##VIDEO ID:4yDEFQN6pC8## August 22nd Town Council workshop on budget they come to order we can all stand for pledge of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all just a moment of silence I have a roll call Mayor Anita Kane present vice mayor Mar harzog here council member Phyllis manilia here council member Lord Denow here council member Robert Shore pres staff Town Administrator Francine ramilia here Town attorney is not presid Public Works director Public Works director Richard Gant Jack tomsic building official here Craig laow Public Work superintendent here Sammy Browntown clerk assistant is present Madam chair we have a quum thank you so much um anybody have any additions deletions or modifications nope no no um any public comments about at this time okay um then I believe staff has a presentation for us um there is something that I would like to just address very briefly before we begin tonight um it's come to my attention that um a member of council called all the back members and had um extensive conversations with them about uh certainly you're able to call the fact members and and ask them any questions you might have that certainly is no violation of sunshine um but they had extensive conversations that included their opinions regarding how they were going to vote and um I think that that at the very least goes against the spirit of what we put into our policies and procedures regarding how we comport ourselves when being in committee meetings and I understand that wasn't a committee meeting but um I'd like to request that next week when we look at the HR manual that we put that on the HR manual is something that we might want to um fine-tune and put some kind of rules about that because I think that that um the possibility of steering a committee I count on these committees these advisor committees to be advisory and I think the reason that we appoint the people we appoint is because they are knowledgeable and experts in their field and um I would hate to have a situation where our volunteer committees were feeling pressured or um influenced um in how they feel about the advice that they give us so um I'd like some kind of consensus from everybody about whether that's okay to put that on the agenda I'm good with it Marge you're having individual HR meetings I thought actually this excuse me m madame mayor point of um clarification we would have to bring back the ordinances that you just approved relative to um Council and committee protocols okay whatever it takes I think it's something that needs to be fine-tuned and we need to um decide how we want to address it or if we want to address it and may I say something yeah um does it go to the HR manual or does it go to the town's ethics go no it goes to our our policies our internal policies and procedures that we've already approved for the de okay and we had a EXT disc about how we comport ourselves when we choose to attend uh Advisory board meetings and we decided um by vote that we would not speak and that we would just listen as as participants in that meeting um and so I think we need to perhaps address this issue Robert yeah so let me understand what you're saying happened is somebody called fat committee members after our last meeting prior to it oh prior to the last meeting oh okay yeah that's a different story I thought it was after no yeah that's me and it's not that they were asking questions I mean I'm okay with that it's that they apparently the conversation was was yeah we' probably already got rules that cover that I mean well apparently we don't because I've already consulted with the attorney so apparently we don't so I think it's something we need to address you're okay with putting it on the next agenda to relook at that yeah yeah I just don't know how we go we'll figure it out I guess attorney so okay am Mar you're okay yes Laura absolutely okay great thank you all right Francine you guys have a presentation for us I'm gonna turn it over to Mr CTS because he has a followup um of the uh August 20th Workshop because we've run all the numbers through additionally he has done an analysis of um legal fees um that you all wanted to look at the in-house model versus our current and additionally the question about building and building metrics was brought up so our building official is here and we have the last quarterly report to review plus um historical spending and that's been handed out to you and then after that um I wanted to talk a little bit about um an analysis that was done and sent to staff and it's a good analysis and I think it would be easy for us to implement um and then I also want to talk about the methodology that was used in coming up with um a comprehensive pay plan so that's our goals for tonight um we are balanced right at this moment in time with the cuts that were made the other night um to three Mills and $200 per unit and all the same cils apply that we are at 25% um and we will have to revisit the same question of Revenue structure next year um pursuant to council Direction um at your meeting uh we deferred um okobe TPA Grant Monies of $100,000 to a future date um so that it doesn't show up in 25 um similarly we deferred and I just caught a typo there um we deferred conversion of the Town Hall into an EOC that's a $75,000 savings there page you're looking at that we can look at at the same time I'm I'm looking I'm looking off of the okay agenda um and I and I think the easiest way once I get through the the summary will be to just walk you through the line item um budget so you can see it in in that fashion um there was uh that's page 4 on uh there was um projected Revenue increase for RV registrations in the amount of $20,000 um and a $24,000 increase in the solid waste bringing that total to 225 um general fund um the credit card sirar charge of $10,000 so you all had proposed Revenue increases of $54,000 so with the cut to um the CIP of $175,000 plus the $54,000 we're up to $229 ,000 the Gap if you'll recall between a $200 assessment and a $250 assessment to fund this year was approximately $375,000 um and then you all uh recommended the cut um for the special events of $15,000 uh so that brings you up to $244,000 then you discussed um moving to an in-house legal council um model uh what we have done there is budgeted $360,000 for legal council um which includes a town attorney salary of $130,000 um a budgeted uh amount for a paralal of $65,000 um and the elimination of the project coordinator position those two things um uh provide a a savings of $138,000 I should note within the $360,000 there remains $56,000 for outside Council um fees um for like the bigger issues for the big well for different issues you know it'll be an allocation of resources it gives us something there's always going to be outside councel needed because uh one person in a par legal probably can't handle every single thing that comes up um or it may not be as timely as you would like it to do because we can't Marshall another three people on the on the things um but if you do all of that that provides um Savings of or reallocations of money of 382,000 so you have covered the $375,000 that you needed to to cover um there what this means is that there is a reduction in the amount that is going to of money from the general fund excuse me one second C I don't want to put you on the spot but come up here so if we have any questions we can ask you thanks you're the only one who showed up so far so put you on the spot um you've got a reduction um of the amount transferred to the CIP of $175,000 and you have an increase of in the amount that is going to be transferred from the general fund to the road and drainage fund of $374,950 um as I said if you go to the line item that was provided to you um you'll see in pink um that fy2 proposed alternative based on U the council direction of 820 um and if you look down there and you focus on the yellow you will see those changes that I just identified um for you um otherwise if it doesn't have yellow it should be the same number that you had before um excuse me Marge has a question oh I'm sorry I didn't see I'm sorry that's right I thought our amount to cut was 407 375 doesn't because in my mind that's 32 short um and the numbers the numbers work out what what you were you were missing from what you the direction on the revenue side was to remain at three Mills um which is what we had previously proposed what we had proposed um was $250 assessment the direction from Council was a $200 um assessment that difference between the 200 and the $250 is $375,000 so going to the lower rates it's not 407 it's 375 that's the yeah that's what you need to make up okay and so March has a question yeah um it's more for Francine I think um Francine do we have any that is pending that's going to be big in the legal um you know anything that's coming forward that you know of well if I could when you talk about this conversion there's a number of steps that would um go about all we're doing now is putting some numbers in for budgetary purpose to actually Implement what you would be talking about if you decided to go in that direction um you would negotiate a contract uh with um someone um because that person would become a direct report employee to to you um as the Town Council um similar to uh a contract that you have with the town manager um and then there would be a time period in which you were you would be searching for um a capable pargal to assist in that um so it's not like on day one everything is going to go from one place to another anything that was being worked on and substantially um in the in your current attorney's hands should remain in their hands for the sake of efficiency um and But ultimately the presentation of the item and the final review of the item from a legal perspective um would be on your inhouse Council but that there's there's not going to be just a you don't want a situation where you just go okay here's the files um that's a there's a transition period that's going to be involved um so so if we were comparing the the legal firm we have now how many how many people are at our disposal that we can call on um as opposed to what what you're projecting here that we could call on um what you have what you have currently um there are about uh four people that might regularly we regularly work with the firm I think now probably has I'm not sure if they're over 10 or not but they're in that range um but how many work for us I've only seen a few there there there's uh Glenn um tvia who comes in um Tanya earling um does work for us and you've seen her at meetings um Jen huki um does some work uh for us um and Elizabeth uh does work for us I think those are the primary folks that we deal with at a staff level on a um varying degree of of time and effort but those are people that uh do some work on for us mark would you like me to answer sure Glenn is our primary attorney he agreed to move Elizabeth off the account in the last few months she has only worked I think it's six or nine hours for forgive me if I don't remember Tanya early does our land use and our code enforcement and that's where we spend a bulk of our work um and so um much as Mr Kurt said it seems like it would make sense for them to continue on the cost recovery land use stuff and finish up what they started because that's what our big stuff is we have about four very large Code Enforcement cases which will be land use cost recovery as they make their way through the process to come to the council and there are also um I would say right at this moment about four or five large applications that are that you are aware of that are coming through the process right now first and foremost the hotel which is at PCB next Thursday night um and then it comes to the council if it gets out of PCB so that's what we have we have probably I would say about eight very large land use items in process for in code and four in the regular application question phis so does that mean we don't need Laura donalan for HR anymore that Jeff can handle that or yeah I mean that is certainly the you know this is all the essence of council policy and Council decision um but we have not had to use her since she reviewed the um HR manual and all the job descriptions and our classifications of roles and responsibilities um and we have actually um work directly with Glenn on most issues and he sends it to whoever he thinks needs it but the answer to your question is it appears yes because we have not had to work with her pretty much this year I was just wondering if HR is something that no he might be handled out not in house oh yes that could be handled outside a lot of times that's H that is handled outside too close to no you're 100% right often times it is it's going to depend on the situation and the nature of the issue and um you know so far knock on plastic in the last year or so we haven't had that many and Glenn's that are difficult to deal with L's background is HR thank you okay I'm sorry Jeff you can continue okay thank you for answering our questions um so if you go if you go through it um you can see those changes um the next what it what it does uh it keeps the budgeted amount in um the road and drainage fund the same it reduces the budgeted amount of CIP to 2 milon 79,000 um it raises the overall budget in the general fund by the $54,000 to $431 million um the you can see um next is this which I guess is Page I don't know if that's really page 21 wait is that its own thing um and there you can see the CIP you'll note the once again the yellow highlighted changes of the things that you have discussed which are those two um items um and the corresponding uh changes to make that just under 2 million um you guys mind if I turn these lights on back here just see if I can see these numbers does anybody have an objection yeah those numbers are pretty small the other switch you need bigger glasses thank you Amber oh that's turn them off that's better thank you thank you see Tracy I see some writing there did you have some questions after the last are you yeah no you're good okay I'm sorry I saw writing so I thought maybe you had some questions okay all right goe go ahead johe um and then there is this there is this chart that shows somewhat of a historical uh trend on your legal services budget um you you ended up under budgeting last year um but I think that was that was almost unnown it was was known by staff we would go budget because I think you allocated we spent $521,000 on legal fees I'm talk you had it was 521 on 23 but I'm talking about in 24 you budgeted after that you budgeted $250,000 uh when we'd historically been higher than that and the the number that you're at right now is you know projecting on for $300,000 um and I am I don't believe that includes your cost recovery uh numbers but those are offset um by cost recovery fees so that's why there would be projected in there um and so this that's why this year uh in your original proposed budget we had um allocated uh $336,000 that was what we felt was a more realistic figure based on our our usage um the next page uh shows you the the change in the um uh in the proposed salary sheet wait next page and now you're looking at turn it I turned it over oh I'm sorry the back side of the graph back side of the graph right yeah and I don't mean to go if if you want to slow down and you want to talk about any one of the the particular items or getting I'm looking for lights we don't have any lights far but when we do I'll stop okay um it it just shows the the breakdown on the um proposed uh expenditures as employees for the legal department and you also see the the deletion of um the project management position um and those numbers have been factored in so um we we go also got uh some information on building revenues if you want to discuss that um there is um information that was provided which also summarizes but it was it's not a staff summary I think that's included in here um and uh that's P it highlights I think it highlights essentially the same things it um it's got slightly different numbers for for some things but those weren't done with the consultation of Staff okay basically um you know there's there's not much disagreement about those numbers the one thing I would say is that on the on the numbers on on this spreadsheet here um that's Mr Shore's spreadsheet that that's page 26 does that look like 26 like that it's another multicolored one here he emailed it to us and the only thing the only thing I just want to clarify is um the the calculation of the the millage um is a correct calculation of 1.18 it didn't factor in the 95% that we budget by and that's why there that's what the difference is between the $1,727 th000 in Revenue that is shown on your line item budget um versus the $1.18 million um that that's shown on this I just as as has been pointed out there there are sometimes some slight variance in uh the uh the numbers that we uh give and so when I have an explanation for what the the difference is I just wanted to clarify um they're both right in from their own perspective it's just that this one didn't factor in the uh 95 discount rate yeah okay um if you want to talk about Marge has a question for you Jeff um just just a curiosity um I want to know if Richard could introduce our um working staff that obviously is here I don't know any of them other than Linda uh and uh you know they're part of our staff and I'd like to know who they are well know he's I want to apologize because I wanted to do that at the beginning of the meeting but you saw that they all stred in at different times yeah um I just wanted and I will talk a little bit more about staff after the introductions and after the basic budget um discussion is over but I want them introduced to you definitely because you would not know them because by and large 10 members of our staff have been hired in 23 and 24 so please Craig introduce them and I'm very happy that you're here tonight okay sitting up front we have Miss Lexi I'm pretty sure everyone up here knows who Miss Lexi is on the left everyone we have Miss Linda we have can you tell us if the there a team you said can you tell us what teams are on all right so Linda is the lead on the mowing crew for all the boom mowers and all the mowing for the canal Banks and everything she's the lead she's the three she's the lead three all right then you have will Garcia on the right he is the lead three for the um Road and like Road and drainage on all the road repairs doing all the street signs under him is essay right there sa is a is a one he works under will he helps will with all the journal work and everything and then our greater oper William Wallace he's he is a two for operator raer a grater operator he's so this is the gentl that grades all our roads and he's a really good grader operator tell him that you're a really good grer operator we haven't had one of those in a long time so thank you thank you you're welcome you want to introduce yourselves because they don't know you go both ways not know you guys laa you're pining keep thinking like oh sorry like keep jumping stop clicking your B okay any nobody has any questions at this time let Jeff continue Jeff you have more or are you done I am essentially done other than uh questions um there was a handout that we gave to you tonight um many this one that says land use category yeah this is the one I requested does everybody have it it is a I I requested this the light blue one you get one was all this uh additional documents put online for the res this one I asked for a copy for all of us because it's part of my discussion so yeah and so all right I'll I'll talk about it once the time comes okay um so I know and continuing from last week's meeting Robert you had some issues regarding salaries that you wanted to discuss was there something in particular you wanted to discuss I did uh that that's not it I guess I emailed you the same thing twice I think maybe you did yeah because I put together a whole pay plan spreadsheet with ranges and and all that stuff and yeah I don't think we saw you give me this twice that's that's why yeah that's why get it because uhhuh it basically categorized there you know how they're kind of all over the park it was like okay 60 to 80,000 you know we talked about for the HR manual it would roll into that and I did a whole spreadsheet can we then defer that discussion for um when we're talking about that in the future or to our next meeting I mean is that okay with you yeah this was the summary of it the personel the $60,000 savings it just got into more detail on the categories it just a take off are you okay with deferring that discussion to our next meeting yeah yeah if you want to put salary ranges I'm sorry gry I did I'll send it everybody apologize no I did I did which one I'm like which one only one no and I kept saying okay we went back and forth on this because when I first got it I said yeah I totally agree with it and the reason why I agree with it and you saw that I put it in my two emails today the one that I sent to Mr Su I referenced comment about this I happen to agree with this analysis because this analysis comes up with a recommended total for compensation which is similar to the to I could get something close to that total the million 570 that says recommended here on this thing I could get close to it even though I did not have the detailed um worksheet which I would love to get um and then um Mr sh and I did talk about 6% Cola because the ranges of cola the actual what the Count's doing is ranging from 6 to 8 the average of all that has reported to us is 6 and a half you know we had recommended five but changing the ranges and going to six is reasonable so whatever the council's desire is and I also agreed that we could go to 26% benefits because we have started the conversation about changing the way we do benefits um so that we may be able to offer similar benefits at a lower price we're not sure but I agreed with that um and so that would give us about a $60,000 overall salary saving and I made the Assumption rightly or wrongly that this did not include the legal because it was over on the other side and I don't know if that was right or wrongly wrongly that legal at the rate that I had put 115 and 60 okay well we can go over it in detail but in concept I generally you know you think we're there I I think we're super close I just like to take a look at the ranges and when it's my turn to talk I want to talk about how we came up with our ranges because you know one of the things that we need to do is be fair and Equitable um and we have to have a basis of how we got our ranges and I don't know if we're really ready for that conversation yet you tell me no I think I think we I think we've well I don't know Robert said it was his item and he's okay with deferring it I'm okay with deferring it until we have more information how about Marge yes and thank you for your work on this Robert we're 175 it until okay so the consensus is we're $175,000 off if she didn't include the legal and I did well that's okay we'll be able to reconcile and I will explain to everybody how we came up with our ranges and then we can talk about what the difference is I feel very comfortable with the ranges that we provided you because a lot of times you say look at what I does they pay more than we do and I did not you know say we'll we'll pay what they pay if you look at the don't listen to her yes don't leave us guys um I'm gonna start a little bit I'm going to start a little bit backwards if you don't mind and we don't have to go through the whole thing I just want to make a couple of key points and I appreciate the Indulgence to do so um since 2018 we have either the same or less employees it depends on how you want to look at it we now have two departments that we did not have we have the full departments we did not have we have a building department which was Palm Beach County and we have a code and for enforcement function which was basically non-existent it was put on moratorium and prior to that it had a parttime employee um we do have one new employee that we asked for this year it's a building employee building revenues by law may only be used on building expenses the good news and you can hear about that a little bit later from Jack in terms of building um but the good news about that is that it's to be spent on matters of the building code so some of our code enforcement may be paid by the building fees because a lot of our code enforcement is unpermitted building activity um so that is good news um the um staff as I mentioned first of all they are the greatest staff and they are team um we have a group of people that are highly talented in every function that we have and they actually get along and like to come to work which is unusual um but they do um to play with we have three remaining staff from the last time we gave Cola which was on 10122 um and we um hired six of our current staff in 2023 and we hired seven of our staff in 2024 um there were two reclassifications in the Budget prior to last year's budget and reclassification is where we change titles to match the job that someone is doing um as we went through our job descriptions we're actually on our second round of reviewing them because we've con Consolidated and consens and reassigned and streamlined and eliminated and all kinds of different things um and so we've for instance with Amber have Consolidated last year we gave her grants and I want to say thank you to her because um with her expert and um undying assistance to get us made into rural community that's actually saved us someplace close to $900,000 the the $1.5 million that we got from the state would have had a matching requir on it of $750,000 and you know the 50% match and the Brazilian Florida Grant would have also had a match of um I if I remember correctly around $130,000 so the resilient Florida allowed us to be able to get grants and Appropriations from the state and um that's one of the reasons we do the reclassifications this year on top of the grants we also o gave her the HR and this year we actually have a fully functioning HR like I said we have job descriptions we have an or chart we have um performance evaluation forms which um I did share with everyone um we do performance evaluations we do offer letters and another council person often do you do performance evaluations and who does them we do them um the man the person who's the media supervisor does the perform the initial performance evaluation Mr G or Craig for public works it's Craig for public works okay and I make all the managers do a self- evaluation and when we hired everybody this past year um and anybody who was already here I asked all the managers to do a self- evaluation and we're due to sit down and do all the managers evaluations again um so when I do theirs so that's how we do it and I offer everybody the opportunity to do a self- evaluation because personal growth is important as it's important as professional growth so um we have that process we also look at jobs from a progression point of you from roles and responsibility and you see on the pay plan that we did provide you we start with associate and Technical positions all the way up to the you know leadership or executive type position and we have a mix of Technical and professional staff um we also this year one of Mr su's questions was with regard to training in previous um eras there was um a tuition reimbursement that is not something we have now um and normally when you ask people to pay back um any training that they received from an organization it's normally a tuition reimbursement you ask them to pay back we have um had difficulty hiring staff and one of the things we did to um entice people um or to help them grow is to pay for CDL training um we are also offering now a full complement of safety training how many how many of our employees live in the town do any of them we have some but most of our employees live in the general area area not in the town we would love to have people that live in the town I'm sorry you're the CL so nobody actually lives within locki Groves okay just a question probably better for them well I I was asking because the lgla offers scholarships so for people who residents who live in the town that they could apply for so I was going to throw that out there but it's only if they live in it's only if they live in town but M Mr Su actually made some really good points about trying to attract younger workers we go to job fairs we have spoken with we're very fortunate because Amber spent um her past life in education so we have and always contact all of the schools that we can um we don't have an internship program but you see when we have recently had two open positions we're using young temps in fact they all come and eat lunch together with Samy as their fearless leader um so we we agree with what Mr Su said it would be great to have some local folks because they're they have a greater awareness of the issues that we face and I think we are lucky because a lot of folks live in and about the area so they are very familiar and I think that's why you see some quality of the work improved um this year um so the other time that we give evaluations is at the end of the probationary period which is a six-month probationary period sometimes if we don't think someone has settled into their job right away um we will extend probation so that we can train them into the job um and what we are trying to do now is not spend so much time um trying to train people after the probationary period if it's not going to work we know um pretty well so um I just kind of wanted to say that in summary the formal function includes comprehensive analysis of everything we do including the pay plan that I'm not going to discuss um great team um lot more accountability and responsibility um and we have um people on the lookout constantly if you're on the street you know you see something you say something I think that you might have noticed that 's a better job happening on getting responsiveness to the things that we see um we've taken a ton of tires for instance um we now Richard has made a contact that um we found a company that will come and take our tires for free so we will be able to save no they won't okay well we're looking for a company to come take our tires for free so we can save money okay um we've been adding a lot more duties to people um they're doing more um you know because the direction has been very clear um I think that you know in the last couple of years we have been working at a far faster Pace than any previous group has including the council um we um one thing I would say is we really try very hard to be responsive and transparent and especially with the fact that we have all of our committee meetings on YouTube um and um we are now finding a way to put them on the front page of our website so people don't have to go searching through I heard the last fact committee meeting was a little bit hard to find um so we're putting them on the front page we invite people to the office if they have questions um you know there's a lot of things that have happened in this Community for the last many many years um and since the town is incorporated many of those things have not begun to be addressed until the last two years and so we are doing the best we can to go as fast as we can and to be responsive and transparent to all everyone has access to our financial accounting system I don't think you can find places that allow access to their accounting system in the way we do additionally our accounting system lets you drill down and see the actual invoices and the contracts and the council approvals and so on and so forth um and the bottom line is is that I think the last couple years we've built a really really strong and talented team nothing happens without the group um and I did want to thank everybody for coming tonight and listen a little bit to how the sausage is made um and get a chance to meet the the council um and uh it's a heavy lift and these are the guys that are doing it so just a big thank you to everybody I do think we should talk about the building because we have a lot of stuff happening in building and that's why I wanted to make sure that Jack was here and that you had that detailed analysis because for instance we've included revenues for the RV program the RV program will have its home in building and in order for that program to actually work we will be using this new person extensively um for taking the registrations and for following up and getting the inspections scheduled and so on and so forth so so does Jack have a presentation he does you guys have a package and you have basically his last quarterly report and his looks like this everybody looks like this can you turn the mic on just make sure you speak into it yeah we included the package for with the last qu report so it shows um the number of permits being issued so the permits uh issued are growing uh and then there's several reasons for it obviously we have you know commercial portions being developed the a lot of different uh business to come in as well um and incentives from from the state for from the from the governor when they doing incentives for new roofs and windows and string for hurricanes um we have placed the program actually on our website so a lot of people takes advantage of it so we've see lot of improvements for then says new roofs new windows new doors people actually have money from the state uh to do those improvements so so that also grows the number of building permits U so you can see that you know if you look at the actual report uh on the page um last page of the report actually shows grow of the the build this is the first and third at this one or uh the last page actually which where compares quarter one to quarter three yeah quarter one quter three so you see page 38 everyone the the third quarter the number of permits grows now number of permits issued is not always going to reflect to work well because you know for example if you're going to issue building permits for new hotel that's going to be tons a lot of work it's going to be onlys so that's not always you number of is not always reflects the amount of work but you also see on the report the number of inspections that we do around uh 200 over 200 inspections in a quarter uh and plan reviews and other things so there's lot lot of work being done out there and I I project that this trend will continue uh based on the fact that you know uh residences are conscious about saving their homes and protecting their homes and and also the commercial items that are coming here too so um the other item that I uh that M requested was the Florida Statutes that are related to the building Cod and building revenues so there is a that starts on page 28 actually um highlight the most important part give me that it's section on the th the start is section seven parenthesis a that actually shows that um that they actually shows what what the revenue of the building can be used for and it can be spent only on on enforcement of the toal building code and enforcement of the building code includes the direct cost and reasonable indirect cost associated with the review of building plans Building Inspections relation re inspections and building perly processing Building Code Enforcement and fire inspections associated with the constructions so those are the items that really the should be done and as as manager mentioned you know we can also support Code Compliance and code enforcement because work without problem is directly related to enforcement for the building code um so so and you know this statue goes to details what cannot be found there so you can find you know the zoning regulations and and and build roads and parks for for for for permit for money that can collect building so start very very clear uh for last several years the the legislature is very answers about issuing building permit and issuing them on time uh I've been observing this uh being on the legislative committee and and I've been observing this for years and right now the trend is that we got make this everything as possible easy issue permits as as we can to build for build the forance not to be an obstacle for construction we should help and make this as possible as easy as possible to the progress can be made uh so the other document that I preferred also here was um the statute 5 53792 it's on page 33 33 then us uh I highlighted how many days we have to building and permits valuation and how much time we actually have to issue permits there's a one more statue that actually makes this even more strict um it's U statute that is related to private providers so private providers are are inspectors that are hired by by the owner and they replace Town inspectors is allowed by the statute they call Private providers they they are licensed the same way as we are but they work directly for the owner they still have to promit everything through the building they have to report every inspection to us before and after but they they done by private inspectors and now statue says that if someone is using private provider uh for for permitting so means for plan review and for inspections we have about 10 days to issue that permit and if you don't do that you have a penalties uh penalties vary from 10% of the permit fee that we have to refound to gradually goes up as you know longer you take the more money you're going to lose if you don't issue those permits on time and that that became uh statutory requirement last year so there's again you know the the use of private provider grows um I had a feeling that this was done somewhere in Florida were building departments were collecting money and not performing the work they're supposed to do on time and someone get mad and created this Rule and the rule passed and it's in effect right now so uh anyone can right now actually obtain the private provider and and we have to stick to the rules and we have to issue because permit is pre- reviewed uh we just collect the piece we still keep the records of it we still process everything we still issue certificate of occupany and everything else happened they just provide and they have a choice of either bu doing the plan review or inspections or both um and on the next meeting um I will be preparing along with it some of the review of the permit fees that we discussed um we are obligated to do reduction of the permit fee if someone is using private providers so that means that if we if we not performing those those functions we have to charge less and that is a law as well uh some of the municipalities uh like witon for example they reduce uh 12 and 12 and 38% 12% for inspections and 30 3% for so total almost 50% of the permit be reduced because someone is using private providers this is good for us and bad because you know we also save in mind if we don't do inspections and don't do plan review there is a savings for us so so we should definitely and and and most important comp the St but as I mentioned uh yesterday U also on know we we have right now Consolidated everything here in this in this department every permit goes through here and you know so from bprs through Land Development permits we call fpas through RightWay permits vegetation removal trees everything goes to so you know so the the traffic is a little bit more than used to be um and and having additional personal help with that it will be absolutely necessary uh you know the worst thing is that when someone calls the government and nobody answers the ph and and I I I specifically I'm really sensitive about it because i' I've been running building department for last 25 years and uh in in lington and and I always try to run the department as a business serve people so they can get what they want we not the obstacle in and that's I would like to do the same thing here so we have people answer you know somebody answering the phone providing the information Train everybody so so person gets one call and finds out the information in the first job instead of being transfer certain times to different that is my goal to do and I think um you know we we right now training another person and and hope this will this will help us do that in addition to what Prine mentioned we also have VVS now coming up uh which will know add another Tru to it uh anytime we add we add rules we we adding enforcement there's always more work to do and um so there will be additional additional processing of inspections and and additional obviously communication with customers and and code enforcement and everything else that will have to happen so so I think um this will be really helpful to have additional stuff um stuffing this days for building comment is not easy like pretty much everything else we focus on hiring somebody they can learn uh hiring someone that is um already permit technician for 17 years with last experience is nearly impossible right now so we focus on hiring people that we can train and this is definitely to I in Wellington I pretty much everyone that I hired was not related to the building department uh process and they all became for technicians we do so we we do the same thing here uh you know providing training uh we're going to try to certify them with International Code Council there certifications uh by by code counil so they can become certifi permit technicians uh and we we're going to do the same thing with Sandra uh so hopefully uh at some point we're going to have a educated staff that can provide really good service to res I just want to point out on the phone calls the majority of our phone calls are for permitting um and we only have had you know the phone gets tied up with the one permit Tech the two peritech seems to have an immediate seems to have shown an immediate Improvement on that and also I would say that Amber just changed the phone systems out to save us money but also to improve approve the routing of the calls and I think we are changing the routing of the automated um message that you get so you can go immediately to a person as opposed to listen to the rest of the message and I think the biggest change improvements we're going to see when when we actually implement the new system which we already started acely hopefully by by November we will have the new system in operation that's going to automate lot of things that we do right now from inspections scheduling right now 90% of our customers cannot upload plans and apply for the peral L they get stuck on the system and there's nothing we can do we have manually help every so that's going to definitely make it make it better but together is also good to have extra stuff because we want to clean up the old system uh and make sure that we don't transfer things that we don't need it to the new system so we don't PL the new system and we'll have all digitized and and available online for customers so this will make it definitely better and hopefully near future we started already with the building department The Next Step will be C enforcement and then we're going to be gradually moving to different models with Public Works planning and zoning vprs and other so can I just clarify one thing that Mr Shaw has a question but I just want to clarify one thing for the past year or whatever years you've been operating with you on a part-time basis and one person in the building department and what you're requesting is a second person so that that first person can I don't know get sick and not have to work a lot of overtime hours so and and that there won't be an interruption like if that one person was to go on vacation then basically everything grinds to a halt and that we statutorily required for it not to grind to a halt is that am I summarizing that correctly okay welld deserved vacation and and then she leaves and you know it's a struggle we all know how much work she does and without having that second person is really difficult I it's hard to tell people you know you're G to have to wait till next week know because because the person that that is doing this is not here because she has vacation right well you can't tell them if it's statutorily required that you get it done so okay all right thank you Robert you had a question yeah you answered one of them on November 1st is the goal to be 100% with the new software program now that software program we're paying for through permit fees right that's one of the expenses that were allowed in this and then another question was video inspections will that be part of that software program video inspections VIP video inspection processing it's a separate program not related we going to attempt and I was promised that this will be happen that that system will be tied into our software so whatever the inspections are requested for video inspections they will be logged in and entered to the new system so they're going to work together parallel but it's a separate system so every inspection until that gets implement it is physically on site there's no taking pictures and sending them in or we do accept pictures we we are right now accept photographs with UPS it's sort of a must because of because of the turn situation where we our vendor is only available three times a week A lot of times Sandra calls me and tells me you know can you do inspections because we only have two we don't want to pay for two days so then I jump in and do those two inspections and then in between also so we contractors are not really happy right now to have only three days with inspections so we're going to try we're then we going to be able to expend to five days and I'm also going to be helping a lot more with inspections so we can continue that operation because nothing works when somebody has a concrete to or has an open roof and we not available that is really not something that we want to do we want to improve that especially this time of year where you're fighting the weather right the roof with the rain is good a day can become a month thank you yes are you done Robert yes anybody else have any questions for Jack while we have them here good Tracy anything you want to ask him no okay great phead um I have a question but it's I'm trying not to make it specific so um there was someone on dad that had a temporary Co that was about to lose their homeowners insurance have you been able to clear that that is not Jack FYI pardon that is not Jack but Jack did assist with me to get that cleared thank you I appr that and I'm sure that Resident appreciates that yeah we very conscious of that you know customer service is very important there was hold up on land development side but we were able to communicate and that's another thing that we do and we spoke with Francine there a lot of permit technicians myself uh we we coordinate our Consultants you know those Consultants are not in the office here they are out there and and lot it takes lot of uh I don't want to use wor babysitting but it takes some some some uh some guidance so so we can well I I know I'm not speaking for my Council but we're all Neighbors in this town and um I believe I would like to know as a council member if you have an issue with the vendor not performing because I do believe we're the ones that approve a majority of these vendors so I I do think if you have a vendor that is not performing please let staff and let us know the work is being is getting done they are very thorough uh but there is there is a there is a need for coordination um you know specifically when they not here they can't always face Toof face talk to the contractor or or or you know and explain we arrange the meetings we bring them here either on Zoom so we coordinate that's another function the permit T we do to to to coordinate those permits because you know a lot of times there's you know there's 17 comments on the L development permit and by meeting face to face and discussing you can probably reduce to and you're starting to make site visits now because they were doing this blind without ever walking on the properties with the FD yeah part of part is the final inspection for FD before so that being done okay Laura you have a question question sort ofish I thought as Council people we were verboten to be involved in Vendor relations so like if there's a problem I didn't quite understand what you said Philip spit it out again it to come before all of us or to Francine where Francine can relay that we have a vendor that is not stepping up to their duties and doing their work in a timely manner because that's been a problem with some of our F FDA applications and this one family so you're saying Town vendor not a vendor that's a private somebody hired vend there we go right somebody we good yeah okay which by the way the town vendor that does the FDA will be back in front of you on September 3rd with some recommendations to discuss um we all have a call tomorrow at 10 to hear what they have and hopefully you have some recommendations for them as well streamlining the process you know like I always when I start my career 30 years ago in build Department you know I always start a poli said that I can keep my job if I can issue building I'm going to hold them up and find a reason not to hold them keep my job and that's that's pretty much my model and I don't want that to be accused of you know unnecessarily holding things that can be approved and released for anybody have any more questions for Jack before we let him go I have one more when you fill this out can you put those little tiny numbers on top so we can read them another improvements you're going to see with the new system the reports are going to be much clearer and much better because because with current system to run to run a report and make it as cway pretty as this is is really lot it works thank you Jack in charge of the FDA program now is that what we're hearing no he does the in he does the inspections between him and Richard I think you have a very efficient FDA two of them ran everything I totally agree with you I don't disagree with you I totally agree with you I think it would be less costly as well but well can we do that in house Richard and I have been looking at ways that we might be able to do it rather than using the costly um engineering firms and I think that you've also been looking at some ways that we can reduce the impact on our agricultural residents you me in private and I think that's really important because that's something people are looking for I think that's that's really important to note that you have been working on that and that you are bringing forward some suggestions well we're bringing forward expedited process for people who already have fdaas and maybe they're just repoting a ring or something like that um fill different things that have been talked about but yeah we have some simplifications and again we have a 10 o'clock call tomorrow so I'll know more then thank you yes how many days are you here I'm here I'm trying to be here every day at least at [Laughter] [Laughter] lunch I try to come and eat every day just just during lunch and uh so um and then I I do inspection some inp and I do plan review on the weekends uh so you know try to keep up with that that being said I will I will have more time available so I will be probably here more often uh in the near future and and I'll be able to public discussions or maybe reduce the cost that we pay to are you considered a salary or are you and your two permit people are they hourly or Sal they hourly no they're they are they are yes they are hourly employees but they are full-time employees so I don't when you say you get set correct yeah I just wanted yes I am yes less than 29 hours right is the magic number correct Robert no I'm sorry Marge you had another question um yes I wanted to know um if this uh change happens Francine with um the two gentlemen uh saving us money what does that do to the overall security of the budget um well this is all cost recovery so what we would be doing is we would be saving our residents money when we used to use cash bars to do the um FDA review We generally never exceeded $2,000 even on a big one and so we collected a $2,000 escrow with Ingenuity doing the FDA review they're generally running around 5,000 I would say $3 to $5,000 and that's not working for us or for our residents and additionally the law doesn't have the same tyght time frames on um FDA reviews as they do on building reviews they have have to get it back with comments within 30 days and so they often times get back one set of comments and end up sending more comments on the next review so I would yeah Richard's about to say something that that's not 100% true the building department required building permits are required at a 30-day turnaround all other permits are not so Health Department permits site development permits all those permits there is no timeline the health department takes forever 60 to 90 days sometimes to review a permit but a lot of a lot of our permits a lot of our building permits are dependent upon the FDA and so our Engineers the outside Engineers or the engineers of our residents push that 30-day number on us so that is our turnaround time that you have to have a set of comments back to a resident um we're not always successful like I said and it's seems like we've had series multiple series of comments I'm willing to be corrected by any she's gotten better she's uh after our last meeting she's reduced it that she's promised that she'll have comments done by within 20 days I thing is we got to realize is ingenuity does our reviews doesn't work just for us they work for H Hill ocean ridge they work for a bunch of municipalities so you know that's one thing we unfortunately we have to consider is we're not the only people they work for and so it's it's it's just like everywhere else they can't find anybody either I had a whole long conversation with their president and she's like I can't find anybody with experience all I can get is these kids out of school and they don't have an absolute clue what they're doing and I've talked to people at all kinds of engineering firms and they are all you know from the largest firms like kily horn and some of these huge firms are having the exact same issue they can't find anybody who you know except for these kids out of school everybody's retiring or whatever we did find two Soul practitioners that would be willing to talk to us um but we don't we have not met with them yet to get pricing and turnaround time but if and we have already told Ingenuity that we cannot do this kind of dollar amount or this kind of turnaround time um you know for there to be numerous comments on your third review that's one of the reasons why we Consolidated the intake on the FDA in building because it goes to zoning first before it hits the FDA so that they won't have um a reason if you will to come back with more Comas we're doing everything we can to try to make that flow work is something we didn't have to do before so again we'll be back to council with hopefully a solution either we can get Ingenuity to move faster and less costly or we agree with them to use um other approved Council approved outside from firms to do you know a rotation of FDA reviews so nobody ever has too many at once that's why we looked at two firms started practicing that we actually accept the building from parallel development being so that they don't have to wait until the one finishes submit building corre start another process correct process and we get all the building review out of the way and soon as the FDA is approved the building yeah bless you I wasn't able to do that before but I'm comfortable doing it now and we that was a recent issue on that property mentioned we were ready to let the building permit go but we couldn't because we needed the FDA okay thank you I I see you but Phil set her light on and then I'll recognize you Phyllis go ahead um so I does have a couple of questions about that when we went from kesar to Ingenuity I've been at so many meetings when we hire another firm we know what it's going to cost so I'm confused how did we get from $2,000 to you know three to $5,000 with the new firm with the new firm they give us an hourly rate and the way that we approve the contract is based on the hourly rate so the going back and forth is bringing that is the problem all right and even though it's not um mandatory by the county okay the county says you have to turn around permits in 30 days but the FDA and the septic you know we have nothing to do with septic but we do with the FDA can we have an inhouse you've got 30 days or 35 or we do we have an inhouse you have to get your comments back and in fact we've changed it we said that's too long you need to get us comments back I think we I want they wer coming back right did we 20 days I know it's 20 we I wanted 14 they wanted 21 I think we agreed at 20 but what is the uh circum what is the consequences consequence thank you if they don't get it done what is the consequence this this is a separate no not setory for say the FDA or but the issuance of the the timeline for B so we have discussed that in the building code Advisory Board the county because was trying to defend themselves as well because you're applying for a building permit and we building portion will get reviews within 10 to 20 days but engineering and Zoning takes a lot longer because you don't have FDA and all of that so P came up we came up with per application that actually has a has a disclaimer that you know you your application is not considered uh submitted until you get your other approvals FP zoning plan other other ones uh to do so that that way we protect ourselves from being you know not in compliance by the stucture because we take longer than time allowed because you know building per throughout throughout the county and anywhere in Florida building permits are reviewed for building code purposes they review on time usually and other things that usually take longer and one of the issues is and I I've mentioned this multiple times the building permits are i w say they're easier to review but they're the the Florida building code is defined it has definitive you can do this you can't do that it's very black and white there is no gray with septic permits site develop permits planning permits zoning I mean zoning is easy too because it's a setback you know you have to have X amount of feet from here X Y feet there whatever site development permits it's a fluid it's fluid because the idea is you're you're trying to you're saying okay I'm going to put I'm putting this over here and then takeing but I have to take away from over here in order to make this work but then they also want that so I got to do this and I also keep you know certain elevations I got to figure what those elevations are and I mean so you're literally creating something out of nothing where like with bu that's why building permits are a lot easier to viiew I mean I do I still do electrical permits for Palm Springs and I I literally go through all my permits in a few hours with them you know multiple permits because it's defined the natural electric code is defined the build Forida building code is Define um site development is is harder and that's I mean even across the street um there were two permits that we got uh we were using as examples from a engineering firm who one of their employees worked for the for the Village of Wellington and it was still 45 days on a single review 60 days you know on a second review it was still taking time and and like that employee like helped write them write their standards and there's still multiple reviews because based on you know how the project Works can change you know you do something for this property might not work for the property literally right next door well and also what I'm hearing is if if one engineer goes out of town on vacation or whatever and ends up on another engineer's desk then you're going to get a whole new batch of questions or uh you know and so I am looking forward to hearing about maybe bringing this inhouse and streamlining still be and making it less expensive would just use more of a sole practitioner type of firm instead of the larger a huge firm I hear you we also another benefit and that just came to to mind based on what you said another benefit from new system will be that we will be able to run a report and see who we waiting for love it you know are we waiting for our stuff we take longer than we supposed to because accountability accountability better you know everything that's why you know I always push to push everything through even what we have now because that's why we can run report when it's when the review happens through emails and nothing is logged in we can figure it out so that is going to be first rule order with the new software that everything goes through and we going to be able to run the report and say exactly you know we gave you comments in 30 days but you took three months to respond and when will the new system be installed what we look November will be the the first modules of building and code we we have a goal to do that because like we discussed before um you know this the current one will be expiring so we focus on that and we haven't hopes to really even defend ourselves you know it's not us to holding up because we we can document so that's always valuable to kind of see and then identify the problems you know if we take too long then we're going to be able to identify problem with looking forward to it okay before I let you go I think Tracy has a question for you the program that you're talking about is that on this uh budget yes yes Computer Services building permit within within their there's $10,000 allocated in the um building depart in the building budget for uh computer subscriptions I think it is yeah that's the books are separate it's the $10,000 there um and then there is U money um in code and and and Public Works to pay it it's about a $14,000 program is my recollection that that was so my question when you have two Engineers I buy a piece of property I want to redo it I have to hire an engineer then I have to go through permitting and then it goes to your engineer again they make comments goes back to my engineer why and you kind of answered this is I'm paying an engineer hourly rate now I'm paying an engineer for the town as an hourly rate they don't meet in the middle so a lot of times they'll have comments and then now this engineer has to go back and redo it then resubmits it and then again goes to a different engineer and then you're pay you're paying a fortune for engineering cost and it's and it's not helping especially when you budget budget doing a property and you have all these absorbent engineering fees that are now to on top so I'm not going to complain about engineers because to me they all great I will though I will though contractors they all do contract some of them are good some of them are better but they all good but the quality of plans submitted is is the is the is the ticket there is a there to submit good quality plans they can have few comments and they can the issue and there's the village Consultants who who follow the ulc follow the ordinance follow the laws and that's how they review and they have a checklist where they go by and they make sure that it does when they when Engineers design do a flood elevations and water calculations they not always look at what what the rules are and that's what that's what town has a job of correcting that so again good quality plans is the Fig the only reason I say that is because we deal with both municipalities with engineering we don't have the same issues and Wellington with our Engineers that we do monetarily that we do not there is uh there there was a time in Wellington u in back in 2008 where we had also consultants and and Consultants it takes a little bit longer it's a little bit more expensive when when we use Consultants having people having the engineer reviewer on Stu in town would would be probably better uh but but we currently have consultants and those usually take longer they a little bit more expensive you know having engineer and and planning is zing person on stop it's always going to be better that's that's from my years of experience uh because he's here and he has a personal knowledge of town he doesn't work for seven different towns he works for town of and he knows our rules he knows our residents so is a b but um and the reason I say that because we we have the same thing inton I was in charge of development back in and I was juggling Consultants you know and and I that was not my best time up there because it was happy then we then they actually hired on staff personnel and still took a long time I think they the best time right now Madam mayor please pleas let the record reflect that Chris Wallace join us at 627 thank you thank you thank you very much for your time Jack thank you for answering all our questions get a chance to talk okay what what are we up to where are we at are we we have covered everything that we were supposed to in that we were we are deferring the pay plan until um the next meeting okay so the next order of business for tonight is for us to start considering some of these rates that we need to consider yes do we need to consider first Mr CTS um well with respect to Solid Waste are we okay with solid waste at50 okay we need to take a vote or make a motion can we raise it because we're still subsidizing it at 450 correct yes but you notice so no okay so the answer is no and what about the 30% franchise fee okay so I need a motion to put the I'll make a motion to approve the solid waste at 450 and REM just so you understand it's great that you're doing this in the form of a motion but what that what this is going to enable us to do is put together the final document that you will be considering on September 3D um and it will be at September 3D that your motion will actually adopt it but so the right verbiage was be consideration oh I need so we just need to get I'm okay I just didn't want you to think voting no we're not voting on it right now I understand it comes back on September 3D why let's then let's start with the garbage do do I have a consensus to leave the garbage in the budget at the garbage assessment in the budget at 450 Robert no Marge yes Laura yes fellis yes and I vote Yes so four to one consensus um your choice on whether you want to talk about millage or let's talk about the acreage assessment okay AC the acreage assessment um was originally proposed at 250 we have shown you a balanced budget at 20000 um the the issue that you all have to to deal with is you have the opportunity to go up to to 250 you can't exceed 250 you will vote on the solid uh I mean you vote on the solid waste and the road and drainage on September 3D they will become final at that point in time you will have first reading on the millage you will not adopt the millage until September 18th so you uh whatever whatever rate you choose on September 3D for uh Road and drainage is going to be the rate and if you're counting on flexibility um to offset it with millage um depending on what the rate is we are going to need majority or super majority or perhaps a unanimous vote so with respect to to millage for example if you were to propose propose a millage rate of over 3.1 446 I believe it is um then you need to have a unanimous vote to approve a millage rate between 2.8 something 8 2.85 187 and that 31446 which includes the three Mills that is presently a part of both proposals you need to have a 4 to one vote okay um and if you want to approve something at uh 2.85 87 um that's where you get to two I just want you to understand that because the the solid waste and the um and the uh Road and drainage assessments those are 3-2 votes um at whatever levels you're at okay um I saw a public comment come up before we discuss maybe that that was about the last thing we vot we talked about so let's go ahead and take that we have a public comment from Mr Todd um mck Lindon okay thank youon 341 Road um got a couple things about the um acreage assessment we've already got our proposed uh trim notice and it's got 20 so I don't know if you can go up above 200 acre say 250 acre but I Noti it says 200 something not right there so keep that in mind before you get I know you're not voting Workshop yeah the the trim notice that we sent was that we approved was 250 so got 200 on I anybody else we will take a look at that thank you for that information that's and then so one of my concerns about that is maybe something is been done but you know as well as I do we have like 80 acres that is using the drainage of the town and it's they're still not paying right they're still not paying it's been how many years now eight years nine years and it's this it's not fair the rest of us that are paying that assessment and they're getting a free L um our millage rate if if I look at our taxes with the back rate to what's being proposed at the mids my taxes go 41% significant amount it's only $70 right but if you look at all the agencies if they all did that it would be a huge amount we see we really star need to be considered to that like I said 70 bucks on them if you looked at everybody you know bu all those different light items it can add up to a lot of money everybody went about 4% and we have one contract that is that's the biggest contract it shouldn't have got approved and we wouldn't be in this position it had got approv beat the dead horse and not to stop beating that so we need to start looking at those contracts and I find it interesting that there's some council member that don't want to give staff raises but if that contract came in at 5% more those two council members would B Den I that contct thank you yeah um so this Mr McClendon's comment brings me to the sheet that I had Jeff print out it looks like this Laur this sheet um Robert it's this one that you had there okay so the reason that I had this printed out before um we talked about uh the trim rate the for the um acreage assessment was I wanted to I know that there is some desire to lower it um some desire to keep it at the 200 and some desire up here to raise it to the 250 so I know we we're kind of all over the place um but one thing that I wanted to look at because one of the things that Robert brought up that I thought was a good point was um perhaps raising the millage slightly at least so that commercial was was getting paying a little having a little more bang in the game um and what I wanted to look at and if you look at the lines institutional and government there at the bottom so those are the um the properties that do not pay taxes to us under millage so the only monies that we get from them are the acreage assessment so um I want us to be mindful because for the most part those are effectively institutional properties we're talking about the Palms West property and we're talking about all the not for-profits like along um Southern Boulevard so if we were to lower the acreage assessment we would be lowering the impact on people who use our roads probably a lot um and who uh you know I know the concern is for the residents but by lowering it we would lower their responsibility to the town as well and they don't have any responsibility any other way does that make sense did I communicate that effectively what I was trying to say okay which that that's all they pay to us so um even if we were to raise the millage and try to get money back from them on the commercial side we wouldn't get it because they don't pay that does that make sense okay all right so uh Phyllis I think you were first I just have a question and pardon me for not knowing this but did I just hear that the 80 acres on all the way on North Road has not been paying the assessment no it's not no it's over here okay so that's not what I her they are paying $200 an acre yes okay Marge has um there ever been a law that uh restricts a town from checking the legality of the status of these um people that are not paying the millage and only paying the assessment I mean we we have some really strange names out there on declaring exemption the exemptions are filed with the Property Appraiser's office and we really don't have anything to do with that if we believe let's say a homestead exemption isn't valid I'll talk about a homestead exemption because I know what you do with that if somebody is renting their home out and they don't even live there then the question is why is it homesteaded and we can report that to the county so I imagine that we can report to the county any exemption that seems you know unusual to us I would just need a basis to do that and I don't currently have that so we don't have a list of who or what proper we do is exempt the tax roll shows who is exempt and who is not exempt and they're and you know we have our tax Ro expert here Mr Wallace I would kind of want to defer to him about it but he can actually run us and I have the tax rooll Mr Shore also has the tax rooll um I think Mr Curts also has it so we can certainly do any kind of gations with it you know to get lists well Mr Wallace is there any way that um looking at those lists that you have something could jump out to you and say red flag there well as the manager noted I mean we don't really have anything to do with an anybody's exemptions I mean I can tell you over time that there's always uh you can look at properties and and look a skew at them and certainly think that people are gaming the system and a lot of people do like you know investors will throw cows on a property or plant some palm trees and sell them and the property appraiser is the one who has to determine whether they're eligible for an exemption or not however I also would say that if you're aware of something we can certainly investigate a particular property we do look at the tax roles nothing really jumps out like that on exemptions because I I don't really look at the exemptions there's there's a lot of exemptions that that apply to a property not just agricultural exemptions and Homestead exemptions but you have totally disabled exemp service connected disability exemptions I mean there's all sorts of stuff and each and every one of those has to be applied for by the property owner and then the property appraiser has to determine if they're eligible for it or not um and certainly um I know Broward County's very active in going after people who are fraudulent with their exemptions and I'm pretty sure Palm Beach county is too so so people who um are declaring nonprofit would that be considered an exemption classification yes and once again we would not be involved in that at all the you know the property appraiser has to determine that they're eligible for the not for profit exemption Robert I believe you were next yeah I spoke to the property praiser about this specific situation and the property praiser said just because it's owned by a nonprofit doesn't make it exempt it has to be utilized for that nonprofit purpose so let's say nonprofit is running a program then they buy additional acreage for future projects they're not utilizing that vacant property for their nonprofit that vacant property should be taxed as vacant property that's exactly right it's the use of the property that determines it for instance the university could have a a book store that's a profit making Center for them and a lot of times the profit say well that's not an exempt use that's the taxable use might be the smallest part of the campus but still they'll they'll go after that and also I remember when I was in Davey the Dolphins releasing part of Nova University's property for their training facility well that wasn't exempt from uh from taxation that was Al you know it's a profit making activity for the Miami Dolphins so it's the use of the property that determines the exemption not necessarily the ownership of it okay pH so question all these churches that we have in town that have purchased their neighbors properties Etc that are not using them because for one reason or another haven't been able to either get the expansion or can't afford the expansion so and it is an investment so why are they not paying taxes on those properties well again I mean the property appraiser would determine that so it's up to the town to say hey well you could question it for sure I mean but that doesn't mean that they're going to agree with you they would already they would have already determined that that parcel under the ownership of the church is probably going to be they may be holding it they may use it let's say they use it once a year for a carnival well there you go I mean I don't there's don't give anybody any ideas right it's all it's all over the place I'm not done I I have another question about this is this an accurate is this accurate because well Mr kurts printed it out for me before the meeting so you can ask him if it's accurate all right because it's saying and Chris is the author okay never mind so it's inacurate yeah know I wish I was still stuck at I guess my question is mobile homes property taxes $112 and the assessment $1,200 but I happened to know of more than one mobile home I know of three that I could lay eyes on now I'm imagining there might be a few more but these numbers don't seem right for more than one mobile home or well yeah I understand the confusion this is based upon all we have on the T on the tax roll is the uh land use code that the state assigns to the property so it's not oh so it says mobile home is it it's the land use that's all we have as far as a category for that you you obviously have more probably more mobile homes than that we have a few yeah the town so uh these you know but not zoned or categorized as for mobile home use we only have one space in town that's gaps categorized for mobile home use as far as the land the rest are right correct rest are coded single family you only have one little place multifam 10 units so I know of once again one property that has five units and it's actually off Southern so I this is kind of concerning because we're not we don't have multifam housing all right so this is multif family less than 10 units so that would be nine or fewer and you know that could be uh I don't know it could be a quadriplex could be a duplex no it can't be there's only one that Francine Am I Wrong we'll investigate that and see what the address is if we had the tax roll we could pull it up yeah we don't want to talk about it from here but I'm just finding that I these just don't seem correct these are broad categories the light use categories that the property appraiser maintains not necessarily they're not going to be zoning categories for sure U yeah but what I'm also saying is that's it's not a lot of money and if there's more people out there that have days that are maybe paying on vacant land and that actually have a mobile home on their property you know this needs to be adjusted because it's not fair to the people that do pay their home fa I would be I would be comfortable in stating that the property appraiser rules or their assessments of property are probably very accurate I would be comfortable in stating that I don't agree with you well because I've been having this conversation with the town in Palm Beach County for a while and we have had them in here for uh okobi Boulevard a couple of years ago and we sat in this room and they sent the wrong people they're were like oh you need the commercial people so nobody knew okay so they didn't know so I'm not comfortable that they actually care well what why I would tell you the purpose of this this spreadsheet that you're looking at was really to look at Residential Properties versus commercial properties the property phaser and these land use categories breaks down commercial also into industrial and you may not consider what's on that property industrial or commercial but for the purposes of what we are trying to generate for this we're saying okay how much does residential generate how much does you know commercial industrial generate institutional and agricultural but for the database that we have from the Property Appraiser's office we're looking at a a grand scale not necessarily uh you know what's actually on the particular property we have to deal with when it comes to the property taxes the taxable value that they've determined we're married to that we don't have any control of that's how you're going to determine the property tax revenues that you have individual problems that you have with individual Parcels we can certainly investigate and I'm not going to say that the property appraiser is perfect but I will say in my experience across six counties that I've had to deal with over the years you will find errors and and plenty of them but overall there pretty accurate and you also have to keep in mind the State of Florida oversees the assessment process that each County property appraiser does you know the property appraiser is an elected office so the the worry the state has is that they will undervalue things to Garner votes for people so if they don't if they don't assess the property right they'll actually you'll lose money in your county that'll go to Tallassee it's a big stick that they carry if they don't assess it correctly I just find that improved commercial and improved industrial uh especially the improved industrial I'm curious where that is because I know of one homeowner right now that has a property in town has a home and a farm and he's paying that 41 Grand a year I will and he's not industrial can you manipulate Excel that program I can now send her that extra spreadsheet it's all right there every thank you address yeah I don't want to St if I'm going to tell you I'm looking at the property it appears to be a mistake its address is 31781 62 Drive North I'm looking at the rooftop that's the industrial one no I'm looking at the less than 10 multifam right now it appears to be a mistake and I don't know if you can put this up there I can email it to you all right don't if you want to I think it's a mistake in the role but it's good to look at this so we can see it and to answer your question this does tie out to the role the million 818 is the same number that Mr Shore had on his summary of the tax role okay but this is a low number because there is a multifam it's on a commercial piece of property out there it's at least five units and they should be paying more than $2,000 because it was resold about five years ago okay and we'll go look for that one but this one it should be inspected too if it's five family and we'll go look for that one but this one that's showing on here is a mistake because it's 1602 this is just the tax to the town that 2, yes no that's just three Mills so they're all bills probably 12 14 15,000 yeah well we don't we don't care about that we care only about the to right okay make sure so before we continue the disc discussion Jeff based on the fact that Mr McLendon was has just provided us with information that the tax that it went out at 200 for some reason even though you say you put it in at 250 do we even have the option of of discussing 250 right now or are we stuck at 200 or less we we we we put the we put the information in or you all pass CED at 250 um we had I just took a look at a at a bill and it did show it at 200 um Mr Wallace uh is the person that I think transferred the information to them so that we will find out what's going on um I would operate tonight under the assumption that the 250 is available even though it already went out to people at 200 because because right now I'm under the what I know on the whole story is that you all passed a resolution that said 250 so is there an amendment or something that goes out to the town folks that goes oops if if there were an error let's say for whatever reason they was it got noticed at 200 and it should have been 250 depending on Whose error it was either the property appraiser would we Reen notice those people and it would you know you would you'd be able to Bill it or you could Ren notice the people the ones on the assessment not the whole tax role because you're talking about the assessment and then you'd have your hearing again you'd have to notice the hearing and the amount and that's that you know that would be like the proposed amount okay Robert yeah our budget's based on 203 Mills so I'd like to do a consensus people are yeah yeah I mean I'm 200 Yeah March 200 good for you um let me think about it okay Laura absolutely how about you fellas we're not going to be able to afford to PVE anything how are we going to pay for all these Paving projects our budget right now with the paving and everything is it's in it 200 with the with the changes that um the Council recommended on at your last meeting this this revised number the St in pink um is balanced at2 200 uh dollar assessment and three Mills okay let's see what it says is everybody okay with coming back to us at 200 next time we we could still we could still go back go up we could still go up next time when we vote but right now the 250 is is available but but you know for us in preparing the documentation so the question is if we all have a consensus tonight to come back next time with it at 200 we could still vote it to 225 next time if somebody changes their mind or if if correct whatever if the Wind Blows the wrong way by us saying tonight 200 we're not sticking to 200 we're still GNA find the answer to the question of that I mean because it kind of like is a problem for me that we talked about 250 but we noticed the citizens with 200 so that kind of makes me stuck in the 200 place of what we notice people at I mean I'm I'm feeling pretty strongly about that and not like oops somebody made a mistake so that's why I'm asking but we will find out about the oops somebody made a mistake right so we could if we decide between now and next meeting when we have to take the vote on it that we that we'd rather have it at 225 we still could do that even if we say 200 consensus T okay all right I'm in consent Robert la pH okay so we're all in consensus to leave it at 200 okay let's talk about millage anybody want to talk about millage millage was the the kind of the only opportunity as Robert pointed out that we have to perhaps um affect some uh more revenue from commercial than from the residents and the and the effect on the residents is less then raising the assessment um so if we were to raise to the what would you say 1.46 or something like that if we were to go to that 1.14 whatever that 3.14 it's the same vote I understand but if we were to go to that 3146 can you tell me $70,000 is what it is okay that's not my question let me ask let me ask my question can you tell me let's use a home home a property that's assessed at $400,000 and I know most of us aren't assessed that high but I know there's a lot of new people so I'm going to use that as an average okay so let's look at a property that's assessed at $400,000 what is the difference between paying three Mills and 3146 or whatever that is that that you're talking about that we had talked about going up to can you give me a dollar amount I think it's $56 but I'll defer to so that's $56 more in taxes for a single family home let's assume taxable value at 400,000 and we have a 0.14 increase in the Mills okay and then in addition I would like to 400,000 taxable value yeah no no 0.14 that's the difference Anita there's a chart in the back of our agenda from the I want to get $56 would be the taxable increase for res but it could come down to 53.2 if you paid it it's a two part question so I have a second part what would be the additional tax that we would get from a commercial property is there some kind of average I know I can give you an average for that can you give me some kind of an average for what would be the increase on a commercial property at the same 0.14 increase um like can you give me what we can tell you is that over over the entire commercial taxable value of the town okay that's good which is at just under $88 million um one mill generates $83,000 so that would mean one tenth of a mill would generate $8,000 additional Revenue uh the 0.14 would be about so it's about 10,000 more that we'd be getting from commercial and we'd be costing our landowners $50 or less additional by raising the Mills on average if you're assuming the average is 400 years well I mean it is 400,000 the average okay all right great thank you I just wanted to get that those numbers in perspective okay I believe Robert was first yeah I mean I would only support raising the Mills if you're going to lower the per acre assessment equiv we're balanced at 3 Ms 200 an acre if you want to go to four Mills then you need to go down to 150 an acre or whatever the equivalen is and that spreadsheet that i' had passed out before was updated I had considered vacant residential that didn't have an A as investment property I put that in the same category as as commercial it's it's investment property and it's homesteaded in a people and and my opinion is commercial vacant residential single family that's not homesteaded that's investment property if people live there they'd Homestead it and there may be a couple several that they recently bought it so they haven't had a chance to Homestead yet or they have two homes so that's why I included four of those in my category of you know if we increase it you know one mil we'll get this much more money from this group of people and then you know the other group the agricultural properties and the homestead of properties will go up not as much because they're a lower tax taxable value but then you know the cop the uh the savings on the per acre to to offset that there would be a bigger savings to the Agricultural and the homestead Community than obviously the commercial you know they're smaller properties and uh investment you know they're sometimes large property so maybe not so much so that was kind of my theory there on starting to shift that tax burden to the millage and more to the commercial knowing we're going to have you know a lot more commercial coming at least the next few years you know we have a lot that just opened up that's not on the tax this year you know WWA Auto Zone several things so but that's my theory if we're going to raise that then I think we need to lower the per acre to try to save some of those other people yeah it does save the nonprofits I mean that that's part of the equation but okay that it yes all right so in our town every year we have an election in March we do our budget in October so the taxes of our of are of course going to be a Hot Topic so we've pushed the people that were waiting for paved roads back to 26 27 and now we're not going to save money for infrastructure we're not going to save money for the pumps the wear the Public Works buildings which we need these things we've needed them for 20 30 years we've needed these things badly and we've had Public Works directors that have ignored these items uh Culvert repairs we still have Culvert repairs we still have oim roads that have giant potholes in them so we've got folks that I know you said at the other meeting that you had people that were talking about the 5050 well I've had people saying raise my taxes and pave my road so I think regardless of to do the right thing by this town is we have to put money in the bank that's all I'm GNA say regardless of the election we need to have reserves and Money in the Bank that's that's my concern okay so we need to get some kind of consensus whether to and again this is just preliminarily for tonight this isn't the final vote to leave it at three Mills raise it to four Mills which was suggested before which I think four is our upper limit or go in at that minimum increase of the 34 so do I have anybody who would like to start what the consensus might be even in they're going to do 200 I think they okay uh anybody else have any suggestions I'm holding it three okay uh I I would like to see it raised to 3.14 which was what we had talked about before to try to affect the commercial so I would vote no to holding it we have a three consensus so it doesn't really matter what you said but you can say thank you it hasn't mattered what I said for the past four years now sorry I'm just letting you know but you're welcome to say it so as I said we're running a town it's a town it's not anybody's personal pocketbook okay it's a town we need to get some money in reserves we have an unsafe Public Works building okay we need money and reserves and I'd like to hear from the residents you know it's not going to affect them but you know very much money out of pocket for what they're going to get out of it as a collective we're a collective we're not in individuals here when it comes to taxes we are a collective and we need to take care of our town and we need to at least raise the taxes a bit just to do the right thing and to make sure our town can afford to continue continue to survive and not as a junkyard as a proper running facility as a proper running municipality and um so you're a no also but however I'm with you I think okay however the consensus is three to two to put it at three Mills and we'll continue this discussion yeah at our next meeting the budget that we will present to you um at the public hearing will be at uh three Mills um $200 assessment for the road and drainage and 450 for the trash okay and I think um anybody who's listening out there in the public that um Phyllis and I know certainly I would like to hear from the public um regarding the Taxation and the issues um and see how they feel so I invite everybody to attend our next meeting which is on September 3D September 3rd we will be at six o'clock yes where we will be taking um our first vote on this issue and finalizing these numbers is that all the business so so these um uh determinations of consensus are they all hard and fast no it's a consensus for tonight and then we when we come back we actually vote on it on September 3D they do want to rework some of these numers right well and that's what they're going to do is rework some of these numbers but I think Phyllis has a really valid point in that um sometimes you have to make some really hard decisions when you're up here um about uh about what's best for the town as a whole and I'll use the example of the um PBSO contract I was um philosophically opposed to the PBSO contract um I I felt um very pressured um almost extorted you could use that word into approving that contract but when I [Music] um weighed the cost of approving it as opposed to the potential costs of not approving it to our town um it came out that it was better to approve the contract um and so while I do not want to see my tax bill increased and I don't want to see anybody's tax bill increased even though when I was just campaigning for my last election apparently my opposition went out and told everybody that I was going to raise taxes um that is not on my agenda has never been on my agenda but um when I look at the numbers it we're talking about the viability of our town for the long run um we're talking about the fact that we've been overspending outside of our budget for the last several years and that we um really must look at what's going to happen next year and the year after and the year after when we make this decision a final decision um and if we don't uh uh get some money in the bank we're we're at a dead stop we've spent up all our reserves we've depleted our resources we spent all the arpa money as fast as it came in there's there's nothing um and so unless we want to be in a situation where we are not able to make any of these improvements that the town desperately needs um all me Reserve at this time I didn't say they didn't I said bu res we spent all our our excess Reser our extra reserves down to the reserve amount thank you Robert for clarifying that we didn't overspend below the 25 c% State recommendation so let me clarify that for Robert's benefit and laws um we didn't do that but any monies that we had that might have been used for future projects are gone why are you singling me out I didn't say anything I thought you just agreed with Robert so I was making sure that I clarified it for oh no I'm fiddling with my hair oh sorry about that from over there and I'm trying to address you okay March you have something to say yeah um I I have consideration for um the percentage of residents that are senior citizens that we're seeing more and more of them leaving our community I mean we're we're going to have a much younger age um Citizen Bank uh if the if the process that's been going on lately uh continues and I I know some of it is because the uh the market is high and uh you know some of these uh folks are getting up there in age where they can't maintain their property anymore and you know it's to their benefit to sell perhaps and and move out of town because there's no small lots that they can buy there there's no um there are there expensive there's no 55 uh uh areas that they can move into you know so we're we're losing our history they're going and they're going fast so um by by raising the Mills I I just was trying to figure out you know how many more are going to be forced to leave because of that well you have to look at the number I mean it's $50 right it's $50 for the year yeah phis 10 no no so we're not losing history Mar you can't lose history history is history okay um the world goes around the earth is a living thing and and people change times change and the young folks that come in with families they can afford this large acreage and the older folks they can't afford to maintain their properties and you're 100% correct about that and they need a better quality of life and a better quality of life is not sitting on 10 acres trying to hold on to Memories all right it's about moving into something you can afford and be with people so they can assist taking care of you in your older age um but you know we're we're we and those folks also there is a tax break also for the elders and the wiow widows and you know people on um and disabled so um I think that we're always concerned about the residents for instance the RV folks well it went from when I left to go on my vacation a $400 a unit RV site and now it's $500 for five years well you're gonna have a lot more people in this town who's going to pay for that okay so that's what I'm saying there's people waiting to get their roads paved there's infrastructure so we need to be responsible to all people and if you want to give a break to the RV people who I feel can pass that along to their tenants um you know that's fine I get it their residents here but you've got to pick it up somewhere else because the other residents in town are paying for those RVs the usage on our roads and garbage okay so we're going to go with closing comments just for the record maryan miles no longer holds seat three I do so that's what it says here so I'm just gonna let you know that um marog any closing comments I'm comfortable with the way things went today and um I I enjoyed having multi staff here thank you phis closing comments no just it's our responsibility to sometimes have to do things that might not make you popular Laura any closing comments thank you staff for reworking numbers and putting things together and um giving us more to look at but at least in a in a different light so thanks Robert close and comments yeah I apologize for sending the same spreadsheet twice so I will forward that other one but you maybe divine intervention because everything kind of got balanced anyhow huge raises in there in this budget that was presented tonight huge for a lot of people a lot of people that just got hired this year than last year um it's a one shot deal but it's something that you keep carrying every year as you know the percentage goes up every every year so it's uh I consider that divine intervention but I still will go ahead and forward it thank you thank you Tracy did you have anything that you wanted to add at the end of the meeting you gotta have the microphone I'm sorry and I wanna I wanna coming I want to thank Tracy for being uh representing the finance committee here for us this evening we really certainly appreciate you being here thank you than you if you haven't dug into this budget I would suggest you guys really dig into the budget there was a ton of overspending non-budgeted things from last year that came up this year and when I say a lot I have a lot of red yeah and then you look at the budget this year and you guys I just heard you guys say raise it you said it raise raise raise as a town I can't afford it but there's a lot of people out there that can't and as a whole we are a whole we're not individuals we're not supposed to be individuals and alls I hear is raise it instead of going and looking at the budget and taking the burden off of the residents let's put the burden back on the town to come up with a budget that is Affordable you talk about infrastructure that's on there you do the roads that are supposed to and the drainage canal and the dra the um the CTS and the canals and you look at other overspending areas you probably could do a lot more well why don't you do it and bring it back to us on Tuesday I I can tell you A lot of it when I say I have not slept I literally have dug into this we're trying CH no no no and I'm not I'm not saying that you're not but when you really dig in and you look at these numbers and you see there's things that were that were spent last year that were never even budgeted and that money just keeps getting spent and I don't feel that that accountability is being held but we asked you guys what you wanted to cut on Tuesday and that would have been the perfect opportunity to you know because I wanted to cut a lot of things and I do know about wasteful spending because I feel we wasted a lot of money on attorneys insane money on attorneys five grand on LW suit that's nuts well when we were here on Tuesday I and my fellow Council people felt very dismissed very dismissed we sat here and you gave us to six o'clock and it was talked about everything but what we needed to discuss but it went on we ended up going on but it really didn't I'm not the only one that felt that way well you had the floor and I got cut off so I I I was asked because you were you're on your own on your own I was asked and we said what we were going to what we thought should be done that was it so you're saying that we I could talk for hours about all of this we were there for a very short time and I said we need to look at the budget we only had so much time we were here for what two hours not even we've been looking at this budget for how long now well I don't think it's appropriate for us to have a back and forth arum about this I I I I apologize that you felt cut cut off we certainly tried to include you um we certainly invited you all to be back here tonight and I I feel have given you and thank you for being here um you know and have tried to give you the opportunity I think it's difficult for and I've and I've been in your shoes as you know because you and I both served there um I too felt very dismissed often times as a member of the fact because I think when an advisory committee you spend a tremendous amount of time going over and crunching these numbers and um you know you're expected to give a report in two minutes or five minutes um and and and it's not always easy to give a comprehensive recommendation of what you would do individually um and so you know I apologize for that and we'll we'll try to do better in the future of making you feel more included um is her information her information or the committee's information correct and that is that is part of the problem it's supposed toow to share and but it's but what the report that is is supposed to be given to us and I guess we all assumed I know I certainly did the report that's supposed to be presented to council from the advisory committee is supposed to be a consensus report from the whole committee which think we did well right and and so there in M lie the problem is how the committee is running because I know in the past as you I'm sure remember I was the one as the chair of the fact that would go to council and get a before the end of our meeting I would say okay so our consensus is that I'm going to say this this and this to the council and then we would all agree or disagree or trim down what it was that I was going to say to council so that I could say it as quickly as I could in my five minutes that I got so um I think that maybe we can do things better on both ends in how your committee is functioning and in how we're receiving you and I certainly apologize on behalf of my myself and my fellow council members if you felt um dismissed I also process was a lot better with these group meetings you know I agree 100% you know like like Anita I felt like the report that uh uh Manish Manish and he did on his own which we tried to go over in our meeting and it was very long and time it was a combined thought it that's what I thought that's what I thought there was and in fact your chair said at the beginning that man was going to present on behalf of the committee so a little bit of the problem is was a motion to that effect just so everybody knows there was a motion to that effect that Manish would be the presenter of the positions but I'm hearing from Tracy that she doesn't feel represented in the positions no I didn't mean it in that oh I'm sorry that's what I heard on on Tuesday night we sat here and we listened to things and that's why I I made my comment on are we is this about what we're here to do or is this your meeting and we had 10 minutes left until six o'clock right but we didn't nobody sent you home at six o'clock in fact you were asked to stay correct we yes yes I think we came as as your presentation of but that was how we took it all in all of us took it in so I so I apologize if there was a misunderstanding I think the biggest issue is we all have so many questions when I have questions Cassie has questions Manish has questions I don't know if Bruce ever did have questions I don't know because he doesn't really talk when you have that many questions and you're here for four and a half hours we didn't leave till 9:48 a week ago and then we were here again Monday I and Laura met with town to have more more questions we have a lot of questions and the questions still aren't answered that I don't know how to help that I came and I did my part but I still don't know how to help the information gathering so maybe beginning the process from the fa SE perspective a little bit sooner next year um so that you're not like coming back two nights later I know that was difficult for me to come back two nights later now and try to digest a whole another um a whole another volume of information so perhaps starting the process a little bit earlier pack it six o'clock the night before our meeting right so that you yeah I know that's really frustrating too I I get it you know but by the same token I also get that staff is is overburdened and so perhaps if there's some starting of the process a little bit sooner at least for the facts since you're being asked to advise and so that it gives you ample opportunities to meet and have and reach a consensus that you feel comfortable with somebody reporting out and uh by the same token I want you to understand what I felt my burden was we have a deadline of when we have to get these numbers out and so that's why I was like we need like a concise executive summary from you and that is honestly what I thought that you were that manou was giving us we we need we need to recreate this process so what is so when we have our joint meeting what is being given to us is a con PR executive summary in like an hour so that we can then digest that and have you stay here and ask you questions and have you participate as you did this last time tonight assumption was we were GNA have this Workshop so we could all sit here and work through it together oh we're looking for advice from you guys we're not looking for that that's what that's what had brought up because you know this would be really great if we got together with you guys and we went through everything yeah so that is that's the missing yeah what we're well what I am I don't want to speak for everybody else but what I'm looking for as I stated at the beginning of the meeting from you from from any advisory committee not just the fact what I'm what I'm appointing somebody to that want the answers to the text I want your recommendations I'm I'm I'm counting on you guys as experts in that area to to give to us as Council we've reviewed all of this and this is what we think this is what we think you should consider in your deliberations tonight I think that's that's kind of the function of an advisory committee we're not we're not allowed to converse amongst each other you at your meetings you are so you got to have the meetings and you got to I think back them out a little bit and have more of them instead of like you said right on top of each other that's very daunting especially when you have you know a kid and a business or two and a whatever else going on in your life I I I know those things only our questions were asked for to job and answers were either answered half or rerouted or not answered at all right so if you had more time perhaps that would that would resolve that and if you know if we can all come to a consensus and maybe we need to talk about this more at a different meeting but if we all come to a consensus of what the function of an advisory committee is as far as one thing that uh concerns me is as active uh uh that they want to be with us she's the only one that came tonight what did the rest of the committee know they were invited they did well I can't speak for anybody I think that meeting in May with you guys halfway through the year is gonna IDE it's gonna help well we talked about it March said quarterly but I think at least in May before the budget and here's where we're at getting that information and here's where we're at and then you don't have a whole year we don't have then you have six months and you could say hey we wasted this this this and this and we're advising you to maybe go in a different direction but I think that we need to meet at least seriously and Chris is that a possibility to do some kind of budget uh pre-budget meeting in May halfway through the year and then you guys could tell us where we're at where it looks like we're overspending where it looks like we're putting some money away and it's not dumping a year in your lap I have to tell you we have an amazing we really do yes you do and we have very smart people and everybody has has their areas of expertise and everybody brings something to the table so I think it's we need to be able to come together and maybe share those ideas because I don't think we thought we could yes you can yeah absolutely you get together and write something up and pass it over to her and have it or have somebody come to the meetings and present for your for the faac yeah I used to present at every council meeting some kind of a consensus that's why I would always that's what I always do this is what we thought about the quarterly this is what we thought about that we had a big lag this year also with our meetings yes we didn't get started yes we were very lagged and then now we're doing everything so last minute and we all have real lives too I mean I have both and you're volunteering there's that but it's okay Robert you had something you wanted to add to this discussion yeah being in government doing budgets for 20 years and sitting up here doing them now the sixth year um it's almost a two-step process well three-step you know the the government the manager puts together a budget and I consider that a wish list this is everything we want to do and the money we want to do it and then it comes in front of us and you see I come up with specific things that I say do we really want to do it and that's what I would advise the fat committee to look at you know the first go around you're kind of picking the cherries saying do we really need to do this and we kind of did that at the last meeting and then staff went back read did the D you know the budget and said yeah we can take that out or add that and this is what need for millage and acre everything to to make the budget work you know to break even and it's like okay do we want to go over break even or or whatever so it's really a multiple step and and you're right it takes several meetings but you you almost you've got a whole list of things in there that you want to say you know do we really need to do this and I think that question needs to be posed in the committee meeting do we think we really need to do this and the committee says 32 no we don't need to do that okay goes as a recommendation that we don't think you need to do this we think this is too much money not enough money I think there's not been enough money and maybe 50 line we only we only had a half dozen you know I didn't have the 20 like maybe I've had in the past years you know but I think it and and I agree when Min presented his thing I think his what I got out of that is don't raise taxes keep it three Mills 200 an acre it was hard to follow kind of what we consensus tonight so I'm here thinking okay I think we did what the fat committee kind of wanted right we did what we thought you were recommending at least so um so yeah and again if there was any feeling of dismissal or anything like that I I certainly do apologize but I hope you will understand that just like you were charged there's a missing there was a missing component but I want to say in conclusion that I did have my 40 items but I always meet with staff and I get a better understanding of what I thought and what they think and a lot of times okay that makes sense comes off the list so you know you said you met with staff with did and and I learned so much every time I meet with them because you know I'm assuming something from my experience and sometimes it's it's not but it's also us as a committee learning about things like I still like I would go we'd have our meeting I go back and I have more questions because certain things would now pop up I mean like today I'm like looking at something totally different clean day um and I'm like why why are these numbers so high health insurance is a big one I'm seeing certain certain ones health insurance is exorb it yeah it is and I don't I don't understand it so I have a question for that so every day I go back I look at something I have a new question I have a new question I have a new question so I don't know how to and when I say I think staff is ready willing and able to meet you can come and meet with staff individually anytime you want to I mean you you can't you can't come with like let's say one other fact member um and you don't need Laura to do that you can come you can make an appointment with Jeff or Francine or or even Chris on the phone um and meet with them anytime that you have those questions but it was so beneficial for me because when I was called when Town Hall called me to confirmed that I was going to come in and meet with staff to go over my budget questions I'm thinking I have so many questions and Tracy was asking me questions that I couldn't answer so I just brought her in with me it was so I think helpful that's probably a good idea to do it with your in the future and and give them that access we had a lot of stuff answered yeah phis do you final comment I'm I'm just gonna say that I'm the only one up here that was here in 2018 in 2018 we did not have franc at the home we did not have Jamie Underwood okay Jamie you me J I mean Jamie tiom okay sorry Jamie um and in 2018 we had a huge water event okay and the town manager at that time whose name will not be mentioned um said we have no money did we have no money we have no money and the roads were underwater people were calling me crying they couldn't get out of their driveways they can't get out of their house so myself and Mr McLendon back there went to um Home Depot rented a pump and started pumping out roads if we had this staff here they would have been out there with us we never saw one person from Public Works never nobody we were there in the middle of the day we were there in the evening nobody came from Public Works not one person came from Public Works to help us and help the people of the town so this is why I'm saying we need to treat it as a municipality we're behind the ball financially as you said there is a lot of outstanding debt but we have a lot of debt that we don't want to have a hurricane and all of a sudden not have a Public Works building we want to have this building for people to be able to have safe refuge and be able our town to continue running during a hurricane these guys are gonna they need a place to be during a hurricane and this town needs to continue to run so that that is my comment you guys were not here in 2018 you didn't hear we don't have any money and I even got the gues to donate Rock to put in a hole so people could get out of B- road so I was here and if these guys were here they would have been out there with us okay was that after the district was made dependent to the town that water event yeah so the water event was afterwards yeah but anybody could have showed up yep I was happy okay so my closing comments are I want to once again apologize for any any hard feelings because was certainly wasn't but I hope that you guys can understand just like you had two I think you said four-hour meetings to try to assimilate all this information we were charged with having these two meetings back to back and getting what we finally got accomplished well hopefully just on Tuesday night but additionally tonight as well in getting something accomplished that we statutorily had to get accomplished so if there was any feeling of rushes or brushing off I think that's probably where it came from was at least mine as running the meeting like oh my God we have to get this done like like we yeah time we have to get this done this is dday this is the 11th hour we have to get this done by this night we we had to come to the consensus that we came to and so again a misunderstanding of what I thought we were getting for you and what from you guys and what we were looking for from you um and so I apologize for that one again I want to thank staff for this has been like a really rough couple of weeks on you guys getting all these numbers crunching them over and over again um getting us the backup and the support and everything that we needed for this and doing the rest of your job as well so um you know I know a lot of times I'm sure those up here like myself who have jobs feel like you know and now I have to go do my job where I actually make money um but you know then you have to spend all the hours that you do on this so I know that you guys have other duties on a day-to-day basis that have to get done that have to get performed um and then you have a time of the year like this where we're all so crunch crunched and rej juggling and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the amount of time and effort that you guys put in on behalf of the town of Lo Groves well we had to juggle even more because uh we had staff taken away to go to the league of cities right okay fastic can I have a motion to motion to a okay all in favor thank you for coming tonight everyone thank you staff for being here as well Tracy ma'am I sent you in the full fact of personal invitation to come meet with me it still stands I sent it with a I also sent it relative to this meeting and I sent you to I sent you guys an email last week because I sent that document out and invited you all to meet with me um I don't know what you're holding so what do you need yes I sent that youa and I invited you to come in I sent the pay plan I also sent a response to man inviting I have regularly invited Cassie to come in um anyone can come in your dog multiple I don't do full access access not just I invite Cassie regularly so additionally everyone was given Chris's phone number and email and you can go directly if you have items in that bu you think that there's over spending it is always for a reason not because anybody is misspending and you can track most of the things back to council Direction I'm going to give you an example and nobody's going to really like this example but the amount of time that's been