##VIDEO ID:oqhtPJYt8Dw## okay so thank you well that's different thank you computer um so just so we're all clear how the evening is going to run we have scheduled a onehour joint session between the finance committee and the Town Council where the finance committee will in that hour period make their um recommendations they've met twice um and they're going to make their recommendations in sort of an executive summary to us and uh then we'll adjourn that meeting probably at six o'clock and then we will convene as the council to make the decisions is everybody in agree that that's the way the evening is going to go yes okay Laura you had a different idea of the evening if Rolling Along through what faac has to say and we need more time I want to let it finish you know is there going to be overlap into our meeting would that be beneficial so I just a thought okay well anybody else have an opinion I don't have a well yeah I just I'm sorry go ahead um I don't know are we gonna I gu I guess we'll see how it goes something we're going to discuss each item as it comes up or them talk about their stuff we talk about our stuff and then we discuss it together um or is it just well in the past the way it's been done is that since the p is an advisory committee they have reported out on what their advice what they spent their time deliberating on and what their advice was and then the hard decisions were left to counsil that's the way it's been done in the past and I know we have a short time line and not very much time and I think it's going to be difficult if we try to just two years ago when we did it it was more of a joint meetings it was not two years ago when we did it we reported out in an executive summary which is what we were charged with doing because we're an advisory committee you remember that yeah well since I was chair of the fact that's what I and usually we tried to keep our reports to you know 15 minutes or 20 minutes we Tred to get our consensus doing our fact meetings and get our consensus and do that because it's an advis committee right the the uh difficult task is for us to hash out and make decisions um I mean my vote would be to keep that format but I guess we need to take a vote of whether we're going to keep that format well if we've done it before and it worked then keep that format keep that form okay so then all in favor of keeping it with a one-hour fact executive summary and then adjourning and starting the council committee meeting say I I I oppos opposed okay you're opposed or you're for I I just don't think we should set the limits just let's go with the I mean well I mean done sooner than later I just I don't know you know how much value did you feel it was reporting versus if it's a joint effort that's that's the only thing I don't want it to be us I'd like to have a joint well I mean I think that the fact is certainly welcome to stay in their seats if any more questions arise that the council wants to ask them if they want to stay in an advisory capacity for the remainder of the council meeting I don't see any problem with that but I think we are charged we have a very short window to make some really tough decisions so um I think that we probably W to get that done get that started so that we can get it done tonight and hopefully not have to be back here Thursday night although we might have to be we'll see not okay so the chair of the committee is Miss sui did you have a um a order that you were gonna do a presentation in or what very eily lovely thank you may we need to call roll oh I'm so sorry can we do a roll call please I totally forgot we also need to do public comment so I apologize go ahead mayor Anita Kane present vice mayor Marge Herzog here Council number pillis manilia presid council member Laur danowski here council member Robert Shore here back members uh fact member manise Su yeah Committee Member Tracy rafowitz Committee Member Frederick who Committee Member Bruce Cunningham is absent Committee Member Cassie sui staff um Town manager Francine ragali here Town attorney Sammy Brown is present Public Works director Richard Gant he's on his way Chris Wallace Jeff Kirch project coordinator is present he just he's president all right Madam chair we have a quum to proceed thank you so much um I think record should show that the assistant Public Works director is here Craig is here at this time to begin the meeting all righty now would you like to give your presentation okay thank you uh mayor the council members lot of efforts and thinking has gone in and we are hoping that you don't have to think too hard to make hard decisions or not we are going to present to you some analysis and hopefully something different this time so let's first look at the big picture I'm going to present on behalf of f our committee and um and then we'll have time to have every member give their comments so let's think of these as combined Collective of the fact committee so big picture 30,000 ft we are going to talk about sources of funds um and use of funds so as you see on the left hand side general fund is basically as you know is our operations of the Town it generates majority of our funds and followed by Road and drainage and capital Improvement and then on the right hand side you will see how those funds are used so General funds basically will contribute to Road and drainage and capital Improvement and so forth yes yes that chart is that in our agenda or is that your chart for no this is faac faac chart this is purely a recommendation just wondering if I have it in front of me no no I think they gave you a print out of the data behind it but not this picture Okay Laura has it y Laura printed it out right I just got it okay copies yes please okay so not that I believe that what phis is looking for is the pie chart wondering if we had that okay so we have days ago we are going to present to you an analysis that basically shows so our we are going to present you the conclusion and then how we got to that conclusion there is a Delta between revenue generation and revenue spent and that difference right now is standing at $529,000 it is covered by 420,000 coming from the prior year unspent in capital projects 62,000 from Solid Waste pulling from that fund and 47,000 from the Lost fund and lost fund has to be zeroed out every year so that's okay but Solid Waste fund um this is 62 is coming from that so so just to set your mind at a high level our expenditures are higher for this particular Year from January one sorry for this financial year our expenditures are higher than our Revenue so let's look at what happened underneath there are three things we're going to talk about one is 2025 what happened and what we think is the analysis and recommendation then we're going to talk about that this is a train so think of it like a train we next station is 2025 and you are going to set the direction of that next station but you're also going to set the direction of this train for the future five years in particular the capital plan and this is important for many perspectives because people who are looking to buy homes here or maybe for legal reasons or Grant reasons you have to recognize what this town need and then the third thing we're going to talk about is what are the immediate risks and opportunities and what are the long-term risks and opportunities that you should look at so let's look at what happened in 2025 so you can make those decisions all right let's go to the Excel sheet you have this Excel sheet in front of you so our town funding consists of uh six funds major funds first fund is the general fund we are all sitting here this is general fund management here most of them and the town in 2025 the general fund basically makes it money most of its money from the property taxes all Alo known as millage rates in Palm Beach County the property values have increased by 133% and so and also there are some other fees and other things have increased so if you do not increase the millage rate the taxes are already going up the revenue collection from those taxes and fees is already increased by 14% so we get Plus $537,000 in general fund in fact Palm Beach County has decreased their millage rate from 4.7 to 4.5 a decrease of 4.7% because they want to give some relief to the public because the town the property values have gone up unfortunately that money doesn't appear in your bank account so they actually said to the public we are decreasing it and in spite of that little decrease their revenues are County revenues are going up by 9.6% our town revenues are going by 14% which is a good thing we are making more money without even increasing the millage rate the challenge however is that our expenses in the general fund have increased faster than the last year so if you look at our expenses they increased by 22% so 14% in the revenue 22% in the expenses and and then one may wonder what why would there be such a big increase now I'm sure Town management has done tremendous job but they are going to explain uh why that increase is we are still learning but there is a 16% increase in the salary budget uh of the Town management and 64% increase in the salary budget for building and planning department that is a major factor behind this increase and and this is still the committee is learning about more to see what to give you some more analysis now if you look at the Surplus versus deficient so as I mentioned to you general office general fund property taxes they they are the sources of fund and they fund our other things in the town such as road construction Canal management and things of that nature uh because our expenses have grown at a faster clip we are not generating as much money as we did last year in fact this year we are going to generate 86,000 less as compared to the last year right so so what are just to focus on this for a second one of the observations we have is that lot of the employees salaries increase new jobs coming in is to improve service to the public that's a given town has was very diligent but there are certain set of services that are only used by certain people for example I recently installed a solar power for my entire 10 Acre Farm and I requested the town to permit it and then come and inspect it and town charged me 250 bucks similarly you are proposing RV policy in which on that disc on that day you discussed what should be the fee for somebody to go in $500 for five year per RV things of that nature then there is lot of new buildings new home people are expanding home which is a good thing people are building new things so our Engineers go in give advice to people so the one of the observation is are we generating enough Revenue Vue from those ancillary services that certain people use or are you as a council wants those costs to be spread to all residents our observation or recommendation is spread it you know generate more Revenue if you're hiring new employees either either they should generate revenue or they should reduce cost for example if somebody did too much overtime or contractors were expensive then you will convert to full-time so either cost reduction or Revenue increase so this is the general observation in the general fund I'll stop here or should we continue and then take questions all right continue so far so good okay so far so good second fund this is about second major operations of the Town it is Road and drainage fund so um think of it as the maintenance uh projects so if a crew is cleaning Canal cleaning the canal or maintaining the road that goes under this budget but if the same people are building a new road or creating a new thing in the canal that goes in the capital project so Capital project is building an asset for the town and Road and drainage is the maintenance of those assets in so just to kind of separate between the two and what happens is that since we have the machinery and the people who that is being shared some cost are allocated to capital projects so they will when the crew is there doing something around the capital they their salary will go in that department so in the road and drainage fund our main money comes from the road and drainage assessment um in the current budget our town management has proposed an increase of 200 to $250 from $200 $50 increase 20% increase or more and the problem with this philosophy is that if you do this uh you are going to hit senior citizens veterans Homestead irrespective of people who make money or don't make money irrespective of who's building new home or not it's going to hit based on the size of your property and this is in our view may not be the most efficient way to pass on the correct Revenue to the correct cost in fact faac is saying do not increase any assessment and do not increase the millage rate work within this 537,500 7,000 by increasing the millage rate sorry increasing the assessment rate so so this is what the management has proposed now if you look on the spending side actually it's a very good thing to observe that the cost of this department has gone down in many respects in fact they have decreased the cost or managed the cost by buying um Vehicles than leasing them they have replaced inefficient vendors with full-time stuff so this is probably a very well-run operation here as we see as an independently where um in fact if you look at the numbers um the the expenditures have only gone up by 7% right so even if you don't increase the even if you don't increase the assessment I think this could be managed with some tweaking so one of our observation and Analysis going to be manage within the current Revenue increase this 537 with no tax increase it is automatically coming in with the same millage and do not increase the assessment okay now let's look at the spend side where did the budget increase 7% increased in Staffing Professional Services they are maintaining more you see improvements in the town beautiful Town great things being done so the question is can we create some efficiencies by leveraging their staff and resources in the capital fund and vice versa can we can we reduce any duplications and that's something you have to look into for example there are books cost subscription cost software cost travel cost training cost there are a lot of little little things sprinkled all across different departments can you consolidate and save some money all right third Department Capital Improvement project Capital Improvement project is all about building new assets new canals digging better you know Bing making our roads New Roads so uh if you look at 2025 we are generating 250,000 less this money comes from government this is called intragovernmental revenues we are producing 25% less mainly because 250k FEMA resiliency Grant did not show up this year so we lost that but on the spending side you will notice that um our spend has actually gone down 7% so we are in the current project uh as compared to the last year we are spending $154,000 less so that's a good thing I guess Paving schedules now how can you manage some of these costs if you want to not increase assessment tax so the question in your mind mind now is how do I reduce 407,000 if you don't want to increase any taxes on the public you have to cut the budget by $47,000 so you have to now decide where do I cut that $47,000 maybe there is some room here which F has requested you know there are some new roads being paved or some new uh studies being proposed 100K study here and there maybe some of those things could be moved any opportunities to cut so that something is in your control and you can control delaying some of those projects now look let's look at Solid Waste Solid Waste uh this is our Revenue by increasing the solid waste P from 400 to 450 and on the right hand side you're looking at expenses our um expenses have gone up by 3% meaning vendor said the garbage collection vendor that our costs are up by 3% but we are proposing a 133% increase to the residents why because we always undercharged our residents we always if you look at the revenue we are only collecting 68,000 and we are paying vendors 720,000 so we we always subsidized this department and we did it by pulling money from the general fund so in a way we are asking people to pay higher taxes anyways so our recommendation is balance this budget in itself so people exactly know how much they're paying for their garbage and uh there is still a deficit of $62,000 even if you increase the yearly to 450 this there is still a deficit and that deficit is being met by pulling from the reserves of this fund so that fund reserves think of reserves as your bank balance is going to go down by that much now where is the opportunity one of the things we discussed we haven't made any conclusions franchy fee in the current budget the older version that you are seeing uh the franchisee fee this is for those dumpsters commercial equestrian uses those two and one of our recommendation is maybe your vendor should separate those two things so you don't want to increase equestrian dumpster but just the commercial dumpster and vendors have the addresses and everything they should be able to calculate at that but maybe you know if residents are going to increase by 133% why the franchise fees only up by 5% maybe there is more room to increase that then we are looking at Transportation fund now Transportation fund is gas tax and uh this year as you see we are actually collecting 1% less and in the future years you will see this going down which is a risk to our town because people are buying Electric Vehicles people are buying high efficiency cars so there is not enough gas buying and therefore you are going to see this decrease in fact there are three or four states in the United States today who are having severe deficits because of this very same reason States like California Etc where there is a high percent of EVs and believe it or not Florida is one of those States because we produce lot of solar here so this is at the risk of decreasing in the future years so be careful because if you hire a a full-time employee or if you hire any cost that goes in the future years you have to be clear that your Revenue sources are on the decrease right now another fact so this all this money generated in the gas is going to fund capital projects so you should feel good that all that gas money is building our new roads and improving our canals lost fund so anybody who buys any Goods or goods or services somebody goes to Publix they get a little more tax and and that tax that through the county comes to us and um that tax believe it or not is almost the same 1% increase and this may actually go away as we discussed that this options tax county puts that tax they may pull it back or they may not but even this 336,000 may or may not in 27 it may be not there so think in long term we have downward risk to our Revenue right now downward risk if there is a recession if there is anything or a hurricane we will hurricane is another risk or any five structures fail at the same time as another risk so our town is in a situation where we have to be very careful whether our spent um okay let's look at our one good thing which we take lot of we are very proud of faac committee looked at the treasury management treasury management involves cash management so we collect money we pay vendors during that time money sits in our bank accounts and thanks to the town manager uh this year we we are going to make almost $90,000 more in interest income and we are going to keep motivating them we believe there could be additional 100,000 made out of that so again going back to your deficit right now is $47,000 if this 90,000 did not have come you would have been looking at 500 deficient but if there is more interest income of another 100k this will go down to 300,000 so this interest income is a big big factor now moving forward as per the town bylaws the town manager who's also Chief investment officer is going to present a report on Treasury management so that should be a part of your reporting moving forward the second thing we're going to look into is the long-term plan and in the long-term plan the problem or the challenge you have is we have Decades of old infrastructure and our town management has proposed recognizing $20 million per year $100 million plus outlay for the next five years and uh it's a good thing because you want this to be shown for Grant purposes but if I'm a smart buyer and let's say I want to buy Here versus Wellington and I look at our town budget and I see what this town is going to go bankrupt their operating budget is 8.3 million and in year 2027 they're saying I need 21 million so it creates that perception news headline loah Hatchi is going to go broke or legal reasons somebody falls in the failing structure and say Town knew you guys were so the question you have to think about is you probably hear politicians saying America's failing infrastructure Road and bridges1 trillion doll but is that in the budget no but is that going to fail tomorrow no is that old past Prime yes so the question is how do you recognize it without putting a certain commitment on your longum budget so think in the financial picture if I'm issuing bonds to this town God forbid three hurricane struck us and we excuse me can I interrupt you for a second we have a council person with a question I didn't want you to get too far no no I want him to finish in and then okay I'm going to stop I'm almost done risk and opportunities so easy path and a difficult ult path path L travel easy path is keep the millage at three which you have been proposed right now drainage assessment to 250 increase this is what your current path is path Less Traveled difficult decision for you to think about do not add as faac said do not increase taxes do not increase millage rate do not increase assessment Road and drainage assessment however majority of faac said increase the garbage trash removal fee to pay for the budget so don't subsidize that so they are okay with majority is okay with that and it requires you to get out of your comfort zone and some bold thinking as you said there is no way this budget is going to be the same as the last year with this deficit and also moving forward you you have a pressure on your revenues so unless grants come in unless grants come in which means we have to focus on the focus on investing to all of you to go out there talk to the government state federal FEMA bring more money in there is no way this town can generate no matter how much you increase you will never be able to increase our Capital need from 7 million 22 million never ever so this is we are dependent on grants okay so Florida is a sales tax revenue State as you know the whole philosophy of the state is built on whoever makes money sales tax when money changes and you charge some tax so faac is saying is there a way to charge commercial more if somebody's buying from Publix or stopping by another town a vehicle comes in can you charge a little town thing you know there was a new project that came in that said we can charge a guest fee guest tax so our lawyers have to think through how can we uh the visitors or tourist I'm in agrotourism and I think all my colleagues will agree that if a tourist comes from Miami or Texas they wouldn't pay mind paying additional 20 cents per ticket I don't think there is any issue with that so other other counties or towns will charge tourist sir tax visitor s tax things of that nature but that that thing is going to take time you don't have that time for 2025 as I understand uh commercial tax RV guest B make sure your RV fees uh whatever fees you are proposing make sure in the financial budget it it it Balan is out because is the current staff able to handle that load going in everybody's property giving them permits new RV fees make sure that right now a lot of that cost is borne by everybody in this proposed budget so I think there needs to be more money coming in from these programs our fees for permits anywhere wherever Engineers planners all this great service they are doing unfortunately whoever is using that service have to pay a little more otherwise it's being subsidized by other residents our senior citizens people who are veterans and other people who don't have source of income rent rent are charge this is another concept that can be think many counties have looked into that so in conclusion there is a gap and we have to be really smart about getting grants and reducing our cost now I'll stop here and open for questions okay tell us okay um I have to ask Francine a few questions first Francine we voted on the garbage to 450 correct we haven't officially voted but we've included 450 per unit in the budget for solid waste and a 30% franchise fee correct we have to bring forward the solid waste ordinance that shows the 30% franchise fee also included in that will be a solid waste franchise Fe okay well it's been absolutely ridiculous that this town has subsidized garbage for so many years it's absurd so what is the number to not subsidize garbage is it 475 a can well right at this moment in time I think that we can have our too late it's not too late um but I I just wonder if um you would look at the page where we did that analysis for you um I think that we've said that 450 is close to breaking even I think yeah it was within like $77,000 the raise of franchise fee it would take you over the top so okay um the cost of the subsidy um is $67,000 according to page 75 at the 450 huh this changed I can't see that sheet here I just know that the number um that is in your line item budget for to be pulled out of R to balance that 61,000 is that currently that's in the proposed that's if it we at 450 that's if it was at 450 we still have to pull 67 grand out of the general fund you're offsetting some other revenues against it because the analysis done here show 67,000 the balance your Solid Waste funds what we are proposing to do is raise the rate to $450 per unit and off Solid Waste reserves 61,000 those are the numbers okay all right so that's not balancing if you're drawing from another fund like I'd like to just make one statement this true subsidy off 450 and nothing else is $67,000 as shown on that worksheet however this fund does get interest of about $7,000 which is how that number goes down so the net difference is what's being funded from the reserves in solid waste Solid Waste is paying for solid waste what's the percentage of solid waste reserves right now 25 it's at 25 and if we pull 60 it's 25 after we pull it after the pull so they'll remain at 25% okay um so I want to talk about I I didn't hear anybody talk about the repairs done on the New Roads the coverts that needed to be done after the fact the canals that needed I want to know what that number is emergencies you mean yeah the emergency repairs we did in 2023 24 the end of 23 24 because there was there was Canal repairs uh done on an emergency basis where we hired a contractor and that number was $198,000 give take what H I thought it was 500,000 for the canal repairs the the emergency Canal repairs that were done on collecting by a contractor those were 193,000 and what about all the Public Works repair emergency repairs do not have way of keeping that separate because those are repairs being done when our guys could be doing other things so those are emergency repairs that shouldn't have had to been necessary so it's Canal it's CS ripping the new roads out putting in CTS one on frro right is that done yet the one on frro and collecting no that needs to be done the one at grber had to be done the one at help me uh there was another one please speak at the microphone so can you estimate estimate no you could go to the dasas Can you estimate if those were V out to a vendor so the ones that we did do to a vendor with 120 to 140 the big ones the 96 in and the 72 inch pipes but you're talking about just coverts you're not talking so how many of those did you do so the ones that we did already through the town when a vendor had gave us a price on it it was $1,000 to $112,000 per pipe for them to do it for us it cost us right at like 3 to 4,000 okay I don't want to talk about that project okay because that project came with issues so let's talk about the big culverts not the smaller culverts that went into under the road let's talk about the big CTS that went in let's talk about the canal repairs because that took away from our our our uh CIP well the the the what you call I know I voted on at least three or four of them the the big um the bridge culs the large Bridge culs right um there were a number of them uh that were done this year they were all part of your CIP plan as it ended up being amended um and uh there were several that were recommended by your Public Works director as being emerg and that's why they specifically came on um and I'm asking for number of uh what you felt you spent in repairs last year to the roads and the canals and the culverts Colbert repairs uh were in the vicinity including public works department well the those included in the CIP were in the neighborhood of $700,000 in repairs and that is in okay so I was 700 down the dra Francy yes ma'am another question rilian Florida it was in Appropriations for 750 I was away did it not get signed we received a $350,000 grant for Brazilian Florida which is a study that's in progress 2024 2024 and it's a study that's in progress and additionally all the money got that last year yes this year I'm asking about this year I am answering you we also received $750,000 from the state last year and we also received 750,000 from the state this year so we have budgeted $1.5 million in our Capital plan to spend on drainage from the state okay the question was we had 750 dangling in Tallahassee this year right we lobbyist going did we get that yes okay that was my question I misunderstood and I apologize this suppos be talk about during their meeting we're here to you know gra I was just GNA bring that up correct you guys are cutting us off at correct um so Robert I'd like to give if if we can hold off on your questions I'd like to give each back member an opportunity to say what they want to say since Manish kind of presented for everybody and then so that they get to say what they want to say um and real then we can have a staff presentation and then we can get into our stuff and then are you guys willing to stay after six if we have additional questions for you okay excellent okay correct one thing yes please for man when you said the the 5% includ 7,000 on the franchise fee for the trash it's actually goes from 25% to 30% so that's actually a 20% increase in revenue on the franchise fee so it equal about 24,000 so I know it's 5% 25 to 30 but the Delta is 20% so that was just one of your notes there that I just wanted to okay we are going to do a correction like that I just wanted to say there were two things that we need to say one is that building fees cover building costs and the second one was um relative to the spending of the 750 that we got from the state it must be spent on drainage it can't be um reallocated or put off to the future I just wanted to say those two things thank you for for an accur Cass did you have anything they well you're a Committee Member okay Tracy would you have something that you want to say go Tracy so during the last two weeks we have been presented with a lot of numbers I have lost a lot of sleep in the last doule nights because my brain is just going we have so many different papers and there's so many things that are not right on each one of the p right whatever and they're all kind of the same when we were presented with the plan structure I was assuming that this was for current years what they're making now the CED is what they're going to make for 2025 that's not the 24 so it's not even for me it's not even correct for us looking at it thinking oh they're going to go from this to that and that's not true so you have to look I went through and I looked at what was on the actual budget and I came up with an entirely different number but the numbers weren't maing to me um and then when you look at the Staffing model and I ask these questions and I kind of got an answer but not really got an answer of how many of these positions are actually open I'm counting possibly five positions that are not filled that we're giving money for that's $270,000 $54 on top of that other things and that's not even saying take away 5% raises that's leaving that and on top of that you have two big items7 or $100,000 for traffic ping and $75,000 for Town Hall at P that's 175,000 44545 at L just in those two things so we're looking at a budget everybody wants to give the burden to the town the town people that pay taxes instead of taking the burden on and reducing costs and the cost just small cost which equal big cost just an FYI each person on the payroll we use payroll numbers and we have a completely different payroll this year than we did at this same time last year when we started our budget the people that are still here would be me Jeff Amber and Linda wadell um very few people that are here now that were here then and so we use what's in the payroll okay thank you Freddy yeah I I I just wanted to Echo what M kind of summarized you know our main point is I I don't envy you guys out of the make final decision but with this current year and you know the way the economy and all the other stuff is done we need to be cruded when we you know go ahead and spend money that's actually not there and uh I'm sure as you see we what we recommended it's if you go go go through the different departments or whatever and say hey we need to save this much this much get a Target focus on it and you know it's it's already been laid out that the shortfall be made up in more than one different areas so you know before we drop the hammer and turn on the prining friends and say yeah we don't spend this money uh I I I think it for us to you know try to balance it without you know thr money at in the military when we got behind they would say okay what do we need we need another ship do ship or we need to throw money at it you know most managers would say we need to throw money at it when when you know guys are really looking at exactly what's going on they say hey we need another ship you know few more hands make a big difference thank you sir I'm gonna kind of sum up okay thank you we had some lengthy meetings excuse me one second I have two lights on here are you gonna wait for Cassie's summary before you ask okay all right just checking y okay good we've had some lengthy meetings and the general consensus of everybody overwhelming M it's not raising Mill not raising the assessments how do you do that by going through there are really good cuts that can be made throughout the budget that we found uh a bunch of items spread across different funds that could be cut to save money um so that was the General plan to look at that another thing we looked at is um when they talked about hiring more Personnel you need to look at why hiring we started to look at that and one of the comments was well there be a lot of overtime what is the difference between the overtime repain and the cost of retaining a full-time person those questions need to be as asked as well so basically we there are meaningful cuts that we didn't quite get to that could be throughout the budget that could get us to the 407,000 and we would be fine without raising taxes on our residents so that's kind of the general consensus what we got we started doing it but it takes rolling your sleeves up and getting them into the mud and you've been there before so you know and uh we had started there were some items we didn't get to um and hopefully you guys will um get to that tonight so I didn't cover anything that's about the general basis of what we discussed at our long okay okay so in an effort to does anybody have questions for the fact yes okay was your question for the fact I understand you had so we still have to hear the staff presentation and then we still have to do that so I'm trying to just give these people the opportunity to go home and to answer our questions and go home if they want to and certainly stay if you'd like to too in case we have more questions so I what I'm looking for is questions for the fact right now so then we can say your excuse if you want to or you can stay then we can hear staff presentation and then we can ask additional questions or and start hashing out points okay so does anybody have questions specifically for fact members before their time is up I have one last question for the fact members yes okay go ahead I was on first okay go ahead whose light was on first my light was on and then I was kind of cut so my question to you is more than half the community voted to pave these roads more than three years ago they voted to pave the roads okay so the roads were paved and there were consequences from the way the roads were paved okay and I understand that you guys feel Cuts need to be there needs to be cuts and I'm willing to cut some projects okay but the majority of the Town voted to pave the roads and at the time they didn't care how they were paved because they were told they were told there would be repercussions there are repercussions now how are we going to pay for that all right and this is the taxpayers burden now because they voted to pave these roads so my question for you is why are you wanting to cut staff when you're saying staff is doing a good job they seem to be needed they seem to be moving forward but you want to cut and punish staff when you're seeing the work is being done and yes please that's all weal about that we started to dive into that we put into build let's talk about the the paving projects there's $700,000 uh I think that'sit budgeted to do some of these minor roads the the general consensus was if they needed to get done maybe some of those most of the projects need to be deferred in a later date yes we all want to eat flaming on for dinner but sometimes we have to dig in and have hamburg because we can't afford so you could defer some of those smaller projects and it was brought up last night that there was a proposal of 50/50 on smaller roads okay that that's possible as well that's not fair to the rest of the residents okay so we talked about possibly taking the 700 if we don't have it and deferring it and maybe doing your major level one roads that everyone uses it was an option when we talk about Staffing one of the questions came up and we just picked up Department building building department and the coment was well they're working so much overtime we have to have a full-time member so the question came up how much overtime is being spent in that department does it is it equal to what you're going to be paying for a full-time person if it costs $448,000 for a full-time person to come in are we paying the same or more 48,000 in overtime if we're not I don't think it you know can can I don't think the argument is there well can I can I just make a point to that logic you're you're operating on the assumption that the employee that's working being forced to work all those overtime hours is willing to continue working all those overtime hours and they and they may not well I'm just saying so there's there's a problem with looking at that that way because you know most people want to get home to their families they're willing to do x amount of overtime but most people want to get home to their families or they have other things they need to do so maybe a part-time employee but I'm just I'm just throwing that out there I'm playing Devil's Advocate as a as a little as a little as a little right to see if one number supports another right that's what we do we crunch numbers I got it I got it okay and if it doesn't then maybe perhaps we can't do that and it goes with the roads yes everybody wanted all these roads I don't know Gruber KY whatever the little roads 22nd whatever but maybe perhaps we don't have that money to support that this year because of unforeseen so those may have to be deferred to a later not that they're not going to get done at a later date but we thought about deferring it and saving that money there are some things in the budget that can't be you know the contract with Public Safety that's done but there are little things that Manish and a bunch of us found that we didn't even get a chance to dive into that could so we weren't picking on staff generally we were saying there are areas that need to be cut or deferred to a later date where we have the money so we don't burden the residents at the economic time that we're in right now your question kind of all right let's go by the assumption that have to beut in that scenario excuse me can you speak into your M please thank you so I I think the other councilmen always also have questions they I'll just add to one second so even if we keep the employee increases as such what we are saying is that those employees if they're providing Hillary Services can be charged a little bit more and if you see this analysis that the town just shared I think they're already solving that issue analysis that's not the town analysis okay what this analysis things like this increase ourv permit uh collect you know reduce the special event Bud again that's Robert's analysis that we'll get into later Laura you had a question can iish please second before you so what I'm saying is capital project budget for this year is already less by 150,000 as the last year but as Missi said there are other things within the budget so we can keep the employee days we can keep the capital but we can reduce other things that will save us some money and maybe raise some things yes I agree okay Laura you were next up one of the statements shared with me was that in order for this budget to work by not red not increasing the millage not increasing the non-ad vorum was that we would absolutely positively have to dive into all Reserve funds and or borrow money and if that's something that fa would like to talk about among themselves that's fine personally I don't see it but my Reliance is on what you guys have been doing and bringing forth and I think this is one of the best fat committees I've seen in a long time so thank you for all your hard work so so right now there's a if we don't increase those taxes like you said there is a shortfall of $47,000 so if you don't increase taxes you have to dip into the funds for recovering this 400 7,000 and we don't even have that sort of reserves right that anymore so we either have to increase our Revenue meaning increase the millage rate or increase the drainage assessment or we have to increase the fee for the services that down charges or we have to cut cost somewhere so that's the but other than many option you can't find you can't go there is no way around 407,000 short for right hey Robert I think you were next do you have a a question specifically yeah I just want to run through this sheet real quick because it might be out of the box yeah so up top it's how does increase to four Mills in reduction to $100 an acre from 200 an acre which where we are now has that affect various categories because all is saying hey let's shift some of this tax burden to commercial so thank you I got the from Chris the spreadsheet this afternoon so I was able ble to crunch some numbers um so basically the different categories and what I consider these first four categories is investment land that's vacant residential single family that's not homesteaded vacant commercial and improved commercial so I I kind of say that's investment properties um so the total if you go what's highlighted is if we increase the 4 Mill we get an additional 259,000 from those properties and then if we lower to $100 an acre um those properties would save 165,000 so a net increase of 93,676 to the town budget so that's a positive cash flow on those investment properties then we looked at and there is a total of about 350 of those a with no Homestead so that is an investment property I don't know is it an equestrian Farm you know I didn't get into that detail but there's 357 of those and so I looked at that and you can see an increase of those 350 properties only brings an increase of $100,000 if you increase the village because that's a low taxable value on those zag properties versus the $259,000 on Commercial and then if you reduce their fee by $100 you would save them 276,000 a net loss of 171 in the budget so that would be 171,000 less in the budget so then the last one was homesteaded properties which at 746 basically almost half the properties in town or homesteaded and so if we change it the formul that'd be $28,000 increase lower it by 100 it' be a 28 $889,000 decrease a net 80,000 savings to those Property Owners so um the increase average is $279 a property dividing it by 746 properties and then the savings average $387 a property um the whole purpose of this exercise is to see how does the burden shift between our Homestead residents in our agricultural non-homesteaded properties versus commercial knowing that we have significant commercial coming online the next tax cycle because we didn't pick up WW we didn't pick up um AutoZone obviously um next tax cycle we'll pick up those two we should pick up the medical office maybe hopefully they can have a CO by the end of the year what do you think very good chance yes that would be great we could get them on next year's tax roll so and that's kind of you know what we talked and similar to the garbage we increased the franchise fee from I want to say 3% to 25% and we said we use that money to offset the residents let commercial pay some extra franchise fee let your homesteaded residents who use the garbage pay less and that was the the theory when we increased it to 25 so even though the deficit comes out of the general budget that's because that franchise fee goes into the general budget so um and that's projected to be like $220,000 this year you to offset what a60 something, deficit at 450 a can so so that kind of shows you what's happening and then the other things were you know we in my meeting we came up with some additional revenues that just weren't in the budget that you know kind of RV permits we figing 20,000 the fee from 25 to 30% wasn't in there so that's about 24,000 and then the 4% Bank fees that we approved at council is about 10,000 that was in the budget that's 54,000 additional revenues um expense reductions um this is just my opinion this whole thing is my opinion so this is not I mean this was discussed with staff but it's one-on-one discussions especially events from 25,000 to 10,000 we hadit carry 25,000 Robert did you have a question for them because I was trying to get the questions for them out yeah well I just want to go over this while they got it in front of them just some ideas I'm almost done thank you um 25,000 a pass which when we had a league of cities lunch and we needed more money so I think we should safely reduce that by 15,000 so Welles and cver the reason I think we should reduce that 100,000 is we haven't been able to spend all the money we've been budgeting for the last three years and we put a ton of money in these categories then the end of the year we're carrying over half million dollar carrying over $400,000 because we don't get it all done so let's prove we can get it all done you let's reduce that a little bit um traffic caling you know 100,000 Town Hall 75 the Personnel on real quick on the Personnel this is just from the the uh plan structure base the numbers in here that say existing the total existing now is 100 or 1, 33255 and then the propos was 1,6,2,5 is a little high but you know that comes up to 2.25 million but if we make sure everybody is at the minimum SC scale and then give the 8% the 5% 3% 3% benefits will save 332,000 so you know a total possible savings is 726000 and um that is you know with all the Staffing requested um that's just looking at these positions and and raising some of the minimums up to something that makes sense I know this was just pulled from a study but I think we need to set our own ranges as a town you know what would we hire somebody at you know $240,000 for Max for uh Town manager would we ever hire somebody in that range I don't know so that's something that we'll discuss with Council I just wanted to it's out of the box you say no increase in millage no increase in Mill and obviously you can't do increase one without lowering the other if you wanted to transfer some of the burden to the commercial and the investment properties it's not all commercial it's investors people buy rent houses and that kind of stuff so that's uh thank you Robert March did you have a question for the fact um I was wondering if the fact committee had explored um removing anything from uh the proposed uh expenses for this year could we hear uh what what items they said they had started too but and they they suggested like we talked about the other night some of the smaller roads if I am summarizing what you said but what you what you said you started talking about was removing some of the smaller if I might if I might real quick because there um there were three substantive motions and recommendations that came from the fact over the um over the two days that we went over this on 8812 the fact um voted and approved the expense side of the Public Works budget including the salary increases that was on 812 um last night they approved the $450 um Inc the increase of $50 to $450 for the they they made a motion they're recommending it I'm sorry but that it was a an a recommendation in favor of that and with respect to the CIP um as Tracy indicated that they uh suggested that the um $100,000 um $100,000 in money for the TPA uh Grant seed um that that be removed and also the $775,000 for the conversion of this building into a temporary EOC with respect to providing a generator those are the three specific things that the um uh the fact committee voted on and approved uh in addition to the general items uh that Mr Su had outlined with respect to um a feeling that there we should look for more revenues and we should look at the little items for um Some Cuts but those those are the three things that they specific speically recommended the other thing I want to do um just to clarify the the record because Mr Su makes an excellent presentation but the document that he provided you with um has some numerical errors in it I don't want to go over it in detail um we have discussed that at the at the fa meeting and I provided them with some backup as to to where the errors are the big thing is in this paperwork and because if anybody asks for it I don't want them to think that this is Gospel um there is a surplus deficit in 25 that suggests it's a $28,900 deficit there is no deficit um we can go into the specifics as to why there's no deficits the basics of it are that um there was a failure in this document to acknowledge that the proposed budget showed carry forward of $420,000 uh there was an inversion of another number uh so it and it did not um acknowledge the 61,800 that was being used um from the solid waste fund uh reserves can I comment no if I could if I could finish just to make the point because I don't want to give the impression out there that the the budget was not balanced um with respect to uh 20 24 there's an indication that 24 was not um balanced once again some of the numbers are are incorrect on 24 for example the the revenue as the manager pointed out was is was $350,000 from the resiliency Grant not $250,000 um the capital is misstated on the expense side at 2 million basically $100,000 instead of the three 3,759 th000 these have been explained to the fact they went over it and I thought there was concurrence in in that the reason that you don't have a deficit as you will recall is that you drew down um from your various uh surpluses um in uh in general fund Reserves used $56,000 uh from the general fund used $945,000 from the road and drainage fund um there is uh $271,000 from FEMA there was $250,000 as a part of that budget that remains a potential um but it is a funding source uh for a donation to be used for uh Capital um and then there you'll remember that there was $26,000 of unallocated Capital um that was carried forward from the previous year my point is these balance these budgets have always been presented as balanced they do balance and aside from the the wonderful presentation I don't want anybody to get the impression out there um that there was some sort of deficit um with respect to the balancing of these budgets and I that's the the issue that I have with this particular document it has been gone over and I think we agree on those figures and I explain now I think this is a very important and now you have to make a decision if you are pulling money from your fund so let's say you have a general fund and you had a million dollar and you started this year and this year your expenses are 500,000 more and you draw that money from your fund do you think that budget is balanced no it's not balanced so terminology how we how Mr Jeff uses it or you use it or we understand so what I'm saying is you look on the source of levenue just don't think about Bank balances right now we have 8.4 million coming in I'm not worrying about which funds we are pulling to balance any budgets I'm saying source of funds and use of funds there is a gap of $528,000 and Mr Jeff is saying because 420,000 is coming from the last year unspent funds 62,000 coming from the solid based funds and 47 coming from the loss fund so in his mind he has balanced the budget but in my mind and I as a fact recommendation I told the auditor there is a profit and loss statement and then there is a balance sheet statement and then there's a cash flow statement when you look at as a business profit and loss on the left hand side is the revenue on the right hand side is the cost you as a business you are losing 528,000 it's a loss on P statement but when you look at the town's budget way the data is presented and this has been presented for years when you pull money from the other fund that's a balance sheet adjustment so you are depleting for for example our fund um our solid based fund we depleted it by $62,000 that's not in my mind called balancing of the budget that's called balance of the cash flow or balancing of the you know some sort of balance sheet but purely on profit and loss basis you can see the revenue and you see the spend in my mind if you pull money from any reses you're depleting the reserve thank you I think we get your point Marge um fr wanted to speak I do and I want to agree with Mr Su and I want to apologize for going through the detail of his math because I don't think that the detailed math is really the issue he is correct we do not have a balanced budget but I also want to add for the record because you know it's important we have not had a balanced budget for many many years because the district received a stien from the town from gas taxes the District did not do the maintenance that it probably wanted to because it didn't have the funding to do it the town did not do the maintenance the town receives gas taxes those gas taxes are depleted each year we balance the road and drainage fund where we make the assessment from we balance that with the annual receipt of gas taxes that annual receipt of gas taxes is between $250 and $300 again Mr suud is right that number is going down and we can't rely on just the gas tax to close the gap in roads and drainage on the gas tax we do get a piece that is for Capital that's $100,000 a year for the last several years we've been doing a lot of capital investment in town all of that money came from outside of the town we use all of the C tax money which was a county referendum where each Town got a piece of the pie it was a 10-year program we're in the last year of that program so $383,000 of what we're using on Capital now is going away by December of 2025 but likely earlier so this is the last fiscal year we can rely on the ctax so that fund is gone at the end of the year Additionally the general fund has been subsidizing roads and drainage and the solid waste fund and the reason it's been able to do that is because the town received arpa Grant monies we received an entitlement Grant of 1,798 th000 or something in that range of magnitude we spent it on the capital that we've been doing the last two years at last three years if we look back aside from the ctax aside from the gas tax and aside from the arpa there is no money to spend on any of the continued Paving the continued maintenance unless we can get it from outside sources so I am saying what the previous year facts have said and that is that we have to look to our Revenue model not reserves we have taken the reserves to 25% and two funds this year we definitely have at least that $54,000 of Revenue if Council votes those ordinances through because those are still subject to voting but agreed with the 54 I calculated those numbers and Mr sh and I agreed to them I agree about deferring some projects that we don't have to do I agree about all those things but and most of all I agree with Mr suit we don't have a balanced budget and we haven't had a balanced budget for many many years and what we are spending is other people's money and I don't think that we are going to continue to get other people's money we have 42% of the town's tax base which is Bonafide a exempt they pay half of what the AR is with the agricultural residential that's not bonafied a exempt that's 40% of the tax Ro there are commercial properties here they do not they cannot pay a differentiated tax rate because adalum means to the value that means everyone gets to pay according to their value so we can't have a separate rate for commercial I did mention to your chair that Florida Statutes 163 does allow for a separate District to be made for commercial but if we do that that will take us couple of years that's an excellent recommendation for us to look at that but that money cannot be spent in the rest of the town that money can only be spent in the commercial District that we create but still that's good because that can pay for Public Safety and that can pay for infrastructure and that can do lots of good stuff but the point I wish to make before we leave and before we have a lot more conversation we can cut lots of line items and we can balance to this year we can do all those things but we can't survive unless we figure out a different Revenue model and that different Revenue model is likely going to be if not this year in future years whether I'm here or not whether it's this staff or this Council or anyone who lives or doesn't live here the count the town will only continue to be able to support itself with a different Revenue model not by line on them C which absolutely we totally agree whatever is suggested will be and will be considered and and facilitated by staff and I'm sure that Council would want nothing else so thank you for letting me have the moment but it was important to say that's where we're at we have not a dollar for next year thank you um I have a couple things that I'd like to I I abstained for her now it's my turn oh gosh I thought you already had a turn to talk I haven't had one yet go ahead well go ahead I'll talk after I haven't had a chance yet but you go right ahead no go ahead well I wanted to elaborate a little bit on the business district idea um so one of the things that I've been exploring with staff is I I actually and I said astoundingly agreed with Robert at the last meeting that one of the only ways to make commercial a little bit have a little more skin in the game is to raise the millage as opposed to raise the assessment so if I would be in favor of anything it would be raising the millage slightly I do agree the garbage should be 450 um but I think that we need to keep the assessment at $200 an acre it's it's been that way for a while and I think we can manage with it that way and yes it does mean that the town is subsidizing public works but Public Works is now a department of the town so it should be it was different when the town was subsidizing the water Control District that wasn't technically a part of the town so it's different um so I would actually uh recommend or be in favor of beginning as ASAP the creation of a business district I know that that's a several year process but um I would be in favor of creating that business district so that we can um that is the only Avenue that allows us to charge a different millage rate for commercial than for our residents and so by creating that business district we can charge and and most communities do it so by creating that business District we can charge a higher millage rate to our commercial areas and as Francine indicated there's you know some pros and cons that come be you can only use it in that area but since one of the main reasons that PBSO doubled its contract from 330 to six whatever it went to originally 610 almost doubled its contract was they said that it was our increase in commercial areas that was causing that that enforcement so that need for extra enforcement so I would think that we could use that extra millage money to pay a bulk of our PBS contract should we choose to keep our PBSO contract so I think that creating the business district right away is a really good idea um since we're getting our ideas out there Robert I think that we should have just a minor increase of the millage like 1.1 something like that just to try to get something out of the commercial did you have that in your figures of what 1.1 would do to the commercial um that we should uh ex take the TPA out of the capital project the capital plan that1 ,000 out and defer that maybe till next year and I also think that we should um change the structure of our legal department I think we need to move to an in-house legal department um I think that by doing that we have someone on staff who could be our in-house legal department and who I think is quite competent um and by doing that we would save about $100,000 a year um and that's a that's a big cut yeah at least $100,000 we probably have to hire him a paralal because probably can't do all of it by himself do you have someone in mind already I do I have someone in mind I mean who's in house already I I have Mr her in mind that's what I'm Who I've been who who I have in mind but we could certainly explore the possibility of other in-house um people but uh he's someone who I know to be confident and who knows our town and we would not have the learning curve um that we would have of bringing somebody else on board this certainly something we could all vote on um and and hiring him a paralal I figure is at least like Robert said a minimum of a 100,000 that's a nice Cut um and that's pretty much where my ideas I also went through the budget had a bunch of small Cuts some of them similar to Roberts like I don't see why we need $25,000 in a special events fund um and I went through my individual suggestions for cuts there were some other ones that I went through um that I just things some things that I just didn't see the need for um I don't want to belor and go through all of them again some things I had questions about uh but um and I just want to want to reiterate that point about the you know making sure that we're looking at Apples Apples to Apples and not apples to oranges when you talk about you know comparing hiring a new employee to what it costs for overtime it it's not really comparing Apples to Apples okay because you've gota you know gee come work for our town not only do you get to work your 40 hours a week but you're required to work an additional x amount of overtime hours um every week I don't know that that's a a big uh a big motivator for hiring I mean you know on the converse I know that my brother worked for the DC Metro and for like the last five years that he worked there he's retired now but for the last 5 years he did overtime every single day every single day he worked he did like four four to eight hours of overtime because they would let him like literally like slept in his vehicle in Metro garages and did the overtime there because he you know racked up this huge money towards his retirement so um and they had the overtime to give him and that's when the vendors come in when the Metro is closed so he would let the vendors in to do the whatever and do their thing so anyhow there may be somebody who wants to do this massive amount of overtime I don't know um but anyhow those were kind of my recommendations and suggestions along with um like I said some minor cuts that I had going through um so I think we're I I feel like we're pretty close I know you want to say something Marge I feel like we're pretty close um I don't hear anybody saying anything too contrary so that's a good thing March what did you want to say um the necessary projects that uh uh we uh have to perform I I I believe that $750,000 is still there right and it can be used for um culverts and road department items correct we have $1.5 million from State Appropriations that are included in this budget in two ways $436,000 in the current year that we are in for f Road and collecting canal and $1 M50 in next year's Capital plan those two things add up to roughly the $1.5 million so it's not 750 it's 1.5 and it's all for drainage and Patch basins and control structures and um my feeling goes along with um some of the other um comments that were made where we need to pull the uh 500,000 from or more to make it balance uh from the the budget items that um can be put off uh like the EOC uh here in this building that that could be put up I mean that's based on whether there's a big hurricane that comes through and uh you know we need a center but there are plenty of towns around us that we can uh use their EOC um I've said that um I was told there are EOC trailers that you can rent for at a time to put on your location so you know those are all ways that you could um save money uh and the the t pa we can wait on that also um the traffic coming things uh on okobe and so forth um Can Wait well I mean they they they can um be put off for a year or so um so and and that's my uh my feeling on how we can balance this budget okay you have me on everything except for the traffic cing in okobi if we're if we're gonna not do the DPA Grant if we're not gonna do anything to try to get control over okobi I I I guess you don't have to pull out no you don't because you're retired you don't have to pull out on okobi every morning to get to work we need traffic caling on we need includes cross yeah we need traffic we need something 7,000 we need something I think that one of the things we need to do is have a placeholder for it in the capital plan that's the way that we can apply for Grants um and the one of their measurement criteria is to see if it has public support and part of demonstrating public support is Council including it in a capital plan so we can cut it out of this year's budget and defer it into next year or the following year's Capital plan which also has to be approved by Council same thing with the um $75,000 because that's not really only for the EOC it's to switch this building to gas so in the long run when we do have to replace the air conditioners they will be smaller more energy efficient air conditioners and that in the long run this will this bill will cost less to run and function as an EOC something that can wait it can definitely wait and there are a number of other things we can defer okay so let's look at what we all agree on okay the traffic let let's get some numbers up here who's keeping track of numbers Jeff can you keep track of our numbers of how close we're getting to the how close we're getting to the 500 that we okay Lexi can do it on a spread she okay that would be wonderful so we said we said the traffic caling that was what 100 or 75 what was I don't have the numbers in front of me that's the TPA no that is they are not they are not that's not the TPA it the TPA the TPA $100,000 okay so the TPA $100,000 the EOC 75 so now we're up to 175 add 54 Revenue huh add the 54 Revenue add the 54 revenue from from RV permits Solid Waste up to 30% and 4% Bank fees on credit cards all all decisions that we kind of made so we're taking out 175 we're adding in 54 where are we at now yeah well Hang on we're doing it one at a time let's see if everybody can agree taking out 15 of the 25 for special events and leaving it at 10 everybody okay with that totally okay I'm okay with that Marge you good with that okay I think you one other suggestion I had was there's a council legal fee line that's at $35,000 um I was suggesting moving it to 10,000 now so this is for when each of us individual council members has a legal question and call is this going to apply anymore if we go to an in-house legal would that even be there it wouldn't no so we could remove the whole thing if we agree to go to an in-house legal okay do we agree to go to an in-house legal Robert I do yeah yeah Mar does marar absolutely not okay so that so we're going to make but four we have four who agree so okay um do we need to take a vote on that with four who agree and one consensus and we'll bring back the budget okay so bring it back with an in-house legal model in there since it's four people agree and we can hash that out later are we at our money yet we must be getting really close I feel we're getting really close um so that would take out the $35,000 line of house legal as well I mean of of of of legal fees there it would also dramatically change that structure on other areas right um we move roads we move we we is the roads that we already removed are we were talking about those are already gone they're already gone they're already gone at 344 by we still need 344 no you're at 344 out of 500 my calculations need 31 we need 30 more there was 375 well if you go to if you go to 3.1 whatever uhuh you might be there there's 5.1 Ms is 57,000 so if we go to 450 on garbage and 3.1 Mills is everybody okay with looking at a mod THS and the assessment stays at 200 you are within nickels and dimes yes is everybody looking on that having him set that up for us and looking at that on Thursday night no are you okay with having him set that up and looking at that on Thursday night don't we have time tonight to have him do a whole new preparation yeah I think the this staff modeling I want to know how that changes because that was one of my question my op is it seems like um we we have contracts but yet we have staff sitting next to the contractor all the time so we're not really saving any money we contract out if we're going to have a staff person there all the time so and part of that was you know legal and accounting and things well if we Mo also if we move Jeff to be our legal guy we have to replace Jeff so we should probably go back up a 100 for another person that I was asking about this pay plan how does that affect that right so that's what we're gonna see on on Thursday when come back is how affect it I mean he's shaking his head no can't ask somebody to prepare new bug00 later please on Thursday right chilling me keep going back I have difficulty doing five o'clock as well um Robert how do you feel you don't care Laura how do you I'll be here anytime last night for a couple hour um was there public comment Sammy did I see somebody bring up a public comment we only have one per the six o'clock meeting but okay so can can we let her give her public comment now before we is this new meeting or the old meeting she's going for the actual counc meeting yeah this is for the actual this is the actual council meeting we just we just Flo right into it we just organically moved into it to then at this time we'll have Virginia Standish for public comment okay thank you well it was organic tonight yeah okay please insert this public comment wherever it's appropriate in your minutes or meetings Virginia Standish North Road I want to compliment this faac for really dissecting the budget and encouraging us getting back to the basics yes we're going to have to look for outside money for Grants there's a lot of small towns that do that do it successfully and they're patient yes we're going to need to create a special taxing district I've been asking for that for years and yes let's do it because when you start looking at how many calls are for commercial versus the rest of the community they may not want to be paying 75% of that bill um while we're speaking of PBSO a couple couple things listening on and off to finance committee meetings I'm wondering why we are looking to PBSO and willing to spend $118,000 I'm wondering why PBSO is not giving us these uh cameras for free as part of our contract I believe Westlake got cameras for free if we're going to spend money on anything it would be probably more cost effective for the staff to investigate uh getting multiple game cameras and cellular accounts uh and then they can go in and monitor it to themselves because the system you're talking about is not monitored 24/7 it is looked at after the fact and it would benefit Royal Palm Beach and Westlake more than it would benefit us just research get actual facts on that um so I'm seeing that in 2024 we had a $12 million budget and yet we had so many if I read it right I realize the numbers may be wrong but many of us suffered with potholes huge gaping craters for six months plus so if we're going back to the basics and yes we're reducing this budget to 10 million for 2025 how about public work since they're out there every day riding these roads hey there's a Poole at least let's get some rocks in it at least let's let's do something about it okay I mean there there's absolutely no excuse for the basics not being done in this town uh we have sufficient staff and if the big projects have to wait so that the little basic stuff can be done let's start from the ground up um roads oh and again on abuse of services your garbage bills uh these Public Works and code enforcement are out there if they see a property that has an excessive amount of cans I suggest turning that address into staff they quickly checked how many cans are being paid for and if not maybe that's a way you can recoup your money and stop people from abusing the town Services um roads we paved many roads is that somebody s was your time pardon that was your three minutes okay all right can I you have to say very short but very important um two things roads you paved roads and you've mentioned Public Works says canals need to be reinforced um why are we going on to New Roads when the canals haven't been reinforced for the roads that were recently paved that just seems off you know the Public Works has expressed that concern second thing there's talk of hiring a second permit Tech I'd like to hear the details discussed among you of what the actual job involves for that permit Tech and how many numbers quantity of permits are processed each each year I'm just amazed that we need a second permit Tech and I'm very familiar with the process on the job thank you thank you for your comment Mr Standish okay um did we officially have to I mean is it okay that we just kind of organically went into the second meeting or do I okay so there's no need for me to officially adjourn and reopen it and then adjourn it again no okay does anybody else on the faac have anything that they would like to add to the outcome of this meeting good okay anybody up here have anything that they would like to add to have Jeff put in the spreadsheet for the one that we're at on Thursday night yeah I wanted uh ask Richard two of these uh suggested reduction I had were swales and certs from 640,000 to 540,000 next year and over at 25th in fulsome it was 880,000 to replace it that a brand new covert we just put in within the last two years and I understand they want to extend it for a better turning radius when they paav that area so I don't know why H we wouldn't you know had 880,000 I said keep 30,000 to extend it but not replace it so the issue with the you have to repeat your first question um the the the fome the fome and 25th uh culbert the issue with that culbert is the fact that whoever installed it installed it about 3 foot too high so in order for that cart to actually operate you would have to flood most of the neighborhood so we actually have to yeah go over there go look out over that the CT the water level is at the ground and the CT's about yay high it's we drove over there we're like this culbert physically will not work the entire town will be underwater before that culbert ever pass water through it so for the water to go down the G West Side any anybody who lives on the G West Side of of falam the in order for that water to make it to collecting Canal would have to actually go Upstream to North Road lower North take the lower North to e and then take e back or go the other direction of G East and follow it around which is what it did for many many years they just replaced I think there was a 12inch culber between G canal and that I call it a ditch next to 25th and that was replaced as well as the other one but is that something that we would do in house they we're looking at doing that in house we just put it in the budget in case we don't have staff a lot oh yeah and we're GNA widen we're g to you know widen it out so that way Vehicles right now the issue is we have complaints from a lot of residents who live in that area that going either direction either direction making right or left they wind up like half off into the canal especially larger trucks from because of all the nurseries that are over there so we'll leave that at the 80,000 yeah and we may not even I mean at the end of the day because a lot of it you know our our CIP budget was based on having contractors doing it so some of the stuff we've been doing it in house house and so if we have the ability to do it in house we do it in house which obviously will save us probably at least 40 of the 880,000 to do it in house and what was your other question about this um the swes and culber we had 640,000 for that and my comment was we put tons of money in some of these pots and then we don't get to spending it you know at the end of the year we got several hundred thousand left over and I know these require easements you know so we don't even have a lot of easements I think for that many I mean 600 all six fit we have the the one the ones that are the part of the 2023 Paving plan and 22 Paving plan that they need to catch basins the easement have already been obtained uh the the larger CTS are over our canals in which some of them we already have permits from South Florida water Manion district for and there it's there are canals so we don't need an easement from anybody and um the other the other miscellaneous let me think well it was swes catch bases and control structures we had 350,000 right and I had reduced that to 250,000 okay yeah they're all we already have easements the ones we intend on replacing or the like the major CS the large ones like over carry and Bunny and all the other ones those are separate line that's this was specific the swes with the with the catch Basin yeah we have the the ones we're planning on replacing we already have easements for is that $350,000 worth I don't have the thing in front of me but yeah I believe so do you have the so just leave that let's leave it for now we haven't proven that we can do all this work in a year so that that's why as well the intent the intent is to the intent is once the budget is approved we'll develop a scope of work and the scope of work will Encompass all of this so that way we'll go out once with the doing the similar way we did with the um pay ping so when the paving goes or when the culs and everything goes out it'll be one contractor will do it all and they'll just do it sequentially just like they do on the roads so it'll all get done okay so everything's gonna all it's gonna be bit out yeah I think we've shown that Public Works we get most of you know everything that we we plan on doing I can't speak for what previous folks had planned but the stuff that we plan on doing we get done so so the only um capital um is the Canal bank stabilization of $200,000 which is going to support our Canal bank restoration crew correct correct okay that's not going to be contracted out no okay yeah that mainly mainly it's going to be on a canal to reinforce a canal before we do aoad aoad is basically going to be our model on how we're going to do the rest of the roads in this town did you have any other questions Robert okay phis um I have a question about the RV permits where' you guys come up with 20 grand I did it and the way I did it I feel guilty telling you I did it but I did it and the way I did it is I went and I looked at the tax roll and I looked at what we have that's Bonafide egg which is 4,000 acres and I looked at what we have that is agricultural residential which is 2500 Acres I said to myself if all 4,000 Acres were 10 acre lots that would be because they're Bonafide a $100 for the registration once every five years okay that's what I need to know about yes 40 that changed while I was away it did is that set in stone was that voted on it's a first reading so can you explain to me what was what the number is $100 $100 it's $500 for a fiveyear registration for a site permit unless you're many RVs it's the site permit it's not a number of RVs just wait a moment then it's $100 for a Bonafide a registration for the five years and then it is wait wait wait then it's what there's a registration and then there's an annual fee for your let's just talk about the seasonal ones right now it's $100 per RV the last was discussed 100 each RV a year yes because it's one inspection it's down to one inspection and that's roughly the cost of the inspection so per Irv site per RV site is 500 for five years unless your bonified egg then it's 100 we have to stop we have St somebody help me because I'm not doing that well I I want okay $500 for five years for a residents or parcel an address add an address for up to three RVs on over 10 acres it's up to let's do five acre Parcels five acres are two up to over five acres is two over 10 acres is two you went from three to two it was never at three it was always at two it was at three when I left wasn't one one two and four anything under five you may have one wait a minute what we said was it was one two and four and three I'm sorry right we said it was one for everybody gets one everybody gets one if you have over five acres you get two if you have 10 over 10 acres you get three I thought it was four do be say four we said four thought it was three I thought it was three to I'm okay to go either way and then we added the Cil that if you were 2.5 acres to five acres and you were Bonafide egg you could have an additional one as long as you could prove that you had an egg exemption and I was going to suggest that we add that also into the five to 10 category that it's two but you could have a third if you've got the bonified egg I was going to recommend that we add that in because I think that's well we $500 is for your property whether it's one two three four five years you show your sites and you're good for five ma if you're renting them and well that's anything if anybody's living there I mean if anybody's living in ating but we said if it was a caregiver that lived in a you and what does that include that's the evaluation of the that's not gar that's the inection that's just saying yes this good okay approve then as the RV comes okay it's a separate process so each RV will be $100 per year yeah per RV per year half a year whatever yeah per per per rental so the fivey year was the site okay I'm comfortable for the next five years my site approve I can plan you know to have ourv it's already okay so I would like to now that I've got that clear I would like to add something to that okay okay anybody that needs more than two garbage cans okay so you have your own personal garbage can you live on the property if there's no residence on the property and they have two or more RVs they need a dumpster because then they're commercial you can't have any without oh okay that's right so no residents no RVs okay thank you unless it's a caretaker unless it's a caretaker on agricultural proper caraker that's a good point if you have a carak or not a resident you should still have a garbage you have a garbage can but you got to pay the 450 so but I agree but where does it turn into that they get a dumpster because you can't look any more nobody should have more than two cans in the entire neighborhood any more than two cans you have something else going on so we've been looking at all of the containers for the last couple of years the most recent exchange was the all the zero cans because we know some of that must be being collected and all of the cans over three we have very few cans over two and we're now going to go through on the twos and if they have two residences um then they're entitled to two if there are two dwelling units on the property and there can be um they're entitled to too but I'm saying if you're going to have four RVs no you're right you know I think there needs to be at that point a dumpster okay I I don't disagree with you does anybody else agree with me well I I don't think that you should be made to have two dumpsters if you have a caretaker I'm not talking about two dumpsters who has minimal minimal garbage and we never if you have one house and a caker you have two cans I have one house and a caretaker trailer and I only have one can well you're getting along with one can you don't need right well what I'm concerned about is garbage ending up in the roads again because your caretaker puts it in the can and your caraker does but if somebody is like leasing for season these folks are going to put it in the back of their truck forget about it or whatever just throw it out the window into the can if they don't want to pay for the dumpster they have to have some kind of garbage on the property that encourages their tenants to put the garbage in to the can I would like the dumpster I would like to ask you if we can please bring back RV for second reading with the changes we talked about and then address the issue of cans when we bring forward the solid waste ordinance because I think that the and I think some of you were on the council when we recommended no more than two the ordinance has suggested language in it no more than two so if somebody has multiple RVs and they've already got two containers they need to go ahead and do something directly with Coastal not not just yeah right okay sides okay that includ right right the inspection if you're gonna have all four then you need stop subsidizing garbage okay okay that needs to stop okay um that's all I'm gonna talk about at the moment is it reasonable that you can get us back something with these changes tomorrow we'll get you back something okay I mean how about by noon on Thursday that we can come by to pick up does that is that okay with everybody I know that's last minute you'll be we'll be able to do a new line item budget let let's keep it like really simple so we don't have a bunch of paper to look at you know yeah I just wanted item budget not going to have the end into the green I want Tracy to get some sleep and can you please um share it with the fact as well as us that would be great okay thank you I know you guys need nor remembers I have to portra see I'm like creating insomnia for so what time um so March would like to change it to five on Thursday are you okay with that Laura yes are you okay with that Phyllis no are you okay with that Robert yeah okay well I I it kind of doesn't work for me um how about 5:30 can we do 5:30 on Thursday that's my question because we have to have the second budget hearing on this on what when on the changes that we just yeah yeah we have to yeah make it 5 o' great 5 or 5:30 you want to do you wanna what time do y'all want it five o'clock St five okay awesome five five o'clock then um before we make a motion to adjourn be short right it's not gonna be it doesn't matter mark my day doesn't end until after no NE neither does anybody else's so well all right Laura danowski do you have any closing comments that you'd like to make I do okay please yes you guys are phenomenal absolutely what a fabulous effort from the fat committee um really impressed you know um oh I'm bummed that Manish left anyway um you know you you he kept saying we have the hard decision not really you guys have the hard decision and and you dug into the dirt and you know the nitty and the gritty and you know you've pushed back and asked questions and um I thank you all for your efforts and um I wanted to compliment Manish on handling um an Integrity attack that was public you know on his effort to do something for the town you know personally I think it should have been handled you know hey I may disagree with your numbers let's talk about it outside so Manish if you're listening or if you watch the end my hats off to you you're a true gentlemen thank you he bis you're next well this was well I was very um glad to meet with the faac I think we should do that more often you know maybe halfway through the year not saving it to the very end last um I really I I well the 5050 program was an idea that the town's people were in agreement on but we didn't use it so I think it's not fair at this point to subject the other half of the town to the 5050 so I'm not on board um with bringing that back up um we chose the 5050 was to pay 50 the town paid 50 the resident paid 50 we we actually have people who are requesting it well just say we have people who have written in and requested that they be allowed to pay 50% to get their roads on I guess if they want to pay 50% of their roads and their Road agrees but it seems like they've already paid for the rest of the town to be paved so it doesn't seem fair to me um however um I think some people people are in a big hurry to get their Road paved um a big promise so um I I'm just going to leave it at that for now and just thank you guys for your time and effort Mr Sure poing comments can we go over this Personnel pay structure we never did talk about issues I mean I showed a over $300,000 potential savings versus what's there right now it's you know up to 2.25 million and if we approve it we're getting to the point where we make payroll with our Adam you had Adam and sheriff and that's it our adum or I'm sorry payroll and sheriff and you you killed your whole aderium so I think we need to look look at this I mean there's some big raises in here for people that just got off probation I mean like I said last year when he talked about raises people were just hired and people are hired with an employment letter that says this is going to be your job this how much you're going to get paid um you know to turn around and give them you know many thousands of dollars six seven months later they haven't even proven themselves yet so I uh I don't agree to these these these increases like this and I think these men in Max I think we should establish that as a talent these are average of many talents so I think we should establish what we think is fair and make sure everybody is paid at least the men you know if you adjust the men up so some people have to get raises to get to them in that makes sense so can we agree that we'll all take look at that and come when we come back on Thursday I mean just because we come back with a balanced budget on Thursday doesn't mean we can't tweak and adjust and whatever and gee gosh if we're putting more into reserves and then that's helping us in future years have money for capital projects which we're not going to potentially have funds taxes and things that may or may not let's hope they don't get in but they might um and if we can build up reserves there's nothing wrong with that so can we agree that we'll all take a real close look at that and make that part of our discussion on on Thursday did I yeah and I had crunch numbers with a 5% crunch some more numbers for us well with a 5% cost of living and then a 3% Merit so that was 8% right well maybe you can do an extended spreadsheet of that fourth on Thursday I'm wondering if you don't mind if I interrupt I would like to make a presentation of this on Thursday because I think it's very important to be on the record on how was determined and since 2018 how we have aimed for the lowest cortile of Pepe um which is the lowest paying agencies in the state and we're still aiming for the lowest agencies we're we are the lowest and we're aiming we're continuing to aim low so um I do want to just explain the process and I want to explain how we have um come up with the pay plan which we have done every year that I've been here based on Pepe um this one is obviously more complete and has more information and we were very lucky because a lot of places have done class in compensation a lot of places have shared theirs and surveys and stuff have been floating around so I provided in this package um all the information that we have had and I am more than happy to go through this in excruciating detail as long as we don't um um speak specifically about staff because I don't think what they do how they do it um and how we need them to do it um is a great public conversation but I am really willing to talk about it individually and I am happy to do any level of transparency except as it applies to individual employees or employees by position name when you know it can't be anybody else but them we kind of have a small staff so I hope you appreciate that um our staff works really hard we couldn't be blessed with better staff than what we have um you know and if I win the lottery I'd give them all a big chunk of it because we couldn't have gotten here this year without them and I am personally grateful and excited that you want to talk about the pay plan and this will roll right into our HR manual correct yes so that's why I think it's important that so we'll get Fran let her do a presentation and we'll all get a chance to really dive into just the salary numbers and be able to I'll email everybody my comments don't respond to my email okay uh and March yes uh Francine when you do um your uh presentation um will you also include include the cola uh so forth I will because we have a survey that keeps getting more information every day from different places but um as you saw in that document we have all the information that the county um is doing and the county agencies plus we have a number of cities which is the chart that's shown um on the back there um so yes I'm happy to share with you what the other places are doing for Cola and Meritt and also the agencies that are currently going to do um a pay plan study in addition to their Cola and Merit and and I believe uh that if I remember correctly um it was voted last year that we would not have any Cola in that's correct so even though it was recommended by the fact that you did you better know yeah right okay um yes I I am pleased with the um response uh that uh this the council has given for the joint meeting maybe we should have it a quarterly uh so that we can uh we can keep a breast as to where you think we're going as the year progresses thank you okay so first of all I can't remember with all the things we talked about did you guys say that you did or did not have a chance to dive into staff salaries did not okay well I don't want to I don't okay well I invite you if you think you have any input to come on Thursday night at five o'clock if you think that you might be able to answer any additional questions to please attend and and in the same places and be at least a resource to ask questions of if you um right so you may have some valuable information for us on Thursday so I certainly invite you to come and sit there um you know won't necessarily be a joint meeting but we'll have you as a Val resource and I think you guys are a really valuable resource certainly appreciate all your hard work and I know um I know how difficult that's a question real quick sure can uh the building official provide us with the latest report on permits and stuff it seems to be a a question is you know that break even you know that department that can't make money so you know why are weting such an increase if we get that quarterly report so we can just show can I answer just email it to us because we're gonna talk about it I just just few words yeah sorry I there goes my comments I certainly will and then we provide quarterly reports uh to you to you so you see them and then I can we can certainly do the last one so we do have increase in in in the permitting and if you see the revenue the the revenue shows so the more more Revenue there is the more work there is obviously uh we wanted to provide good customer service we don't want people to wait for for per permits several discussions on you know that takes too long sometimes to get a permit we Consolidated everything here in this building from ftas through rideway permits building permits everything is right here now so having the one person doing all that work is nearly impossible Sandra is uh basically working over time including weekends and when she goes on vacation we have no replacement so having a second person it will be crucial to continue operating and providing this customer service that everybody expect the phone rings and constant people coming in with questions we want to provide them the answers and that's going to make it a lot better to do that um um currently we have uh also uh statutory requirements for issuing permits uh there is deadlines on 10 days 20 days and 30 days for residential we can be past those dates so if the permit technician doesn't process the permit I can't review it we can't issue on time so we have to be a little bit also concerned about statuto requirements on how long we take for issuing of the building permits um we also trying to get everything scanned here we've been on paper now we're trying to digitized we still have a package up there behind your wall that is waiting to be digitized so so we can quickly access those records because right now if somebody wants to do addition and we're looking for existing plans we can't find them we have to go through it and dig through the role of papers that we trying to scan so we trying to improve this but the second perch will be really crucial to to to improve the operation and provide the service that everyone expect us to do so just to can I Pig you back on his so um Manish seemed to feel that when he did his permit application for I think he said it his solar he seemed to feel that it wasn't as much money as he would have paid somewhere else so are you guys looking at all our fees and I I mean you know we're a small town you know um and our property values are quite expensive now and they've gone up and anybody building is building mostly highend now so um is there a possibility for those fees to go up we doing review uh of the we're preparing to do a review don't want taxes to go up so something's got to get right so so the Florida statue 553 is clear on on how much to charge and we have to and is also clear on how we can spend the money that is collected by the permits and you you aware of that you know permit money collected through the permits can only be spended for enforcement of the building code and providing services and everything paying staff anday and paying staff so so um so we very conscious about it we um we want to cover the cost I don't think we covering the cost at this time uh we I looked up the permits from residential homes who which takes from 20 to 25 inspections uh which currently our cost of inspection is $100 so you could tell that you know just inspection cost for residential home new home will be at least 2500 bucks uh you know and then uh so so we're trying to look up what are we spending and and if we're covering the cost and right now my my uh seven months here I can tell you that we're not covering the cost uh so so we're going to look into it and see if we can just cover the cost not make money because building permits are not to make money it's just to give it give you service so so we can enforce the building code make sure the buildings are safe and and we we don't lose money on doing that thank you thank you can I finish my comment no thanks great um completely lost my train of thought no idea what it was I wanted to say thank you so much you guys for the work that you did thank you staff um I I have to say from a personal perspective as a resident of this town I've never seen it functioning so well um you know we can say we had fewer Public Works officers and it was costing less to run the department when we were the water Control District but also nothing was getting done there's a reason we have a hundred years worth of neglect that has to be begin getting fixed up there's a reason why we need nine people out in the field because when we had three it wasn't getting done it wasn't getting done it was only getting done for certain people's roads that happened to be on the board it wasn't getting done for the rest of the town now things are starting to kind of shape up I know I'm kind of proud when I drive through the town as opposed to except on upper North Road you guys have to do something about that miss sish is right I almost lost my car going over speed bu but I have an SUV I mean literally went like down into it you need to go dump something in those I don't care what something in those po something in those potholes up there like like right away RVs whatever I think somebody did have an RV up there the other day um I think that um we are at a difficult time because you know our our town was incorporated as a small rural town and we even have in our Charter that we want to remain government like but the problem is that here we have a town that's growing um and that's flourishing and and that's great that's what we want for our residents we want our town to grow and flourish but that type of growth and flourishment that we're having requires service it requires people being able to get building permits people being able to get their roads graded um people being able to get the phone answered in town hall when they call I mean basically something as simple as that um people being able to feel like they can safely walk in here and talk to um people and get answers to questions and I feel like there um at least from emails I've been getting as the mayor of the town and from comments I've been getting from people almost universally in some cases not so much but almost universally people um are sending in positive reviews of the job that our staff is doing um and the service that they're getting from town there's still some glitches in the road um but um for the most part uh I want to thank everybody for all their hard work because I know you guys worked really hard to give what you gave I know you guys worked really hard to give what you gave for us um and uh with that I will ask for a motion to dismiss motion to adjourn all in favor