on or the taxable values on those properties compared to what their market value is um so that increase is being paid for the most part by uh new construction and um new folks coming into to town uh either on the commercial side or on the residential side with respect to the building department um if you look once again on um page uh 22 I think it is uh make sure I got the right I've got so many of these open so yes that was the on page 22 the revenue side um the building department is Ed to pay for itself there are $377,000 um within the building department allocated uh including the new person that is budgeted there um but when you look at the revenues between the building permits and the local uh business tax you have $430,000 of Revenue what's proposed is that um 300 $77,000 plus the one of the part-time code enforcement um folks who is basically assigned to building to track down um expired permits and also btrs um be funded through that source so that building um is in a break even position building is allowed to be in a break even position it cannot you are not allowed to have your building department um sit out there and greatly exceed the amount of expenses that are related to the building department otherwise you're in a position of potentially having to refund Monies to the customers so what you want to do with your building department and what is being done is the building department pays for itself um and and I agree with you that when you're looking at the analysis uh you say Okay building department does it pay for itself if it pays for itself let's take them off the table not worry about the expense side or the revenue side at this moment because you cannot generate a great deal of excess Revenue um in a building department to fund other things it's against the law um so just with those two caveats in in mind you do have $225,000 in new Revenue um but and you are proposing $130,000 in new permit fees that's the bulk of uh your increase in in revenues um the other place that you see the increase in in revenues um are on the charges for services and um there's a slight uptick budgeted for cost recovery um and there are planning and zoning fees of $55,000 that's a little bit misleading in that um we're putting that into uh a new place it used to be accounted for um in the licenses and permits section um where you had other permits of $60,000 what we did was we broke down um those permits into into other categories um so may I may I inject since you commented let me just I agree with what analysis but let me clarify the statement here I'm saying is whether due to increase in property Valu or people selling homes all those things good things lot of people will be protected from such increase but all in all general fund is producing almost half a million dollar than the last year the problem is of expenses in the general fund meaning this administration of the town have increased by 623,000 so which means uh sorry but it it has yeah that the the deficit the change in the increase in the expenses so Revenue increased by 537 expenses compared to the last year increased by 623,000 so the expenses have risen at a faster paves building people were there in the last year too so the point we are making is at least I'm making is we have enough Revenue coming in and 500,000 extra and maybe with solid waste we can find some way to increase from other extra people who are going to use such Services can we live the question I think we are posing is can we look at the cost and give reasonable increases I agree but can be more effic be more efficient so we don't have to increase taxes to on the road and drainage uh to raise additional 400k that's the key question we stop here yeah what I was actually gonna suggest is let's let's go through this um on the expense side and we can talk about um things so Jeff I think there have more comments in the Avenue site everybody has to okay all right we can yeah FR do you goad corre me if I'm wrong uh with the solid way with the solid solid wayte they they they charge you a flat fee you we have a we have a contra we have a contractual fee um it went up about it's going to go up about 3% um in the next year and that's the basic difference between this year's budget versus last year's budget as as Mr Su pointed out in past years the uh general fund has supplemented the amount of money um in that Solid Waste fund and so the the the users were in a sense artificially um the price was kept artificially down because of that right and uh me being a new Resident I I I can firsthand comment that you know my first couple of months here I didn't I I I wasn't able to use the solid waste because I had a neighbor that was kind of off his rocker and uh would either steal the trash can or wouldn't allow me to put it out you know that's a whole different story but you know being a a a landowner uh I Know M he he he he keeps saying that the the the folks with the RVs or trailers like like that's a separate trash thing you know when we put trash cans out it's it's all comes from the one property so you know raising it 50 bucks or whatever it's it's I think it's more than reasonable and here here's the reason why I know a lot of people generate a lot of trash and and the the the services are collected twice weekly and a on um for me it's a Tuesday and a Friday and I I I can go through and clean like crazy man and I I'll be you know hard pressed to f one one trash can but but yeah I do know that there's folks that you drive along and the trash can is overflowing and they put more than one trash cans out and so forth so you know I I wouldn't see a problem with with uh you know uh add that $50 fee because uh we definitely get our money is worth out of that part there and and as far as the uh you recommended before you know uh dipping into the general fund only thing I would have to say Obviously yeah I I I I don't I don't need any taxes I mean I every time I turn around there's a tax you know buy something get something you know you're G to pay a tax so if we did have to go go that route uh you know I I would not go down to the 25% you know take a small percentage and and and try to add up from somewhere else but the the the one thing we don't want to do is to get oursel back in a a bind by reducing our reserves because we're still we're still in the you know uh fingers crossed toes crossed uh we still got that uh hurricane program we got to go through and that can just wreck the whole [Music] program okay um so I to have two comments um I do agree with Tracy I agree with everybody up here we are not in favor if you can accomplish what you can accomplish without raising the taxes or the assessments that would be great um I do think there needs to be some type of really constructive conversation on cuts on things that need to be cut and we need to roll up our sleeves there are a lot of areas that could be cut and changed I contacted several government organizations and businesses and talk to their CFOs and they were flabbergasted at a 5% Cola over one year most of them spread it over a couple years um so that was the General consensus so I don't know is the 5% Cola for just one year or is it spread over like two or three years it's it's this year it it's because I was told by several that I talked to that they either got a 3% this year and then they either did a one and a half and a one and a half or they did a one and a half one and a half there's a there's a study I mean I know that I know the sheriff's office is proposed at 6.8% most most of most of Palm Beach county is between the county offices are between six and 8% um well let me let me just finish because I would cor I mean but I just I don't understand how you can be flabbergasted if you're working for government and understanding government that that's okay well us yeah I think a 5% is is a lot especially for the town that we have uh I look at this pie chart 49% salaries and related we have exorbitantly gone on up I know we have a lot of projects and we're doing and there's a lot of areas that we need to cut and I think we can cut a lot and we can constructively cut a lot and still continue to function um looking at some of the projects um there might be a that we need to look at deferring some of the projects and we talked about road paving one of them and I know Council touched on it perhaps you know one of the areas that could constructively be talked about is finishing up like the level one main roads that everybody does and then either proposing I know it was thrown out there by Council different proposals of 50/50 if the residents want the um the paving done this year or they would have to wait and it would be deferred when we were a little bit more flush with cash that would be another option um I'm concerned about some of the extra personnel and the cost analysis which we've asked for you know I I'd like to see what is that we're generating in the BTR program as compared to what we're out laying in it you know as in what is the Texs make and as compared to what we're bringing in um and some of these other departments um I know that another area possibly could cut would be um maybe a lot of the things we have which were full-time employees benefits add a lot onto that I'm very concerned about this increase in a lot and I know it's a cost of living and it's across the board but like Tracy said and my other people on the board said it's not just in this town it's it's everywhere it's all of us it affects everybody so these are constructive conversations that aren't going to get accomplished in an hour and doing a generality which is what we're telling you we're just touching on generalities as for the solid waste um I know we talked about doing a commercial district and we couldn't do it one of the conversations I had with several CFOs and they agreed exactly um I was on the right path if we provide some type of service and we provide trash pickup could we not look into increasing the trash pickup for these commercial businesses to offset what we're funding solid waste and we wouldn't have to um increase it it's just a thought I'll ask okay hold that for a second hold that because I get it out that was just an Avenue I know we had talked about doing some type of things and it was explained to me that if we provide a service we can actually do a commercial District or something perhaps we can do it in regards to solid waste and Commercial pay a little bit more if we have to do any type of increase I I understand maybe uh Solid Waste would be okay but I'm really really opposed to any type of um taxes or assessment in the environment in the economic environment that we have right now there are a lot of areas we can cut but we all have to sit down and go through it line by line we can't just do the generalities I have a lot of areas that could be cut I would I would love to go through the specifics right now so those are my suggestions and I think it's it's in line with what we' got we are not proposing anything do we like these um projects absolutely we want to get it all but I there's areas that I see that we can expend and U some waste I mean um just driving around town do we really need three people right now mowing a lawn mowing the banks perhaps not maybe they could look into right um the other thing is when you when you talk about these employees and that I still don't know and I maybe I'm overlooking it the exact number I see 22 different positions in public works but we only have 11 employees there's there's 12.4 12.4 people yes there's so I'd like to see like and so that would be in a more um what is it the more um micro level be yeah of looking at all the budget but definitely definitely there is areas that we can cut and make up without burdening our residents go go ahead with the the commercial answer there's got to be a way we can do it and if we if we're providing and way it was explained to me and just me if I'm wrong the first thing I'd like you to do is just talk to the uh speak to the issue of commercial garbage collection sure thank you well currently the city does what what you suggest when it comes to commercial garbage so unlike residential service which is a fixed rate twice twice a week you get it picked up plus the bulk rate whenever that happens Commercial Services uh are done under a franchise and you each business contracts with the huler for the level of service that they want and there's a franchise fee on the commercial and the franchise fee was what was going towards subsidizing the residential rate in Prior years so the money that was going into the solid waste fund to subsidize that garbage service was actually coming from uh a tax if you will a franchise fee on the commercial service commercial commercial services are different from one business to the next you might you know a restaurant's going to have more frequent service than say a clothing shop because they have food waste and stuff so you're not gonna let that sit out there for three days or four days you know you may have a lot with a compactor like Publix is gonna you know pay for a compact or and a rolloff service because they have so much you know garbage that they need to have have hauled away so your commercial rates are set independently of your residential rates residential rates I would to suggest you they're not really fixed I mean they are are but they're really kind of a per container charge so you have a number of Residential Properties that have asked for more than one garbage can so they pay twice the assessment for uh you know because they have twice the service so you try to be fair in that regard if someone has a higher level of service they and some Residential Properties May uh you know that's that's how it works here in the town and in most places so uh you know the council wanted to move away from subsidizing the residential rate so that money stayed in the general fund and I think you probably want to do that because people need to know what their cost of Solid Waste Services really are and they're pretty expensive and it's not going to get any cheaper in the in the long run so I don't know what to tell you about Solid Waste other than I think you're doing it right currently I think it's they're doing what you suggest they do it may not be totally transparent to you but it does happen that way here in the town and so if you look at on your Revenue side um there is a solid waste franchise um that generates 21,00 towards the general fund um and that's a about Midway down on that first page it's a line item that ends 32370 Solid Waste franchise um and if I could point out just so no one's confused on that that's the franchise fee itself we do not Bill and collect for the co for commercial Solid Waste that's between the holler and the commercial business unlike the residential service where we Levy an assessment collected on behalf of you know the town but we pay most of that money gets paid back to the to the Haller so you don't see any Revenue stream coming in for the commercial Solid Waste activity because that's built directly by the huler to the each business based upon their level of service and then the huler give huler sends us the franchise Fe okay so you get a cut Miss is asking is can we increase that franchise fee can can we increase that based on the fact that it's like my understanding like I said is if we if we provide a service in a district we can have the commercial District so could we not have a commercial District I think that's a different question we provide a service right well I think you're asking a different question than the solid waste for commercial because you actually are providing a different level of service there I think what you're you're getting at is what you discussed a some extent last meeting which was can you have like a special taxing district where you provide a different level of service for whatever and that's allowed but I just don't know how you do that here I mean you're not really providing any any level of service different to the commercial i' I'd also point out and you know we'll give you some more information on this we started to work on it none of this really surprises me but your commercial you know you need more commercial commercial is going to hold down your taxes because per acre I I was I would suggest to you my initial numbers show that you're paying you know the 10 times per acre is the revenue you generate from commercial compared to Residential Services it it generates a lot more Revenue than you might think but you don't have that much commercial relative to your total tax base currently so commercial is you know picking up quite a bit of the the slack to the extent you have commercial and I suspect over the next few years you'll have more commercial because you have you know quite a bit of vacant land still for commercial and Industrial uses um but you know I think once you see those numbers you'll probably get a better handle on what the commercial versus agricultural versus residential is paying versus the services they get so I I don't know being familiar with how a special taxing district would work still under the 10 mil cap that Florida's Constitution requires I don't know I don't know what you'd be doing different in that District that uh would you know where you would use that money because you're gonna have to turn turn around and use that money in that District if you follow me so let's say you raise a dollar you have to turn around and spend a dollar and I don't know where that get really at the end of the day okay I mean might a lot of times too they're considering commercial if you have a dumpster on your property that is a Comm that's part of that Branch a lot of people that have e businesses horses we have dumpsters I don't put like the trash out so I don't get that collected so my everything on my property goes into the dumpster so you guys wanting to tax commercial but really is that commercial residential way small that's a good question yes so then the second thing is you were talking about RVs RVs are producing most of the RVs in this town are for the equestrians that that that come here their Grooms their help their stabing whatever are using that they have dumpsters on their properties so that they're not generating extra ways for the town to collect because it's going into that dumpster that is now paying that franchise fee something else that we really need to to really pay attention to is everybody hates the word Wellington that hores show goes away that's going to affect the town of LTI grows between property values people coming Agri tourism everything all that goes away what's going to be left our property bories are going to go down people aren't going to come here they're not going to Rin stalls they're not going to come and shop at the at all the ad places so those are big things that are going to affect us if something happens over there they want more development more development more development it's kind of scary can I add quick question thank you uh the taxable value of our Collective f is about 605 million dollar as per this analysis what percent of the taxable value are commercial of the $605 million well I'm GNA lump commercial in with industrial because I think people think yeah I think people think of those similarly right so you're about 40% residential 45% residential you're about 40 1% Agricultural and the rest of that is going to be made up of the commercial industrial as far as taxable value which will be what not even so out of the $65 million taxable value commercial value is just about 10% yeah it's I'm going from recollection here but that's about right yes so if we increase the millage rate hypothetically from the current rate to whatever rate the 90% of that load Falls onto other than commercial or other than that's right industrial that's right everyone gets tax at the same rate so okay let me ask you another question out of that 90% that is residential well residential an EG an EG an EG yes what percent is people who are homestead I'm just trying to understand what percent of residents are going to take the Brun of I'm going to go with most of it this actually became a problem today because the tax role we have does not have to save our homes homestead exemption and it only has the you know $50,000 exemptions the save our homes is obviously the much bigger exemption for most people so I downloaded from the property appraiser early this afternoon they don't have it just for you they have it up for all 700,000 Parcels in Palm Beach County so I was able to strip off just the lock Ane grow that's as far as I got though because it just a huge F you'll present that data hopefully tomorrow yeah well yes I hope yes so I think one misconception at least on my part I thought that millage will somehow affect commercial more or commercial will take the load of it but it seems to me that's not true so we'll all get hit now people with homestead will see what your analysis is maybe they're protected uh Etc but well I think I could just go out on a limb here and say if you kept the millage rate at three Mills then if you have the save our homes Amendment just I'm just talking about the locks achche Groves portion of your property tax bill uh you know you got other people like that you said the county lowered their millage rate so everything else held equal your tax bill is going to go down but if you have the save our homes Amendment then the most you're going to pay to the town of locki grows would be 3% more if we don't do anything if you kept the mill rate at three correct uh you know and I'm assuming your property values went up at least 3% right you're C at 3% so you're you're the Math's pretty easy on that is go say what percent of the homeowners are protected from such millage increase well that that I don't know but I'm going to go and say the majority but I'll give you I'll give you exact numbers hopefully tomorrow so then help me understand how did you then estimate in your table here that by increasing the millage rate from 3 to 3.1 we are going to generate this much revenue on a $65 million base how did that happen then well okay so there's a lot of people who have just a 3% but there's a lot of people who do not have homestead exemption and you have that's what I'm asking and you have commercial properties everyone's limited to 10% by the way so right if someone's property values the when it goes up 13% the question becomes well if the business is limited to 10% and you're limited to 3% where' I get the 133% from so you've got new construction and you had some new construction you have people who buy properties and it gets reassessed to the market value now so uh for instance no no I get let me rephrase my qu 10% is industrial I get that I'm saying what percent of residents new construction people who are no not h Homestead what percent of the residents will take the brunt of this increase this millage increase that's try I'm trying yeah that that I'll give you tomorrow just gu that was my question so but I I agree with my colleagues uh Viewpoint here we we have you know if you run a business you always look at the longterm and in our town we have long-term risks our Revenue can severely decrease there is a decrease in the gas tax people are buying EVS there is a decrease as we just pointed out tourism can go away with Ain moving to Okala or whatever so we need to be if we I think this goes to miss sui's point if we hire full-time people commit to their retirement and all those we have a big payroll there is no turning around then what are we going to do next year if we hit another down we have to have some flexibility I think what we are saying is be smart retain the core Talent give them good benefits and everything but be smart about having a flexible Workforce um and um not increase the taxes on the residents so yeah that's good go ahead Jeff is there any other points otherwise we'll go to Jeff um well I was just taking a look at the um the overall um so I know everybody hates that word commercial but if we increased the commercial sector it would help the residents of the Town decrease the T correct absolutely why is every they against commercial I think that's a good point I I think one of our committee faac committee job is to educate this point personally speaking we cannot just have the luxury to say any new project that comes in the town on Southern is a bad project we need to understand if if you want if you don't want that then be ready to pay more taxes I think we need to educate that's why this data is important to share with people that yes you're right we any new project we need to consider it with all from all angles and not just be opposed to it um I did a statistical an I don't have the paperwork with me of different um everybody when they were talking about how um agriculture doesn't pay and because we have the way we tax our system we have assessments which pay for roads and canals which is a bulk of what we do and we have uh taxes and our adval taxes we pay a we receive a percentage of that because it goes into the Palm Beach County pot and it goes into the piie and we get a percentage of that piie and I did an I did an statistical analysis of the different commercial districts and what they pay in respect and and it was a crime study as well and increase of crimes and um different increases that come with commercial that nobody thinks about that we build this wonderful project and nobody thinks about the long-term benefits that the residents are saddled with that no longer get paid for but get funded by the residents so because we have these two taxing districts which hit different areas and all the nonprofits because people were oh we have all these nonprofits churches they don't pay they actually do pay for roads and canals equally from everybody else so it's important that whatever you increase or decrease you have to look not just at the beginning or what the what's in front of you you got to look at the long term and you got to not judge each one does something differently I think what we're talking about here is and it was answered okay um since they are can they pay some type maybe when we approve new commercial projects there has to be some type of impact something done that's something that Council can bring up when they discuss these new projects was it done in the past I don't think so I've tried to look at some of the conditions I don't know if it's possible but that might be an option but when we talk about like you said increasing and I think the the problem is you see it's great right now but then in the long term we're saddled with paying things no so it's it's a balancing act we all have to do but ABS I definitely think but you know we we all have to and the town as well and and all of us know with government is they just like to spend okay and if you ran your business like a government you'd be out of business okay because what I'm seeing in in spending and and I'm not going to go line for line but I have picked out several areas where we could cut that we are double paying that we are overpaying that we could cut and areas that we could cut in our salaries but not cut the salaries but the workforce and how we manage our Workforce because when we went from a manag jial model where we paid the management firm to hire them we went to an employee based model we incurred um uh pensions and uh what is it the workers comp and a bunch of extra stuff that when added on you know adds to it and then we see increases and we see um sometimes maybe we can't do all the projects in a month maybe they have to be deferred out at a longer Pace because as we would all like to know we want all the roads paved but we might not be able to get all the roads paved right now okay they have to be deferred out and we have to prioritize I'm gonna interrupt because I I would love to Let's Get Go on let's get to that let's get to the prioritization um we are uh an hour into our meeting just about so what i s I'm going to suggest at this point in time because you all have gone through this entire budget and I'm going to stop talking about it in generalities let's get to to specifics let's start off in the general fund which is on page 22 um and uh let's go to page 26 let's begin at the back and I begin at the back because that's the transfer to roads and drainage and the transfers to CIP so what is being proposed in this budget to balance those other funds is that there are two transfers one of $221,000 to Road and drainage and one uh to the CIP of $569,000 that's $790,000 out of that $4.2 million budget okay so that is just under a fifth of it for easy math um it's probably about 177% um so right there that's an expenditure out of the uh the general fund um do you and I'm I'm gonna go through this then we can talk about ones that you want to talk about specifically I interrupt I think we are let me propose a different way of looking no I I would like to get through Manish I would really like to get through a presentation here and some analysis if you would hang on so we have that $790,000 let's let's go to page 25 we have law enforcement PBSO that is a contract that the council has entered into at one point in time they were discussing the possibility of eliminating that contract um and being treated like an unincorporated portion of Palm Beach County uh they elected not to do that and have entered into a contract that's $668,000 okay $668,000 there um which is approximately 15% of the the budget um let's go over real quick to um page 24 and the building fund we've we've had a discussion about how the building revenues pay for the building fund so that's $377,000 there um you have uh Legal Services the total amount of Legal Services is found in three places there's 275,000 uh dollars um in the professional legal services there there's $35,000 that is Town Council legal expenses those are legal expenses that uh the attorneys have determined are directly attributable to um Council meetings and things like that not the general Council meetings but individual meetings in needs with the various Council uh person and then you have $50,000 that is allocated um in the code enforcement area so the total amount of Legal Services the legal services budget not including the magistrate but of legal services to the town is $36,000 is what is proposed um and then you have uh code enforcement of itself that consists of um uh what's being budgeted is three part-time um people there um and that's a budget of $240,000 um and then you have uh the Town Council itself including in the Town Council is um $75,000 for uh lobbyist uh expenses $35,000 as I previously mentioned for the um legal services so to be fair we'll take that out um so you've got $161,000 um that uh is in the in the council fund um you have Financial Services um which is budgeted at $60,000 as you know we Outsource our finance department and we uh and you have to Outsource your um audit Services um huh don't we have to we have to I said I said that you have to so that and and there's $25,000 of audit services that are charged to uh the general fund and there was $25,000 in the public works budget that you reviewed last time so there's a total of $160,000 there um planning what is um in a sense disingenuous um as far as your planning expenses is that's where we've got the cost recovery expenditure some of those cost recovery expenditures are engineering as well as planning those things as uh has been indicated is um paid for by developers or users of the the system people who are coming in with with projects um so when you take away that $212,000 uh dollars there um you've got $125,000 approximately that we spend on planning Services um Communications and Technology um we've got $114,500 uh dollar budget in in that area um once again we Outsource the it um um provision um and a lot of that is uh subscriptions to um to uh computer uh programming um and then there is non- janitorial uh which includes um I'm I'm sorry non-departmental which includes the janitorial services uh utilities um uh rental of storage areas um Insurance that's General insurance for the uh uh for the town um and uh repair and maintenance of the the building and that's at $162,000 um and then um there is the town Administration um and the total expenses associated with the town Administration uh is $962,000 uh dollar so what I would suggest if you want to look to cut specifically let's pick a department um to discuss and I would suggest we not discuss um PBSO uh because that's already contracted for and we can't get away from that price or reduce that price at this point in time I would suggest based on the fact that the building department pays for itself we not talk about the building department um and uh I would then leave it up to to you where you want to to go in the specifics of where you think there might be um some room to cut could we not I I don't know what this positively can we not combine things like building and planning can you combine certain things like that to help offset cost so just like I noticed I I think I brought this up this morning in the building department you have all these new expenditures that we didn't have years prior travel building office supplies books Publications subscriptions Computer Services building permit zoning review Education and Training that's because we brought it in inhouse and you have to incur those expenses they're offset by Revenue what was the what was the amount that we used to pay for for these things when we have somebody else do and not in the house um we received we received um 10% of the overall all building revenues um and they um kept 90% And they did not what's the money that we're talking about because here we're spending $377,000 what we're spending that what were we spending before and getting versus this we were we were getting under $18,000 uh a year is my recollection and we were and we were getting tons and tons of headaches and complaints but we weren't spending 377,000 we were we weren't getting $330,000 in permits and um also be the ability to offset the uh and increase our btrs so we were getting very poor service that's the reason that decision was made um if if if they had been running the the show satisfactorily that would have been fine they were not and so that was the that was the basis for the council going in another Direction what is the Planner on call well the planner the the Planner on call um is a um a planning service where somebody call when somebody calls up and says um is is this allowed in your town zoning you know if I want to if I want to put in a if I want to have chickens in my backyard is that okay um if I want to have a chicken processing plant is that okay um I'd like to uh i' like to have XY or Z on this property um how do I go about uh turning my 10 Lots into two five Lots those basic questions that come in and there is a myriad of them that come in that's what the Planner on call does it's not a situation in which we can immediately go hey in order to answer that question you're going to have to spend $122 um that's a that's absorbed into the system what we have um been encouraging the the planners to do is to say if if you can't answer their question in in about 15 minutes then yeah and we we need to start thinking about hey maybe you should come in um for a meeting and you can get a meeting with our uh Chief Building official an engineer a planner um and figure out everything that you want to do with this property and you pay $550 an hour um if you're going to take up kind of of time Chris now that you're back which I don't think you were here you stepped out you're our finance person you knowing what our expenditures and our revenues are is there places that you would suggest cutting well uh like I tell my staff and other people you know one man's waste is another man's necessity so it's very difficult to answer that I don't really see a lot of waste in the town to be honest with you you have a lot of needs uh have a lot of needs want well your needs are are substantial they're Capital needs and there's no long-term plan to address those Capital needs you know it's been kind of masked because you've gotten a lot of grant money from the federal government you got the local option sales tax money if all that goes away your needs are still there and the revenue streams are you know greatly restricted um you know some of the questions that you struggle with or Personnel related you know should you use part-time people full-time people contractual people and you know that's a tough question to answer as well not trying to dodge it because the flip side of it is you lose people when you don't when you don't pay them retain them pay them benefits you know they will move away and go to another city another another contractor whatever you see that a lot I've seen positions in the town go vacant because uh you know you can't get people you know you still got to sign out front for heavy equipment off here been up there there's one more person we're trying to hire in there to fulfill that as we've indicated and what goes on here is not different than what I see in other cities and we represent a number of cities with the this type of problem you know they you elected bodies particularly wake with police and fire they see what they're paid it's like oh my gosh it's like well that's what they cost you know I have one city that wants to get rid of police pinion fund like well you got to negotiate that you just can't wave a magic wand you know like what you're going to wind up doing as I could point to a city here in Palm Beach county is you're going to lose your senior people and you're just going to churn over you're going to be the training ground for every other law enforcement department that's probably not a good way to go I only point out these illustrations because it's a balancing act of you know retaining people who will be there during hurricanes will be there know know where things are know the residents know where the catch basins are where the storm grates are they know where that stuff is and if you turn it over over losing that type of experience is is I wouldn't say invaluable but it's very valuable so I I don't know how to help you with that I can't point to any one line item and say cut there and really it's not my job to do that I I help them prepare the budget come up with costs but those are higher level decisions at the at the council level more than anything and you're to assist them so you need if you're going to start cutting you need to think about the impacts of what those cuts are because there will be impact and I I feel your pain because I you know I can tell you that there is waste in government at at every level particularly the federal level but uh you know like I said one man's waste is another man's NE necessary program so I I can't help you with cutting programs that's an elected officials job they're the ones elected by the population to you know guide the city and it's a as you can see it's a tough job you know I tell people all the time the federal government isn't like local governments you know local governments I don't care what the political makeup is whether the're Republican Democrat communist space aliens they're required to balance their budget federal government doesn't do that there's not even a constitutional requirement to have a budget much less a balanced one and so they don't but why a balanced budget is is difficult is it's a trade-off between excuse me taxes and watch you Levy fees and stuff and the services you provide and there's there's give and take and there's there's blood that comes with with those fights so at the end of the day though you will come up with a budget that addresses most of what the city needs but I can't help you with like do this or that good thank you okay um so we're still on the building department so do you have questions on no no go ahead no do you have any questions on the building no I I think we are going through yeah I think we are collecting comments on the expenditure side for the general fund overall correct or you're going Department by no we were overall overall this is okay overall go ahead I have a little B up okay wait FR do you have something okay let me go and then you could um so we're bringing so the building department expenses 377 projected proposed and it's bringing in how much 22 no 330 330 is is the permit 330 and um the allocation of the btrs to that department to manage those things is $430,000 as I indicated what we're trying to do is um have 3 for just a second you said the allocation of the btrs to manage is 430,000 the we're going to have the building department manage and collect those things and supervise the part-time code enforcement officer that is allocated to do that um to so that those expenses associated with um that salary and uh the building department expenditures um will be offset through those two Revenue funds so what is the btrs bring in the btrs is budgeted at $100,000 that's what it brings in Reven that's what that's what that's what it is budgeted at it's current um let's see the audited amount I think was 68,000 two years ago um and it is budgeted at 100,000 this year but I don't think we have achieved uh $100,000 I can take a look and see where it's at it's it gets a little difficult this year BEC at this time of the year because you're in a situation in which you've got new revenues coming in on the btrs um in addition to trying to collect the old revenues because BTR bills for this year are already out um the idea is to get your BTR money in uh by uh September 30 let's just let's go back since you get you quoted the two years ago 68,000 68,000 what was the expenses as compared to revenues coming in what is the what are we looking at we'll do two years since those are the number numbers you have the expenses associated with that yeah you said the revenues came in about 68,000 right I can't give you a a breakdown on what it cost to collect that money because okay we don't track the time and salaries uh for people associated with that now let me ask another since we're on the building it shows the jump in the salaries from 82,000 to 171 is that because we added extra people um yeah let me see here just so I where you say the 82 to 171 um look in it that total what was there last year because all right let me let me just get to it please be two one but it's there's it's a more complicated story than that 82 thou what you have to remember is that we made the conversion um in December so that salary number is representative of and the expenditures represented we're 10 12ths of the year um and so yes what is proposed this year is um an additional person because the workload has gotten to the point where you need an additional person and that's also because revenues um have increased um and we'll cover that person okay but we're increasing I'm I'm just looking at the numbers you said the revenue coming in are 336 and expenses are 377 so the revenues have't increased to cover that extra person right I mean just how many people did we have last year just how many people last year when it was when it was first budgeted it was a one um full-time person um and a um halftime uh Chief Building official and there was a front desk person who was helping out with the the workload and that person salary was not um part of the $882,000 which really was like a $100,000 because as I said it was 10 12th of a year so you had one full-time and so there's an additional full-time person that is coming in um and there is an increase in salary for uh the person who has been here for a year the part-time building officials rate remains constant so I mean just based on what you said just I mean I would say why are we bringing in additional full time we're alreadying somebody because the work can't be done by lopsided in what coming in and what the work can't be done by one person then perhaps we could do better looking at the cost benefit of maybe two part-time and compared then we don't have to pay the benefits I mean you're you're telling me here I'm just offering no I I understand I I I I understand I understand where you're going at but the a permit technician in the building department in order to be efficient um needs to have training and an understanding of um how things get done when you hire two part-time people what you do with the person that is full-time is they have to spend a whole bunch of time training two people not one how to do the job um and the part-time people um once they understand the job are probably going to look elsewhere because most part-time people in that position were looking you know you might be able to hire them they're looking for experience and then they go oh yeah I I understand how building departments work and I'm going to go and try for the full-time position um and so it was our judgment that what made sense was to bring in um a person um and you know and have them trained into the system that is going to be there so that they can be productive and efficient because there is that much work to be done and I understand the thought process is there but if we're looking to cut and save so we're not residents perhaps you know for this year I mean because I'm looking at the permit technicians proposed salaries so you have technician 2 is going up to 60,000 and the technician one is actually going down so you're offending the two so where where is the person that we're hiring are they going to be a technician one yes so they're going to start at the 48,000 yeah something in that range but along with that you have all the benefits which adds that to that correct yes there you know when you talk about the when you talk about benefits or expenditure associated with um salaried Personnel regardless of you you have uh 7.65% for FICA um and Medicare taxes um that's the employer share then you have uh F FRS benefit of 13.57% um and we budget um with the anticipation that everybody is going to get um f FRS not everybody is necessarily going to get F FRS because there is a minimum number of hours before you have to have to qualify on that it's really a minimum number of weeks number of we I would say almost everyone's going to get Fs yes yeah and that's and that's why we that's why we budget it um we include that as part of the the budget and then depending on the number of hours that you work um you if you work more than 29 hours you are entitled to um health insurance benefits um and we are in an age bracketed um system um for health insurance benefits so I am very expensive because I am very old um and younger workers are considerably less expensive um but they also might not know anything so let me ask you so in this in the staff since we're on the building in the staff that does the clerical stuff what's that in the job functions of this building department and the technicians the clerical stuff is is that the technicians what so yes every um nobody here in this in this place has a dedicated secretary or Administrative Assistant there is nobody that actually has that particular role exclusively um so those building permit technicians they do all the inputting of information they do all the correspond that's associated with their their job um they may do some things that would be classified as clerical for the Chief Building official but the Chief Building official um you know handles most of his own correspondence and those kind of things um but if you have a a mass mailing that has to go out to to everybody on the btrs and arguably that's um that's a clerical function um that would be done by by those folks um and uh then we've got you know that's the that's the way it works um so interrup second I have papers here and four different sheets that have different salaries on it I have the one from the packet I have the one that we were sent I have this one I have this one I have this one and not one of them are consistent um and this is what was provided to us by you guys okay well it's kind of frustrating looking at who's what is consistent everything everything is in this document in your line item document okay when it comes to the the salaries and the salary numbers that you see in there and the benefit numbers that you see in there those numbers on an overall basis are correct and they are consistent um now have what we have here is the one that compensation and benefits 2025 okay what P which page are you looking at this is why I didn't want to hand out a whole bunch of these but we ended up doing it it's one that says compensation and benefits I think it's in this let me if I if I may let me just step down and it'll be easier for me to to do it from there and we can share a mic if necessary she also looking at the pay plan by classification position is another one there's 328 then there's this one all right the one in the book which which this this one that you're showing here okay do we eliminate that we more line with this so what's confusing is on some of these says propos okay what you what you have here budget what if I can what the the first the first one that I'm going to to sit here and and take a look at is Page Six from the pay plan and uh by classification and position so it it comes out of the pay plan and Market survey which was sent to you outside of uh the agenda um and what that shows is the effect of the um Market uh study or the market survey um and the adjustments in pay so what you have there are current salaries listed in the pay plan book on page six and what it has is current salaries and then there is proposed salaries and then there is a range oh but is that's that's that one so this is this is the pay plan and yes it is factual um with respect to current what current is and if you look at your other during an AG genda review meeting with her council person no oh oh the printed one that this was sent to you Friday this was sent to you Friday night oh you know so my question so you all right so you have that okay this is no this is this does not include the 5% Cola in it okay so you can see the the effect of the market adjustment there now what is the next one that you want me to take a look at let me take yeah we it was all email you're saying right now this is what currently these people are on yes and this is what you it was that is the market adjustment in the budget on top of the Market adjustment as I indicated to you last week there is a 5% Cola on top of on top of the market adjustment yes and so when you look at this Staffing model page what so so if you look at if you look at this if you look at this Staffing model which is on page 13 the difference between the numbers that you are seeing there um is that in this case the 5% you have the market adjustment plus the 5% col which is how you got to your budgeted numbers which is l no it's not it's they're up to 5% on some of them there is no there is no Cola proposed for part-time folks um and there is no Cola proposed for the manager in the budget you go back and you look at our budgeted numbers I'm getting I'm here 1.4 you should look at that but in the budget I get 175 1,757 and you got 1725 there um there's 52,000 in part-time that is probably the difference in um uh Missi we can well aren't these all the people that are in town that are getting paid yes but you have let me just make sure I'm saying no the no I was just looking for the the $52,000 is in here um without looking at your number versus this number um and all all I can all I can suggest is that there's a there there no there's probably probably the I I have come to to trust Excel and probably somewhere in your calculations you added $52,000 twice I this is this is based on of all these other okay those those will match up as as but not but not right now okay so the last thing and then I'm going to turn it over to Manish is if we cut the person we're proposing and we don't do that that brings us in line with what we're bringing in and we're not lopsided so that could be a that I would suggest that's a cut right there don't add that new person fulltime and you can't that's $48,000 doing the job right now no but the point is because because we we we have we have a person on a temporary basis what you have to look at is if if you look at how hard those people are working um and the amount of overtime that she is currently um spending where's the overtime in here where's the over the overtime that is currently being incurred um is on the order of 10 to 20 hours a week um by the per by the permit technician who is currently doing the job and what is clear based on people who have been doing this for 25 years or more not myself but the Chief Building official and the manager is that we need another person to accomplish the tasks and the volume of work there are some things that you know that where where is the overtime amount we're paying in these budgets where is it how much we paid in overtime you would have last year to this year see that amount you would have to go to blackb and the budget to actual so I would like to see how much we're paying this person overtime and if that is uh relative to what we're going to be paying them in benefits and a salary as a full-time last year this 24 I mean remember this is not something that's going to be completely permanent right now we are at a tight budget right now so is it possible that we can continue paying the overtime which would be less you're still and you're not paying a salary and benefits but you're paying overtime I don't know what the amount is for overtime if it's more than the salary and benefits then yes what that would be we should hire somebody that's just my thought processes I I I I I I I understand I understand your thought process and um respectfully the people who are dealing with that on a day-to-day basis have determined that they need another person in order to accomplish the work and if you but I want to see the money I want to see the the the figures what are we spending in overtime that's not I she said she's working all this overtime and it would be that we need to have somebody else maybe perhaps we can get off better by paying the overtime and not throwing the burden on the residents by paying more money out than what we're bringing in by just not hiring that full-time this year considering it next year when we're in a better financial position you know I'm people people have to people have to manage things and one of the things you have to manage um is uh what the employee uh wants to do not everybody just wants to work 20 hours of overtime every week that's not something that may that may or may not be sustain stainable those are things that management being the Chief Building official and the um manager take into consideration when they make recommendations what you have here is a recommendation that we need another person based on the volume of work as I indicated to you you H when you are collecting building permit fees they have to be spent on building permit issues you can't make $100,000 in there on a budget this size without incurring the potential of having to return fees and we're not the the function of this board is not to micromanage Personnel issues and those kind of things so let's move on okay I'm gonna move on to Manish and then to Trac the Staffing model we I'll talk about employees out of all these people that you're seeing on here are there any that are currently not employed so when you're looking at you have your town manager your clerk your assistant Deputy Town specialist your project manager HR Director Grant coordinator senior administrator management analysis senior admin admin customer service ex parttime support whatever that is and then overtime are all those people current employees there is someone currently in those positions yes but they are um not necessarily they may be temporary employees they not necessarily hired on a on a permanent basis because it is somewhat subject to budget then we've got some new employees that are are coming in and um they are filling those spots at this moment so we need to see who's in those positions and which no I don't think you need to see who is in those positions you can you can see what position are Jeff okay don't not mince words not who but is that position occupied yes how many people are in that position is that's I think that's that's need to see name and Sharon in the in the admin on the administration uh the town Administration side there are um nine full-time positions and four part-time positions in what positions uh proposed yeah and what there there at this sheet and just go over say can can I get a question in real quick wait let we still have man question I think that's gonna help with cath to you as well about you need another person but we don't know who's actually really working I don't rev yeah I need to ask a question Jeff sure when you guys propose or or think about hiring someone I I I correct me if I'm wrong but in the beginning you said when you brought on another person they were going to generate money to cover their salary correct well what we what we first in the building department what we first did was we generated um sufficient funds to cover them for this year and we anticipate that we will generate uh sufficient funds to to cover them uh next year um so so that being said you know because it looks like they're trying to find the dead wood and chop it down you know uh and that and what I'm suggesting is that's that's not where you want to to find um the dead wood because that's what I thought you said when when we first start this uh right discussion so if you look at if you look at the you're looking at the Staffing model from page 44 well this one says okay I'll go to well Jeff's looking that up I just want to weigh in on this issue because it does since we've been here as running your finance department we do rely upon the city staff and different off operation be it Public Works building department wherever we rely upon them a lot for deposits for building permits and issues related to that the turnover has been hellacious every time we settle down with one person they leave for whatever reason I don't want to go into the reasons because there's always more than one reason but the turnover the longevity is a problem for the city and I will tell you it's one that and I've had this discussion with Francine and Jeff it costs us a lot of time and money on my end to just keep following up with things once you once you have a process and that person leaves you got to start all over with a new person now if that were only to happen once a year or once every other year that would be okay but it's frequent here it is very frequent and it's a problem for us financially to see changes in administrative staff that actually directly and indirectly affect the our accounting operation so I'm just gonna you need to stem that that you want to encourage some longevity with your employee Bas let me let me go through it real quickly and hopefully we're we'll be on close enough to the same page Town manager position is filled the clerk position one one yeah there's one town manager there there is get too many numbers there is there is one clerk um and it is filled right now um uh there is one assistant Deputy town clerk code specialist and he's sitting here right now he is new to the organization um there is one project coordinator that's me um project manager whatever you want to call them that's that's me I've never been hung up on titles um and it probably doesn't adequately describe what I do uh because I do more um HR Director uh Grant coordinator senior Administration there is one person there management analyst there is one person there um uh senior admin customer service executive assistant uh there is one person there at this point in time filled by a um what we call a temporary employee because it's all subject to to budget and those kind of things and and she's relatively new with us um there is a chief uh building official wait wait wait parttime support part-time support um currently there are two people I believe um who do various odd uh odd sorts of things um and they're hours are low and infrequent um but there are two people that that probably fall within in that but they are uh sami's been here for a couple weeks and I don't think he's met either one of them um they make 52,000 each no no that that's that what that is is that is um you know it is somebody that comes in on an as needed basis when called and we pay them an hourly rate we do not pay them any of those benefits while we budget for f FRS there is a pretty good chance that they won't get it there there there are hours associated with that they are irregular um correct let's keep going let's keep going the building the building official is uh a part-time uh employee and he is here um the pzb technician 2 is filled um as is the pz permit technician one uh they are both full-time um and the per PCB permit technician has recently been hired and uh she is undergoing training at this point in time so and then you have uh Code Compliance um supervisor he was Mario and he is uh okay I'm no names I know I just one one person I think you all know him um so I said my name too that's full no he's a part-time person parttime um and there is a code compliance officer that is a part-time person what is proposed is another um code compliance officer on on a part-time basis um and what's allocated between those folks is I think it's uh about 56 hours between all three of them on a part-time basis but right now there's only two bodies um and that uh that third position would be filled um if it is approved as a part of the budgetary process keep going oh you we already I thought you public works and then we're gonna Public Works uh we have a public works director um we have a superintendent um we have a senior administr Administration coordinator those are all three of those are full-time um positions um we have uh three public service um worker 3es there are one two three of those positions they are all filled um we have let me see uh not filled um and not uh it's not included in the in the budgetary calculations I don't believe um the public service I I think the way this works and I may be off by one here on their positions um I think we have two public service worker ones and three public service worker twos and uh I think we've got one general service worker um that is filled and we are looking for another position and I may off with respect to the the ones twos and threes I know that it is a total that is budgeted um for uh seven in those positions um but the exact where they fall I may be off between a public service worker one and a general service Public Works that the closest thing to a clerical is your senior administr coordinator for public works okay um and it's not a true clerical position it's uh has a lot of responsibilities although she does perform some clerical functions support are not currently there um correct okay of correct there was no one I as I said I may be off one way uh with somebody's classification part time and the part time we're going hire next week he's oh [Music] um Richard just came well yeah was I I don't look the audence there so so um gonna do this anyway uh Richard can if that's a real important to you to know whether it's a general service worker one or two Richard can give us that one person in that position and we're at your 10minute mark just so you know okay so now we're gonna we're gonna stop that and we're gonna end with manisha's question if that's okay to get us on time okay we'll try to squeeze in 10 minutes okay Manish go ahead I thinkon anybody's feedback in comments let me crystallize a problem that we to solve I think there my analysis if he can somehow save $400,000 change which you proposing in in if we can save that money I think we can make everything happen so let's think about how are we going to save 4 excuse me Committee Member Manish if you could speak into your mic so I can pick you up let me repeat again thank you just so that we are all focused what I'm saying is if we can reduce reduce this budget by 47,000 we are good we can give everybody their increases we can do everything but we have to see how can we reduce our overall budget by $47,000 if we do that we are good so let me that's correct let me give you some of my suggestions and I'll incorporate some of the excellent discussions we had here I think you know somebody said that lot of savings are in little Corners little little little things that are sprinkled all over so for example and I'm not giving you micro level you know Direction but look at books and look at subscriptions look at special event budgets look at all these little training budgets I think if you consolidate all of the above like yesterday we had this nice lady who came and talked about 45 minutes on ethics and all that I mean we paid a lawyer good amount of money that could have been all automated over a video we don't have to have a human lawyer telling us Sunshine laws we could have just watched the video as a suggestion so I'm saying you still got to watch no we will watch the video I'm just saying we don't have to pay if look suggestion not maybe that's a bad example point being I think here is my suggestion big picture you are going to save 200,000 in cost sprinkled all over through these little little things that are consolidating negoti ating with the vendors and this and that and then I'm going to talk about where the rest 200,000 is going to come from if I look at as we went through I and I did a quick analysis here if you look at the just as a big picture look at the salaries of our uh Town Administration right so even if we so there are two components to it there is a cola increase which we all agree we can I think 5% is a fair number I support that whether we spread it this year I think it's good but then there is another increase based on making their salaries to the market let's hypothetically think for a second that if we take that part that is going know that is based on the Delta based on this performance increase Market comparison and then there is a if you look at the building department and the planning department our building department has 115% increase in the salary and our planning department has 30% increase in the overall salaries and benefits so which means that we are taking on significant amount of efforts new people coming in uh and our town itself Administration itself if I'm not wrong there is a job description added like a grant person with the HR Director and there is a new Deputy clerk down position maybe or somebody in there somebody who's who's a new position the point being if we can generate either we generate Revenue if you're adding a new position they either have to save cost somewhere meaning as compared to the last year they will either save the town over time or something else or they have to generate Revenue that's my guiding principle so I think we are under collecting on the building and permits especially after encode compliance and all that good stuff if you're adding this much it's hard to believe why our revenues on the permits and fees and other things are not going up so what I'm recommending is 200,000 from Cost Cuts across spread across Department frees everything no increase you know freezing on the vend non-essential vendors and then the other 200 link your pay increase let's call it a bonus performance incentive can be paid every quarter link it to the increase in the revenue if we collect that increased Revenue I think Council should consider giving performance bonuses one thing I would like to add is that if somebody's bringing value like you for example I we would like to retain a person like you with all that expertise with degrees law degree you have all that good stuff so how can we if somebody's bringing value let's give them more so so have a compensation let's call it performance bonus package let's if we increase Revenue Vue we give quarterly bonuses we do all of the above we can manage delay the hiring if somebody is new position delay the hirings and uh and so that should be the guiding principle so if I look at any particular points here I would say um I'm just looking at the general fund looking at the cost side of it I think uh um special event our budget went from 10,000 to 25,000 000 I don't know maybe we can't afford those kind of things um you know we we are looking at um something along the lines of all these new people hiring and all that stuff those kind of things so that's I think in a condensed version I would say this should be the new principle either generate revenue from the position or the cost should be saved as compared to the last year and 20 100K in Cost Cuts and 200k in performance bonus and increase and collect more from the fees and permits and other things grants whatever that could be um but do not increase the taxes do not increase the road and drainage tax please um we already get half a million more from general fund and 76,000 from solid waste and I I think I agree that this commercial garbage collection if you're you know charging more franchise fee to Publix and so forth the equestrian shouldn't be affected so maybe we talk to the garbage collection company and say you know just we are increasing just the commercial because there is lot of stuff and not to our our equestrian if you they know the addresses maybe we can do something along those lines I'll stop here thank you just just so you understand one of the one of the reasons for the the need for Sammy here for example we oh we didn't he intruction at this I thought we did sorry about that um I can soon it's done is uh um we have reactivated um what at least four committees um not including this one um and so somebody has to be here somebody has to take minutes um somebody has to do all those kind of things um when you think of you know when you think of me think about the fact that I'm now personally responsible for streem war committees value added by the way without are we wasting time here I'm just honestly on is this adding value in what you do what the all the committee work yes yeah I think it adds value I I think it absolutely um adds value but it costs cost no that's my point is the benefit more than the cost I wouldn't want to waste Town's time here if we are get hiring two people three people if you're paying all of if the value is not there this whole purpose is defeated well I just one of the things that when you when you talk about it just from a revenue standpoint okay no the committee meetings maybe they if you look at it do they add do they add value well you've encouraged us to um in you know get more out of our investments uh we're attempting to you 100K more you can squeeze 100K more my treasury calculations are right well I'm going to right I'm just you know we'll we'll see what the the value added is on the think kind of things but I there's definitely value added but there's also a a cost imposed on uh that comes with all of those kind of services that go on when we do an FDA um meeting and we bring folks in and we explain everything that's going on the FDA and you know we spent a couple you know whether it was one meeting or two meetings we spend a lot of time on it and we develop the reports um I think there's there's value in that in from an educational standpoint and all those kind of things um when you produce a budget a book like this um that's you know much thicker that there's time and effort when we respond to questions there's time and effort it's a process it doesn't generate more Revenue in and of itself the ideas that come from it the discussion that comes from it maybe it will maybe it will um but those are all those are all expenses that are real I think we cut a lot of these expenses out of the capital outlay we don't need to do the traffic coming on road with $100,000 to me that's a waste of money that's $100,000 got to pay more Sals 75,000 to make this EOC is that really of importance this year more money to go to your salaries 10,000 for a PW building was there still no for where can we cut for the road paving or the road Rock I mean there's certain are a lot of operating budget small item books subscriptions fac those are those are the specific recommendations that I was hoping that we would get to you know no I mean you know you're look you know your operations we are not going to pretend we know more than you that's no no I'm not I'm I'm not suggesting those software training this that every department has a little 5,000 10,000 why what what is the books I I just saw the books we are like where who is what are those books I would like to read some of those so those things can be sa um if you you're probably looking at a a line item that says books and subscriptions um and yes that's what I'm think and so when you're going to what you're to find in in that is you're going to find probably computer programming and um memberships um in various organizations that uh the town and its professionals have to be members of all right so let's see that I mean I'm just we be happy to we've got all those we've got all those lists don't we Richard okay thank you um we're GNA hold it to eight we're 801 yeah we're gonna be here tomorrow is there anything that we need to close um so tomorrow somebody has to present some thought process do you you have a motion for specific recommendations to the council as to how they would achieve I I understand I understand the general proposition and if we're just talking about about a general proposition that's that's great Are there specific things that that you know Tracy just mentioned $175,000 expensive and look at cutting in we're G have to look at okay so we got a motion to we want to look at some of the outlays and cut instead of cutting salaries at the last and focus on Capital Focus the sum of the expenses and the things throughout the Departments motion second second all in favor of that I um somebody else want to make a motion about where our goal is and what we wanted to achieve we said it at the beginning M I would like to propose a motion under which um we do not increase uh Road and drainage assessment or do not increase um our property taxes we are okay with increasing uh the trash removal fee but way but uh considering other avenues from collecting more from commercial if you can right so the motion to not increase the taxes not increase the assessment but okay with trash increase solid ways and do you wanna and do you want to add that you do not W to um dip any further into reserves because I I I understood that was a consensus you not want to dip any further into reserves and strongly encourage the management to improve the revenue collection for cost recovery or other services no no Fe per did you get all that Sammy I'm I'm with you fees increase like whatever engineers and planning people go and do make sure you recover enough so that it it doesn't the burden does not go to other taxpayers cover enough for those read back what we said Tammy your recommendation was not to increase the tax tax Andor assessment and you're okay with increasing um you're okay with the solid waste incre increasement but do not dip into uh reserves and look for cost um look for ways to increase the revenue collection okay right and uh can I add uh we we have two almost three code enforcement right and uh unlike the majority of the people that live in Loach there are a lot of people that you know don't don't cut their yard it's two two foot high and you know there's a bunch of code violations that okay wait that's going to be something different that's different let's stay with this motion read it again because we got a so there was a recommendation not to increase the tax and assessment but you're okay with increasing the solid waste U the solid waste assessment and you did not you made it clear that you did not want to dip into Reserve funds but you also wanted to look for ways to increase the revenue collection okay that's a motion any second second second all in favor of that motion I all oppose passes three you want to make one okay I'm only opposed to increasing anything so do make sear let make two no we the we we understand the explanation it's it's it's 31 in in favor and the reason um that Tracy is not in favor of it is because it showed an increase in the solid was okay now do you want to make some other motion for all this is going to go back to the council kind as a general I I wanted to make a motion that now that we have more code enforcement and you know uh long story short when I first moved here uh two years ago uh there was only one guy and uh you know he he was like a man with his head cut off he couldn't and now you're telling me to have three people right we have two part-time people at this point in time what is proposed is to add a third part-time person well yeah it's it's definitely needed because that is also a source of Revenue yeah I mean there's tons of violations yeah throughout the whole country and if I could just I could just comment real we have had an ad for a full-time code uh enforcement officer um for a year and we have not been able to fill the full-time code enforcement officer position which is why we are looking at part-time folks be careful what you wish okay okay so and tomorrow so we'll make are we doing this as a motion you want what is your motion motion that we uh uh you know uh you're supportive of the code enforcement right that was uh proposed in the budget at the three- part-time people right because you know we don't have uh uh it's in the bud that that was going to be a motion so that would that's already no but it's okay to have a specific motion just as you all at your last meeting had a specific motion a specific motion that supported the public works department expense side code person can I propose a little amendment to it wait all right let's do that do we for that motion only do we have a second for that yeah yes second okay all in favor I okay yes I I all opposed against no I'm not I'm gonna so how many people all in favor of three yes no all in favor yes two opposed um if you on this you're not really supposed to abstain unless you have a conflict um to any motion and with where and I wouldn't ordinarily bring this bring this budget so I'm kind of I'm kind of I'm going to vote against it because it's already in the budget so I'm I'm against the thing yeah well what you're what you're I I understand but the whole the whole thing on this is the you are looking for areas to cut or to support what Mr who is saying seems to be saying is this is an area I don't want to cut okay the impact of that motion so when you when you when you report back and to say that it's in the budget already well everything's in the budget but there are obviously things that you want to to cut and so the more specific we have is it's easier for us to deal with good I'm a I'm so it's two for and two against can I propose a motion then one more so that motion that motion fails fails yes may I propose a motion that we support three code enforcement people to enforce health and safety of our residents I support that that budget should not be cut so what you proposed we support to keep that budget and do not if you have to reduce cost do not reduce that I support that initiative before so you support the proposed budget for the Code Compliance yes yes support the budget for code enforcement yes I think there needs to be a little bit more information um because we're getting into some things we really didn't I mean there's some costs there's some other things we haven't discussed um that I think needs I think it needs to be further discussed because we really didn't get into all yeah so I mean I think there needs to be more information before I can vote on it so but there is a motion on the floor does somebody want to Second manisha's motion I second it that's the same thing I want yeah all in favor of manisha's motion I I all oppos I that motion okay good that's why we need Bruce here yeah one more one more motion and we done okay one more 10 yep I would like to propose a motion that the management considers um reducing or balancing that $400,000 by reducing part of it maybe % of it 200,000 of it in the cost side of it and as we just discussed on the capital side of it or on the side of it and then additional 200k the management team especially the Senior Management consider to put it in a performance bonus bucket so that that could be linked to increase in the revenues yeah we need a more information yeah one it's it's difficult to put together performance bonus uh situation for government employees okay so before we go I'd like to just get a consensus for tomorrow because I do think it can be against the law that uh Jeff if I'm not if I'm correct one of us will kind of present kind of a a synopsis to council is that help for more so do do you resend that motion oh I would like to park yes Park that motion for further but let me we will we will have a synopsis of the Motions that you have passed I'd like to also too and I don't know Manish did a really good job and I did have a lot more epiphanies and understanding with his little thing that he did um I'd like to propose that he kind of briefly because we only get an hour right that's more than kind of explain it the way you did in the simple simple terms when we did it up there on the on absolutely and I would like to propose that Manish do that and then just give the simple and savings what we have and what we need to cut and just do a very simple maybe 10 minutes done to the council tomorrow so I'm gonna to make that motion that he does that Presentation tomorrow quickly quickly quickly quickly anybody second that all in favor of that okay and I just have one comment motion made by was that you me okay and I just have Tracy and I just have one comment on that um Manish will uh amend his um document uh to reflect that there were revenues that balanced that budget okay but it's still G to be quickly yeah and I don't I don't wanna I don't want to put our work on your work or anything like that but um I I I don't want that out in the public that those were not there in the essence go ahead Sammy before we go wanted to introduce myself given that the Committee Member raitz wanted the um wanted me to um my name is Samy Brown for the record I previously worked at the city of Rivier Beach I actually started working in government uh when I was uh 15 and I spent some time there as the legislative Aid and then I went into the office of Economic and Business Development I became the director of Workforce uh development programs um then I left the city of Rivier Beach to work for a local uh government relations and lobbying firm where I became a credential Master economic developer and a credential flery development uh professional and now I'm here at the town of lock hatat GS I'm happy to be here wel welcome welcome we've only seen you here okay and with that I guess we will adjourn this meeting and see everybody tomorrow five o'clock that was a good meeting good good good job keeping o' Tre