e e e e e e e e e everyone let's call to order the city Commission meeting of the city of St Pete Beach today is Tuesday June 25th 2024 it is 6:00 p.m. let's stand for the of Allegiance please Al to of the United States of America and to the repic for stands Nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all city clerk if you please do a roll call vice mayor Lorenzen here commissioner Marriott here commissioner Philz here mayor patella here we have a quum thank you first we're going to start with a the memorium for a former commissioner and vice mayor Harry Mets um I only had the the fortune and pleasure to know Harry for a very short amount of time uh and in that amount of time one thing that stuck out to me is what a friend and what an advocate he was for the city um and he would be pleased I thing to see all of you here today um to support that and just to remember what he did for the city Jennifer I agree with that hi Jennifer McMahon Chief Operating Officer um I have known Harry for over for 12 years um as I've worked in the city um side by side in many many um events and occasions and um he was a valued member of this community we've gone through a lot of um brainstorming there's hoped to be a memorial that will soon be coming back to you all um to approve in uh one of our local parks um that started with Auggie and Harry took it over over and um so kind of deep rooted within this community um so I just want to share my experience with Harry has been um a blessing um and I um I'm excited to introduce um who's going to be doing um some more speaking is um our own residents here um we have the pleasure of having some great military residents that's here and one of those is Colonel Michael tiger Greger um who will kind of take it from here but um Harry has served not only um our community but our country and I appreciated him very much so Colonel tiger thank thank you Commissioners mayor thank you so much for uh allowing us to stand in front of you and make a request we're requesting to memorialize First Sergeant Harry Mets how do we want to do this by naming the square down by passag Grill um the passag grill uh area there by Paradise Grill after first sergeant Harry Mets but if you didn't know Harry Mets I want to give you a little background so I'm going to ask Brooks from the veterans of South pelis County to come on up and I'd like to ask state representative Linda Cheney to also come up and join me Brooks mayor commissioners I'm not used to this public speaking I'm used to like Harry being the person that introduces someone else and goes to the background and listens to them as they do what they are and and serve at their side as they need assistance but I hope that each of you have been able to receive a copy of text whether it's it was downloadable uh letter or not I wrote this uh to express our desire and it was addressed to the mayor and each of the Commissioners had one a downloadable letter written and it says request to St P Beach commission to name the area at press AG Grill to First Sergeant Harry Met Square why would we do that well like others will tell you if you knew Harry you wouldn't ask that question but if you don't then you need to know a little a little bit about him and I wrote that the veterans of South South pelis um would request that the city renamed that square to First Sergeant Harry Met Square it's going to recognize a lifelong service to this community of Harry Harry was born out of the state but moved here as a very small child into a house on pass Grill uh way and the entire rest of his life was dead dedicated to this area he served in the military as he grew up though he was kind of a child that wanted to go out and seek how and what should he be doing he grew up as a youth in P Grill graduated from boaa high school in 1958 and he began working on fishing boats as a kid so much so he loved to fish he loved the water he loved uh to Excel and on his by his 18th birthday he had obtained Captain's papers for navigating ships and for for doing that he captained the Lucky Strike for captain hubard and thunder Pasco packing company he's Captain boats for he was employed as a crew member on the Coast Guard uh and Coastal geodesic survey ship out of here during the 1960s and and he was drafted into the US Army and found his purpose in life and that was to serve any everybody else and through 63 uh completely through and during the Vietnam war he served for 23 years the US uh military served well did deployments in uh Korea uh Vietnam Germany uh all of that when he returned eared though he served the commission he ran as a commissioner served for years alongside you'll you'll hear Linda testify working with him and uh and he served it honorably that time then he was vice commissioner I mean uh vice mayor for a short period of time I first met him about 2013 I I had formed and worked in the early uh uh Foundation of incorporating the veterans of South pelis County as a 501c3 charity and was working with Auggie in southern pass of Grill by the uh building there at the shuberg board park and Harry and I I mean U Augie and I had this mission to create something down there that would honor everybody and before I knew it aie had me come over and he wanted to show me something about barbecue something about flags that we were going to put around the building and this mysterious guy come walking in walking a little dog on a leash and he was kind of standing by and Augie kept talking to me and explaining this and that and the other and then finally he brought Harry Mets over to meet me and wow I found out then from that day on he was exactly the man I needed to take my place as president so I could step back and have a real leader that served this community that had connections that knew the people here that loved passag Grill St Pete Beach and his country so that's the hairy that I knew and I've served with him every day since then and I miss him for all of the leadership that he provided us so thank [Applause] you good evening Linda Cheney state representative for district 61 which is include St Pete Beach um I've been a resident here 30 years Harry and I served over 30 years Harry and I served on the commission together from 2007 to 2009 and um prior to that we just were friends and part of the community and I I haven't met anybody that loves this community more than Harry and his roots are here his heart is here I know he's still here with us um and in uh Harry's final days when I was talking to him he was always concerned that other people were taken care of that his wife moon was taken care of that our community was taken care of he had Moon digging through closets producing boxes of documents and Memorial things and making sure that they got to the right people so that they did not die with him so that this information stayed around and one of the things Harry was so concerned about was the Medal of Honor uh statute that he started working on the memorial um we have our very own Medal of Honor WN um awarde here in St Pete Beach Gary Latrell which the bridge is named after and Harry has been working on this medal of honor statute Memorial since Auggie was was alive and the two of them have been working on it that long and I'm so grateful that that where did she go there she is um has continued the city has continued to support that work and we look forward to that medal there there are just a handful of Medal of Honor winners even alive in the United States and the fact that we have one here in the community is pretty amazing and that was uh one of Harry's real concerns that that that that was honored and that that's who Harry was Harry was somebody who was just concerned about everybody else and take taking care of everybody else right up to his final hours and I think it's fitting that um we would honor him in pasag gril which is uh he it's hairy pasag gril is hay um and I you know I hope that you choose to do that uh we have in the past as commissions uh named parks and different areas after elected officials who are no longer with us so I think it's very fitting I think it's appropriate and I would ask that you support this request thank [Applause] you I was honored to know Harry because I got to work with Harry to dedicate the pelis Bayway bridge to command sergeant major Gary Latrell and working with Harry was a sure pleasure because he knew everybody he made all the associations work for instance we had disabled veterans that wanted to participate in the bridge dedication and they couldn't actually get down to the landing of the bridge well they could still participate by crossing over the bridge and joining with the rest of the citizens to receive their medal at uh the park afterwards and Gary walked over the bridge and Harry set it up so that all the volunteer firemen that had the Vintage fire trucks were helping the veterans and the young children get on those and then board them up and go over Harry set up so many different details that made that a special day for our city let me tell you what a first sergeant is a first sergeant is a high position that's the first sergeant that a commander will go to because that first sergeant takes care of the people that first sergeant takes care of the families Harry was not chosen as a first sergeant out of a whim somebody recogniz this early in his career and that's why he became a first sergeant because a commander decided he needed to go to First Sergeant school it's a special school to be acknowledged as the top kick the top shirt the first shirt all the other uh names that go along with it is quite an honor you're serving as the senior non-commissioned officer and you're known as the one to go to if your family has a problem if you have a problem back home or if the commander needs to discipline somebody the first shirt gets involved too first shirt for Harry first sergeant was not a misnomer at all he served his community and he served people proudly and it was an honor to work with him to the salute for the veterans and the military or the salute to the military and First Responders because he had all of the young enlistees come on up and one time he said would you swear them in what an honor I get a chance to swear in the newest members of our military it was quite an honor I said Harry what do you want me to do and this is Harry's sense of humor he says put on put on your dress blue uniform with all your pretty metals and your big command of wings stand up there say something inspirational swear them in and then get off the stage I could do that so Harry had a sense of humor he was committed to this and what I hope that you'll understand is that a quality citizen a servant leader served all of us here for decades of his life he served his Nation for a couple of decades as well and I think a quality City would recognize that individual and it would stand as a testament to the city and its dedication thanks for the honor and privilege of coming before [Applause] you so so that was the close so I shouldn't be speaking but he reminded me of a great story um I got requests from residents to beautify the Bayway bridge medians and one of the Senators said well we'll just add another 10 cents to the toll and then we'll allow for an increase every year to make sure we have the money to do the median and I said not on my watch we we pay our taxes we're not taxing the people again for beautification f dot you need to figure this out and Harry in talking to him reminded me that the residents of St Pete Beach had been assessed for the building of that bridge over 30 years ago and you know that that's Harry he's like the Vault the memory Vault and he said we were assess so when I told fot that they said oh you now qualify for a higher level of service and we fot will go ahead and pay for that and the residents do not have to pay an extra fee for that so again you know Harry just always thinking about what can he do for the residents what can he do for St Pete Beach and um let's let's pay it forward to [Applause] him thank you everyone um you know Harry was always selflessly giving to others and he would never ask this for himself um so I think it should fall on us to ask on his behalf so I appreciate your request and if I may ask uh City attorney what is the process if we wanted to um name a park or a plaza what are the next steps that's a good question I will have to get back to you let you know it depends on the property and whether or not you know who owns it if it's city property things like that but uh I'll have to get back to you on that okay so in this case I think we're dealing with city property at the um concession stand by the uh by 9th Avenue MH yeah what what do you all think I mean I think this is certainly something that should move forward absolutely okay if you would please look into that then we can present that on the upcoming Commission meetings okay and I'll just make sure that I understand exactly what property you're talking about Paradise the whole Paradise Grill the plaza okay got it all right no problem great thank you so much next we have the 2023 Financial audit report please um the Auditors were unable to get the final documents published in time for tonight's meeting they always like to have a a published final document and hand that out when they do their presentation so and also uh the partner that has been involved in the city for many years was unable to be here so I would requesting that be moved to the next meeting sounds good do we have any amendments to the agenda as proposed I I'd like to add a item for discussion um okay regarding uh a board board members attendance want to talk to talk to everyone about it should be brief um I'd like to pull uh item 4 e um from the consent agenda into action items if I could okay I'll make that 5B I would also like to pull 4B into action items we'll make that 5 C and I would also like to add two discussion items please um One on the freebie and then one on the um discretionary allocation for the um for the sheriff okay any other changes excellent can I please have a motion to approve the agenda as amended uh I move to approve the agenda as amended Second City Clerk if you'll please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner filtz yes vice mayor Lorenzen yes mayor Petrella yes motion carries thank you m all right do we have any audience comments please yes Lisa Robinson if you'll please state your name and address for the record Lisa Robinson 7100 BGA Drive um while speaking with some of the small businesses in my neighborhood District to I became aware of an issue and I promised them that I would uh give them my voice and do my best to try to get them an answer to the status of the site Improvement grant that was offered to them by the city it's a great program that really helps the small businesses um it's which they are instrumental in defining our character of our community we don't have a lot of chains in franchises we have some really cool small businesses that give our city its local flavor and color I fully support the program and hope it does continue what is of concern is that at least two businesses and there could be more applied for the grant were given approval and in good faith of that they spent monies that they may not have necessarily spent now or ever to do those improvements small businesses have small budgets and they depended upon what the city offered they've been trying for months with numerous inquiries to find out the status of the grant program's 50% reimbursement for their improvements and they have not been given an adequate answer Let's help them and not hose them can you please give an answer to the status of the grant program and how the businesses can proceed to get reimbursed thank you thank you if I may we discussed this a few commission meetings ago and I uh I think where we left it off last with the grant was we I don't know if if Jennifer was looking into it or if somebody else was looking into it as to um you know how we can go back to Distributing those funds I think the consensus from the commission was that it was a great program um um you know obviously we want to support our small businesses in town and maybe we can add an update or if you have an update on that I I don't have an update but we can we can get that information and provide that back to you great thank you so much Max a if you please state your name and address for the record um max assenheimer 300 pass girl away and I'm here because I spoke with Mike Clark today made a phone call to public Public Works to ask him to state of the seaw wall down in P Grill it's being repaired and um everything that I had been to prior to the new commission coming in was that it was going to be raised and we were going to see a um a little bit of uh Mor protection down there and especially down at dog beach and so I put a call in because everything I see going back is going back at the same height so Mike Clark gave me some great information he said you should come tonight and things happened for a reason because I didn't know Harry was going to be Memorial either and um he uh just so you know Harry uh was here know he he was here when my great aunt was out here and she was here since the 60s and I've been here since the 80s and I've known Harry since then and he couldn't be a nicer man and he did a lot for the city but side my point um the seaw wall needs to come higher and Mike said hey the it can only go to what the um what the cap is you know what the zone is approved for and he said it's 5T and we just ratified that recently he said we can't go over 5T well if anybody believes sea W or seawat is rising you know I've watched the sea water come up and it's coming up higher than it ever has you know we um two times last year in August with ad Delia and and December with the noname storm we had water coming on South past Grill you know all the way at the end but 85% of that water comes over dog beach because of the sand right up to the seaw wall I said if you guys are stuck now with this cap being at 5 ft and you're not going to raise it I said the least you can do is get down there before storm with a bobcat or a skid steer and remove or low lower some of that sand on dog beach you know not to get rid of it that used to be before the Army Corps engineer came in that used to be a um a sandb bar it would come and go with the storms now the Army Core engineer came in about 15 20 years ago they put Boulders they put pilings in and that was to chase a a drainage problem well that drainage problem up being a um a pumping station at the beginning of Third Avenue you know for a million dollars you know to chase that problem further well since we still have that problem dog beach is letting in most of the water that comes in to pass a grill if you want to do anything at all prior to the hurricane season get rid of some of that sand you know prior you don't have to do it now but prior to a storm you know send a skid steer down there send a bobcat and and get rid of a couple of uh barrows or truckloads and ship it over to First and dump it on the beach you know I mean you can kill two birds with one stone or at least help but um I don't understand why you guys aren't going higher with a you know with the seaw wall when you have the opportunity you're going to throw good money after bad you know especially if you're going to do this at a later date you know and then and the other thing I was told it was was all going to happen at one time and now that second phase is not going to begin till 2026 2027 budget year construction so I think you guys should look into this thank you thank you sir Deb she here hello good evening Deborah shechner basa Isle Drive in St P Beach a great man walked to mongus and that was Harry Mets he did so much for this city that nobody even really knew about unless he asked you to help with something because you never turned him down he helped build houses and got people involved in construction give away not at any cost to have build a house retrofit a house for a veteran who was unfortunately very badly hurt everybody who was asked by Harry always said yes he did live here most of his life and if you were lucky you got to hear G his stories and his stories about St Pete Beach made me feel like I wish I visited here then it had to be a very exciting and wonderful time Harry served his country he had a great smile and I really do hope that it works out that this particular piece of property that belongs to the city is named after Harry it's very fitting he was an honorable man he was an honest man and he served not only our city in any way possible but also our country thank you thank you Mark Grill good evening good evening Mark gr second pound Point nice to see everybody again I just also want to add my uh thanks to to the Mets family for be of Harry and all the contributions that Harry made to the city couple items tonight I'd like to talk about first the street lights so when Duke installs the new LED bulbs to replace the old sodium street lights in residential areas residents get a spotlight shining into their home I went through this the current process requires a resident to complain after the fact first you get a bright light in your home you figure out what happened then you complain to Public Works who contacts Dukes to Duke to install a physical Shield over the light to limit the light spread is going to take over two months and just that's what happened to me I want to thank Nicole current from public works for help getting my situation resolved but we we really need to look at change in the process why wait for residents to get annoyed and upset change the process if we're going to put these LEDs in put in The Shield at the same time I suggested this several times and each time it was dismissed we need to do better for a residence second my suggestion that I previously sent to the city is to public publicize the the upcoming August Municipal elections we know at this time of year many voters are away for the season they plan to vote by mail I don't I'm sure many don't know the deadline for requesting a mail and Ballot or that the post office won't forward a mail and ballot you have to ask them specifically to send it to you out of town city clerk has mentioned this at commission meetings but we have many other methods available in the city we've had more communication uh sent out on the 4th of July events in haran park than we have for the election let's get the message out there would be a shame to have any election decided by 200 voters on the budget I wasn't able to attend today's budget meeting but in the last meeting there was mentioned to possible mention to to raise the the the sewer fees keep in mind that uh this is the same as raising millage rates we pride ourselves as a city to say we have a low rate compared to other Beach communities in pelis but it's not always Apples to Apples comparison the sewer fee in other municipalities could indeed be in their rates we don't know there's a long history on this please reach out to your historians on the finance and budget committee they've got background it's it's just not as easy to say raise the sewer rates this is long history my last comment relates the comments made at the last budget meeting I don't understand why and related to um Gulf Boulevard I don't understand why the issue was not brought up to the commission earlier but if there's a problem it needs to be addressed remember if a municipal official employee member of the public knows if ethical viol ations they should call the state Commission on ethics not stand up in a in a public meeting and make these crazy accusations and then it spins into on social media they have a website it's not Anonymous and you have to document the evidence of wrongdoing and put your name on it facts matter let's not run the city on hyperbole thank you thank you okay can I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended Second City Clerk if you'll please do a roll call commissioner philps yes vice mayor Lorenzen yes commissioner Marriott yes mayor patrill yes yes motion carries thank you next we have action items 5A compensation study recommendations thank you mayor um yall recall a few weeks ago our uh consultant presented the compensation study to the city this is um this was commissioned by the the previous commission about a year ago a little a year ago our consultant reviewed that study uh with the Commission in detail uh we've talked about it a couple of times in in Workshop sessions so we're here tonight requesting the commission's approval to uh implement the compensation study uh at the 60% percentile level uh which means uh about 40% of the cities or counties that were uh we were compared to will be paying a little more and 60% will be paying a little less I think it's important that our city be above the the middle uh in order to give us uh what we need to recruit and retain people so we are requesting uh approval of the 60th percentile um for the HR I mean for the uh study that was presented by paypoint HR with a minimum increase of employees at 2% a maximum of an annualized amount of $10,000 and then a cost of living adjustment of 3.7% uh the only change we did say implementation October 1 which is the beginning of our uh budget year but we would like to uh if if the city sees if the commission sees fit to approve that we would like for the motion to State September 30th because that's the first day of our pay period and it would be a whole lot of work for our accounting and HR staff to have to make a one- day adjustment and then make the adjustment again so uh if you decide to to approve this we would just request uh that would be September 30th rather than October 1 as it states it in the motion comments questions so that doesn't affect FY 24 funding for pay at all since we're doing would not affect fiscal year you know the first pay period will be in the new budget year okay um I think I if I could just make one comment um I've heard a a couple of um comments from people saying things like you know why why are we at the 60% level does that mean we're only supposed to work 60% hard and and things like that and so I just wanted to to to to kind of make sure that everybody understands that the the 60% level means that at the one point in time when the pay study was done that we're setting our pay scale to be at the 60% level hi my name is Ken kbob I live 195 45th Avenue St Pete Beach I also work for St Pete Beach um I was here a couple weeks ago I came here uh from Ohio over five years ago after spending 30 years plus working in public utilities for the city of Columbus so I have a lot of experience in the background of what this is about uh I've been now with city of St Pete Beach for two and a half years I thought I was --------- e e e e e e e e e e we're going to call to order the city of St P Beach City commission budget Workshop today is Tuesday June 25th 2024 it is 400 p.m. let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance IED to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all city clerk if you'll please do a roll call vice mayor Lorenzen here commissioner Marriott here commissioner Philz here mayor patrola here we have a COR thank you all right Wayne first okay I can get the overhead here on um yeah we uh we're back with what you have in front of you and what I'll be showing on the screen are are uh some changes uh to the original presentation that we made back on June the 13th we we uh we think we uh took pretty good notes of the discussion uh that night and we we've made some changes that uh affects the bottom lines of course and and adds and subtracts some things so we'll just go through those changes um starting with the general fund um with that first presentation we were showing a a deficit of $246,000 uh with what was proposed and what had been requested uh since that time the sheriff had has sent us uh we lost the screen uh not sure what there we go uh the sheriff uh sent us uh their proposed budget that they are taking to the county uh for next year which is an increase of 6.6% which means $370,000 uh to us uh an increase over the current Year's Sheriff's budget there's no changes proposed in the number of officers um we still have the discretionary $250,000 that was put in there last year that can be used as we need it to add additional people at different times of the year which we've done uh you know during spring break uh weekends and that sort of thing so that was a big hit uh the next thing y'all excuse me Wayne I'm sorry do we know how much of that we used in this year of the discretionary uh Sheriff's fund I don't have a number uh we use quite a bit of it because because we started uh what we call the spring break Patrol which we added we had four additional officers on on weekends I think in two during the week and holidays so by the by the end of our fiscal year we'll probably use pretty much all of it because we're we're continuing the weekend additional ones on the beach service but I can get a I can get a number four I think that gives us a good idea quite a bit of it y so the increase for the sheriff is just it's I me we're not getting anything extra so that's just what they're it's nothing extra it's uh obviously a big part of that is U salary changes with uh within the department um other operational cost increases that uh you know that that he's presenting uh this has not his budget has not at this point been approved by the county that's was his bud budget goes to the county they did present it in a workshop a couple of weeks ago U but that's uh if things go as he's requesting that would be our increase okay thank you uh the hurle park playground uh yall indicated you did want to do that uh we don't have an agreement with the monstory school at this point but what I built into the budget was a it'd be a 50/50 deal and that's why you're seeing on the next line of $7,000 contribution that could change that'll be a something that the city commission and the Mon Mon school will have to uh decide on that split um the next item is uh moving from the 50th percentile which was in the original uh preliminary plan to the 60th percentile on the pay plan and uh you can see the impact on the general fund there um you also talked about adding additional uh tra uh parking enforcement people uh I did you know we met with our staff looked at that to see where where we were weak in some of the areas as far as days and times and uh the the staff recommended one additional fulltime and one additional part-time uh and of course the next line we'd have to have an additional vehicle but I you know based on when we've added people in the past probably the additional uh enforcement would probably pay pay for itself so I think that's probably a good uh a good move uh and youall stop me at any time um if you have questions um this was a good a big help the Fire Station 22 design fees we had 600,000 programmed in next year's budget uh once we start digging back in into this year's budget we actually have that money in the current year budget so uh but we talked with the the architectural firm and uh they've now revised uh the estimate uh to S them 50 instead of 600 uh as a conservative number so that's why uh we reduced it reduced the the budget for next year about 450 originally had the six but now we only need 150 um we had uh some facility Renovations programmed for next year 280,000 it was three or four things the big one was the elevator in the community center uh and right off hand I'm sorry I don't recall the other ones but we actually have enough money left in the current year budget to do what we need to do uh some things were were cheaper than we thought or not needed so we can cover that this year excuse me so what we did at that point we looked at the deficit uh which was at that point about $350,000 so we looked at our parking fees to see what we would have to how we would have to adjust those to make up for that deficit and uh right now our weekday fees are $4 an hour weekend is 475 if we increase those fees by 25 cents uh we would raise somewhere around $350,000 which would balance the general fund budget so that's where we are at this point would again I think I asked this question last time but I can't recall the answer is there a daily maximum like we do have a yeah on um certain days weekends I think it is we do have a a maximum daily I mean a fee for the whole day that people can people can do so it's cheaper than paying the hourly rate if they're going to be there for 8 or 9 hours during those times right okay um and the other thing that you know I looked at our neighboring cities and they do have different types of things they do for their residents and I think that's something that we could look at as we move forward to see if there was something we could do uh to help our residents for with the fees on the handout that the staff was nice enough I don't know if you're going to cover this later but it looks like we're doing pretty good in FY 24 and the uh part parking Revenue but that's only to date right so we still have couple months left yeah we still have till the end of September so that number should increase probably another 30 $40,000 maybe well maybe at summer yeah well it'll it'll it'll well we had a parking increase in September October last year and so that's not reflected yet in the in the remaining months of the year all right correct and just to back up on one item um so the Hurley Park thing the original number they threw out us again that was their civilian bid not a government contract you know and that was two or three years ago was I think 85,000 and change and they were kind of willing to split that amount so I I hope they don't Bo too much at at 70k because that's a bit more than they had originally agreed to so but as long as there's some wingle room we'll have to yeah and that'll be apprciate that that'll be something that'll have to come back to you all uh for approval at at some point okay uh and at that point in time the the budget can be adjusted for that thank you so um any any questions on that sheet anybody have I I do have a quick question on the this parking Revenue um handout that we got and I'm sorry mayor you said that the parking rate was last increased this past September October yes and so the um you know the the increase in parking revenue from October to October was pretty big and it was pretty significant from November to November but then we actually had less Revenue in December and less Revenue in January and less Revenue in February or am I looking at that backwards because that's the previous January I'm I'm just trying to figure out why we raised the parking rates but took in less money this year or if the staff has any comment on who knows if we if we had if I mean did we have a bunch of parking meters in pass gril out of service or did we have well one of the things weather we've had a lot of construction going on down there and we had a lot of spaces that were shut down for quite a while that that may be why you're seeing seeing that yeah and so I guess we would just have to wait to find out you know if we raise the parking rate again if we're starting to have a reduced Revenue because the parking rates are so high that people stop coming although it that doesn't seem to be the case cu the parking spots certainly seem full yeah it hasn't been over the years it hasn't slowed the parking down when the rates have been in right yeah no I was just it was just curious to me that the rates went up but the overall Revenue went down and the parking spots all seem full all the time I don't think it was due to the cost no okay yeah I think from what I remember we had a good bit of rain too yeah December January so that could be a factor might have just been weather yep okay plus we had everything from was it 8th and 9th Avenue South was closed in passag grill for several months yeah we had a lot of them shut down for quite a while and still have several shut down and then the same thing on the other side as well and pass the grill way yes Y and those are still shut down still shut down and we still have some shut down down between First Avenue where they're doing the dredging yeah that's supposedly is over for phase one already so it might be month who knows how long before they remobilize for yeah phase two yeah all right the uh Wastewater fund um we pres at the first Workshop we said we had a 588,000 deficit uh the share if we move to the 60th percenti on play pay plan there's there's a slight increase in in that so it shows you a $594,000 deficit um you know as far as our reserves are concerned you know in in in Wastewater we you know we currently have about $975,000 in reserves but um you know if if nothing was done you know that would reduce your Reserves in Wastewater fund down to about 380,000 but we're showing you there uh the current rates 4465 uh the which is the base rate uh first 3,000 so 1473 for each th000 gallons in excess of the base so uh the next numbers there show you what what would have to be done uh to the rates to to generate basically $595,000 which would balance the the Wastewater fund budget um it's about a 6.6% change in the fees if if you wanted to do that uh again there's like I said there's without doing a rate increase your reserves in that fund would would reduce from about 975,000 down to about 380,000 in that fund uh now this uh if you want to increase the rates this is one of those it can be done it's an the appendix a in our code uh it's done by ordinance two readings of the ordinance uh it's normally done in September uh as a part of the budget approval so uh you know you don't have to make that decision tonight or today actually you can't make that decision this is just a workshop but I did want to show you that uh and if you if you uh do think that that would be the thing to do you know we can program that into any other adjustments we need to make in the budget uh as that you would have once you get into the budget budget public hearings so the reserves I think you said it was 600 and something k um what's the main purpose of that Reserve is it for catastrophic failure well a couple of things yeah uh you always have uh operation and maintenance issues that come up during the year that you did not expect you may have a a big pump that goes out you know in the Wastewater fund everything you have is expensive you know so uh you know we've had pumps go out uh so uh you can you can have a two or $300,000 expenditure pretty quickly uh so um you know I I think the city needs to have adequate reserves in in your uh sewer system uh you know if you had a failure in a line somewhere you know you're talking about some big bucks um and of course then the catastrophic events that may come along but of course that that's a whole different issue so but it's mainly the unknown is the reason you want your reserves to be adequate the unknowns that you may have with equipment or for uh line your especially in the in the sewer fund so basically we' be talking about for the first 3,000 gallons it' be a $3 raise and then every a buck for every thousand gallons over that yes sir or that's what you would need to do in order to to cover that $594,000 deficit that's shown right now and this is a a b monthly bill if I'm not mistaken or every two months right this bill yeah I think you receive that bill every two months as a part of your water bill 7 Bucks so basically $10 for a large group so uh I mean it would it would be good to to hear from y'all on on whether you want to live with with that Reserve or try to cover it or cover part of it uh and uh but like I said the final decision on that would not be made until you basically have two public hearings in September um I did a little bit of research on this so the data according to the EPA is that the average persons the average person uses 82 gallons per day so over a month span roughly 2500 So a family of four is using roughly 10,000 gallons uh a month so just some information Yeah so i' basically be 10 bucks more every two months plus whatever we're going to talk about with the reclaim water which is another six as proposed so basically we're talking about 16 bucks more every two months yeah I would certainly put this as a priority over the reclaim you this this is the one I think that would be more important this is per month correct that is based on yes that's a monthly use yeah so we this is the monthly charge which gets invoiced every two months so it would be build every two months yeah this is yes this is per month yeah yes so it still would be about $10 per month for 10,000 gallons but you get invoiced every two months so you'll see that' be like 20 bucks commissioner Phils I'm not sure where you got that information but that sounds very high compared to the numbers I've seen before yeah it's from epa.gov okay that yeah I think if we looked at our specific situation uh you I think there's a lot of people that actually fall in that 3,000 gallons a month I I know my wife and I fall within that 3,000 every month you know so is that base rate is that set by the city or the county that's a that's a this is strictly a city the as far as the base rate being 3,000 gallons yes that's a city that's a city set rate I I guess I always hesitate to raise taxes because they just never go down they never level off they continuously go up but I guess I'm open to what the rest of the Commissioners think on this one well this of course is not a tax this is a charge for a service that's provided you know how that goes tax By Any Other Name it's an increase for sure and of course the biggest uh the biggest cost to the city is what we have to pay the City of St Petersburg to treat the sewage that we send over there just to give you my two cents on it um Wayne alluded to the reserves and why you have those um for any kind of failure in in any of the conveyance system systems and if I mean us being so close to the water that could what we try to avoid legally is any discharge into the waterways because with any discharge we're required to report that to the state and um so there are some legal things that I I get concerned about when we put ourselves in a position where we can't handle any um potential problems like that it's a little different being on a barrier Island I mean I would be I would be kind of inclined I think to commissioner Phil's point you know I I hate to to overly punish larger households you know which I think is um you know which I think is a little bit of a concern I know I know Wayne you said you know you and your wife are easily in that 3,000 gallons a month and I know you know like for my husband and I we are as well um but you know I would I would perhaps be in favor of looking at at at maybe modifying that that that spot at which we switch from the base rate to the excess rate um and I'm not sure you know I'm not sure how that changes how that changes the the revenue that we generate um you you know because I'm not sure where I'm not sure what assumption we're making on how many gallons of water is used or if we're looking at you mean when we got that that uh I mean I I guess that generates an extra $595,000 that's just based on what we what we got in Revenue last year and then adding that percent increase on it or um yeah about um and I had those numbers we we actually did a study last year of of uh yall did how it's broken down between the the base rate and the excess rate and and U but it was a it was a different increase um and I I I don't recall those right off hand but yeah wouldd have to do some other some other math to figure out you know what what a difference would be if you wanted to put more of an increase on the base rate uh and less on the you know on the excess would have well I was I was even thinking like if the if the base rate increased stayed the same but you increased the base rate to the first 4,000 Gall or you know 5,000 Gall of water usage but then the excess rate went up a little bit more you know what that how how that would balance out so that you know so that so that that you're you know if you have a household with four or five people in it they're not paying as much extra you know um I I'm not sure you know I don't have those numbers in front of me so I'm not sure how that math would work but yeah I mean there's a lot of different scenarios there uh you know and the the 3,000 gallon is is pretty Universal you know a lot of lot of people use that that that pretty standard amongst municipalities I've seen that in many many jurisdictions you know I mean there are other ones but uh but yeah if yall wanteded want us to look at some other mix you know we could we could certainly look at that yeah I might be open to that because it it just seems like we're putting a a larger burden on a group because they have a family yep you know what I'm saying but they're using more water well yeah and more sewers so and that's that's an Enterprise fund you know you pay for what you use yeah the inverse of that is also true if you increase the base rate from 3,000 to 4,000 and the average household of two people uses 3,000 or less all of a sudden they're paying for something they're not even using correct versus at least this way it's a it's a fair distribution you use what you pay for you use more water you pay for more water you use more sewer you use use more electricity you pay for more electricity absolutely um and really in that 3,000 gallons I mean if you if you have a pool you're going to pay more as well yeah right so now I think raising that threshold it really just ends up punishing potentially a group of individuals that you know you might have a you know one-bedroom condo that's inhabited by one person and they're not even using 3,000 but there's still paying for 3,000 exctly and if we raise that any higher now you're putting an undue burden on people that are not not even using the system paying for something that they're not using I'm not sure what that accomplishes is that a fact that somebody uses a th000 gallons of water a month pays for 3,000 they still pay the 4465 okay okay that's a good point all I think at this point I'm kind of willing to let this one go to ordinance or readings and let the public weigh in on this one mhm I think the well I 100% agree with you I'm not a big fan of increases um on the other hand we can't afford the deficit in in the Wastewater fund I think what we talked about last time is where you felt comfortable weighing was around a million minimum and if if we do this increase that maintains the balance kind of where it is right now if we don't that's going to deplete our fund down to about 3 350 yeah it brings it down to 380 catastrophic incident yeah but just uh you know a lot there's a lot of a lot of different uh standards that that cities look at you know how much Reserve should you have and you know a lot of uh a lot of cities look at uh three months of your expenditures as pretty much a minimum if we're looking at three months reserves in our Wastewater fund we're talking about you should have over $2 million in res reserves so uh you know the reserves in our Wastewater fund are extremely low so I would certainly encourage you to do some sort of a an adjustment to to try to get those reserves if yall remember it hadn't been that long to when we've had to you know set up temporary pumps over on I think it's Gul Boulevard where we were having overflows we were having to pump 24 hours a day that's a lot of money a lot of cost so you know well and also I think in light of the street flight pling we're going to continue to have until we can get those title uh flow valves fixed and you just start thinking about all the things that could happen now you get a waste water spill or something in the middle of that o so all right but it will come up like I said I guess our question now is do you want as far as the budget document that we'll be moving forward uh do you want us to put this type of a an adjustment in there uh or do you want to just still show the that we would be down to 380 reserves and that would be something to be adjusted later um you just which way you want us to show it in the in the proposed budget as we're moving forward uh I mean I would suggest we we indicate an increase but like I said you'll still have two public hearings on it before it's done I'm good with as publish let the public weigh in yeah not love with but got to we got move okay it like reclaimed uh we started out with a 200 basically $275,000 deficit see it's just a minor minor hit as far as the pay plan so we looked at uh at at what it would would do uh for a rate increase um actually we didn't actually I missed a modification on this uh the 281,000 is actually the deficit without the rate increase so that line should not even be in there at this point uh where it shows rate increase 25 31 276 sorry for that that was a mistake on our our slide uh as we have it right now we're we're showing a 300 $281,000 deficit below that you can see uh a $6 increase and that monthly fee would would provide about 276,000 um like I said a minute ago uh if you're going to make any adjustment I think it ought to be back in the waste water rather than reclaimed uh the reclaimed water we have um uh without without any adjustment we've still got almost a million dollars in reserves in that fund uh so uh I don't I I'm not I don't feel uncomfortable with with having that in the current budget or in the proposed budget um actually be 971 th000 still in reserves without any adjustment to that rate so yeah uh that's why we're we're not sure showing a rate increase in the total numbers at this point but if yall wanted to balance that that's what it would take and again this is this would still be a public hearing if you wanted to do that but uh we have not included that yeah I mean waste water is a necessity reclaim Waters I hate to say it's a nicity but it kind of is in some ways so I'm I'm willing to stick with that minor deficit since we're already asking 10 bucks more month for larger families and we don't have as big of a risk here as we do in the waste bar stops for all stops and then because otherwise there's another six added to that $10 raise for the other one so okay everybody okay there okay um storm water uh we had some good news on this one we started out this was the worst one to start with we had a million dooll deficit shown in in next year's budget fortunately we have good reserves uh after the last Workshop we received news that uh we did give a legislative U appropriation of $625,000 to help in the storm water fund uh and we also uh two years ago the city um started a resiliency fund and uh did not have anything being shown in expenditures in that fund for this year or for next year uh but one thing we did have in the storm water fund was a watershed master plan uh for resiliency so uh what we what we're proposing to do is actually move that expenditure from the storm water fund to that resiliency fund and by doing that along with the legislative appropriation it gets our deficit down to $200,000 uh in the storm water and that particular fund that we still with that deficit we'd still have 1.3 million in reserves so I think we're the other thing on the storm water you know let me mention that because we had talked about a you know this is not a fee this is an assessment that the city does every year that's actually on the tax bills and uh in order to do that assessment um we have to do an assessment role every year uh we have a consultant that's been doing that every year we have to go and there's a lot of moving parts to that fee uh there's there's a one tier that's if you have your own onsite water treatment another tier if if you do not there's also and this goes back to the question uh uh that commissioner Mar out you asked me you thought there were two different ones uh and I went back and looked how this was structured originally and there's U some of the fees is based on fixed costs some of the fee is based on variable cost so there's a lot of moving parts so uh if you wanted to look at a uh an adjustment to that storm water assessment you really need to do another study on it have somebody look at the assessment roles look at how each of the moving each those components would impact it and also um look at how it would impact the different users as far as your commercial users your residential users so the city did a study like that originally when it was adopted back 15 14 years ago did a second one when I was year before and I think the city did one about four or five years ago four years ago I think when an adjustment was made so I think that's something you all have need to definitely look at in the coming year before we get to this point next year is is have a study done to see see how how that should be adjusted because obviously we need additional money in that fund with all the storm water projects that we're trying to do so uh but for this year uh you know at this point uh I think we still have 1.3 in reserve so I would not recommend doing anything right now we got a question question on that rough roughly how much would a study for that cost I haven't looked at the study I I I I don't have a number you know but we would uh uh we would have to adjust our reclaim I mean our storm water budget by that number but you know it's we're still in good shape but we we would do that before we publish the next document you know we see what that study cost us before and actually talk uh talk to the company that did it and see how the cost have changed to so we' have a good budget number okay thank you uh the next slide um we we added uh the code enforcement um did uh this was something actually the dollars were in the budg we presented before we had just uh forgot to to list it uh code enforcement Administrative Assistant um we have a part-time position now and we're talking about moving that to a full-time position and changing some of the duties there but it doesn't change the bottom line because we already had the dollars in we just failed to list it uh the other addition that we made from before are those uh parking enforcement that we talked about back when we were talking about the general fund uh those were the ones that were discussed before um I did discuss with our staff about additional code enforcement I don't have a recommendation on that at this but that might be something that want to look at uh a little bit further but I think we're in pretty good shape on that do you have any idea how many um code enforcement I mean it it feels to me like for a town this size we already have a relatively large code enforcement department is there any kind of you know standard for number of Code Enforcement Officers per capita of population if you take out you know if you're not counting parking enforcement if you're just looking at code enforcement I feel like I've lived in cities that are five times bigger than this with one or two Code Enforcement Officers it really depends on how aggressive you want to be uh I know at one time the city was just reactionary uh we only uh looked at when we got a complaint we would our code enforcement would take and at some point over the past few years uh the department started going out and looking for code violations and you can see that in the number of violations that have been um you know that have been issued over the over the years and and the the value the income that comes along with that I don't know that there's any standard uh I think it boils down to how aggressive you want to be in enforcing your codes yeah I mean I think that's something I've heard from a number of residents about you know about feeling like code enforcement has gotten overly aggressive around here you know I've heard of people saying you know my buddy who was a plumber was over for a barbecue and then the co co code guys were telling me I was working without a permit and because I had a plumbing truck parked in my driveway and and I feel like when it gets to there it seems a little overly aggressive um so but but my my question was going to be on on kind of all of these proposed new positions if if we're putting these in the budget there's still lots of room when our new city manager comes in as she wants to rearrange people absolutely for these to be filled or not right or moved around and changed and so so we're not committing to to absolutely just because we're budgeting for these positions they're that that we're going to aggressively go out and hire them and fill them depending on you know the direction she decides to take some departments well the the what you're doing is approving putting the money in the budget to hire these positions and of course it'll be up to the new new city manager has to sign off on on any new positions that are that are hired and U so I'm I'm assuming that she would be looking at that you know as she moves forward to uh to see if she agrees with with that or not you know uh as far as I'm concerned when I discussed all of these with Oliver Department directors I thought they were necessary I thought they were needed and that's why I included them there were others that we I did not after we discussed did not see they were necessary so uh the ones you see there are ones that I I felt our Department's made a good uh made a good call on on on the need okay uh this is just that summary of of of overall reserves and and all the uh various uh various funds we have now I know the there's some funds listed here that we did not go over specifically we just went over our Enterprise funds and our general fund these other ones there's not a whole lot that uh you know they're not fee based or anything like that it's a lot of it is uh transfers from funds like a capital fund you know and and that's a big number because we I think I explained it at the last meeting we we put money we transfer money into that fund every year so when a a a piece of equipment or a vehicle comes up for replacement that money is there so you know you may have a a million dooll piece of equipment or or fire apparatus or something coming up so that's why you see a big number there because that's a a fiveyear capital plan that we have moving down the road uh you know some of those other ones are are uh you you know the arpa fund we'll be we're spending all of that money that was the uh you know the storm assistance that we received so that's why you don't see anything for 25 because we'll be we're we're showing all of that money being has been actually budgeted uh this year uh Fleet fund that's just a another transfer that we we make for cars and trucks uh the building fund itself uh I I think we need to look the city should look at the fees that are charged in the building fund as well as in our uh planning department uh I think we're the building fund may be okay we're you know there's State Statute that limits how that money can be spent you know we cannot charge a fee uh cannot charge fees higher than what the service we're providing uh so but it it needs to be looked at every now and then I'm not sure the last time that the city really did an analysis on that and so uh in the future that's and I've talked with our staff about it that you know as we go forward that's some of the other fees that can be looked at uh in the building fund is in our uh planning department plan review Fire review those fees uh we've had we've talked to staff about that those need to be reviewed so so there may be some other opportunities moving forward to help help out our budgets but that gives you just a snapshot of where we are on all those funds um and that's pretty much everything I have um you know the the one thing that that affected each of the budgets uh that we discussed is the the pay plan uh and that that'll be on tonight's regular meeting agenda for uh hopefully appr approval uh the recommendation like I said we've had is is a 60 60th percentile I think you know with the situation the city's in a Barrier Island in order to be um you know in order to be really in the market to try to attract people and retain people we need to be above the the middle so I think that's money will spent to get to the 60th percentile and then uh like I said we're we're looking a minimum of a 2% a maximum of $10,000 on on any of them so I think it's a good plan um I'm pretty happy with the consultant's recommendations on that so uh that'll be coming up later on tonight but that's uh that's really all I have for you on on the budget uh there will be like I said public hearings the next official action that the commission has to take other than tonight on the pay plan will be at second meeting in July when you'll need to direct U the staff on uh what you want the tentative millage rate to be advertised as we have to send uh Mr Twitty's office of tax collector's office or proposed Village or tentative Village uh 1st of August you can always go down on that uh but that's the notice he'll put out on What's called the trim bill and uh it'll be mailed out to every property owner but uh then in September uh will be when yall will look at that and actually adopt it you can always go down on it at that point uh but you can't increase it uh without going through a lot of jump through a lot of Hoops but uh uh so you know we' built this budget based on keeping the exact same millage rate that we have now which is 3 3.07 uh at the same public hearings uh uh in September when you you you'll adopt the final millage rate you'll also have two public hearings looking at the uh any rate increases like the uh Wastewater and you'll also have two public hearings on adopting the budget so um and between now and then you've got an opportunity to if you other things come up you could call another Workshop to discuss other other things too uh but I feel feel like we're in pretty good shape uh with what we've talked about at this point all right thank you Wayne any further questions or comments for Wayne I'm in shock are we allowed to conclude this early I suppose we are all right unless there's anything else we are adjourned thank you everyone thank you all e