getting you is the mine on there still yeah all right there's Tracy hi Tracy hello need to go full screen there you go okay we have everybody yeah you as our vice chair since we don't have a chairperson should ring us in can hear us I can hear you so I'm going to call the meeting of the fact together to start and um um I'll do the the roll call um Min so Su um Cassie sui present Frederick Who present Bruce Cunningham here Town manager didn't you do Tracy RAF oh I'm sorry sorry Hi Tracy how can you forget me I'm here um I'm here too yes yeah and uh Chris Wallace and Mr golant is here all right is your mic working um yes I think it is all right okay so we have uh the swearing of our new member welcome well the first thing is the approval of the agenda oh I'm sorry call to order roll call approval of the agenda I second it all in favor I suggest may I suggest adding an agenda in addition to how do we do that without add an an agenda item he can add an agenda so uh I would like to introduce go I would like to add an agenda item on uh on something called budget neutral reconciliation so taking inspiration from our own federal government um we have something called office of om which is Office of Management and budget so what it does basically is that if the lawmakers bring any major change it basically looks at how does that decision impact the budget of the country and if there is a budget deficit it lets them know and if that's the case then the US Congress has little difficult process to pass that law in other words they need 60 votes in the Senate instead of normal 50 what I would like to recommend adding in the agenda item is a discussion of our role not as an OM not we know we had a recommendation uh group here Advisory Group here but if there is any change that the town is considering that has an impact on the budget deficit impact which we may decide as a majority vote of this group then we can take that matter and with the town work together and present that data to the council so they can have that budget impact for instance our town is considering all year round are we living I would like for example take that as a case and and present it an impact on our town budget how will it impact on public service schools roads this and that and have that data be sent to the council so they can consider it so I would like to add an agenda item to discuss that and then accordingly add to our group so we add at the end of the you you may add any agenda item you would number seven you can put it wherever you'd like but I do want to just remind everybody that this committee is an advisory committee and that we do not have the capacity to do any type of special studies so I think that one of the things that Bruce has spent a lot of time on over the years was making sure that we had the right compliment of staff to get the basic job done um and we are just now finally getting that done with the help of Mr Wallace so I do think you know you can add whatever you wish to the agenda but I think it's also important to be realistic in the expectation um and so you know vote as you will but I did want to just make that one point okay so we take a motion to add it to the as number seven on the agenda yes somebody want to make a motion yeah I would like to make a motion to add um budget neutral reconciliation topic to our agenda do we have a second did we lose Tracy I'm here we have a second I'll second I wonder in favor she I know but she's not okay so we're gonna go we're gonna add budget neutral reconciliation discussion it's number seven tonight got it okay all right um the first item on your uh regular agenda is the swearing in of Frederick Who as a Committee Member um and Frederick and I have talked about it and I think he's going to stay up there and I'm going to stay here ask you to raise your right hand um and I I state your name frerick be who do solemnly swear or affirm you saw me swear or affirm uh that I will support protect and defend and I will support protect and defend the Constitution and government of the United States Constitution and government of the United States and the State of Florida and the State of Florida and the charter of the town of lahache groves and Char of the town of lahache grov that I am duly qualified to hold office that I'm duly qualified to whole office under the constitution of the State of Florida and the charter of the town of lock AI Groves under the constitution of State of Florida and the town of laahi Gro and that I will that I will well and Faithfully perform that I will well and Faithfully perform the duties of Committee Member duties of Committee Member upon which I am now about to enter on which on which now I'm about to end okay all right you have been sworn in thank you spill that out and okay okay next is uh we've got the official one down here sign it is that the one he signs yeah it's a little harder copy um next is the election since we uh had a chair vacancy election for chair yep there will be an election for chair at this point in time I would like to nominate Miss Casey sui for the chairman position I second it I'd like to also nominate man chair anybody in second you don't really need um seconds for so we got two uh yes you can take it one of a one at a time or we could uh give you ballots to fill out which uh Tracy you can hold up a piece of paper with your selection do you guys you guys wanted will it help if I stand down I would like to I respect your nomination but I will stand down I think Miss suuchi is much more experienced and she is the right person thank you so much you have a lot of faith in me yes absolutely um so okay so then all in favor yeah there there's been a there's one removed so all in favor I guess for Cassie sui right anybody opposed so now that leaves a vacancy for vice chair do we have nominations for vice chair that's when you do man I nominate man Manish Manish sorry thank you and nobody else second yeah don't need a second and we're going to vote for vice chair all in favor of Manish for vice chair I anybody oppose so Manish is the vi congratulations okay so you can kick me when I do something wrong okay so the next on the agenda is the review of the fiscal year 2024 and Report the financial reports number three is that Francine no that's uh Mr Wallace Mr Wallace and there there are big versions of the um budget to actual at your places so it'll make it easier for you to read is that these yes it's the same document that was in your package but in a larger sense uh good evening uh Chris Wallace I'm gonna remove this from the works out Chris Wallace Finance director for the uh for the town so this is through the end of May which would be eight months of the fiscal year uh we're almost at the end of June but uh you know you're always chasing your tail with committee meetings and commission meetings um the revenues look about where we expect them to be I'll go fund by fund general fund well across all funds the revenues are about where we would expect them to be with some exceptions um in the general fund one notable exception was the town received about three4 of a million dollars for some tree mitigation money that will be uh it will be using in the future so that money will uh be restricted as to use so it inflates how much revenue we actually see um you know you kind of have to back that 3/4 of a million dollar out it's actually 746,000 5 and it's about six or seven lines up from the bottom of the first page in the middle this is money in addition to some other tree mitigation fees that the town generates that are kind of normal um but this money is definitely going to be a revenue for the year and it will be restricted at the end of the year if it's not spent for the purposes for which it was collected I wouldn't necessarily call it an impact fee it's just a mitigation fee is there any questions on that particular item because and that's only a onetime fee for that particular item yes and what is the restricted use well I'm going to let the Jeffer Francine direct that because it's basically to replace uh folage trees that are are going to be removed by the property owners is my understanding if they get tged don't they get money back section 87 of the code provides for either replanting of the trees that have been removed or if you are unable to replant the trees in your site plan then you may give the town a mitigation payment equal to multiple times I think it's three times the dollar amount of the actual tree replaced if you give us that while you are pending um an agricultural classification from the property erer and you receive the agricultural classification from the property appraiser then a percentage of that money goes back to you the percentage is the sliding scale um and that's also noted in section 87 of the code in the meantime the expenditures are supposed to be spent um in furtherance of the tree canopy and replacing the trees so we are actually looking at section 87 right now so we can be more specific on the use I believe that it's scheduled to come back to council for discussion in either August or September I can't recall but um there is no specific uses designated in there some of the uses that have been discussed are purchasing land some of the other discussions are providing um a tree bank so that we can help people who can't afford to replace you know dead trees and so on and so forth um or you know residential property owners who um you know have a hard time mitigating the trees um so a variety of different things are possible but they are not necessarily specified in our code at this time and I'm I'm sorry I'm might have dozed off while you you said this but that $746,000 is not subject to re reimbursement because it is uh It's associated with The Groves of town center um and they elected not to replace the the trees that they took and so that that's actual hard money that uh will be available for um a specified use in the in the future and that'll be determined by the council it is not as Francine indicated it's not generally available for anything but I did answer Miss Raffle wiz's question about does it go back generally it does go back but only um a certain percentage of it generally like 95% of it would go back if you got the agricultural classification thanks Jee because that was helpful because that was going to be my question to you I have a question so they can elect not to replace the trees or not to get their zoning or whatever and then just no no they have to get the appropriate zoning I didn't understand what you said with grow center they decided not to replace the trees well on their as part of their site planning process they had they removed a bunch of of trees and they kept some areas and they replanted in some areas but there was a gap in what um they would have had to replace um and took advantage of the election uh that Francine mentioned within the code that allows you to to pay um and put money in um instead of replacing the the the trees um and as she indicated that that costs um the developer or the homeowner more money to do so but it is an option um and this is this is the it this is the biggest amount of money by far that the town has received that they expected to keep um they they have received more money but it was in those situations in which um there was going to be the agricultural classification and we were going to keep a couple of percent in this case it's you know the whole 750 um there's another $80,000 that was received from Aldi yeah so there's the 746 and 80 from Aldi and in addition we have another applicant with a site plan for which we are holding a $600,000 bond which by and large we expect to be available cash which is why we need to talk about the specific uses because we will have on the order of $1.5 million in tree mitigation funds that are available for spending so excuse my ignorance is it specifically specific type of tree here or just trees in general no that's an excellent question again section 87 identifies native trees because if it's non-native they may be removed um they may be revie removed with an exemption because invasives are encouraged to be removed not necessarily by us but by the state of Florida and the Federal government um if it is a native um based on the dbh or the width of the tree there is a price palm trees are one flat um price but depend um the list of the type of different Natives and all the different types of Oaks and so on and so forth It's a price by their DB furthermore trees that are over a certain DB are considered specimen trees and specimen trees cannot be removed without approval of the council I know I just like totally whizzed through many pages of a code that has listings of the trees right I think i' I've seen some uh a lot of Cyprus and some uh the uh yeah Cyprus they're a penalty they're native really giant grandfather looking trees grandfather looking trees are specimens and we pet you it first of all they have to be approved by the council before they come out and they are also multiples of the cost of a native because you cannot replace and I think Miss sui said this or missish many years ago and I always think that it is so true you can't replace a 100y old tree exactly thank you you're welcome anybody else oh all right I don't want to hog the bandwidth so if you could be very brief in your response I'll appreciate it so let's talk about in the revenue side things where we are doing really well so first item is ADD Valor and taxes we are on Pace to already meet our budget in in May itself so my question is is that expected or did we get lucky here for the that uh no it's expected so property taxes U property owners usually get their bill in November and they pay in November okay the tax collector usually remits that in December and January so it's an uneven from this point on uh it's going to be flat right I think you'll do a little bit better you should get at least 100% of what you've expected to get you might get a little bit more for people who have paid late how about electric utility tax it's a function of weather summertime probably going to pick that up a little bit would be my guess okay so I see that it's on paas much better Pace than the last year so I'm assuming in 2025 budget which I haven't seen this item we have a positive on the positive side we should see some increase uh well given the fact that it's been really hot for a long time good I would expect electricity that's bad news for the customer and good news for the city got it okay let's look at Cost recovery fee we got we had budgeted zero but we got $32,000 what is it again it just an accounting adjustment or is it something unique so cost recovery is uh a little bit difficult to anticipate I think there's an also there's an expenditure for cost recovery and there's a lead time from the time you have the expenses until you're reimbursed sometimes from customers who have used their deposits but that would be the explanation for your cost recovery and planning and zoning fee sorry that was I was that was on cost recovery um there was a budget of $210,000 right I'm sorry I was referring to Planning and Zoning fee the budget was Zero but we received 32,000 yeah what what happened what happened there is um we had budgeted $60,000 in other permits um and then rather than having other out there which is like what do you mean uh we broke it down um into the um okay the Planning and Zoning permits and and some of those other things and so you have to put those together and when you put them together they're about um on Pace to hit the $660,000 mark okay perfect that answers my next question okay uh let's talk about the things that are on slower Bas it seems as compared to the last year half cent sales tax may may I have a little description what that is and why is it little bit slower not a little bit significantly slower than the last year they have sent sales taxes the state the city's share of the sales tax that's levied by the state of Florida okay um it's basically distributed back on effectively a per capita basis and that's not exactly right but it's mostly right um and it's it my looking at it was I think you'll meet your budget and then some on the sales tax so what happens with the sales tax also is there's an aage so um you know it at the end of the year we'll have two months worth of acral so you're about two months behind generally with that understood okay I have one technical question when we transfer money from other funds um why is it considered a revenue it's not it's not an Avenue it's just for budgetary purposes when we do our financial statements what we call other financing use or source and they match up so what's transferred out of one fund is a revenue or expense depending so you consider it Revenue but in accounting terms we agreed this is not re this is Cash inflow and and from our financial statements we don't consider it a revenue either just from a budgeting point of view we show it so you'll know what's going on with it thank you I'm good on that Avenue site does anybody else have a comment Tracy I can't see you you can't see me do you have any comment on this section I'm good are we only on Revenue just on this Revenue just Revenue page one okay are we all good good take it away Gris all right so on the expenditure side we do have some overages um we're looking at some of the details um particularly on health insurance some of that seems to be just uh the way we reorganized Personnel expenses some of it's changes in coverages and some of it's just an increased beyond what we expected for health insurance there also some credits that hadn't been posted at the time of this report that we expect to be posted I think in June um overall I don't think we're terribly concerned with the general fund budget I think it's going to end up pretty much where we expected it to be the general fund budget was funded with uh reserves to some extent to help pay for the transfers out to capital projects um you know I think you're the fund balance decline in this fund but that was certainly anticipated when the budget was adopted you know I think overall just need to keep in mind that a lot of this money from each of the funds was moved over to the capital projects fund to support the extensive effort in that fund both from this fund from the gas tax fund from the sales tax fund from the road and drainage fund uh they just moved a lot of money over for Capital which was you know extensively discussed by the council and was certainly intended in the budget so that's going to happen um yeah so the general fund I think is going to finish up pretty much where you expect it to be the next fund is the water and water and SE I'm sorry is the gas tax fund what they call the transportation fund this is money it starts on page four I'm sorry unless you had particular questions about any type of expenditure you have questions on the expense that I let you go yeah I don't mean to like blow through okay I I have a quick question on expense site AUD in and accounting uh is that your uh is that which which the line item 5320 uh budgeted was 85 sorry 100 we are in may we already at are at 85 very likely we may exceed this uh set amount so I'm just wondering is this a third party vendor or is this our own accounting and auditing um if I might take a a shot at that um the $100,000 is is intended um essentially for Chris's firm it's the it's the accounting side the auditing side is um broken up between uh this fund and uh the 105 fund I think it should be at $25,000 uh dollars each um I think some of the overage um in what appears to be overage in in that account um was because uh there was money that was coded um to that account that should have been coded to the audit account um so we expect the auditing services to come in right about the the $50,000 um and I think we're uh right on pretty close to on the mark on um the accounting side but the the difference you see there is I think there have been some things that were miscoded um as my recollection and I think um we caught that you'll see that in the the June update so so just so we understand budgeting wise we we will stay within the budget it's just the accounting uh recognizing what go yeah what what what happens is we have to code it to a particular GL um and there was a a mistake that was made um that's my recollection of the review of that item did the um this is a side thing but did the bid go out for audit over the next annual audit yet um the audit was a three-year contract and so they've got another year we also have the opportunity to extend um I think for an additional two years so in my last comments I mentioned that um again we will discuss this today but we would like to conduct stress analysis on our financials if there is a hurricane or two hurricanes in a year how does that impact our financials and so forth so it would be perhaps sometime in the future for their current scope I would like to also talk about minimum sampling of the data which was not clear to me last time and uh including stress test in their scope okay next question is legal fees um we are at 152,000 the budget is 175,000 May month was was very high 23,000 I just to wanted to make sure is it going to exceed or is it going to stay within 175 it's going to exceed there's um within that uh within that fund um there was 175 uh budgeted uh there and I think there was $75,000 budgeted um for uh legal related to um code enforcement so there was a total budget for legal services of $250,000 um and if you go go up to line 53 uh it's in the expense side 53111 Town Council legal expenses um there's an additional year to date there of $222,000 that has been expended originally in last year's um budget AR process uh there had been $100,000 that was allocated to those type of council related expenses um the the council ended up um diverting that $100,000 um uh to uh the canal restoration um crew um both the um Capital side with the acquisition of um materials and also the the Personnel side which you find in 105 um and we kept that line item um so that uh people would see um and the council would see um what the Town Council related legal expenses are and what those are generally meetings and conversations that council members initiate um with uh the attorney's office understood so so just to repeat my question 5310 legal fees 175,000 budget what what should I see other line item what is the total budget for this the total budget for Legal Services is $250,000 there's 175 in that and there is um in uh 00122 51 5195 3100 Professional Services legal that has to do with our code enforcement um uh actions um that $75,000 is budgeted um so so may I suggest that can we group these in accounting you can put all these three under one legal and then it could be one for code one for this so at least we see it as an you know right now if this is scattered it's difficult to see which one is meeting the budget or not so I would recommend either group them or put the money in the right item so we we we can see the comparison okay Professional Service building service that's what you're referring to right the the 65,000 dollar I'm looking at 5310 is that is that another one building inspection service Professional Service um that that $65,000 um has to do with the cost of building inspections um the um so we did not spend that money correct well we it's showing $ 11, $200 there was another item um that was miscoded um and let me see if I can find it um I talked to Chris about having to move uh the the charges that were buil to that GL um up um so the services are higher okay once again no problem we can catch up on it later but point is group them combine them so we don't have to well those are all grouped under those are grouped under building that that if you look up there you have in um building 50 we're starting at uh 18 uh um uh that's the that's the building department if you will um and 51200 is the regular salaries building overtime Building B Etc so the the inspection services go under building that's no I know I'm saying if this was the money allocated for inspection service out of 65 we only did 11 and that's a good thing if we can save money we save money so that's good but yes there's another uh I'll find it before the end of the evening but it's at least another $10,000 that was um up in there uh okay Planning and Zoning contract uh 53450 um we had budgeted for 45,000 we are already at 40,000 are we going to shoot this month are we going to exceed yes we're going to exceed that is that planned or is that what is the reason for that um it was uh in retrospect it was uh probably under budgeted and we're also going through uh transition between um planners we have uh Jim fleshman who had done the planning for uh a long time um and we're now using uh primarily Caitlyn for so so next time FY 2025 we will see the real you'll see you'll see a better number on that I'm good on expenses thank you I have a question I think it's important to note that the comp plan was supposed to be done last year and the comp plan has continued through this year additionally we've gone back to look at a number of ordinances that are planning related ordinances and they have been done by our new planner as opposed to our old planner and then finally I'd also like to say that our planner um is in the process of getting some retraining on his Billings um because some of the things that he bills us as general planning are things that we believe should be part of the cost recovery so I think you will see part of that $35,000 move um I don't know to the extent it will be significant but our old planner is transitioning out and what he should be working on are essentially the tree mitigations and knowledge transfer on some of the stuff that none of us know anything about um and getting his files brought into the town's records so that's why his contract was renewed so we could have that transition I don't know if that's more information than you wanted but it certainly is more than we'll budget it right next time it has to do with the level of activity that we have going on which is actually quite a lot I have a question go ahead yeah ma'am I'm noticing there's a lot of things that have not been budgeted there's zero but there's quite a few of them that for instance there was one on the second page where it was the Town Council legal expenses and there was Z budgeted for that but it spent 22,000 and then on the pay after that um over code a lot of it has to do with code Machinery equipment building permit Services I mean 10,000 14,000 but it was never budgeted what why is that is there a reason why there's no budgets for all these things um with respect to the Town Council legal expenses um as I indicated earlier there was originally going to be 100 ,000 budgeted towards that um line item um and then uh the council redirected the monies um but our understanding was they wanted us to keep track of um those expenses in the in the same manner uh so the attorney had started billing um to uh that particular function so it it's in there um because the Council made a decision to divert funds elsewhere um but we also wanted to keep it uh keep it there so people could see what the expenses were um and then with respect to code um what happened is that those the code was originally um part of the the general fund salaries and then what we uh what the manager decided to do was to um shift that into its own division or Department if you will um and so that was uh created um during mid year once again for an accountability standpoint to to see what that particular function was costing it was broken out from the uh um from the overall General um uh Monies and so we didn't we didn't allocate um overtime per se to to that um we didn't create any new monies for that or reallocate those so if you look at um overtime for Town Hall um there was $17,500 budgeted um overtime for Town Hall is at year to date with was um under 10 little under $10,000 um so you would uh look at the overtime for code put that in there um and uh you're at about $133,000 um which it it may go over budget it may be managed so it it doesn't it just depends on how things go but overall then that was part of the 7 $1,500 that we budget it and we will not be budgeting overtime for code next year because that overtime was done when we had a single code officer and he was doing the coverage on the weekends and in the evenings and now we have two part times so we don't pay benefits and we don't pay overtime um I had a question what's a planner on call I didn't think that was I mean you budgeted the $10,000 for that the the Planner on call um is where one of our planners is there to answer questions that come over the phone if somebody has um just a general question um and there are lots of general questions that come in um they're referred to the the planner or they can call them Direct corly and um the if the planner can respond to the inquiry um relatively quickly it might be a 15 minute or a half hour conversation something like that and resolve resolve an issue for somebody um it gets uh buil to um that account um when there is something that is going to need more explanation more Time by um staff uh and perhaps other disciplines what we are encouraging um the planner and other folks to to do is we really need to have a pre-application conference um and those are available for $550 um and you get uh an the engineer you get the planner um you can get the building official and your questions about how to move forward on a a development or what you would need to do with an application um gets gets answered but we've got it we're trying to do a better job of catching those things so so the the when you said a question like a permit is that from the permit holder or is that from the town staff or Town Council oh it's a it's a the the questions that are being responded to are members of the the public um citizens who who live here citizens who are thinking of coming here professionals who um want to know something about it real estate agents he gets a there's a wide variety of calls that that come in okay um on special events and contributions we over that budgeted amount what what did what was that for um it's uh 58200 on page two I just was curious it shows we went over the year to date we're at 11,000 I'm just trying to um probably six from the top on page two five or six eight sorry yeah um okay yeah that's the that's a little over budget um I would have to look at the uh the line item break break down to get into exactly what was charged there um I think there was maybe one or two small events left um Francine might have detail off the top of her head she usually does there's there's two more events left in this year one is the um back to school backpack and um we also have the question of whether we are doing the picnic or not this year so what goes in special events there's a resolution that approves the special events um this year we budgeted $10,000 less than we did in the previous year I'm hearkening back to one of Mr cts's earlier comments that was an area where we cut the budget um and we probably should not have cut the budget last year we budgeted I think 25,000 this year I think we budgeted 10 10 I'm sorry okay so yeah so that was one of the areas that we cut that we probably shouldn't okay on the same page too if you go like almost to the bottom probably eight from the bottom bank and merchant account charges was there something unexpected because we're slightly over in May no I'm G to let Mr Wallace tell you about that because he broke that account out for us so uh these are generally Merchant charges for credit cards that the people are paying more and more with credit cards and the fees are more and more than they used to be it's kind of hard to gauge what this fee is going to be during the year you know you may want to consider uh leving a little search charge like most businesses do anymore I don't know seems like everywhere you go anymore use a credit card they want to charge you for using a credit card so it's based on the flexible the variable rates right and different credit cards charge different amounts even like within Visa kind of there's they're all over the place yeah these These are charges from when somebody pays us correct right and so the fact that we are going over budget means um in a in a general sense that we're probably getting more of that type of Revenue than than we expected um or there has been um you know almost everybody's an awful lot of people instead of paying with check now um whether they be uh corporations or individuals are putting uh building permits in those kind of things on credit cards okay does anybody else have anything one question for Chris remind me do you do any acrs or is this simply everything that has come in and been posted by May 31st during the year we do not do acrs hopefully you can hear that so the only caveat I would say is like if you're in October and we haven't closed the books yet which is likely uh you're going to have monies that'll show up in the October and maybe even November report that actually go back until September until we close the books out obviously at September 30th we do a lot of acrs but during the year we do not do acrs we just keep in mind that some of these things lag as I mentioned earlier okay that's true for expenses too bills don't come in usually the same day they come in a month later or whatever thank you is that it no more questions Tracy and just one last thing to to point out or emphasize um because I think Chris pointed this out when you look at uh the numbers um we've already accounted for the entirety of the the transfers of $1.2 million to the capital um and the the transfer um of $118,000 to the uh Solid Waste funds so those are done at that was done at one or two times during the year um and it's not done like on a monthly basis or anything like that so when you look at those numbers you have to realize that those are done for the year they're not going to go up um so um Chris you want to continue um well I would actually moved on to the next fund but we came back to the line items and I'm you know I don't mean to skip over things so you guys have any more questions we're more than willing to uh to discuss them but if you're done with the general fund we can um go through the next two funds pretty quickly the next fund is on page four which is the transportation fund um this is money that you get from the local option gas taxes this money is a shared revenue from the state of Florida it's essentially a population base B distribution gas taxes are not based upon the value of gasoline in Florida they're based upon the gallonage that you pump so this Revenue stream Statewide this isn't anything unique to your city but the Statewide what what what you're finding out over time is even though we have more residents people are using fewer gallons in their vehicle they have hybrids they have electric vehicles electric vehicles don't pay anything towards gas taxes even though they use the roads so I'm sure the state will address that in the future this revenue is coming up a little short currently now summertime is usually when you see a big bump because people go on vacations and travel so maybe that'll pick back up but it may be that we're not able to transfer out all the money we get from this Source if it doesn't materialize so that's something to keep an eye on is there any questions with that we haven't moved out all the money from this fund yet because of the revenue stream may come up short however that's not necessarily all bad because on the next page on page five this is the local option sales tax fund uh here we used in the budget construct we also moved all the money over to the capital projects um this sales tax uh looks like it's going to come in over both in the general fund and on this fund as well so we'll see how this this goes we'll keep an eye on it but sales tax seems to be a little bit stronger than anticipated even by the state's estimates which are usually you know fairly good but not all alwayss any questions the local option sales tax fund is a a sales tax on in Palm Beach County voters approved to uh fund infrastructure so uh this is a limited Revenue stream that could may go away depending on whether it's uh redone by the by the County Commission and the voters but the I think I and let you guys know something different than the last time we talked I think our posture on that is it's probably going to go away and if it does it's going to hurt your capital projects program but you know maybe they'll come to their censes and you know vote it back in is there anything new on that there's a meeting on Friday to discuss it but um we need to plan on not having this Revenue Source after fiscal year 25 it brings us to page six which is water Control District or um it's the old District that the town absorbed into it this is funded mostly with special assessments some of the money comes from the gas taxes uh it's a transfer from the Transportation fund but most of this comes from a special assessment on benefited properties within the uh within the town and actually I think you have a couple of properties outside the town don't you that uh we do we have an local agreement with Palm Beach County for a handful of properties outside of the Town hardly worth mentioning though just kind of a interesting thing that the district's boundaries were slightly different than the town's boundaries um one thing when we're talking about the revenues here we're talking about this year's revenues you'll see that the what was budgeted in in the amended uh budget was um 2.75 $5 million um you also note that there was carryover uh from a line carryover line items from FY 23 and fund balance appropriated um that total about $945,000 um so in order to make this budget work this year and there was uh 4 almost $500,000 it's $484 691 that was transfer to the capital fund um but that operating budget of about $2.2 million um it's supplemented by um the U transfer of fund balances from previous years um that $900,000 is not going to be here um next year um and so uh what you're looking at under the current um assessment rate um um is about $1.8 million in funds that you can you know safely say are going to be part of this fund and that's something we'll talk about a little little bit later but I wanted to point it out here um it's a $2.7 million budget um that is uh able to be a $2.7 million budget because you had $945,000 of um fund balance that was used okay does anybody have any questions on that are we why Chris keeps going I think we keep going go ahead Chris the next fund on starting on page eight is the capital projects fund um obviously this is a big focal point of the current Year's budget just generally in the the town uh this is for drain Canal Banks canals structures on canals roadway improvements roadway major repairs um this has very uneven cash flows we've moved all the funds into it that we can there'll still some left to be moved in but um I think what you've got going is uh you know the capital projects are I'll let Jeff speak to most of those they're a little under where we expect but the this fund actually overlaps fiscal years as a general rule it's not like you can say on September 30th your projects are done so um the Appropriations have to like kind of be reappropriated for projects that are uncommitted at the end of the year yeah and once again you're showing 4.4 million um $664,000 of that was um balances brought forward from the previous year there were also expenses associated with the the previous year um in the form of finishing up the um road paving project for 2013 and um the uh uh couple of culbert bridges uh that were um really part of last year but didn't get finalized until um this year um you have gone over that in detail at previous meetings um and we'll be talking a little bit about uh what we're talking about next year um upcoming in the uh agenda but if you have any questions about that we'll be happy to each has a question I have a question oh look go ahead all right so I'm going to spend a lot of time on capital budget in 2025 discussion but I have couple of questions to understand the sources of incoming revenue for Capital fund first line item on the revenue saves local government grant 750,000 budgeted could you explain is it the bit is that we submitted bids and be expected to win those bids or is this money waiting what is$ 750 that $750,000 came from the state of Florida and a grant appropriation um so and it's there it's committed it's it's it's there um and we have uh received a similar appropriation for this upcoming year so two years in a row we've gotten $750,000 for so when it says zero May YTD zero what does that mean year today well we haven't gotten the money yet from the state it's just budgeted State ow a 750 for the previous year well I think I would phrase it like the state will you know when you have met the grant obligations the state will probably reimburse you so that's how it works yes well for most grants yes and there's sometimes where most grants except for I probably shouldn't even say are but most grants uh require you to spend the money first and then get reimbursed for them so this is deferred revenue sort of it it you will realize it when you submit the well it's not it's not a revenue currently is just budgeted as a revenue so it won't be Revenue until we actually submit the paperwork okay and same thing is true with the resiliency Grant yes yes okay and FEMA reimbursement same thing well FEMA reimbursement I think is money that the city's expecting or the town's expecting to get reimbursed for previous hurricanes that they're expecting to get this year so that's money that was laid out in the previous year that we're expecting to get back this year but yeah same same type of thing it was a previous grant that we've submitted reimbursement for and are are waiting the on being paid for that okay but we only you know we only book it when as a revenue when we actually get it I mean technically you could say when you submit the reimbursement but that's kind of dicey it's stuck somewhere is that my correct understanding meaning you send the expense it's sitting somewhere for somebody to sign and well maybe it maybe it just hasn't been done yet it it it has um uh it's it's going through the process um it has uh my understanding is it's been improved by uh the individual who um initially deals with it and is now up in front of um a board if you will and those folks are expected to act on it within the next month or to six weeks and we will get the we're expecting to get the the monies um before the end of this fiscal year and uh on a level of confidence um pretty high and then the next one is contribution from Road and drainage is that the same sort of thing 250,000 okay that's a private that's a private contribution um we uh we're still in discussions um with u with some folks and I think that they will come through situation where they're paying 250 to build the road and all that stuff well no they're they're contributing the the contribution will be um open for any purpose and we're just finalizing some other issues so it's done it's a done deal just it's it's not done but it's you know it's it's on it's on the order of like 80% or so I understand it just so I understand this 250 is not real Revenue yet it may go correct okay so this 250 is questionable okay yeah but this is where I'm heading toward so the first three items 750 plus 350 about let's say million and change 1.1 million plus 271 let's call it 1.4 million make it even where is the funding coming from who's financing this cash flow while we wait for this money we have already spent um some money so in other words is it the cash flow comes from the capital fund itself I'm just trying I don't see a cash flow statement I'm just trying to see how do you finance this sort of um the backlog okay uh typically I mean what you need are reserves you need that cash to be you need reserves well the town does I don't particular no no that's what I meant for Capital fund because of the huge time gap between actual cash itting the bank account to you showing it in the revenue that you need a reserve correct correct now the reserve the actual cash may be a loan that you have from another fund which is how typically works I mean you either transfer the money up front or you just go into negative essentially negative cash for that fund It's Not Unusual my experience to see capital projects funds like this one to have uh money owed to other funds so they'll repay that cash eventually it's it's you'll see it as a liability in this fund and an asset in the other fund so so that was my final question which I requested in my previous where where is that cash flow statement where it shows which fund owes inter fund liability statement or interfund cash flow statement okay typically we only do that at the end of the fiscal year and if you look in the financial statements you'll see what's called doe from other funds or doe to other funds so due to is the liability and due from is the asset um is there any statement as of this date that shows due I could probably present one but I mean it's it's very fluid so like if I gave you something today tomorrow would be different understood so I I think what as a general comment we are recognizing certain items as revenues when they are not real revenues they are in fact borrowing from One Fund to this one I'm gonna have to interrupt you governmental accounting is different than corporate accounting governmental accounting is based on fund accounting each one of the funds is a separate self-balancing set of accounts that means each one of those funds must balance so the fact that we have the gas tax accounted for in fund 101 the transportation fund but we don't spend the money in fund 101 means that that account balances with the transfer of the money to the public works fund or the road and drainage fund which is fund 105 everything has to balance these are not like in a corporate consolidation that cancel I am I have experience in both government and corporate no no I'm not questioning now I'm stating for the record that they are real agree with your assessment they are real I'm saying when you transfer it is a transfer it is either a cash inflow or a cash outflow it is not Revenue so many times we are seeing in the statement it it gives a f to a lay man it gives the Illusion for example in 2024 it gives the illusion we had a revenue of 4 million plus but in fact we only had a real revenue of 3.7 million um 4.2 million and 3.7 million the Gap was 500k of the money coming from a fund so my recommendation is if it is a transfer if we are pulling money from another fund it's not a revenue it's a transfer it should be classified as a transfer or cash inflow and then we need to see the inter fund cash flow statement so we know for example in capital fund how how do I know how much cash is available so town is spending $2 million in the next six months how do I know where is that 2 million coming from and that in other words which fund is providing the cash flow to whom and why does it matter because if we put that money to our 5.66% Florida Prime account uh according to my calculations and I would he your inputs we will generate $200,000 if we put our nonworking capital in an interest bearing account which is all supported by the state of Florida so it reduces our interest income while also um as a as my individual take is I don't know where the money cash is moving from one to another to another so in conclusion Revenue if you say Revenue in my mind that's the revenue it's not cash transfer or cash inflow so I would request um you and our accountant to use that term very carefully in fact in your comments later on you yourself say that uh it's not a revenue it's a cash you know real revenue is okay maybe I could explain it this way so with fund accounting uh with governmental funds it's we use what's called modified uh acral basis which is say it's basically Cash basis so when you look at at terms like contributions from Road and drainage fund contributions from general fund you see here those aren't revenues and we don't show them on our financial statements as revenues we show them as other financing sources ways to fund the government essentially but they're not revenues as you've noted because they're just moving from one pocket to the other but in this instance you could you could presume that that is in fact cash those contributions because it's cash moving from One Fund to the other what's not cash yet is these first four items on this revenue for the U capital projects fund we haven't received that cash yet although I think most of those items actually have related expenditures for them so you're going to have to cover that cash flow until you get the grant back right now most of the time that's going to happen you know the same fiscal year so you know if we don't we've gotten the grants it's a question of complying with the grant requirements and submitting reimbursement and getting it and you will have a negative cash outflow but it generally will not be a significant thing because as you'll note in this particular can I stop you what is our liquidity today how much cash do we have keeping all these in transfer out what is our liquidity today I would say it's probably in the neighborhood of seven or 8 million I'd have to look it up seven and8 million of cash well cash and cash equivalents or liquid Investments because most of the Investments are are fairly perect where do I see that number my a balance sheet prepared there there I go so balance sheet pnl sheet and cash flow three statements reconcile what I see here is uh it seems to me this is revenue p&l or sort of a statement it's it's budget versus actual budget versus actual it's expenditures but what I I'm requesting is a balance sheet statement of sort or an and a cash flow statement so we understand that seven or eight million cash that's not a real work cash it's actually committed there is some negative some positive so having that visibility will help at least me to look at where we stand okay and that and that goes by the way in financial year 2025 um forecast which we will talk in a bit we do we do yeah we do uh we did prepare a balance sheet for the end of May we typically do that for the budget but cash flow we typically the city has never requested that or do it we certainly could do it I think you know the way I look at it the from the budget to actual I kind of keep in mind that you know the budget the actual is is just that it's where you stand with your budget corre and it's it's indicative of where your cash flows going because if you come up short on revenues or if you go over on your expenses then you're going to have a cash flow reduction because that's where it's ultimately going to wind up I I think it should be a standard report correct me if I'm wrong your system cash flow and balance sheet should be standard yeah well I would say for for governmental funds which is all you have well you have one proprietary fund but it's essentially accsess a governmental fund we'll get to that it's the last one it's the solid waste fund they basically the the governmental funds are basically cash flow statements in and of themselves if you look at the financial statements for government you will never see uh a cash flow statement and the financial statements for governmental funds because they are basically provided on a cash basis to begin with that's un I'm saying call it fund inra fund committed statement where you like you said you have 8 to9 million doll where is it sitting where is the current balance of each fund yeah well I think what you're not seeing is the balance sheet that we prepared so that probably is missing yeah so that may have answered your question bance sheet um I think so we can do it in the next yeah yeah I'm done thank you Bruce did you have yes so on these expenditures in the capital Improvement fund do we have any self-constructed assets here or are these all uh monies spent with contractors well I think it's essentially money spent with contracts you want to capitalize interest Bruce just curious you're too funny we're not doing any self-constructed assets well not really okay that's fine thank you you're welcome once we make all that money we better capitalize it Tracy do you have a question or anything oh no Minish asked it already thanks Chris you can go on well the just the last one then is the solid waste fund it's on page 10 Solid Waste fund is a proprietary fund and Enterprise fund you know Francine and I have talked about just making it a special Revenue fund because this fund does not really have a profit making incen it's basically we Levy assessments for residential solid waste and we pay the G garbage contractor so there's nothing uh this this fund's right on track I have really nothing to add on this fund what are the discounted fees so when you pay your property tax bill which includes the special assessments that the city May Levy against your property just like with your property taxes if you pay in November you get to take a 4% discount 3% in December so on and so forth so it's a contra account or an offset against the revenue is what that is it just reflects the discounts that people have taken for that fund does anybody have any other questions is that it um yeah that's it for the budget the actual for sure okay um so we'll move on to number four uh review of the town investment policy and current investment position well I think 3B oh is that part of the budget oh were we on 3B 3B okay we're on 3B sorry I was projecting I found it page 16 okay their sanitation service that were negative $8,000 or these are usually code enforcement I think uh special pickups of garbage 16 is or the 16 is fund balances is that right is that where we are Chris yeah but I think I think the Committee Member at home had had questions still on the budget the actual oh oh sorry unless I misunderstood oh you you are correct I just asked what the other sanitation service was that were negative yeah that's that's usually additional Solid Waste Services that have been provided to Property Owners I can get you the detail on that no it's a negative yeah I know it it's a negative I think it's a missp posting Chris well we'll have to look at it because I know yeah I think I think you will have to look at it I think it's a Miss posting we'll take a look at it is that all the questions on a y sorry thank you so now we move to B it's I think it's a we have a I was just making sure our we're showing blanks up there but we are streaming make sure um so Jeff has a do this fund balance runout that kind of goes fund by fund that anticipates where we will be it shows where we have been on audited financial statements from 2020 to uh fiscal year 23 and then uh forecast for fiscal year 24 I have a question go go ahead BR U the uh fund balances are clear in the last audited financial statements on the uh governmental funds balance sheet page the unassigned balance and we talked about that a meeting or two ago uh but the solid waste I see here on this page okay so Solid Waste is not a governmental fund so you'll see it in the proprietary section of the financial statements maybe two or three pages back and that's where you'll see the net position they don't really call it a fund balance net position okay so that's what you're using thank you yeah on Enterprise funds that's done on a full acral basis so you'll usually see things like uh a depreciation and stuff but this the fund has no assets to depreciate and it really operates more like a special Revenue fund but in that particular case because it is classified and the city has established it as an Enterprise fund proprietary fund something that has a profit making incentive U it's called that position but it's effectively for this particular fund the same thing and that's why it shows up on this statement we didn't want we didn't want to leave it out so I would also note that the 1.5 million general fund forecasted fund balance is very close to last September 30th's fund balance from the the audited financial statements so we're in the same position that tells me yeah but when we did the well the reason for that is is when we did the budget for the current fiscal year it was obviously done last fiscal year and the the budget was adopted with an appropriation of fund balance of about a half million dollars or so so you expected if you'll notice that the fund ball has actually decreased or anticipated to decrease from one year to the next and it's we did have an assignment uh of fund balance or a commitment of fund balance to balance next year's budget are you looking at the financial statements ah okay you just reminded me that we're looking at uh fund balance in total I'm I'm looking at unassigned un assigned okay 2086 ah okay so the uh the real number of uh of interest when we talk talk about reserves or usable fund balance is the unassigned amount so thank you for uh the light bulb just went on that okay the 1.5 is a reduction of the total fund balance by half a million okay it's not we're not as good off as as I thought okay well it's about 1.5 roughly last year and we're anticipating being at 1.5 in the general fund this year or unassigned unassigned yeah but you're forecasting 1.5 total on this page well if you look on if you look on the you're talking about the the forecast yes if you look at it's kind of difficult to fit everything on here but if you look at the fund balances used or restricted there's a number there that kind of takes away from the total fund balance so if you added that 77100 back in uh then that would be your total fund balance but we have a restricted or or commitments against that so that's what the $771,000 is in other words you might you may recall that the tree mitigation money that we had that's the biggest part of it we're not considering that that would be unassigned fund balance that that's going to be restricted as to use so we've reduced fund balanced by that amount in our forecast but I mean the bottom line is our position uh these these would be our best guesses right now as what the fund balances would be yeah so it's it's also kind of misleading if you look at the transportation fund and the local option sales tax fund we're pro projecting a deficit in the transportation fund that may go away in the summertime like we discussed earlier we're also looking at had a surplus in the Lost fund both of those funds were used to move money over into the uh essentially the capital projects fund so they kind of net each other out coincidentally I'm not really worried about it but we're not going to finish up the transportation fund with a negative fund balance all put that there what'll happen is if the money doesn't come in we can't transfer it out so it's just not you know we'll just adjust it accordingly it's just there to show you that we're going you know at this time it may it may come up short I hope not some time may may turn the gas tax around but you're you are correct that there's going to be there's not the fund balance available that we had in previous years okay thank you for clarifying that so for the com committee members uh I would want to point out and make sure that you're clear on that we're going from 2 million to 1.5 down to 1.5 in the general fund and 1.7 down to 67,000 in the road and drainage fund so it's a significant decrease in fund balance and part of that fund balance is the reserves that the town depends on for emergencies so uh that is a concern to me that we're reducing that safety margin there that's all Cassie um Manish go ahead sure let let me maybe you answered it but let me understand I'm looking at front page 16 I'm looking at the the last section which is revenue fy4 forecasted to financial year end 4.66 million where is this number coming from um well it's it's our forecast it's not it's not in the budget the actual that you saw but we take essentially that budget the actual we go line by line to try to forecast the revenues to see where they would be at the end of the year based upon our our best estimate of where that would be so we do expect that Revenue to be you know $4.6 million so let me understand it I we just went through page one where it says budgeted 4.2 million right right so you're saying we instead of 4.2 we're expecting to do 4.66 million yes now let me explain so maybe it'll make more sense to you of the 4.2 million we did not budget $746,000 for that tree mitigation money so there's no budget for that so that revenue is coming in U and so that's why the revenues are going to look higher than the you might suspect okay so so let's stay on that okay the the rest is this the restricted one 771 th000 the tree money thing well it's mostly it there's a little bit subract 4656 minus 771 let's say it's 3.9 and change M where where is it matching with 3.9 where do I see that well you there's not a document that you have in front of you that you would see the 3.9 there's a forecast that we did that's based off this May 31st number actually more than sometime in June when we came up with this so there is a statement that shows what's actual Revenue well this is a forecast so there is a statement of actual Revenue which is what you had before you no no I'm saying there is a statement that shows what is budgeted and what you feel in happening in reality yes budgeted versus actual you have a statement well yeah it's it's this statement essentially this format the budget to actual and then no no but do you have line by line or is it just no we go line by line to do it so why why is it not that column I would highly recommend for our committee members to see so we spend all this time comparing everything to budgeted but now I understand there is something called actual and that's your benchmark well you do have it actual that's what this this is a budget and an actual all right no no I see that I'm saying for each line item we just went through Revenue side expense side I'm assuming you have a actual on the expense side as well yes as do you through the end of May no no I see budgeted versus actual till date right right but your end of the year actual is not what I see okay so you're saying actual but I'm I'm I'm hearing forecasted okay forecast say forecast I'm saying you have a for each item on the revenue side on the expenditure side you have something called forecast yes right yes and you believe that's the real number at this point in time it would be my best estimate sure yes so why in all these statements why am I why should we see I understand comparing with the budget that's good but why would we not see that compared with the actual which you see would be the actual story but for the end of year not budgeted because you have the real time data where is that it's not I I wouldn't call it real time data forecast right right you and I could come up with a different forecast whatever word you want to use so I'm saying for each item shouldn't we have a column I I would ask my children you want to see versus budgeted which happened last year exercise they know on based on this data they know where the end of the year is going to actually end or they can use the word forecast well the forecast the way I understand it is what they anticipated yes it's supposed to be and then the actual is what money is that was actually no no I see so they are forecasting what will happen at the end of the year right so so in in my mind now my light bulb is going on to say okay if this is if this is page number 16 is the real picture we believe in real expenses and real Revenue by the end of the year I would like to at least see where is what is that reality coming from because in this picture we have 3.9 million in revenue and why the expenditures are 3.0 million why is that is that going to be the real expenditure 3.08 it's the transfers yeah yeah that's that that's no no I'm looking at the line to expenditures FY 24 forecasted to financial year end yeah so what Jeff said is kind of like what you were alluding to before when you see the transfers in and out on the bottom of this page yes those aren't revenues as you noted so we try to separate them so it looks like what you would have when we did our audited financial statements we you know because the prefaces meaning that's money that's a positive that's not negative right so uh you kind of had to add if you have a transfer out to go back to this statement you'd have to add the transfers out into the expenditures and then you got kind of a better idea of what you got let me rephrase my question what is the forecast expenditure for 2024 forecast expenditure including transfers out no leave transfers out transfer the forecast expenditures is at 3.1 million dollar you see there okay 3.1 million okay and now I'm going back to my page number page number three uh year till date year till date we have spent 3.2 million and our budgeted is 4.2 million so what what item out of this is transfer out is 1.2 million to CIP fund correct and transfer to Solid Waste is 118,000 correct so that's 1.3 million correct right that's 3.2 minus 1.3 is what I should be looking at is that how you no you should be adding the 1.3 to the 3.0 and the flow of funds the fund balance run out or whatever you want to call it and then you would come up to the year end forecast of about $4 million okay all right I think we we are getting somewhere the point I'm making is please it's um highly confusing to me and if I can read it after spending hours and hours I would imagine for a other person who was just looking it if you have actual if you want to use the word forecast or your actual assessment for line by line for revenue and expenses I would like to please add that column in your reporting so we see not just versus budgeted which is set in stone last year but we should see the real situation um okay so I let me explain to you why I am so emphatic about this issue in 2024 and I'm just going by your prior page one and two and three data it seems real Revenue was uh 3.7 million okay and I still have to check my numbers because now I see that the fund inflow and outflows are all mixed up and our real expenditure was 4.2 million a budgeted expenditure for 2024 um in other words we spent more than we earned in general fund by about 500,000 and we very nicely made that up by adding pulling funds from our general fund which is okay we pulled fund that's how we balance the budget but what is concerning to me now is in 2025 as my friend here indicated that in 2025 we have you have balanced the budget in general fund which is good you are saying our revenue and expenditure will be 4 million and 4 million zero beautiful but here is the problem you are uh there is a capital fund shortfall of 300,000 and this is based on my the data that you provided I have to go through actual forecast versus budgeted it may I have to reassess but let's go with that for a second we have a capital budget shortfall of 300,000 then on top of it it needs 750,000 because we don't generate enough Revenue in capital fund so all in all we have 1.05 Mill million negative in capital fund for 2025 our road and drainage fund you are budget in your analysis you're saying we are negative 600k in other words your expenses are 600,000 more than your your your Revenue all in all we are in the hole for $1.6 million and if I go by this analysis as my friend just now mentioned you you will be taking our reserves in general fund from 1.5 million to $750,000 which is super dangerous and irresponsible to do so where am I going with all this I think for for at least me and I would love to hear comments from you for us to give any meaningful feedback on 2025 budget we need to see item by item actual forecast versus actual as of year end and then I would when the item comes we will talk more but I don't think we are in a position to afford we have to have a serious change in our spend 1.5 million negative we can't afford so it somebody has to give somewhere we we don't have that as per my highlevel analysis we we will be you mentioned 1.5 is dangerous in 2025 this will be going to 750k no no no how come because you're you're mixing and matching some things but I'll get into this okay with respect to the the $750,000 um that is going to be coming from the general fund next year um that's part we're anticipating revenues of $450,000 I think okay um and within those expend there's going to be expenditures of $4 M50 um 750,000 of that is going to come um from the revenues that we received this year for example um so basically your operating your operating side on the general fund is going to be about $3.3 million and then um there there will the general fund is going to have next year a surplus of $750,000 if you will that we're planning to transfer to the capital so it's not think that I have to interrupt you we're having a conversation about meats and mites and so on and so forth and I have to remind everybody we have a hundred years of deferred maintenance and we have not raised our assessments to cover the increase in the expenditures we have managed to maintain the reserves and last year and the year before as we came through the budget we told the council that we were balancing the budget with reserves last year this committee recommended an increase and a gradual future increase in the assessment what we are doing now is we catching up on the maintenance that has not been done particularly in drainage if you wish to go ahead and maintain the reserves and wish to proceed with catching up on maintenance you're right something has to give but it's not a line item by line item where we actually find the money where we find the money is where we spend it in capital because all of the transfers that are happening are moving money to Capital the only transfer that moves money that doesn't go to Capital is the m a portion of the maintenance money on the gas tax which goes to cover some Gap in the roads and drainage fund the roads and drainage fund operates at a millage that is close to I'm sorry at an assessment rate that is close to $300 however we have have only been collecting $200 so if we look at this on a line by line basis we don't get an answer because the answer is what is the priority and how do we eat the elephant and eating the elephant means we have to do it one bite at a time with a plan for fiscal sustainability where are we at well I think that we need to be very thankful to the State of Florida that we have received 7 $50,000 two years in a row that's 1.5 million that 750 is our money we're not deficit funding what we're doing is we are being reimbursed as we spend the money have we spent the money yet no we have not spent the money yet if we play our cards right we can get the bid out on the street quickly and we can do the project of 1.5 million as one project because we didn't spend this year's money we actually have a full year after this year to be able to go ahead and apply for that money so it's not deficit spending and you make a lot of good points and I told you that in the email we need a person like you that pushes the envelope forgive me for going on here but if we talk about it in terms of bits and bites we don't answer the question because the question is a lot bigger question we are funding and we have funded all of the maintenance that we've been catching up for the last couple of years through windfalls what are windfalls we got arpa funding of $2 million that wasn't through taxes it was a windfall we received the sir tax money in advance of the schedule that was originally planned for the CX money that's why I'm saying we will not be able to count on that money past next year because once we hit $2.5 million of collections it's over we're close to the 2.5 million those two sums of money the $4.5 million they were absolutely outside of anything that the town controls are gas taxes well the gas tax will probably go up a little bit because we did a gas tax audit and I suspect we'll talk about that a little bit more later on in our conversation however the bottom line is we can provide you all the information you ask I think it's a wonderful idea to augment our reports however the big issue that is in front of us is really how we prioritize and how we allocate and how we find the resources to fund the work that has not been done for 20 to 100 years the canals have not been dredged in 12 years and when they were dredged 12 years ago it was not 100% of the canals two we have Canal bank stabilization that has been estimated in some cases at 20 or 30 million and other cases at 80 million we have at least a million dollars of coverts that we know we have to go and replace right now public coverts not private coverts with respect to private CTS we have hundreds of private coverts or straws going in and out of our system that's what the Brazilian Florida Grant is to give us a baseline of what we need to address that hasn't ever been addressed so we have um a lot of things that are coming in front of us um and they aren't the things that we have been talking about so I agree Chris should come back and give us those schedules I agree we need to move the money because I know that that's going to be the next conversation we just got the analysis from Mr Wallace and his his the current numbers and his current analysis demonstrate that we should move the money and the paperwork is in the process to move the money to the SBA but the point I am making is well we will change the reports we have to address the bigger ISS FR let me talk about a bigger picture so we at least summarize what we talked about general fund our main operating budget of the town if I understood for 2025 are you saying just so I understand a word general fund you are saying will generate positive 750k yes no that is not what I am saying I am saying in 2025 if we stay at the current three ills which is what we're going to propose let's say no tax increase no tax increase anywhere I'm saying in your current 2025 no tax increase on the public we're a million short right off the bat we're a million short your number was like a million six the number is a million it's not a million Milli so you take 750 so if I if we all agree that for 2025 we are 1 million short is that the number that is correct you don't change one number so so let me share my two cents if we are a million doll short right and we are not incre so the question is there are only two option increase the revenue or decrease cost so increase Revenue at least personally I don't see any tax increase and I don't want any tax increase in this environment of high inflation and people getting destroyed with what's happening in the economy the second point being um grants there is you have some forecast but I don't think any magical Miracle is going to happen so until that happen at least we should not spend any money so the we're not forecasting money that we haven't been awarded so so then the only thing remains only thing that we should think about then is where to cut cost because we don't have that million so we have to I mean that's my personal and I again I have to see more data but if 1.1 or 1 million whatever that number is cost has to be cut somewhere otherwise where you will be cutting cost is all of the maintenance work in the capital and that is okay if you wish to cut it then we can no no you're right but the point you need to let me finish sir please we have a capital plan that has about $2 and5 million of projects listed it has not yet been reviewed that plan is less Mone in this current or the upcoming year than was originally projected in order to get it to just what we have been directed to spend the money on just what we spent the money on we had to move projects that were originally planned for 2025 into future years this hasn't gone to the council yet but if we are wishing to cut expenses such as to maintain Reserves and to continue catching up on maintenance and taking care of the things that we are asked to take care of we do not have 10 pounds of potatoes in this 5 pound bag and I'm just here to tell you that we will do as the council directs because that is our job to do what the council directs but likewise it is our professional responsibility to share with you all of the general public and our Council what our position is and our position is that we have many tens of millions of dollars of deferred maintenance that has to actually get fixed yeah um if I could just to to clarify so that we're on the same page and maybe if I I'll explain it better about the $750,000 um when you look at um the revenues um what you will see is on the general fund there was a transfer from the fund balance of $56,000 there was a transfer on the expense side um to the capital project of $1.2 million so there was $700,000 approximately um that came from I'm not an accountant but what I would call this year's Surplus if you will that it's not a surplus because it was spent but it was spent on Capital so there was $700,000 from this year that we moved over to Capital next year that's when I when I say the $750,000 instead of transferring 700 we think it'll be $750,000 that's the number that we're working with right now and we are not planning on going into um that projected fund balance of $1.5 million so as Francine has indicated um we can go through the the numbers on the capital um but without um an increase in um the assessment um that $200 per acre assessment um then your rodent drainage fund is about six is projected to be about $600,000 short this year as we went through as we showed you it was from an operational standpoint about $400,000 uh short and um the the difference was made up by that transfer from fund balance of 900 and some odd thousand dollar as Mr Cunningham has pointed out looking at the numbers and you've pointed out we don't have any excess fund balance we don't anticipate having any excess fund balance in that road and drainage fund so um you've got a $600,000 deficit there um and then as you pointed out um what I what I showed you in the number is about a $300,000 deficit um for Capital and that's why the manager says it's about a million dollar number so we agree there is a million dollar deficit that's what I'm saying yeah cool Freddy Freddy no he he he answered it when he because my question was about the 750 so he answer so I know we're we're hoering on the same thing but what I see here is a gluttonous of stuff and I go to these meetings and I don't hear this being presented to Council in that way in some some aspects but I'm looking at the numbers here and they're copied on everything you are ask me if I'm just correct me if I'm wrong or what so we have all these projects we want to do which comes out to maybe $2 million in proposed projects okay you're saying we're a million short and we're seeing here that we are clearly the forecasted fund B balance is almost 900 well it's probably about 50% maybe less I'm saying when clearly it's forecasted to be less let me try to get it all out first because yeah it's all in there uh from 21 it's clearly looking in the here it's clearly forecasted to be exactly what Bruce and we are all seeing drastically less so if we're looking at that and we're clearly saying that we have these um this deficit and we don't want to raise taxes there needs to come a point that maybe we can't buy filet manong and we have to stick with us a lower quality steak per se okay we don't have F we barely have hamburger here some of these projects could be superflous that maybe don't need to do and we need to do something that's what did you call it a deferred maintenance there isn't anything on that list that isn't a deferred maintenance some of these projects that maybe we can go I don't know it's something Council needs to look at we can go through them yeah that's you know I guess I want to point out just when you see the numbers that drop you're saying that and you see all the projects up there please The Five-Year Capital plan is reviewed with the council throughout the budget process this is going to be the third year that we have presented a complete Capital plan there was not a capital plan prior that had any real semblance of reality um when we started getting the arpa money and we started spending the ctax money that's when the capital plan came to be on the capital plan every project that is in the capital plan that you are looking at has been in a capital plan that has been in front of the council and in fact this year the plan was in front of the council four times because the capital plan is adopted by an ordinance and that's four times after the budget was adopted we have to do a first and a second reading on the capital plan which we did on the initial Capital plan however because the prices came in differently on um some of the bids or invitations to bid that we did we had to come back with the capital plan and in addition because we got resident input from different groups in the town we also came back again with those um comments and so on as part of the revised Capital plan and it went through again a first and second reading and I think that that second reading was less than a month ago um so this has been in the public and it's going to be in front of the council you know very shortly again and it will be discussed again and all of the stuff that is in there right now for this fiscal year 25 was something that was already discussed with the council does it mean it won't change when we discuss it with the council no it doesn't mean it won't change but we are out of a list of desires this is following a plan that has already been approved for the last couple of years from the council the only thing that really changes is was what the dollar amounts are and also when we find additional work has to be done like we've been replacing culverts we get the $700,000 from the state of Florida for drainage one of the things that was a bit of a surprise to us was F and collecting Canal that we are going to end up having to do that whole intersection of CTS and we did not plan on that $450,000 before it goes out to bid that that would be something we would be spending most of that money on so dollar amounts changed but the idea of the work that we are doing and need to do is only being more and more refined so I just wanted to make that clear on the record for anybody watching and anybody here this is publicly discussed and will be publicly disc discussed not only by you but by the council and the public multiple times before it goes to a first and second reading in October yeah and but your your comments are spoton there um you have a a if you if the council decides to keep revenues where they are the assessments where they are um or in a situation where you're going to drastically cut back on the projected Capital um and you may have to uh revise your operational um things and uh a lot of the improvements that you've seen you know um the catch-ups on the schedules and those kind of things um you know that would revert if you don't have if you don't have the operations to get it done so that's the there's a there's always that tradeoff push and pull you know yeah it's a tradeoff can I add a comment I think Bruce made that comment I think the goal of this budget should not be let's not make it negative or zero it should be on the other way around we should add to our reserves this economy can crash at any moment all the sugar high of these ad Valor and taxes and property and this and that can all can come down I think our reserve for general fund is 1.56 million it should be um it should be in the 2 million and above range uh and same goes for other funds so I fully agree I think budget should be net positive and that's how we should work not just maintain status quo um that's my comment thank you um Tracy do you have any comments no are we all done with that um are you're done Chris yeah I'm done I would just uh I'm piggy back on what the manager and and Jeff said you I've been coming to your meetings for a long time not just since we engaged to run the finance microphone I just have to hold it really close to my mouth sorry um your needs for Capital go up here your revenues Capital are down here and make no mistake the people who live here and have businesses here are the ones who pay for all this you've been lucky because you got a lot of free money mostly from the federal government some from the local option sales tax but that's going away the ARP money is gone the sales tax money may be gone and and you pay part of that anyway when you buy stuff into the county my point is you know you only have money coming in substantially to fund these Capital issues from either your property taxes special assessments you have or borrowing money to fund them and that's it I mean you're chasing your tail otherwise and just to point out after the budget was adopted last year what happened to one of your roads or canals you had a collapse you had to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars you're just going to see more and more of that as time goes on this isn't getting better Francine's right it's you know Decades of neglect not coming up with money because people don't want to pay what it cost to repair the roads to repair the drainage I mentioned last year you know I've not really heard too many people complaining about taxes in lanche grows because they're low I mean everyone complains about taxes but relatively speaking they're low what I have heard over the years and throughout their engagement currently are people who come to meetings complaining or I read about in the paper about flooding about the conditions of the roadways or the canals those are money issues and they're not going to go away so uh you know the frustration you hear is from you from them it's the same frustration you want to have a well-managed city financially but you have all these Capital needs that really need to be addressed and something's got to give you don't want to pay for them you're not going to get it it's as simple as that Mr W may may I since you open that door I I think Miss sui made a point New Capital project road paving beautiful things maybe we can wait on that a bit maybe the grant cams Federal money comes we get lucky those essential things you know that you mentioned repairs essential thing yes nobody says no to that so that's Point number two is we have to look at every budgeted item maybe we have to cut in our operations somewhere we have to save money somewhere so to summarize I would I suggested in my previous email to you it will be helpful for us and for the council to create three different scenarios scenario number one what you have projected as of today you basically are saying we are going to transfer uh $750,000 from general fund to Capital fund and then you have you have budget shortfalls and all those funds all in all you in your current plan you have a shortfall of about a million dollars so that's scenario one it requires increase of taxes and you can inform the council how much that increase will be scenario two uh no fund transfer from general fund so you maintain the reserves increase the reserves if general fund is overperforming that's good save money for those kind of last minute emergencies Canal fails flood happens hurricane happens scenario two is no fund transfer from general fund and how do you manage the budgets and scenario three could be where you come up with a plan to actually have balanced budgets in each of those areas you you you don't take one fund and put Mone money in the another fund you do your best to do balance budgets and actually that may be a good point to bring my next item if everybody's okay with it to talk about budget neutral well that's that's the end next I'll hold on so I think we're done with this unless I think we pretty much thank you was very enlightening for me Cassie just a thought here just a thought as we proceed I see the uh Public Works director sitting here for two hours I wonder if we should go to him next sure does that make sense make that oh you gonna do that can I can we do that s yes you can I'm just uh um are we have we encompassed the discussion about investment policy into that previous discussion I it is my summary H thanks to the committee here and to you guys we will be ating 200,000 a year in positive income if you do what you said you are going to do which is moving non workking Capital into a 5.66% yield bearing account but yeah please can we can we vote to move that to the next meeting there's no need for you to vote to move that because we're going to go ahead and do it so good it's an informational item to you so we can email also yes it's email it's informational you don't have to do anything um did we have any comments from the public on this last long winded conversation it's up to it's up to the board the comme yeah we should invite public or anybody that there there has been no so I guess we're going to move on to number five um the presentation from Public Works uh cost of maintaining pave roads versus dirt roads and you're up all right so you have to excuse me as some of my uh we're still as I don't know how many of you know I've only been here not even six months um so a lot of this stuff we're still trying to figure out um the cost associated with maintaining the the dirt roads so we are actually currently in the process of doing an analysis um but researching other municipalities and other jurisdictions um hold on a second so for example Indian Trails did an extensive study a couple years ago on um the C their they did a a justification on maintaining dirt roads versus using the recycled asphalt that they currently use um their cost per mile is actually higher than what our cost mile would be because recycled asphalt the way they apply it and the way they do it cost them more on the initial installation we are currently um still analyzing exactly how much it it costs us per mile and how much it cost to maintain um our maintenance thus far since I've been here because I'm still trying to research the records that our previous director had um but so far we've spent like $800 an hour as fault in two days worth of labor for two guys to to fix the edge breaks potholes in the town um that we have fixed in the last couple of months um but like I said I'm trying to extend that out to 10 years I'm trying to find the records that the previous director had and the previous you know folks had over in public works um as for the cost to maintain the dirt roads so we're still analyzing how much Rock we've put down the last couple of months you know how much everything else but Indian Trails has a 10-year annual maintenance cost per mile per Road Rock of $64,000 a year um their reclaim asphalt pavement maintenance cost is $199,000 a year and that their cost to construct a Road Rock Road is $889,000 for the road Rock and for the recycled asphalt pavement is $51,000 so our costs are probably going to be similar we have to go through about once every two to three years and reck all the dirt roads at a significant cost the labor included which also takes away from the grading because we only have one grader unlike Indian Trails who has five graders uh we have one grader so when that grer operator is spreading the road Rock to rck these roads he's not not grading roads so now you're deferring that maintenance and now he has to go back and either through overtime or readjusting the grading schedule in order to degrade the other roads that he's not grading when he's spreading this rock so there's a significant difference in the actual cost between uh with the maintenance of the 10year M that that number I gave you was a 10-year um acral you you referred to a recycle asphal is is that for the the dirt road or or is that uh because I'm thinking Crush uh uh you know when they when they dig up Asphalt Road ashalt millings yeah M ASA so basically so what Indian Trails does and of course they have the equipment the staff the M everything else to do this um because they do about five miles a year right now is what their plan is so what they do what basically where the recycled asphalt comes from is like you said when they Mill roads like when they do I95 Southern Boulevard all these major highways they pull all that recycled asphalt P up and they take it to a yard they Mill it down to a smaller diameter and then that rock is then the what Indian Trails I'll give you the short method of how they do this basically they go to a dirt road they dig down about a foot they Rec compact the road make sure the road surfaces are are Level straight and true um they compacted everything else and then in two six-inch lifts they apply the Recycled the crushed asphalt they compact it and then while this sound funny they use Dawn dishwashing detergent to reactivate the asphalt millings so that it becomes a solid surface so it's not like when a resident goes out and buys some millings and throws it in their driveway that's not what Indian Trails is doing so the surface is the asphalt Milling surface is about a foot thick and their expected life expectancy is like 10 to 15 years the same as what we we are anticipated uh life expectancy of our paved roads is 10 years and that's about 8 to 10 years is about average for any municipality for the life expectancy of their roads so do does the recycled asphalt costs less than the actual that's what we're trying to analyze right now and the only reason why you know light bulb on in my head is uh in a previous farm that we had we had a 300t driveway instead of P it putting just Crush rock on it we did the the M asphalt and once summer came and all that eat it up that thing was there forever right and so like according to their analysis they pay 8 per ton right it's cheaper but they're it's cheaper but they're also putting six times the thickness that we do we're putting two inches of asphalt that's that's hot asphalt that's rolled pressed everything else just like every other Road you know the roads the way we do at least now I don't know about in the past I can't speak for anything that happened before I got here but the way we're doing these roads this year doing them the exact same method that they when they did Forest still Boulevard Southern Boulevard all these other roads the thicknesses everything um so but like I said they're using a lot more so while it's $8 per ton uh the volume that they need for what they're doing is a lot more because it's like I said it's a foot thick so it's isn't there like a a weight uh restriction or whatever on the the different by roads or side roads our roads the restrictions no through trucks because about through I think believe it's through ordinance there was actually an ordinance pass in the town that says no through trucks on these side roads watch why why we have signs on all of the the main roads and was also supposed to restrict traffic through okoi Boulevard right so you only need to build the the the the road to support the we're building the road for longevity I mean our goal is to do this once and not have to go back every week and fix it that's that's my plan is when we do all these roads we're doing them so that way they're safe they're wide enough for vehicle traffic to safely pass each other without having to worry about somebody pulling off the side of the road and hitting somebody's mailbox and other things I've been told has happened over the years with some of these roads or driving into canals um because the roads wide up so I mean and also the way we're building them we're reinforcing the edges um of the road we're not just Paving what's there you know when we because our team is actually going out and we are um correcting or not correcting I shouldn't say correcting we are um reinforcing the road beds so that way you know if we're Paving 18 foot road the road rock is actually 20 feet so the road Rock extends a foot past the actual paved surface so that way there's not sand at the very end so when somebody does Drive closer to the end it doesn't break the edges off that makes sense do you have a question go ahead Manish if I understood the objective of this exercise to compare Town cover cost for pave Road versus dirt roads correct correct in the paved Road situation if I understood for a 10 to to 15 years life expectancy there is an 89,000 Rock Road Rock plus 51,000 payment is that correct 140,000 yes I'd have to look at the numbers but yeah okay and then you said there is a threeyear repayment 10 year 10 so for 10 year nothing is needed no maintenance the only thing that needs to be done is maybe it have to be restriped or if there's any Edge breaks at form we have to fix that which again our minimal cost so let's say this cost us I'm just making it up 50k okay all right over 10 years I could go with them for dirt road what is our cost right now that's what we're trying to figure out we we are because um I was asked to do this exercise literally last week like a few days ago so I I we're still compiling the numbers um I mean so far we've we've calculated the greater rental the the operator and the um the greater rental the maintenance of the grader the oper at and you know without the physical material um and it's somewhere in the neighborhood of for the main roads we're spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $60,000 a month um to grade them all just grading we're talking about rebuilding maintenance anything beyond just give us mile per mile for paid oh yeah yeah okay all right once you have that dat yeah we're working on that I mean hopefully I have that done tomorrow we were actually going through blackp which is the program use can I go ahead and shortcut this sure the cost if I heard you correctly the cost of a rock road maintenance is more expensive than a paved road maintenance is that correct absolutely okay that is also true in Wellington their numbers are different than I their roads are different than we are but essentially speaking when we have our numbers they will be consistent with other places numbers and it will demonstrate that the cost of maintaining a Rock Road exceeds the cost of maintaining a PVE road because if a paved road is built correctly as Mr Gant said you only get back at it once every 8 to 10 years and truthfully the 8 to 10 years is higher for some roads some go 15 some go more it depends what your bed is like and the issue is the bed the bed and the traffic so um anyway we do need those numbers we don't have enough history to really give you a strong number like a Wellington or an itid can but you can certainly know that if we went with an i number which is 24 to 19 we would end up having some kind of um four fifths type of ratio it's four fifths the cost of a Rock Road to do a paved Road and if you want to change the 4 fths to 2/3 thirds that's probably also a good Benchmark so keep up the good work Mr Gant thank you thank you do we have any other questions Tracy no do we do we have a public comment wey B thank you so I appreciate Mr galant's exercise it's it's not going to be a a clear picture um today the greater came down my portion of B- Road uh where they still grade and um it's always fascinated me somebody who maintains a dirt Arena on a daily basis and and observes the behavior of water and dirt that this town continues to grade the road so that the material is pushed away from the Canal bank when The Grater passes because the rain is going to come along and the dirt that's accumulated along the Canal bank burm is going to be washed down the surface of the road instead we have an accumulation of of basically the surface material which is different from the base material that then gets scraped off to the side of the road that then just accumulates and causes the water to go nowhere and this is a continuation of the problem of the historical widening of the roads past the right of way that caused the road surface to now become lower than the adjacent properties where the water would historically run off into the historic drain swes that were perpendicular to the road so then they've added material now we have run off into agricultural properties which is also illegal by State Statute so Mr glant also made the comment that people drive into the canals because of the road width I don't think that has historically borne out by any fact um the cost of the Canal bank uh erosion due to Paving the road surface also needs to be calculated and this magic Paving is cheaper than dirt roads I'm not saying one way or the other but we paved roads surfaces we disrupted the burms that were part of an integral to the Canal bank Health as it were and then we created a situation where the canal Banks then basically failed so um B Road South is our only fully engineered and properly installed paved Road in this town out of the 13 Culvert drains basins that are along that road seven of of them are incorporated into the surface of the road so the continued acquisition of drainage easements and theft of property from private land owners in this town for drainage is something that should be considered along with the road width that is a is an issue I would suggest that this committee review the gas tax maps how they came into existence the historical maintenance of Road roads by the water Control District I think you'll find that historically our level one service roads were regularly maintained by the water Control District and as Mr Su has pointed out there is a serious concern about the liabilities that as a town we took on that historically were not covered by the water Control District which I will remind you is a water district it is a drainage District it's not a road district so there needs to be a review of why the town took on these smaller Road segments and burdened the taxpayer with the cost of all these small Road segments and why these Road segments were paved over the level one and level two Service Roads that the town has spent hours and hours of Staff in in volunteer time with committees to establish this road classification so I I think that that as you go forward and you look at these things you look at the demand for drainage by the town of the road surfaces while at the same time forcing residents to retain their own water by FDA the conflicts that arise with this I I think are are something that would be very interesting to fully understand thank you thank you Lisa please come to our workshop on July 16th where we will be talking about the drainage in more detail and revisiting the Florida Statutes relative to compensating storage and drainage as well as the FEMA requirements and the model ordinance that we previously adopted how we might change code sections 467 175 better accommodate the community and speak again so that that's going to be an interesting conversation uh frany it's my understanding that the town is an asset to the South Florida Water Management District because we do not have so many surfaces so this creation of Paving the necessary water behavior and I think this was started under Mr Peters of polishing the water and requiring all these additional drain basins and the cost associated with that so well I think you make a fantastic point and it should be said that the time at the time of incorporation um as many Lots were less than 5 Acres as there are lots greater than five acres that is still true today those lots that are less than five acres are what they are impervious surface area that do not pay for the impact that they have on the drainage in this town so it is very thankful for 50 % of our properties that have 5 Acres or more because they seem to be shouldering the cost of the other properties so that would be my point on this one all right I have something thank you Mr glant thanks Lisa um I'd like to see I know I don't know if you're going to come back and I think it would play into what all of us were concerned with these decreases and these funds and the the shortfalls I I'd like to see maybe added to that since you're doing your research um the cost historically that you know what the water district maintained I I don't you know 55 miles a road because I know there were a lot of Roads added onto the gas tax ma that were never historically maintained they were courtesy maintained like you called the water district and they courtesy graded courtesy watered some of those roads so the cost of those which would most likely probably be your level one and your main roads and especially when we're talking about budgeting and possibly cutting back to preserve some of the money we have so we don't have to raise taxes so I'd like to see what the cost was or an idea and then what we have because it's clear to me looking at um over $2 million of unfunded or projects that we haven't that we have taken on a way more responsibility than water district ever did and we don't have the money the miles of road that the district Andor the town has maintained has been fairly consistent over time I can't tell you the very first day that anybody did a gas tax map but I can tell you that in 1991 Adair and Brady did a survey and based on the 1991 map and based on the County GIS Mr Gant and his staff did a detailed audit of our gas tax map so wherever it came from well before the town was incorporated and however the district maintained it has to stand down in light of the audit that we currently did because we looked at the 91 map we looked at the County GIS we looked at the cases ofar work that was done with regard to the maintenance maps and the road ownership and we actually drove the roads and Mr Gant actually went through all the property records and looked at all the Deeds up and down the roads so we currently now have a worksheet of what we have in terms of public roads and private roads and what is paved and unpaved roughly speaking and I'm not going to give you the exact number but 28 miles and change are paved 28 miles and changed are not paved and in addition to that four miles are private roads that item is actually going to be on the council agenda because we have had requests for changes to the gas tax map additionally approximately 10 or 12 years ago um in the early years of the town there was a request from a handful of property owners to make their roads private and take them off the gas tax map those never stop being maintained by the town um and as long as roads continue to be maintained um according to Florida statute they remain public roads but we will be going through all of that at a meeting with the council um and those gas tax map at the time of the town's incorporation included the district Road the town received money from the state of Florida for all roads in the footprint of the Incorporated town which did include District roads Mr Galant and I'm sorry if I'm taking any thunder away from you I'm just being matter of fact about the whole thing he found the spreadsheets that show I think from 2017 yeah 2007 2017 is a spreadsheet and the mileage hasn't changed cor guess is that came from the county prior to incorporation correct and we went back and we vetted it against the Adair and Brady survey work from 1991 that was the district's work and we also vetted it against what's in the property tax records for the frontages along each of the roads and Mr Gant added them all up because each one of our um North and South roads should be pretty close to one another and now they are is that correct Mr glant his audit yielded a change in mileage of probably net two miles we were at 56 we're now at 58 something like that we're at 55 we're at 56 and change okay all right so my point is the same it was a minimal difference in terms of what we've been reporting for all these years versus the absolute audit of that gas tax so we haven't gotten more from the state of Florida than we should have we've probably gotten less from the state of Florida then we should have thanks for all that information but I think you missed the point of what I was asking for from a budgetary standpoint I'm looking at the numbers and we have all this budget I would like to see coming back at another meeting because we're not going to produce it like tomorrow I would like to see the numbers because that's what I go by is the numbers and right now I'm looking at the numbers we all did and it's very disturbing looking at the numbers so I'd like to see the numbers like if you can find it what it would cost to do like the you know because sometimes we may have projects approved that we want it because we had all this money but maybe we're looking now at shortfalls that maybe we have to tighten our belt and maybe only do what's necessary because as Francine pointed out we have what you call deferred maintenance Francine yeah deferred maintenance that is I I know that I called in on a road that was collapsing and you guys were right there to fix it it's a very dangerous situation could have been so um I want to see the the numbers if you can find them or if we can find them for what like the level roads what was was historic because I know that we have taken on a lot more than what the water district and is it sustainable with what we're bringing in I think am I making myself clear what we're spending or what we want to spend is it going to be sustainable so I want to see the numbers and maybe we have to make the suggestion to council after we crunch the numbers that maybe what might have been approved maybe we need to reevaluate was approved so we can sustain it without hurting the taxpayer in the environment we have that make sense yeah well so one of the things you understand what I'm asking yeah yeah know I know that it's possible so in building our list of what Cs and stuff we want to replace the work we want to do in the future 95 % of it are Mainline roads um they're CTS and like we replaced the one on a road um that was an emergency repair everybody swore up and down that was FPL FPL hit that thing well it finally collapsed and we had to remove it and we removed it in pieces the top half first and then the bottom half because it rusted right at the waterline and that's the danger we have in this town and that's why like there's so many certs on there and the Deferred maintenance that Francine is referring to is these culverts that have been there for 50 60 70 years in the ground and they're rotted at the waterline and they're all starting to fail because the average life expectancy of a of a galvanized steel cartt is realistically 30 years 40 years these things are pushing 50 60 years I mean these a lot of these CS were in the ground before I was even born they were put in in the 50s the 40s I mean there's houses we found pictures of there from the 30s that still have their original C to the ground they're my age well I do want to insert here that the reason I gave you all that valuable information is based on your email at 2:31 p.m. on Monday about wanting to have a discussion of the gas tax maps so I gave you the information that you asked for in your email so forgive me if it was too much second of all in 2017 the town actually recognized that there was a problem with the drainage uh I think they might have noticed that a little bit before that but in 2017 they actually addressed it and said we have to spend the gas tax money on fixing this problem because by the way um in terms of how we can spend the gas tax money it is explicitly spelled out in Florida statute 336.00 25 chapter 1 A2 and you would see that we can use it for drainage and so there was $900,000 of capital funding I know Bruce you were on the but the fact committee then so you know I'm telling the truth there was $900,000 set up for drainage um by the way you can't speak with each other it's a sunshine issue um the um $900,000 was put out to bid for the covert Replacements and there were 300 um C areas that were identified that needed to be repaired it was supposed to be done over a 10-year period there was a contract that was L for $2 million to start the project everyone in town that was affected by the 300 areas was sent a letter asking them to give the town an easement we only ended up getting um I think it was 40 easements and so we ended up doing only four of the 300 areas now we have done um another 46 CTS of which 20 of them need to be repositioned so that the catch Basin can go in but do the math with me 46 and um 38 let's just call it 90 okay out of 300 that means that in 2017 we had identified 210 and um we now have a staff that are going out and identifying even more specific CTS so that's why I'm sharing this information with you we already know and we have known since 2017 that we have hundreds of coverts that are public that need to be replaced any go ahead I think what Miss sui has pointed and I would like to add to that for a second we just discussed that Paving a road cost us 150,000 just out of the gate and then on top of it based on the drainage based on the other thing that we just heard we have an open check book right so that's scenario one scenario two is yes we have dirt roads and we have to do something sustainable and maintain them maybe it's not efficient but once the number comes in as Missi indicated maybe we have to see how much we maintain versus we we may not be able to build New Roads but to your point about carts failing emergency repairs and all those things we I I don't think there is any disagreement on that we I requested and I think we are all in agreement from the very beginning that there should be a prioritized list of all those cost that we can't know and and I if I see in your budget you have mentioned those carts that are failing in 2025 you mentioned it it's not a surprise it's all GE um so is that all included all essential cost in your 2025 plan yes the ones that are listed there yes yes is that all the things that's not all correct no I have a list of about 80 carts that need to in addition okay so let's say but he has 80 culs listed but there are 210 that were previously identified so if you think about it it's 80 that are priority of several hundred that need to be done okay so that's even better okay so we have 80 Cs and this town cannot afford it's a it's a situation where a comet is hitting the Earth here in other words it's not just our responsibility as we just heard we are an essential system of this whole water drainage absorbing the water in the water table for the Palm Beach County I I I would like to talk a little bit more based on this understanding who's shouldn't we be getting money from other government agencies or grants and know why should our just our budget be funding these sort of emergency repairs that's all I would like to explore other sources grants or other things that may be available to us thank you you do realize that we got $1.5 million from the state of Florida for this for this grant for for the coverts and we also got $350,000 from the state of Florida to do the vulnerability assessment so our goal is to ask for another 750 because when we started asking for the 750 we said we were going to do it over a three-year plan because we were still looking at trying to fix the culverts that we had identified we knew that that wasn't going to cover it so we got ourselves designated as a rural community no small task and the State of Florida now recognizes us as a rural community and we do not have to do any matching for any state money so um we can and we will and we are looking for Grants we just put in a request for $80 million of Grants to the local mitigation strategy um the way that our grants ranked relative to the other Palm Beach County grants was low one of the things that will help us get a higher rating for those Grant monies are to get public um Embrace of the understanding of the amount of Maintenance that we need to do for instance the discussion about Paving roads causing a problem with the canal Banks we are talking about the Chicken and the Egg because did the paving put stress on already stressed Canal Banks it did do we need to fix those Canal Banks so either paved or unpaved roads do not continue to further deteriorate the canal Banks we do from the day that I got here we came forward and the previous chair of fact and I think Bruce will remember we showed a number of $1 million per mile to restore the canal Banks our standard for Canal Banks is a slope of 2.1 drive down any Street you will not find us meeting anywhere near our standard in fact many times we have as steep as a onetoone um slope on those Canal Banks so we are not in the let's tighten the belt and see how we do mode not let's try to find some grant money it's more like let's figure out how we can go ahead and come up with a plan that is sustainable to keep the infrastructure from completely failing all the time that and maintaining the reserves are our responsibility so professionally we have to tell you these things and however you decide to recommend to council and whatever priorities Council decides to set that is how we will move forward but that does not negate our professional responsibility to tell you what we are telling you we are doing something that has not been done here for a very long time and that is we're putting the facts on the table we've got competent staff people out there actually evaluating the risks and we are partnering with every agency that we can to try to bring money into this town so that we can fix the infrastructure can I ask a question you have budgeted in 2025 based based on all the data you know is there any additional emergency stuff that is not in these numbers well I don't know any emergencies that are I already know about no we just heard there are a lot of things happening some things are failing some is Galvanized some I'm I'm asking a simple in this budget do we have everything essential that needed to be done Richard's numbers are not complete he handed this to me before the meeting no we're not done with 2025 I mean it's still a working document but it's it yeah it's getting there um Tracy do you have any question only thing I I'm wondering is would drudging help if you dredge these canals that helps bring the material then that decreases that cost drudging helps speak because it clears out the bottom of the canal which allows the water to flow through the culverts one of the problems with our culverts is the only thing holding them together is the sludge that's in them that hasn't been dredged from the bottom of the canals in fact we actually had a property owner have an FDA good little story for you have an FDA because our rules require you to go ahead based on a 1979 action taken by the district that Richard did the research on you have to have a covert Bridge so um we had a property at the corner of e and okobi um come in and request RightWay permit and to put in a cover bridge and their engineer and the surveyor came back and said that they only needed a 60-in pipe and that was based on their survey of the pipe at okobi and they said the pipe at they had actually upsized because the um pipe at okobi was only 48 in well guess what the pipe at okobi is 96 in but it was so filled with sludge and they only surveyed one side they measured it as 48 in so we had to go back and we're still tackling that issue to get that property owner to do the right size Culver but yeah the dredging makes a gigantic difference but it's a risk to dredge because when you dredge and we take the junk that's in the culverts out the culverts could also collapse and in addition to that if we dredge we might further a road the banks so we have to be very careful with what we do with the dredging so would we go through and wholesale dredge No but we would go to the areas where we feel we would have a benefit with the least amount of risk and do some dredging because it will facilitate the draining one of our big problems is we have water in the South not water in the north what happens everything pulls up in the South and nothing happens in the north if we can get the water to flow better we would have a faster relief or recovery yeah and the f r like the the f Road and collecting Canal one that we're in the process of Designing and going to be replacing soon was actually found when I brought a a consultant in and we were actually going to clean the culbert we're going to start a a culbert cleaning process started on collecting canal and then work our way North in the town we get to f Road I'm standing at F Road and I notice that the water on the east side of f Road is a foot and a half higher than the water on the west side of f road so we start looking at it and realize that obviously it's impacted with dirt so when we start looking in there we realize that the Colbert's if we take that dirt out F Ro's closed I mean that Road it's going to collapse and if you look at the the collecting Canal Culvert on F Road the F Canal itself and go look at that cber you can see the rust and you can see where it's starting to fail along the water line and and it's just things like that that are you know what's going to happen is you know we're going to get some type of of catastrophic event the hurricane ination of rain you know even like 2012 when we had hurricane irain you know I 13 Ines of water in my driveway um things like that will raise the water level and then when that water is drained it pulls the soil out underneath it I'm sure you've been to the beach where you've stood on the beach and the water washes over your feet and as the water pulls away it pulls the sand with it from behind your legs it's the same the exact same thing happens in these canals while we try to regulate we balast the canals within a foot I mean everybody thinks that we drop the canals three and four feet we're raising the canals three or four feet our Ballance is literally 12 in you know our lowest low is 15 ft our highest high is 16 ft and that's by Design so we don't have you know a lot of oscillations in our Canal so we hopefully extend the lives of these carts um but like I said f Road if we were to clean that cber out you know it'll be that'll be it same thing with a lot of these roads and know we start dredging as francen had said um the original if you go look at the original design books when they built this District in 1917 the original slope was one and a half to one which ask any engineer if one and a half to one is acceptable they're going to be like no absolutely not but if we build two to1 culverts our Culver bases will be about that wide because a two to1 slope is is what it's supposed to be and that's what's sustainable but it's not sustainable for the town because we don't have the width because we don't have the EAS and rways in order to sustain maintenance on one side a canal and a road in that 60 foot footprint thank you so we G to move on we have number six yeah um given the time and the the discussion that we've had um what I suggest is we just take a look at um the CIP because I think if that's all right with the um with the committee because I think we've talked about most of the numbers and the deficits and all those kind of things um that's set it up but let's get to the the CIP 31 yeah it is it's a 31 is the beginning of the document that's what I'm talking about reviewing rather than the the verbiage because I think the verbiage we've kind of gone over in the previous items um so in looking at the um the capital plan as it stands now um you've got road paving uh proposed for next year there are two which is really one project um and that is a south from okobe to collecting canal and then collecting Canal from a to to B um that's that's there um and then we have the leftover or the Gap roads um of e North uh fulam West 25th and G West these are leftovers from the 23 Paving project um and what our estimates are for for doing th those roads is right now it's about $727,000 um and in addition related to that is um rock Paving uh Road Rock plan for collecting Canal um and for a South uh it's $887,000 so you have 18 $815,000 roughly that we're planning on spending on road improvements um and if you w to um talk about if you want to hear about why those uh roads are selected um and you know why we think they're they're important to finish we can do that um or do you want to move on to to the rest of it do you have any questions does anybody have questions Trac do you have a question okay do you have a question no we on um then the the next item is uh what I've what we've turned termed as the TPA okachobee traffic coming um project um and what that what that involves um is potentially getting grant funding for uh improving the traffic flow on and around okachobee um Boulevard as it goes through through town um it would involve um probably at least two roundabouts being placed there and and some turning lanes and that's going to improve traffic flow we're not talking about increasing the the width of the road the project would still be a two-lane road um but you would have these roundabouts um and we think that that would in uh uh increase um the capability of the road and Rich can tell you why and how that works if you're interested there was a project a few years ago um that actually got um TPA funding um and that's the that's the county organization that um addresses uh the the roadways and they they they had funded um a project in which the town would have gotten some roundabouts and um then it ended up uh not being um funded because I think there were some concerns about matching funds and and some other issues I'm not going to get back into that but um we think there is support for improving traffic flow on uh okobi um and what we're talking about next year is $100,000 that would provide um engineering basis and an analysis um so that when we go and ask for money we're not just sitting here babbling as I am babbling right now saying yeah I'd like $5 million to do this thing and it's going to be great um but we'd have some plans and real estimates as to what it's going to cost and also some um lobbying Services uh to move this um Grant process forward I I thought we already did this uh a year or so ago you you did and you you the town had the opportunity for uh the money and decided at that point in time that it was not uh worth it so we're going to try again um and see because and one of the one of the good things is you know in in suppor of us moving forward is they did say say yes to this type of a project um so you know um the same rationale uh probably exist the bad thing is they did say yes and you know some people you know or some organizations um they might uh put you to the back of the line because you rejected it but yeah all that's going going forward we're going to we're talking about trying again and to support that project uh we've got $100,000 allocated that's not going to build anything that's hopefully going to advance it and you know get us uh millions of dollars so it's an investment if you will um you have any questions about that okay um there are uh there is $35,000 um U that is uh in here for um the pump house and and gate repairs um this has been an item uh that has actually uh been approved in a for a couple years and then it was taken I think it was taken out of last year's um or this year's uh budget um there is a need Richard can address the the need for it if you want want to and it's uh it's one of those things we got to get around to it some sometime and it's $35,000 um and you know um if you wantan to if you have any questions Richard's here he can uh he can address them um what we have here um on the the swes and culverts um that's the Culvert and catch Basin um program that we kind of touched down earlier uh that's where the three the $350,000 these these drainage projects are utilizing um the $750,000 uh Grant uh that we have so um $350,000 is allocated there is a need that is much higher than than that but we don't have the the funds available um to do more on that at one point in time um before we recognized all these Culvert failures I think we had uh somewhere between 500 and $750,000 on the Swale catch Basin program that we put a spent wouldn't have been no wouldn't have been a problem for us to spend it except these culs um became a higher priority um we have uh two items on here south East Citrus drainage and uh Tangerine drainage um there's 25,000 allocated to to each project um I defer to um Richard if you want details on that um we have $100,000 that is out there for miscellaneous Culvert uh failures um this has to do with smaller culs um and this is along the lines of those ones we don't know about yet um and there's $100,000 that is budgeted next year we would probably like to budget uh $200,000 that's what you see in future years um but uh we've got a limitation on funds then we get to the specific coverts that have been identified um and I apologize there's a slight discrepancy in the booklet that you have in front of you versus um the the document uh that was sent to you on um uh in as your agenda package in the email uh the email is more accurate um in that this document shows just four culverts at $125,000 a piece the four culs um that we're talking about are fulsome and 25th Street Culvert um that has been estimated at $80,000 uh bunny Lane and droad Culvert at $140,000 Fortner drive and droad at $140,000 Cary Lane and frro at $140,000 so that totals uh $500,000 um that's a million 35,000 on drainage related projects um and then we get to uh the Canal bank stabilization um that Canal bank stabilization number of $200,000 is um for materials um to support the Canal bank stabilization um Crews efforts uh in that regard uh so you have there uh if my math is correct $1.23 five million in drainage related projects um we have to use the state Grant the $750,000 uh for uh these kinds of projects so um if we do them all we will exceed um the monies that we have from the the grant um but these are uh these are uh necessary projects as right we I assume the ones that have been identified are the ones that are closest alligated to the boat th those are those are the ones that um and Richard can can tell you but those are the ones he was talking about that um he's concerned that they could fail um and that's why they became priority and they bumped the general Swale uh catch Basin kind of um drainage project uh reduce the amount that we would have for available for those those things we have uh $20,000 um for a North Road Trail um allocated um and then we've got uh an item here that um we've called resiliency um in there is the resiliency grant program we don't have um monies uh for that but it's through that resiliency grant program that we are hoping to get much bigger um dollars in the future but we have to complete that process um in order to to really be have a shot at those grants when is there come um that is going to be completed I want to say um it'll be completed in the next fiscal year the the total analysis and I'm most of the work I think in the public discussions is going to be done by the end of this calendar year I think um and I I'd have to look at my my schedules to get more more detail um there is a there will be a a um public hearing um or Public Presentation that uh uh will be done in in the next month or so um we have uh with respect to um there's an item there replacement of the Public Works building um that $10,000 is to begin planning and actually putting together something so that we can apply for Grants because we can't go and seek a grant and say we got a Public Works building that's coming up on 90 years old and I think it used to be a theater um so it probably wasn't really designed for for that purpose um uh and You Know It uh it it is beyond its useful life um and we'd like money what they what we need to have is uh more of a concrete plan some cost estimates those kind of things so that um when you go to the the grant agencies the state and the federal government they say okay well what are you going to do and you go here it is so $10,000 allocated to begin that process um probably not going to complete it but what we recognize um and you know what was outlined in my memo what you all have discussed is we have very limited money in which to get things done so the grant process is going to be important but the grant process doesn't just happen you have to invest in getting a grant proposal to the point at which it might be accepted you have a vendor those for you um right now uh we work with some some of our uh our Engineers work on that we have lobbyists that will work on that but primarily it's done inous we have a Grant's um Grant's person who's also our HR director who and she's got a couple wears many hats here um uh and and we've got a brilliant mind at the head of the organization who really knows about this stuff it took us four years to get the resilient Florida Grant we applied four times to get it our circumstances and our verbs and nouns were no different in year one than they were in year four you just have to be you know tenacious tenacious yes persistent and tenacious um and then uh one of the one of the things that we've we've got in here is uh conversion of the town hall to the EOC currently the Public Works facility um serves as the EOC um so uh and the primary reason that it is the eocc is not because it's a better building more likely to withstand hurricane and stuff like that um but it has a generator uh associated with it um this building uh we think is newer Better Built um and might better serve the uh the function in in the case of an emergency but we do not have U generator um capacity right here once again Richard is here he can go into more detail if you want to hear about it um but we're allocating $75,000 that may sound like a lot of money but you start off with the fact that um our AC units are are rather old um and they might be a need of replacement why is that got to do with resiliency and Generator capacity that's the question that I asked Richard and he said your AC units are um a primary driver on what your um generator needs are going to be um so we first have to address the um the AC units uh there is um a bit of an assumption and Richard is among the many things that he is tasked with doing um is working out whether or not got uh we've got three three units whether they are correctly sized our inclination is that they are incorrectly sized um and we can probably get away with smaller units which will be a little yes less uh expensive and require less um less generator capacity um and he's going to he's going to figure that out for us um but anyway replace the replace the AC units as a as a part of that before we get into an emergency situation where they have failed and then we just replace with what we have and then we got a brand new unit uh not a good situation um and um uh then there is bringing in a generator providing um uh a gas um hookup for all that uh so that it would run off of natural gas um and have it operational um and so we've termed that an interim solution to uh the uh the problem that we have with the other building um as far as it's uh the chances of it surviving a hurricane so that's that's with those numbers are for all of that uh totals 2.25 4 million dollar in investment um as noted earlier what we have identified um as uh the the source of funds for that is the $750,000 from the state Grant the $750,000 from the general fund that we have already talked about uh used this year's gas tax and Sir tax estimates at 127550 and $334,000 um that has Capital fund total Capital funds available of 1$ 1. n61 million um leaving a projected shortfall of $292,000 called and even 300 for Giggles um so uh that's the the current situation there are um there are potential Solutions tions um I don't know how deeply you want to get involved uh in those and talk about them tonight um as um as I pointed out in the the memo um millage rate is not something we're going to to suggest um being increased um uh right now uh to maintain the three Ms um I think that's going to take a five nothing vote based on the way um thing you have to to do it I don't think there's a much of a stomach to to raise the millage rate Beyond its current level um as I pointed out to you if you talk about the um the uh water and drainage assessments um you have a current assessment rate of of200 um dollars per um per acre that translates uh into $1.5 million um that means for every 20 uh dollar of assessment um going up or down um that's about $150,000 in Revenue um what we have identified for you is that there is a a need for uh $900,000 um shortfall call it a million if you want to um and uh uh so one of the solutions is increasing that assessment rate um on the increase of the assessment rate in my opinion um and this is not something that this is my opinion okay not necessarily hers not necessarily Richards um I think the uh operational shortfall in um uh in the public works department uh would be the first place that I would address it and I think there you probably have to get your revenues in line with your operational expenses um um and so uh you got a $600,000 shortfall um you'd be looking at approximately an $80 increase to balance that out um you know uh and you can sharpen your pencils as much as you want to I don't think unless you're going to eliminate half that department that you're going to be able to balance things operationally uh um with a revenue from a revenue standpoint by keeping it there my opinion not a not gospel and something for you all to to discuss um I think when what we are in the budgetary process what we have to do at this point in time where the the council has to do is they're going to set their trim rates um and they're going to do that next next Tuesday as well it's scheduled to to happen the preliminary trim rate sets the highest level that you can set um you can go down from there but you can't go up from there so with respect to the millage rate um you can anticipate uh us recommending three Mills that would be the highest rate that it would would be um with respect to the assessment rate that's where there is this potential flexibility um and I think subject to uh discussion and recommendations uh tonight so I want you to weigh in on this um we're looking at a rate that is going to be was preliminary it can go down can't go up but we need it to be about $300 dollars instead of of $200 that raises um on the order of $750,000 um that's that's where we think the the discussion has to has to be had um during the process you will get more details um and the actual assessment itself and the decision um as to what the real number is going to be happens in um September if the council were to say $200 and they cap themselves at $200 they can't come back um in September and say we want it to be $262.50 no it's $200 that's as high as you can go um so that's that's where we are at in the the process uh um and you know that's where we think uh you all may want what we'd like you to do is discuss whether or not you're amable to U an increase in that assessment go ahead go is the assessment subject to the trim maximum like the millage is yes it is okay I couldn't remember go ahead thank you did you want so you you are us what's going on in everybody's minds and share our um recommendations so this is my individual feedback here first of all anybody who's listening here um and people who are here I I don't want us to be scared I think we are experienced operators experienced Sound Manager experienced team here so and we have a very experienced U Council so I'm I'm pretty confident that we will all make good decisions our job is to recommend that's our mandate we we can't force anything so having that understanding that we are in the recommendation Ro we understand that there is a $1 million call it 900k call it a 1 million $1 million short for for 2025 on top of that on top of that we have sources of revenues that may not perform like we just heard gas taxes may not perform because electric cars are taking that away we are also seeing that the windfall that came from certain grants may not happen certain other avenues may go away so we have a double VY we we have a reduced risk we have a risk of reduced revenue and on the other hand we have a risk of increasing cost because as we just heard that emergency repairs are needed and I fully agreed with Mr Gallant that um emergency repairs the safety issues are the number one priority before we construct anything new big and beautiful we need to have safe roads for for all of us so we we may get a surprise as you said some structures may fail so our cost may actually increase so what happens in private sector or other governments when things like this happen this is not uncommon first thing you do is you go with bare essential budget what it means is that you do what is essential only essential repairs essential staff essential spend we all recognize we can't have this lifestyle if we can't afford it so essential second thing is if we receive something extra you you budget it out that if we get extra money then we will do those projects so we don't have to commit to those projects today finally more importantly what can we do what can I do right we can all talk but what is what can help can we provide number one is um I think you mentioned grants and projects and I I am very keen to uh help you any way we can in the resiliency study and and and creating specific projects so that our council members or or you who interface with the County Government or state government can get those projects because as we know in government it's also who knows who so it's not just people just don't make a decision based on the paper it's also based on you know they need to understand what's really happening so whether we have a group of our residents or our council members or our committees our zoning committee us or whoever go to the county and present to them that how you know like you said our town is a rural town but it's in an emergency situation our carts are failing and it's not fault of ours we are in a part of the bigger ecosystem so it's not just our residents responsibility it's also the county and the state have to chip in and federal government has to chip in so projects grants um if we can hire a vendor an expert who can assist you that that's one thing but we are I personally would love to help in any way or shape to take those projects to whoever we have to present and and uh organizing our residents to sh U to share with other County or state governments on the need of these projects so in conclusion I I am not in the support of increasing taxes to our residents in any way or shape and that should be a principle that should that should we we should operate with that understanding and then we should should operate our cost accordingly thank you are you done are we all done any other comments yeah I have are we uh ready to wrap up uh we're still on six so if you have any comments on six okay uh well Jeff asked for our um input so I will give you my input in brief um I had thought I was just organizing just give me 10 10 seconds here you want the Jeopardy music oh oh oh for um reserves okay got it i' lost my thought there sorry all right my recommendations uh based on what everything I've heard here uh one increase the assessment because of the significant need and that's something that I've believed for a number of years and I realize it's a um hot potato but the needs are there and I think the assessment should go up by some amount it should not remain the same number two uh maintain operations so that means don't cut uh staff because staff allows you to be responsive to changing needs to emergencies and and then number three decrease Capital expenditures to balance the budget to preserve to um ensure adequate reserves essentially Tracy do you have anything I was looking at that let me pull back up the uh of of on the sorry on all those what you guys are wanting to spend the recommended use of the capital funds are there is there are all of those a necessity is there some of those that can be pushed to the next year I mean okobi traffic calming is that a necessity is really conver uh converting the town hall to an EOC a necessity I mean yes you've got to repair the culverts that's that's like that to me would be a necessity but it just seems like there's a lot of expenditures that have been happening also that were never budgeted so that decreased your revenues figuring out why the costs are so expensive in certain areas it's looking at it the we're not provided the balance sheet so we don't really understand where some of these things are coming from either I'm sorry to interrupt you and I appreciate the idea that you need to see a balance sheet but in local government accounting and I think that group that Bruce will certainly support my comment the balance sheet is not a telling document um between the two fiscal year ends and it is especially not a telling document because of the seasonal nature in Florida what happens in the summertime is different than what happens in the winter time furthermore I think um you know I hear you with regard to um what is um highest ranking and priority certainly the infrastructure is highest ranking in priority um and also I think that Mr Curts explained why certain items show zero for what they're budgeted they're trying to be accounted for in the right account even if they were not budgeted in the right account um we generally speaking don't do line item transfers in the middle of the year because if you're just moving the budget around to match the expenditures you're never really seeing what you actually spend and why you spend it so I don't disagree about looking where we went over one of the things you all did mention and the one that is significantly over budget is the legal budget so why don't we talk about where there's real dollars as opposed to where there's small dollars there's not big dollars in overtime there's not big dollars in accounting for a separate department and a separate account but we pay about $30,000 a month in legal fees and the $30,000 a month in legal fees is not cost recovery the $30,000 in monthly legal fees end up being about $350 $360,000 a year that's what we paid last year when we tried to budget a number similar to what we're actually paying we cut the budget as Mr Kurt said but we can't actually cut the activity that's happening so when we have ordinances that have to be reviewed when we have different types of activities and direction from Council that is incumbent upon the attorneys to address so you know looking at the continuing Arrangement there I mean you know is it the reality that we want to move this stuff along and get it done I think so because we're going slower than we want to but is it a reality that it costs that money to get it done both are true so that's the kind of conversation that's not easy to have but that's how the money is spent much like Mr Cunningham's comment about staff well you know easy to say well we don't need this one or we don't need that one but once we start cutting staff we stop getting work done it's easy to say what we don't need but once we don't put the money there then we end up next year having spent it and not having the budget for it so it's a vicious circle of unreality and I would leave you with that for this evening because we aren't sitting here doing a detailed review of the budget yet I haven't seen a detailed copy of the budget yet I've seen forecasts I've seen estimates Richard and his staff are still looking at the specifics what we're trying to do is we're trying to position um the inform provide the information and POS positioned the town for the greatest level of options they can have in the budget and that's why we're telling the number that we have right now based on the capital plan that has been decreased from what was previously approved by Council just a scant month or so ago and we are only putting in for the maintenance that we are currently doing we're not trying to enhance any maintenance nor are we trying to build anything big or beautiful we are counting on hopefully being able to get grant money to build anything big or beautiful all of the maintenance that we have is critical and necessary the question is to what extent are we going to do it in what year are we going to do it if we kick the ball down the road we'll still have the same conversations in this room that have been being had for many years before I got here the stuff I brought up tonight is stuff that was looked at before I got here the Public Works facility for $600,000 was in the district's budget for years before the town became before the district became dependent upon the town so we're not talking about new items we are talking about programming items that have been discussed for year after year year after year you ask about code enforcement and you come to a meeting and you say why aren't we doing more with code enforcement I think we're doing more than we ever have we can't keep up with what we're doing code enforcement only brings in money when we get the property sold if it's got a fine running on it because otherwise people let them run or they can come in and they can get a fine reduction so I think it's important to put the the reality in front of you all and again your recommendations and counsil decisions are not in mine or are staff's hands but it is our responsibility to tell you this information whether it's long-winded or not I could I could add to what Francine said some of these items you see on this on this capital budget which when you look out they extended out years that is part of the LMS the the local mitigation strategy so as Fran Cen pointed out earlier in order to get support you know we put all the we put like seven projects on the local mitigation strategy to be pushed forward to try to get you know for that way the county and other agencies start trying to get us grants and there's probably about a 100 projects on there from throughout Palm Beach County and part of it is having public support and so what you know Jeff had put some of these items like you'll see under the under the repair and maintenance of canals the north Pump Station and you know which is scheduled for 202 26 the 17 segments the the canal you know some of the stuff that's on here which you'll see you know has a small cost up front and then bigger cost down the road are part of that because you know FEMA and the rest of these organizations who give us grants want shovel ready projects they want us to hand them a set of plans say this is what we're going to build and they say okay we'll give you the money to do it well to do that we have to hire Consultants so that's what some of this money is also all this this is all on here as shown being done a future year years because that way when we when we present it to the granting agencies we can say yeah we have public support we have support from Council that you know the residents are aware of it because it's on our Capital plan we are aware it needs to get done and we are going to figure out a way to put it in our budget whether we have the money or not and we're hoping that you give us the money so we don't have to raise our you know taxes on our residents grossly um so just wanted to make sure that was clear um the one one last thing on the the assessments because I I understand nobody likes an increase okay but if you look and we we'll provide more detail uh on this um if you look around that the Indian Trail if you look at Wellington they have um significantly higher assessments um for similar Services than we do I'm going to give you the example of their assessment for 162nd because 162 is not in the town but we have numerous properties that have a border on 162nd so what's different between 161st and 162nd only the district that's servicing it Indian Trails is going to assess 162 residence this year over $300 that that's probably one of their lowest assessments last year and the year before all of the surrounding districts including Indian Trails and Wellington increase their assessments so Us increasing our assessment well I mean we can't necessarily compare our organization to their organization because as Richard said they have the benefit of Greater volume and better pricing but we have also greater deferred maintenance than either of those two places have so they're managing their budgets currently and we're managing our budget backwards meaning that we have years to catch up on and put in our current budget where they are looking at their current budget and their future budgets okay um we had another item seven we still wanted disc just a quick comment yeah and on on that I think sure I think the fundamental differences not increase taxes to pay for something that is not just our responsibility it's also the responsibility of the county and the state to pay for that failing infrastructure so that's the last point I wanted to make okay I really need to make sure that you all know the T the state and the county are not responsible for the town's infrastructure the basic idea of being a political subdivision of the state is that we have home rule and in that home rule that means we are responsible for that infrastructure South Florida Water Management isn't responsible for it we are the state and the county aren't responsible for it we are yeah and and just to follow up on that historically you know the water Control District why was it created who was supposed to to fund it the property owners who occupy the area um it is the it's the water Control District that had the they developed the the infrastructure they had the responsibility to to maintain it um I know there was an earlier comment about how it's a water Control District and not a um a road district in fact the powers that were given to the water Control District include maintenance of Roads um and that was that was done before the merger for incorporation um they had that that power granted to them so the the point being it is the water Control District um is supposed to get their funds from the property owners to maintain their infrastructure it wasn't supposed to come from the federal government the state government um or the county it was supposed that's the whole reason you create that District okay um we need to move on it's 9:30 yes last I'll make it short and sweet okay so we have number seven which was budget neutral reconciliation so I would like to suggest that similar to the functions how our federal government works if there is any new law or new change there is a budget impact that is calculated and if there is a budget impact then they there is a different rule for that rule to be passed there are more votes needed there is a more complex process so there are checks and balances our forefathers have put in place in the in the Constitution so what does that mean to us I would like to suggest that if there is any major decision that has impact to our budget and we just discussed our budget is like a baby it can't afford we have a very little margin of errors and we can't afford any major change that changes that budget that impacts that budget so what I suggest is that if there is a major change that our town is considering we as a committee uh discuss that change and we vote if that is going to impact our budget and if there is a support for that if we feel there is an impact then we as a committee whether town has people available or not that is secondary we then discuss and analyze what is the impact to the taxpayers for example full-time yearround are we people living in rway is that going to impact our budget our Public Safety our school our roads our infrastructure and so forth and if the answer to that is yes we should assess it present the data to the Council on what will be the budget impact and then let them digest that data and let public be informed about about that so so we are more transparent and and if the decision is that we don't have town stuffff to analyze the impact I would say then better not make the decision because we shouldn't be flying in the dark if Town doesn't know if this this decision is budget positive or budget negative then we rather not make that decision because we are flipping the coin in that situation I'll stop here comments does anybody have any comments I do the State of Florida passed Legislation during the last session that requires a business impact statement with every um ordinance and we provide a business impact statement which is an economic impact um of what that ordinance will do relative to um the town so it goes to the council with a business impact statement um furthermore whenever we're bringing something forward that changes the policy that has a financial a financial impact we do try to estimate what that Financial impact is so you know we do that to the extent that we can but everything is having a crystal ball so I don't know um it's helpful so yeah may I suggest a motion to consider the budget impact of the full-time RB living we undertake this as an initiative and I will be glad to help lead it and discuss with the I think we can bring that up under Committee Member comments Francine can we bring that up you can bring up anything you want in the future we need to make a vote for it you can vote for anything that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be feasible for us to do and I don't mean that rudely what I mean to say is Mr Su said earlier we don't have staff so if you decide you wish to do something beyond what we can do then it is absolutely wonderful if you all want to do it is it better for us to vote on it or just him bring it up in comments maybe we'd like to see that it's your decision Casey you you vote for it it becomes strong if you guys decide you want to do work you know separate work and so on and so so forth that's wonderful in fact at one point in time we came to the group and we said we needed help if you remember and I think that Bruce took on some work to help us out you did the review of some of the manuals for us if you remember yeah so if you wanted to do some work separate if you guys share your because this strengthens me and us to look into that issue so my may I just a motion that faac group looks into the full-time RV living impact to the town budget I okay let me let me just yeah um I think what what you're talking first of all there is no present application okay there is no present application for the project you're talking about second I'm not talking about the project I'm talking about the town policy to allow full-time full-time living in R we changing our planning and zoning and but I think we need to look at your I don't think that's that's part of our Charter that would have to be directed by the the Town Council that's a separate thing you'd have to bring up uh you know in public comment and so as far as committee we would have to look at like right that that's not our committee charart that the costs and money I mean if I'm getting it wrong so let me rephrase what I'm saying is faac looks at the budget and the advises the Council on the financial aspects yeah but the thing is that that that's not even an issue anywhere you know that that's that's a dream thing can I can I put to a motion if you please hear me out and you can decide yeah or your choice I would like to propose a motion for us as a committee to look into the budget impact of the potential policy that council is considering to allow full full year RV living which will involve people living becoming residents adding to our population our population may increase by hundreds or thousands so who is calculating such an impact who's giving Council that information he they already told you they do a financial study okay so we study their financial analysis and seemly like how we are studying this let's let's stop right here so I think it's a good idea if you want to maybe get some more information and bring it back to so I think we all kind of confused if I may speak for Bruce because I think I understand what Freddy's saying is I don't think I'm understanding okay how we let me rep one final time then I'll stop like this budget down prepared a budget and we are giving our feedback to the town and to the council right because that's something factual this what you're trying to add on is is a a Dream Team ready may I please yeah go ahead thank you sir thank you what I'm proposing is if that is a policy because I understand the council is considering such a change in the code or in the policy of the town and if such a thing is on the table let us know if such a thing is coming in the upcoming Council I would propose that the financial impact that they are going to present to the council comes to us if possible if our meeting is scheduled before them so we can review it and give our comments because it has an impact to the budget okay so I understand yeah so so what we want to do is make a motion to yes go ahead I would like to propose a motion to study the financial impact prepared by the staff for the RV F year RV living policy and give our comments as we are doing right now okay so my understanding is when the policy comes about you want to make a motion to study the impacts correct before they come yeah whatever they have prepared the impact that goes with the policy we should be able to come does that make sense no it don't make sense because we're going to be doing double work they already if they already do a financial study do wait there on the impact statement okay there are exemptions under um the state law as to what ordinances get considered not every single ordinance under the state law um has to have an impact statement one of the exemptions has to do um with land use and and zoning laws but I'm interrupting Mr CTS because one of the things that you will note is that we received an economic impact study we received a financial feasibility it is not the business statement that's required by the state but we have already been provided a financial feasibility study done by a third party Larry zic and Associates in Royal Palm Beach and they did a financial impact study of the RV park now with respect to the RV ordinance that would be coming forward I would tell you that um it is outside of your scope number one number two the population of people living in RVs in this town is already here so you're not calculating an influx of people what you're doing is playing really with numbers cuz they're already here the whole IDE idea of making a limit of three or four to a property is to and also to have a registration fee is to make sure that we can actually collect the impact of the folks being here we can't actually collect the impact on the road because we don't have a road impact fee but we can collect the cost of the trash and that's why we would have the registration fee the reason to do the limit on the number on each property is to be able to measure the impact and for any time that there is more than the three because I believe three is the number we've been talking about but if you want we can go to four which is the state law and the reason that we stop at 4 is because at 4 it becomes an RV park subject to state regulations that have to be enforced by the Department of Health so in terms of us being able to do a financial impact statement on more than four that's really out of our leag because we can't actually even regulate it that's why I believe that we're trying to go with a three no more than four limit if you're over five so I hear you I appreciate what you're saying from the day that any of this current Council and the current employees got here we have recognized the impact of of RVs in the community they are essentially renters they are people that are living here so that's why we're trying to put a rule in that lets us know that they're here Madam found manager let me comment because real short hour let it be on the record that I asked for the from the town a financial impact to the taxpayer of the town and town said we don't have the data or we have partial data or we don't know enough so it's no different than you telling us we don't know the budget what I'm asking is give us a analysis whatever you have you say we don't know this thing then say we don't know this thing so the council knows that they are playing and flying in the dark what I've have just said to you is what I have said to the council many times and I think the council knows this as well that's why we had the $400 cost for the registration and we also had a charge for the inspections the best we can do is get the garbage covered so Madam chair are you going to allow me my motion even if okay does anybody want to second the motion my motion is to let the financial impact be presented to faac of such a policy change I propose that motion anybody would like to Second it I will second thank you all in favor yes all opposed so did you get Tracy N I don't think it's our responsibility as a council as a our what was the vote three to two three to two positive three to two thank you okay so now um do we set the next date be before we get to comments or you guys just set it do we set the next date for the next meeting we should with the new members I think we should probably talk about what the the dates are going to be um my recollection is that we were going to have a meeting in August um might have been uh might have been that last week in July but I think August is probably well there'll be there'll be an initial budget review I think in August before the C I think we need to go ahead and look at the calendars and get a schedule together and check with each of the members get back with us then yeah that would be good you want to sure that everybody knows that with regard to your last vote I will include your recommendation in my comments with the council but unless Council decides to provide um the resources to the committee to do that we will not do it Council will have to all five of them direct us to or by a majority vote um direct us to allocate staff resources okay Bruce do you want to start with comments do you have any comments no further comments thanks our new me member any comments then speak can speak my only comment is that the the proposed uh 2025 budget I I think that's a good one even though we're going to be short it it identifies a lot of shortfalls you know case and point uh uh you we used to call it in the Military Circle maintenance you know you Circle it and you draw a line you know put it forward you know you keep circling maintenance what's going to happen supposedly we're in the biggest hurricane season ever and uh all those roads are goingon to go wash out people are not going to be able to get in or out of there and then they're going to say what's the town been doing you guys put that up front of CER I think that's good because you know uh the the great idea of of of looking for money here and there you know grants are great uh they open business run a town do all that stuff but you gotta have a list you gotta have a plan and you know the public work gu hey kudos to you when I first came here I mean I live next to the greatest neighbor in in the world and he has taught me a lot of nasty things and I tell you I I I have spent a lot of time with the public work people in here trying to get him in check but you know irregardless I I I think it's a good budget you know uh shortfalls Hey if you guys got to raise it you know i' I'd say hey never raise it but hey if your backs against the wall it's either you know do what you you guys are are eyes and feet on the ground seeing this you know the the the the the infrastructure that's deteriorated and in in in need to repair the only way it's going to get repaired is that you know you get the funds either by Grant or the resident so you know uh my my first meeting aw learned a lot uh everybody here is definitely passionate about what they're doing volunteering at time and I I I think that's great uh so looking forward to trying to help out Manish well I first of all congratulations to our new chair woman and welcome to you our new member thank you all for all your help and I I also don't want any of you to think that we are skeptical uh or looking for anything bad in all this I think even though our job is to look for bad stuff but that doesn't mean that we are not thankful and grateful for all the work you have done so thank you so much much for the excellent work and um I think we had some very valuable discussions keeping personalities aside we focused on the issues and I appreciate that very much thank you Tracy I have no comment my brain's dead okay I just had one positive comment and I'll end it um I I write grants I do grants and I was looking around when I was reading the agenda and one of the things was like with the Public Works building and some of the discussions that Council was having and there's grants out there we have some historical buildings in our town and it would possibly give us future points I contacted the state just in the short time today and I will prepare something for Council but it might be a way to get grants to fund these new construction projects and have like some type of preservation type thing so it's just in the preliminary stage but it's out there and um I think we have a lot of people we have a lot of very smart people in this town so and thank you all for your hard work thank you make a motion to ajour make motion Jour all in favor y i nay