##VIDEO ID:5vHxCTz7vjE## We pray that you help us to come in with the spirit of unity, even though we may disagree, let us not be dis, dis, uh, dis be disengage or disagreeable with one another. Help us to work together as brothers and sisters. We thank you for the wisdom you've given our city leaders. We thank you for the blessings. You stood upon us here in Oco, and we say a special prayer and nce of those we lost our nine 11. And let us never forget the freedom that is not free. The freedom that was paid with a heavy price for the, by the men and women of our armed services. Watch over our first responders, or our police and firemen are, they go out every shift. Lord, remind their families that as they watch over us, you will watch over them. So we so carefully give you the praise, the honor, and the glory. You do it, Jesus, then we pray. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Commissioner Kennedy. Here. Commissioner Wilson. Here. Mayor Johnson. Here. Commissioner Firstner. Here. Commissioner Oliver here. All right, we're gonna do the tentative budget public hearing. Alright, this is public hearing on the tentative budget and proposed millage rate for the city of oco. Notice of this hearing was contained in the notice of proposed notice of proposed property taxes mailed by the property appraiser. The city Commission has previously set a proposed millage rate of 4.950 mills, which represents and 4.36% increase in millage over the rollback rate of 4.743 mills. City attorney. The preliminary millage rate set by the city commission and contained in the trim notice is 4.950 mills. The maximum millage rate, which may be le levy by the city by regular majority vote for the 2024. 2025 fiscal year is 7.0235 mills. Such maximum millage rate having been determined pursuant to section 200.185 sub paragraphs three a Florida statutes, the establishment of the millage rate between 7.0236 mills and 7.7259 mills requires a two thirds vote. A super majority of the membership of the city commission or four votes, the establishment of a millage rate between 7.726 mills and 10 mills requires a unanimous vote of the city commission. Additionally, any millage rate adopted above the preliminary millage rate of 4.950 mills would require notice by first class mail to each taxpayer. Tentative millage rate adopted at this hearing will become the maximum millage rate, which may be adopted by the city commission at the public hearing. On the final millage rate, a unanimous vote or a two-thirds vote may be required to adopt the tentative millage rate as the final millage rate at the final public hearing, the city commission may adopt a millage rate, which is less than the tentative millage rate. Okay, we're gonna go item C briefing by finance director. Good evening commissioners. Um, mayor and Mr. Chadwicks, before I start on the presentation, I just wanted to, um, first say thank you to Mr. Chadwicks and Mr. Rumor. It's the first year that I've worked so closely with them. It's their first official budget, uh, for the City of Ocoee. And, um, change in leadership, change in ideas, change in philosophies, worked really well for us this year. And a budget is a team effort. And I want to thank everyone that is hanging out on that back wall back there because every single one worked really hard because this budget was, um, probably the more difficult budget that I have done. And this is my sixth budget for the City of Ocoee. So with that, we will get started. So our budget priorities continue to be, um, investment and public safety infrastructure and pay emphasis on sidewalks, um, and road, road resurfacing replacement of key utility infrastructure, providing safe roads and expanding viability and quality of life for citizens through parks and leisure. And, um, one of the parks that our parks team and Ms. Corless, um, helped to open this year is displayed there for us. Very impressive. Moving forward into 2025, our priorities and opportunities are the Ocoee Regional Sports Complex updates to the comprehensive plan and the Land Development Code, achieving the vision of a vibrant downtown and addressing the aging infrastructure outside of the downtown area. Some eco economic highlights from the previous year. So our taxable value is virtually flat from the previous year. That means that your valorem tax revenues are virtually flat from the previous year. Um, those assessments reflect 2023. Um, this is important, and I wanna highlight this for a moment because we are in 2024. We are budgeting for 2025, but we are relying on 2023 estimates. And we all know what has happened in the housing market. Um, in 2024, prices have, sagged, development has slowed, um, values have not climbed, um, as they were climbing in the previous years, that will not be reflected until your 2027 budget. So think about that, that lag in what's happening this year will be reflected a couple of years down the road. So when we're thinking budget and we're thinking, you know, how we're gonna use the funds that the city has available, we have to keep in mind what might be in store for us in, in the next couple of years. Um, the consumer price index for, uh, the last 12 months ending in July was 2.9%. Medium sale. Median sale price was virtually un uh, unchanged. We have, I'm very proud to say that the city of Ocoee has been very successful because one of the things that we have done well is, is we have used conservative budgeting, uh, and conservative fiscal, um, stewardship, but we're not without our challenges. And one of those challenges is retaining employees. The cost for re retaining employees across the board is rising higher than inflation. Some agencies have given, um, across the board increase as much as 10%. Winter Park has increased their salaries by $2 an hour. We are proposing, excuse me, and have adequately budgeted for a 6% increase for all general employees that is already in the budget that was presented to you. Another challenge we face is the increasing cost of public safety. Our police department currently has 15 vacancies that we're having a difficult time filling, retaining, recruiting officers is getting more difficult due to starting salaries. Our current salary, starting salary is 50,000 under the current contract we have in place that will go to 52,000 on October 1st. However, we have adequately budgeted this year, the 2025 budget funds to address, um, police salaries, which will help make us competitive. So that budget is, is, um, before you tonight Up there on the chart, you can see where some of our, um, local agencies are in their starting salaries for their officers. As you can see by this chart, um, increasing public safety costs for police. That is from 2013 to 2024. Those costs are exponentially climbing. I will point out that in 2024, that budget included the $10 million that we set aside for the police training facility. So that's a little bit skewed, but even if you take that $10 million out, um, we're still nearly flat with last year. And our police officers and our police chief will tell you that we worked very diligently with him to trim his budget this year. Um, they all would've liked to have had a little bit more to work with, but we all had to sort of pinch a little bit this year. When it comes to fire, this chart says it all. You can see that trend line that just keeps going up. The two outliers. In 2023, we purchased the tower truck. That was a, um, we, we bought it because we were able to get it at a much better price than had we waited. And, um, back in 2020, we set aside the $5 million for the, um, new fire station, but the, their costs continue to escalate. The purple, um, bar in this chart represents our, um, fire fees, which we charge, um, our citizens and businesses. And those fees are not keeping up with the pace of escalation of the cost. So I just wanted to point that out. Um, higher cost include vehicles and equipment replacement, replacement and operating cost. And I to, to hire an officer. This is not up here. And, and Mr. Chadrick didn't know I was gonna say this, but to hire an officer, a brand new officer, first time to the force, you know, a new position increasing $180,000, that's not salary, that's $180,000 to equip that officer to serve the, the city. So as we're increasing population and we need to increase the size of our police, uh, excuse me, that was police. That was police. I got my two confused, but $180,000 I outfit a police officer. Um, I don't know the cost to outfit a, a firefighter, but if we wanna know that, I'm sure that that Chief Smothers can tell us Our fire department is an urgent need of replacements of life packs, stretchers, and power load systems. Um, we need a LS 360 EMS equipment and those, excuse me, we need to maintain those equipment. And that maintenance contract is 31,337 a year. Um, we sign an, uh, 10 year contract, $313,000. Nothing is inexpensive. Fire needs three additional crew members to, uh, man, the tower truck, which we purchased a couple year or of last year. We need handheld radios. They need a new boat. We need self-contained breathing, breathing apparatuses. We need to replace an engine and we need to replace two transport units. These costs are about 2.6, nearly $2.7 million. And that's not including cost of employees. This is cost of equipment. Healthcare cost is a real challenge for us. This chart will show you that in the last, um, four years, healthcare cost of climb, and this is total, this is claims and administrative cost. They have climbed from $6.3 million to $9.7 million as of today. Our estimates for calendar year 2024 are 10.2. Um, health insurance while we, we, um, budget for it and we track it on a fiscal year, we have to report to the government on a calendar year. So I report these numbers on the calendar year. We're estimating costs will climb to 10.2 and, uh, of course we haven't experienced the last few months of the year. So anything can happen. Millage rate trends, we are not the only municipality finding difficulty in balancing our budget. Um, and to remain competitive in the market. Cost of capital projects are going up. Inflation continues to be a real challenge for all of us. No municipality in Orange County lowered their millage rate this year. Most stayed flat and five actually increased their millage rates this year for us, we're balanced at 4.95 mils, which is the same as 2024 FY 24. Um, our Advil alarm revenue is about 22.9, an increase of 958,000 over the rollback. Um, and 1.3 over last year. The increase is used to balance the budget. And believe me, that is not enough. Um, we really had to work hard this year to balance the, to balance the budget. We are accustomed to seeing 12% increases. That's not what we saw this year. In closing our about our budget is balanced at 4.9 mils. Um, we remain firm and our commitment to serve the needs of the city. We need to be competitive and address public safety costs. And we welcome questions and direction and adoption of fiscal year 24, 25. Budget You three. Can I ask you a question? Yes, sir. You may. Under this form here, you have all the different departments. Where's recreation? You got parts, but you don't have recreation. The, um, he's looking at your, um, it's my wife, your detailed list. They may not have had anything detailed in their budget, sir. They don't have any kind of funding on that thing. Oh, they have funding. That's not all of the funding mean You got every department except that They are funded. However, this is detail of their contracts and it's specific, specific detail that rolls up into budget lines. I'll have Ms. Moreno look at it just now, in case we've just missed the page for you need Parts you need to Know. Speaking of that, Mike, I can't hear you. Yeah. Do you want some recreation? How much they budgeted? Yeah, I want every one of these different department has, has it laid out Uhhuh, everyone's set recreation. Okay. Because parts is there, but not recreation. Yeah, because in the budget book, yeah. Um, this itemized I, um, are not, um, presented in the budget book, but, um, we have budget for the parks and Recs. Alright. We need to put it on this too. All right. I'm sorry, can you clarify that Mr. Becky? Does rec have contracted services with the department? Yes. Yes. She's looking it up right now for you. So these, the additional No ma'am. This is a breakout. No. What what this does is shows you, so each, um, department has contracted services, professional services, and we ask them to underneath that to provide a detail of what they're spending those funds on. It looks like we may have accidentally left off the recreation, I think's on page 1 41, somewhere around There. I know that, but I'm, I'm, I'm going with this. Okay. We will, we will correct the list and we will send it out via email to all of you. Okay. But if you would like to see that evening, we can bring it right up here on the computer. I had requested those extra schedules that last time, and so they're just provide, I appreciate it. Thank you. All right, we're gonna go. Let's see. I will now call upon the public for comments and questions regarding tentative budget. All right, Mr. Moyer, you on board? How long is it Mr. Mayor? Five minutes. Thank you. Off ticket? Yes, sir. Jim Moyer. Arden Park, second Generation Marine. And for, uh, I'm an account by profession. I've, uh, prepared well over 20 budgets previously. So I commend Director Robertson or staff for all their hard work. I'd also like to thank the city for, uh, flying the flags at half massed on Patriots Day. Thank you so much. Um, in 1990, in 1976, I was in the Marine Corps and I was on a Caribbean cruise. Um, we went through the Caribbean, we came up the East coast. We joined a big convoy of ships in Norfolk, and we went into New York Harbor. We celebrated the bicentennial. And never in my life have I seen such patriotism as that day. And I grew up in Philadelphia. I mean, the Independence Day, uh, independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, uh, Betsy Ross House, valley Fours, they were in our backyard, just like Disney World is in our backyard here. Fast forward to 23 years ago. Today I was working for the Salvation Army in Central Pennsylvania. It was a tragic event. I had a role in playing in, in sending supplies to New York, and it turned out to be a very patriot addict time. The Salvation Army the next few years, um, had patriotic events. Now, I want everybody to realize that we, the municipalities and cities throughout this country, our states and our, and our country as a whole, will not have a opportunity like this, like we have right now in the next two fiscal years. In 50 years, 250 years ago in Philadelphia, this month and next month, the first Continental Congress was meeting next fiscal year, starting in October, 250 years ago, the Revelationary war began and the army was formed. The, if you jump ahead to the next fiscal year, which would be 25, 26, the United States Navy turn was created 250 years ago. And also the United States Marine Corps was created 2 50, 250 years ago. And this country on July 4th, uh, 2026, will be 250 years old. There won't be an opportunity like this until this country turns 300 years old. Now, I'm not asking for any changes in the millage rate, what I'm asking for, and I'm account by profession, in my humble opinion, nobody knows this budget, like the finance department. I'm asking for an earmarked amount for the next two fiscal years of not less than $10,000 per fiscal year to be earmarked for patriotic projects to be determined. So thank you very much for your time. God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America. Thank you, Dr. Moore. Alright. All right. I don't have any more forms for the, uh, public, so we're going to go to the commissioners, uh, now call upon the city commission for comments and questions. So I guess first comment would be the Mr. Dr. Moyer. Alright, we'll start with, um, commissioner Oliver. Just looking at the budget here, um, compared to, uh, what we first proposed in our workshops and where we are now, um, my, my, one of my main concerns was the, um, uh, first responder public safety was definitely a, um, a concern of mine to make sure that we were able to, to handle that. And, and, and thank you for, for putting the, uh, the slide up to talk about, uh, the comparisons between other municipalities versus where we are in the plan to, to bring us to speed, up to speed where we need to be. So, public safety definitely was, um, one of the main things that I was concerned about. Um, uh, and just seeing what we have here now, uh, you have actually, uh, distinguished those concerns. So I'm, I'm happy with what, what I see here, and I think you've actually, um, did a great job in balancing this budget. Thank you. That's all I got. Do you have any comments on Dr. Moyer's request? Well, well, um, uh, Jim, thank you so much for, uh, your, your wealth of knowledge about you think about things that none, none of us probably do think about. And you bring all these statistics to the table, uh, to back up the thing that you're saying, uh, as far as patriotic, uh, events, I know we already have, uh, different events for, for Memorial Day, and, uh, we, we celebrate, uh, 4th of July. So we, we do have some patriotic events that we already celebrating. Uh, if you want to add more to the table, I don't see any problem with that. Um, again, of course it's not up to me, but, um, I, I have no problem with, I'll support, uh, uh, your efforts to, uh, uh, bring more patriotic events to the city into the forefront, especially when we only have, uh, this time within the next three years, uh, to celebrate them. Then it'll be another 50 after that. So, yeah, I definitely support, uh, what you're saying, of course, but it's not up to me though. Commissioner Furner. I agree with everything that Commissioner Oliver said. Uh, I'm certainly glad that we have addressed the public safety issue and I think, uh, the plans that we have will prove out to, uh, help both, uh, the police and fire department in recruitment and retention of new employees. Uh, we do have to be careful, uh, because they're the two biggest departments with the biggest budgets, and we have to, uh, probably start scrutinizing them a little more closely, you know, to see if everything is necessary. As far as, uh, what Dr. Moyer has presented, um, I agree with, uh, commissioner Oliver that, you know, we do celebrate the patriotic holidays during the year. And anything other than that, uh, being the chair of the, uh, HRDB, you might wanna bring those things up there. I believe we have enough money in that budget to where we can carve some out for additional celebrations or, you know, promotions of, uh, patriotic type events. That's all. Okay. Commissioner Wilson? I don't think I Can add much to what's already been said. Um, it's just that this is the year that we are going to live very close to the land, supposedly with 4.95. I commend the city staff, everyone here for b, bringing this to the point where we can be 4.95. I mean, we see other cities that we read in newspaper are going up on their millage rate, as you said, I think you said six cities, five cities, six. I know of two that were close to us right here that have gone up. And, um, you know, I look at my trim bill and when I look at that, I'm paying about $600 a year for all the services that I get from all the departments that you represent. And, um, basically I look at it a good bang for my buck. You know, we pay the county, does the county, I don't get too many services from the county. There's some other, um, items on there, but I'm looking at, when we sit here, we're looking at just the amount that we're dealing with in the city of Ocoee. And yes, we're gonna have to live, it's gonna be a very tight budget this year. So when people come asking for things, it's, it's gonna be tough. But we're gonna have to say, you might have to say no. Very simple. I mean, we're gonna do what we can with the money we have. We hope that the years improve, as you say, it's gonna be 27 before we really reflect on what's happening in 25, 24. Yes. 25. So, um, lot to think about, but I, I appreciate everyone who's brought in a balanced budget and great Craig, you and Mike, and I know Rob was involved in that, but thank you very much. I appreciate it that we're keeping it at 4.95. Okay. Thank you Commissioner. Uh, Kennedy, Questions one. I have a couple questions. Perfect. Uh, finance Director Roberts, can you, uh, review the section of your presentation on the fire department and the graphs that you have that shows the contribution margin hierarchy? You said that that would reduce, do you have those quantified numbers? Do you know what the contribution rate was historically? What it's today? I don't have that, um, with me, Mr. Kennedy, but I could provide that to you. I do have the underlying data, but I did not bring the underlying data. The fire fees aren't reducing. They are continuing to climb because they're based upon, um, well, You want me to jump in? Um, we Don't have that, I don't have a copy of that presentation. I do not. Okay. Um, which, Which presentation are you referring? One, You're looking at that graph and the data behind it. That's what I'm inquiring as. Okay. The, Um, I can bring it back up Page eight in the presentation. Yes. Um, um, well, while you're pulling that up, I can tell the commissioner, um, the fire fee has remained unchanged since we put it in place. It's $69 and 50 cents per fire protection unit, which, you know, a traditional average 2000 square foot house would be paying roughly $140 per year. Okay. Um, that's my only question I wanted to see. Uh, I like the graph. I think it's, uh, visually informative, but I wanted to see the data, the number behind it. Um, Looking it up. If you'd like to gimme a second, I can run through Those. Sure. Or you can provide it later. Um, I would echo the comments of the other commissioners. I think you all did a great job. Um, I like that the millage is staying the same. I actually, I, I have a being a CFO and preparing budgets myself, I, I actually have a different view. I think you all amazingly put a lot of new things in the budget and, um, I think that's great. Um, I don't, I'm, I'm surprised that you were able to do that and staff was able to achieve so many of our objectives in that budget, uh, with the flat assessed fee. So thank you for that. Those are my only comments, Mr. Mr. Kennedy, I do have those data points. Huh? I do have the data points, if you'd like me to quote them for the far fees. You, I'd like to hear them on the record. Um, in 2014, our fire fees were $710,000. Um, we went to 1.8, 1.9, 1.9 2.0, 2.0, 2.1 2.2. We climbed to 2.9 in 2022, if you remember. That's when we had a big boom. Yeah. Um, and we have stayed relatively flat. 2.9, 2.9, um, and we anticipate about 3.2 in 2025. So you're looking at 2.2 on 12. Correct. If I read your graph correctly In 12, You've got 12 million in 2025, the yellow bar goes to 12 million. Yes. Thank you very much. That it Scott? Yes, sir. Alright. The, um, there was something else I was going to ask you about, but, Hmm. Well, I, as always, I'm amazed that the, we, we can come up with the budget as as good as we, as our staff does. They've done a great job. The budget is always a, is a tough thing to do. And I know that, I know Craig is the city manager now and he's had the c the finance department and Rob, I think Rob helped some on it, have come up with it and worked it out to where it, we can adjust and, and go to the police and fire things like we were supposed to. Mostly the police this year, I think, and make sure we can be able to fill our slots for police officers where we're losing them into the other areas in this county that it, it seems to be all the cities have raised their, raised their rates on the, uh, police and law. So that shows us why they're leaving to go somewhere else. So this way we get to keep 'em. So, um, on the, um, next will be the, uh, briefing. Let's see, let's go. We now we, uh, announcement by the finance trade. Go ahead. So the, um, millage proposed millage rate remains 4.9500, which is 4.36% above the rollback rate of 4.7433. This percentage is proposed. This percentage is the proposed tentative percentage increase in property taxes. Um, this will require a regular majority vote. Okay. Before I go further with that, I wanna make a comment about the patriotic things. Mr. Mr. Moyer, we have a, uh, we, the money we carry in the, on, on the cons, uh, what do you call it? Um, contingency, contingency fund. We have money in the contingency fund that we need to do what you're talking about. We can do it out of that contingency fund. That way we can pull that from there. So that can be addressed at that. I don't know if it'd be $10,000, you know, but we need to do the budget every year, not two years ahead on that. But we can still pull it outta the contingency fund. So, um, I now we'll go back to the public. Anybody now have anything in the public to comment about what we've just done? None. So, okay. Commission, y'all have any more comments? What we need now is the motion to adopt the tentative military. I'll make that motion. I'll make a motion, I'm Sorry. Motion made by Commissioner Oliver to adopt the tentative millage rate. Are here. Second. I'll Second. Seconded by Commissioner Kennedy. Any more comments? I think you need me to read it. Okay. You need To read the title In Ordinance of the City of Ocoee, Florida, establishing a tentative millage rate of 4.950 mills for Advil. Alarm taxes for the city of Ocoee for the fiscal year, beginning October 1st, 2024, and ending September 30th, 2025. Providing for millage adjustment, providing for collection of taxes, providing for a 4.36% millage rate over the rollback rate, providing for severability, providing an effective date. Alright, we already got the motion and a second, so any more comments? If not, we're gonna vote. Let's vote. Thanks. Motion carries unanimously. Alright. Commission motion. We need another motion that the city commission adopted. We just did that. So Gotta adopt The budget, huh? Adopt the budget. Adopt the budget. All right. We need a motion for adopting the budget. Do we need to read this or not? Just Yes. Yep. I'll make a motion to amend 10. Budget of the city of Ocoee as distributed along with the revisions proposed in the budget. Is there? Can't hear the amendment. Oh, I'm reading the wrong thing. Okay. What am I supposed to must read something? I'll make the motion, but City Attorney read, Read the, yeah, the, this is, She read this one, but this is No, I made a mistake. No. Which one you read? I read this one. I think we're, which one? City attorney needs to read the title. Yeah, You got it. Read, you got yellow line. Okay. Coordinate. We're we're the one where the, alright, An an ordinance of the city of Ocoee, orange County, Florida, adopting a tentative budget for the fiscal year, beginning October 1st, 2024 and ending September 30th, 2025. Providing for severability, providing an effective date. You make that motion? I guess I'm, I'll read. I move. The city commission adopts tentative budget as distributed along with revisions resulting from the budget workshop, I guess, and is amended to the budget. Public hearing tonight for the fiscal year, beginning October 1 24, ending September 30th, 2025. I've only done this for so many years. How many like It changes, Right? I would just say that there were no amendments tonight. Yes, there were no amendments. Right. So I Think strip that from your, we need a second. I'll second that second about commissioner first. All right. No more comments. Let's vote. Motion carries unanimously. Um, before we conclude, I would like to announce the public hearing to consider the final Milit trade and final budget is scheduled for Wednesday, September the 18th, 2024 at 6:00 PM to be held here in our City Hall Commission chambers. The hearing has been advertised in accordance with the provisions of Section 200 dash oh six five Florida statutes and Section C 37 of Article six of the O Coy City charter. The appropriate ordinances necessary to adopt the final millage rate and final budget will be prepared by city staff and all other action necessary to comply with the requirements of Section 200 dash oh six five. Florida statutes will be undertaken. Once again, you owe me mail. No, you're a couple minutes. Yeah, you Gave it up. Maybe you. So that's it folks. Wes adjourn. Thank you very much. Appreciate all the staff and all the employees. Thank you very much. Thank you, Craig, for great job. Thank you Mr. Roberts. Thank you.