budget. Workshop of the Board of Commissioners of. The City of Tarpon Springs. On Tuesday, July 9th, 2024 at 4:30 p.m. Roll call, please. Mayor Vatikiotis here. Vice mayor Kolody here. Commissioner Eisner here. Commissioner Koulianos here. Commissioner DiDonato here. Okay, this is the first budget workshop of two. I'm going to turn that over to City Manager Lacourse. Yes. This is the first budget workshop that we've got scheduled. Our second one is going to be July 30th. And if necessary, a third one, I believe that is August 8th, but I'm sure somewhere in Ron's presentation, he'll have that for you. So again, this is the chance for city manager, commission and staff to discuss the budget, and to begin things off with the preliminary presentation, I'll turn it over to our budget guru, Ron Herring. Good evening, mayor. Commissioners. As the city manager said, this is our first budget. Is it on? Sorry, it wasn't on. I could hear you, but I don't think anybody else did. I only wanted you to hear. So that's it. This is our first budget workshop on the budget with the board or the board of commissioners. But we've already been working on the budget for 2 or 3 months already. But as you know, we gave you a couple budget books to read and stuff. And one is this a three ring binder which has all the detail budget, which has a lot of information on the current year payroll expenditures and justifications, which has every line item and this is what we call our executive summary budget, which takes all the information from that one, but also has a lot of good comparative information over the years. Going back four years, fund projections, going out, millage information, debt information, CIP information. So this is a helpful book to go through, for comparison purpose. And if you find this on your desk, this is what we do for the last couple of years, we've been going through all the departments and comparing last year's budget to this year's budget, the difference and the percentage difference. And then over to the side we try to put a little explanation of any major changes in the budget to try to help you out. I know last year I think we gave it to you and Budget Advisory Committee really likes it too. So we put that together. I put some on the dais there for you to try to answer. If you look at any departments, you know why it went up, or down, the page numbers are on there which relate to the three ring binder book. If you need to find those departments. And, what I've got is just a brief presentation to go over the budget and then get into the general fund budget. Ron could you just provide, some just for the record, a little additional information on how we're handling this is the city's budget. And if I'm not mistaken, you've included the CRA budget as part of this process. Is that correct? Well, yes, the CRA is included as part of the budget here. And then when we adopt the budgets, they'll be adopted separately. The correct correct. Thank you. Okay, just to go over some brief things and compiling the budget document, you know, as I mentioned, departments entered their budgets. They did that. You know, probably I think it was last March, finance goes through and computes the payroll projects. The revenues, all funds have been balanced. The general fund is balanced with no use of unassigned fund balance. So this is a ninth straight year of not using unassigned fund balance and balancing the general fund. And as I mentioned, Budget Advisory Committee has met with all the departments. They spent a lot of time going through every department. They I think it's a 2 or 3 days, you know, spending time going through their budgets, all their line items within their budgets. Revenue assumptions, what we go through and trying to calculate the revenues. We look at the past historicals, current year to date information through the 2024 and any other current economic factors, property taxes, a taxable value increase is 9.18. This was certified by the Property Appraiser as of July 1st, 2024. We've got in the budget the millage rate still remaining at 5.37. Water and sewer fees. They'll increase 3.75. This is what's in the ordinance, and we do plan on doing a water and sewer revenue sufficiency study next year to for the rates for the years after that. Sanitation fees per the contract are based on the CPI, the next increase is would be on 331 March 31st, 2025. The maximum can be three can be 3% stormwater fees increase per the ordinance is 0.50 per equivalent stormwater unit. That brings it up to 10.65 per residents. That year will also be the last year of the ten year, rate plan for the stormwater fees. So we're planning on a stormwater rate study next spring to probably next winter spring, along with the water and sewer. One on the expenditure side, the pay increases, police and fire union employees are all per their contract. This would be the second year of their contract, general employees. We funded it at 5. There are no new positions in the budget, police and fire pension is per the actuary. They tell us what we need to contribute to keep the plan funds and fund plans funded health insurance. We still don't know you know what the increase is yet. We usually find out usually about the first part of August mid-August what the health insurance increase will be. We've I've budgeted an increase of 10% along with property liability 10, worker's comp 10. They're all both estimates. Getting into the numbers in the budget like highlighted on the top left there. The budget right now as it sits is at 85,885,477. It's an increase of almost 9.5 million, or 12.38. The general fund is at 35,879,000. It is almost 42% of the total budget. City budget, an increase of 2.6 million, the increase over the previous year is 7.889, mostly due to pay increases. The insurance increases, like health and property and operating cost increases. Water and sewer fund. 26.2 million budget. The water and sewer funds almost 31% of the total city budget, it's an increase of 5.7 million, or 27. But a lot of that is due to the Beckett Bridge project that is going to be going on, where we're the relocation of the utilities under the Beckett Bridge, the county is looking for a grant for that. We're hoping that they get that grant so we won't have to be contributing all the 4 million. It might be more our 20% match at about 780,000. So we're hoping the county gets that grant sanitation fund, $8 million budget actually went down about 32,000, mostly due to we're seeing a reduction in the yard waste fees. We've been receiving, penny fund, budget of 4.4 million, an increase about 358,000. A good portion of that is due to we've got 2.2 million in this year's budget allocated for the fire station. 70, the new station there, golf course fund a budget of 2.2 million. It's an increase of 259,000, a lot of the increase is for the cart lease increase, which is about 50,000. But we've got designed for the new clubhouse, about 325,000. In the golf course fund, so those five, those five funds, are about 89% of the total city budget. And we also like to look at, how do we compare for full service cities? Over 20,000 of population and still full service cities being cities with the police and fire services, and we still are the lowest among those five over those cities, over 20,000, as you can see that we're what we're comparing is back to 2000. 17 to 2024 back here, we actually went down from 5.42 to 5.37. Pinellas Park went from 5.49 to 5.65. Largo 5.37. They went up to 5.52. Clearwater 5.15 to 5.88, Saint Pete was the only the other one that went down from 6.75 to 6.46. So as you can see, we're the lowest millage rate of the of the full service cities was what population? Over 20,000. And with that that's what I have for the general fund. My slides after that are more getting into the capital, which is our next item on the agenda. So I guess we'll open it up if you want to go get into the general fund budget or any questions you have. Okay. See anybody. This is a budget workshop. So there's no, public comments at workshops. I just want to make that announcement. So, commissioners, anybody want to start? I've got some questions, but any of you can start as well. Mr. Herring, we've got a kind of a large jump from, the budget from last year to this year. I think it's $11 million or something like that. But there's some big chunks of money in there. Those that $4 million, debt loan proceeds. What What is that, well, that's a that's a financing for Beckett Bridge. You know, if we don't get the grant, we're going to have to go out for financing for Beckett. This is for the utilities that were for the utilities. When the county is going to replacing the Beckett Bridge, there's utility lines that go underneath the water. It's the cost for replacing remove for moving those, utility. The water and sewer lines. The estimated cost is almost 4,000,003.9 something. And where's that, is that going to. Is that besides the penny fund? That's that's out of the water and sewer fund. Okay the other thing I wanted to mention, you know, we're kind of, in the future, we're we're, we're transitioning or we're pretty much there from the needs based, economic development, asset based. And we're going to be relying on, on tax revenues a lot more than just ad valorem. AD valorem is pretty strong with a 9. And I would suspect maybe next year you're going to see a little bit of a slowdown on that. But somewhere I'd like for us to start tracking. Think about starting to track, sales tax, which you do sales revenue, sales or tax revenue in here just to see how we're going, because that's what, the economic development approach that we're taking is where our revenue needs to continue increasing. If it starts getting flat, then we're doing something wrong in that regard. Well it's funny you mention that because we've been tracking the sales tax of penny sales tax and a half cent sales tax, and they have been going down over the last half year. Yeah is down about 1. What that's from or we don't when you're talking to other finance director, we just don't know if there was such a after Covid there was such a everybody going out and traveling, whatever they were doing. And, we the last two years, our increase was, were fairly well. But this year we've just started seeing a decline in them of about 10,000 less on some of them that we then at this point in time, then we received the last year through the end of May, not much, but we're just a little bit less. Well, and the point I'm trying to make is it's not an issue, as if we're going to have a choice in the future, we run out of land for developing. Therefore we're going to have to rely on, some on redevelopment, but then also, a greater reliance on visitors coming to town and spending money and that sort of thing. And so I think somewhere along the line in our budget process, along with economic, economic development and our other resources that we have around here, we should start thinking about some kind of a policy in that regard, just to keep a little, closer track and perhaps see how we could possibly enhance that in the future. It's all consistent with the strategic plan, that we've created. And that's the one observation I wanted to make on that. The, I've got a couple of things here. The only other thing I wanted to point out is that that, 2.2% increase in our, ad valorem, it looks like is from the, the Ikea. Ikea? Is that what they're still called? The Ikea apartments? Yeah. And that's valued at $55 million. Correct. And that's pretty interesting. I'm not so sure if that value is going to stay up there, the way things are going, hopefully it will, Grants, I didn't see where, in this, handout that you have here that you gave us this evening and, in or in the budge, unless it's in the non-departmental expenditures, I guess that would be on page 145. Line account number 83. Other grants and aids. Is that where we have the money to the Football League and. Correct. And other, Shepherd center and things like that. Correct. Okay. I noticed that, we've we've decreased that from 56,000 down to 37,000. I don't know what we're missing in that. What caused that decrease, is there, Mark, it's on page 145, account. 83. Yeah, we had 80. We had 35,000 in there last year for Greektown initiative. Pardon me. Last year in fiscal year 2024, we had, 35,000 for Greektown initiative. That's not in the current year budget. So that's the difference between last year and this year. That's the difference. Yes okay. Well we had that one increase request from the Shepherd center, but that includes that 3000 that we moved from the, homeless, whatever it's called that down South County. We moved that to the Shepherd center. That was 3000, and they've asked for five. And we said we would discuss that. Yeah, that's I mean, that's an easy that's an easy with some of the other things. What about got in our football leagues or football leagues and things, that should be consistent. The same amount of money should be consistent for it. It's worked out with the leagues. Is there any need to increase that number? I guess you know, what I'm saying is everything is increasing. I don't know if their fees are increasing or I just we can look that maybe another 5000, but we can look at the 2000 to bring it up, that we can look for that as we're. Yeah. I just want to make sure we don't forget that. Yeah. We got a lot of unknowns. So for instance one of the categories comes in less. Then there's the little chunk of money. And that's very little of it would go to those two things. And we'll put that on the list to look at as we as, as some additional money comes available because of estimates and the difference in estimates. But those should be easily doable, it's worked out real. I know the sports leagues are real appreciative, especially with the times are today and the prices of what they use for equipment and stuff going way up. So and it affects a large amount of the kids in this community and families in the community. Proactive. Yeah. So I don't think that's going to be any problem, the other, the other part of that was the we're going to talk about the capital improvement program later. Right? Correct. It's a next item on the agenda tonight. But later tonight. Okay. I think that's all I, I had as far as the, the one thing I wanted to talk about just briefly in that regard was the, and you helped me out because we really haven't talked about it. The, we've got zero increase in employees, the number of employees. Correct. And, is that something, kind of a reality? I mean, is that a realistic, approach for this year or. I know there's some departments have got to request them. Is that something that you're going to look at later and try and fit that in? Yeah. That's why that and the salaries that usually comes in the later part of the budget, because we're going to see how that that goes and stuff, we do have a position that's, that's rather higher paid that I'm on hold to filling and that's waiting for the whole process with city manager, maybe an assistant city manager. That would be Miss Bailey's position that is on hold. The duties have been distributed among other people in there. And that's the position we're holding, to see what goes on with that aspect. So that may be a new position that we talk about. But as we see again, all the unknowns that we have when we see the unknowns come in, then there could be a possibility of prioritizing them. I know I talked to some people, so I noticed, I mean, for us, we're we're growing from an employment, a number of citizens, residents perspective. I know for example, the, the police department, the fire department always works from a level of service in terms of the number of people that they need. And somehow, you know, we can we can give people more money, but that's not going to help getting the work done. I mean, they they're most of them are wage employees or 40 hours a week. And, just giving employee more money doesn't give additional time for them. And the 5% is fine. I was looking at the, labor statistics, wage increases for or the wage index for, public employees and for the South. It's actually a little bit above 5. So I'm comfortable with the 5. But I also want to make sure we don't fall short in terms of having enough people and keeping up, keeping pace with the amount of work and the number of people that are coming into town that sort of thing, the planning department, I noticed, put a $150,000 in there for some technical assistance for, which I'm happy. I'm glad to see that with the, land development code, I haven't checked the other departments to see whether there's been some kind of an addition for perhaps, privatizing some of that function, I, you know, that's one of the things a couple places are looking for instead of the position. There's consultant or some other work that that that may be the equivalent of that, that we look at a contract type employee or contract person as opposed to a regular employee. That's that's on the burner to, to go up and down, depending on what our budget looks like. Yes. And our projects and stuff and, you know, that almost served better than a position that has anything a need. You know, with all the plans we're doing for planning and some, specialist to contract in for six months to work on something and assist them. So that's another area we're looking at. One of them is in the budget's planning, but a couple of other places that have talked about a position, there may be a contract type employer, firm that serves them the better than than giving them an employee. Yeah, I think that's a smart thing to do. I just want to make sure that I know by now budgets evolve. What we see on the first budget workshop is not it? Hopefully it looks like it is at the third, but, you know, same pretty much. But I do know that we have to do some things internally with other issues that come up. Perhaps somebody approaches from the city with residents wanting to do something different and, and also some other needs. So Ron, I know I always know you have the answers. It's just finding the question to ask you. Because if we don't find the question, we don't hit you have the answers, but we don't know the questions. And oftentimes you don't offer everything, which is a good, chief financial officer doesn't play all of his cards at one time. So I appreciate that. And I've got full confidence that you're minding the store carefully. And, that's all I wanted to say as far as the, general fund. And so our enterprise funds. I like the fact that the, golf course is working has put a wedge in there for a design of a new clubhouse and everything. So But we'll talk about that in a minute. That's all I have. And I've given you guys some time to, develop some questions. Anything, Commissioner, vice mayor. Good. Yes. I'll follow up, Ron, under under planning. We have the operating. There was an increase of 150,000 for the land development code. What do we plan on happening with that land development code this year? And just updating it and I may be a question for that. Might be that would be a question for Renee. I just put the money there. I know Pat's here. Renee's Renee's out, but I know Pat's here, we got a little strain of sickness going around City hall and injury, so we got our staff. Is kind of tired, but Pat at the last minute was chosen to come represent Renee. So. Yeah Good evening, Pat Mcnees planning supervisor. So you will be seeing the comprehensive plan coming to yo, next week, I think. Yeah So with that will be an implementation work plan that you, some of you may have gotten a look at. There's quite a few initiatives for updating the land development code in that, in the comprehensive plan and in that work plan. So the idea was to start to get try to get started on those, the expertise we may need, just the, the time we may not have to do analyzes and, you know, develop some, some of these codes, that's what we're looking at, the comp plan also has other studies and, projects that are going to be coming up. We hope to finish the, the, well, we hope to have a draft of the Greektown plan here in maybe 2 or 3 weeks, if that's something the board wants to do something with. We might be looking at smart code or special area plan changes there. So there's a variety of there's really a long list. Not that they would all get done this coming year, but the idea is to get a really big start and jump right in on the land development code, which really needs a complete look at. Sure. No. I fully support and just getting all the help we can for that. The land development code I think it's important for to help, give a foundation for us board members and future board members as we have it updated and finalized, thank you, Miss Mcniece. Okay As a few meetings back, Mr. Function brought a reorganization, as are some of those underneath the general fund, the employees and the departments. Yes. And that's going to be brought back to you in August. Okay. But is that something we were supposed to adjust, maybe. And have for the budget this year set up ready to go? No, it would be in the normal process we do every year for the different salaries. The grade changes, the things. So that always comes later in the budget after we see all the variable stuff. So that's on top. It comes from all the part. You'll see them all together and usually see it at the second meeting of August is where you see all those things. And then by that time we'll know health, we'll know all the different circumstances and stuff and, and you'll see all the department then. So that's, that's scheduled to come back to you in August. The whole entire city. Any changes? Reorgs Reclassifications. Everyone's going to come together for the whole all the departments in the city. You wouldn't see them now that you see them in August. Perfect. No. Thank you for, clarifying that and also bringing up the research and info information officer, because I was curious about that and you did bring that up. So I appreciate it, as far as on call pay, is that something we'll discuss here in August as well for on call employees or, you know, who have the phones in their hands? We established we established the we established that already, if there's any thought about raising. But we do have a pretty competitive price. We upped that to where are we at now with it? Tommy, are you Tommy worked on that and the averages. And I'm trying to remember off the top of my head. Currently we have for, field services for the water, sewer workers and anyone who has to go out and, like, do work, you know, after hours, the on call pay is 125 a week, and we have a callback, program. So if you you get a minimum number of hours as an employee, you're guaranteed at least 2.5 hours at the overtime rate for each callback that's generated. So that's where we're at currently. Okay Mr. Kiger, from each department, there's usually at least one employee that will have the on call phone with them throughout the week, and that rotates potentially, typically. Yeah. It's I'm sorry. It's, it varies by department. So but especially with, wastewater collections, utilities, maintenance, the water department, they'll be. Yes. That's a rotating assignment. And there will be their 1 or 2 staff members that are assigned on either primary or secondary callback responsibilities. Okay I would just I'd like to see if we could up it up a little bit more to maybe at least 175 to $200. When I talk with staff, I mean, they, you know, a lot of them don't want to necessarily holding the phone and be bound the whole week to calls for the $125 or there's other, competitive municipalities that have a little bit higher on call. And I would just like to try to get it closer to some of those competitive. Mr. Kiger, revise because we when the board brought this up to look at earlier, we went to the city. Some of them might have changed or be changing. So we'll have them we'll have them update that, and then then if that's if they've gone up, then accordingly to keep pace. So we'll look at that. So we'll look at that and have that for you in the future. And then appreciate the mayor bringing up the little league, if we need to add towards the budget, just in case, you know, I don't know if there's an opportunity for us if there are kids who or their parents can't afford to get them in little League. If that's something we can help sponsor, we want to try to get more kids. That's why we give them. What we do is we give them the money for the equipment so that they can take that money, that we save them and use that for the sponsorships for the kids. So for instance, they they got a $5,000 piece of equipment that they buy with their money by us sponsoring that with the youth sports things and that gives them some of the discretionary money to do the scholarships. All of them do scholarships for a kid that helps them, that helps them fund it. So it's really we're doing that. We're just not involved in kids and picking the kid. They they do that well, okay, we'll give you a 5000 set of equipment. You counteract that by supporting your and keeping going, your, scholarship, your lesser fees, your free fees for people who can't afford it, that's that's the main purpose of your money to do that with. Okay And there are a couple of projects that and they're minor projects. They're not necessarily projects that need to be, have these big budgets for that. We'll talk about during capital improvement. I'm always going to support an increase for, for the employees here. And this, you know, for the city, you guys do a lot. And, with the inflation and everything going up, I think 5, at least where we need to be to help keep it competitive for everyone, as of right now, I don't have any more questions for the general fund. So you're done. Okay, Commissioner Eisner, thank you, thank me, thank you, thank you. Yeah. Not yet. Commissioner Koulianos. Go ahea. So my first question, Ron, if you don't mind, have we budgeted for the available jobs that we have up on the board? Oh, yeah. They're all budgeted in there. Okay, so, like, I know when, we had a situation that came about where, you know, a employee is not hired, and there was an asking to have it redistributed. We have all that in here, right? Right. All vacant positions are in the budget. One thing that did concern me, and I know this is just going to be a statement. It's not a question because there's no real question with it. But I had noticed that the, the comp you know, the worker's comp and the liability and all that was just literally excessive on everybody. I mean, of course it's a course for all the residents as well. But it was very excessive, you know, and you're guessing at it, right? It could even be more than the 10% correct. Yeah So that was just, more so a concern, I had a question. I don't know if you can answer this, but, some of the comments in this manual here has things like, operating supplies or, special pay things like that. Is there any place that I could get all the definitions of, all of the things that we can get that for you? Okay, because it has things like, operating supplies or, and it's just it's very vague. So I see large increases on them, and I just don't know if that's, you know, put aside for emergency funds or what they're going to. And within each department, each department, I might have different operating supplies. Finance has different operating supplies from public works, but we can get you the list of that along with what comes under special. But just to give me an overview of what and possibly the rest of the board might want, I don't know. I'm not. I don't want to speak for them, but, you know, knowing what what some of those things are, we've got a document upstairs which goes through each one of those and making sure when our department, when finance is checking, making sure everything is charged correctly, they look at this document to see where it's falling so we can get you that. Okay. Let's see. I did want to make a statement because the, code enforcement, showed a 30% increase and, some of that, you know, it says salary change. It says, you know, the health insurance, but it's also a we push for communication to let people know that they're in violation, but I also put a little notation here that when we as a board get up and, are trying to negotiate a, or renegotiate a penalty to definitely consider the fact that we have these expenses. So it wasn't a question. It was more so a statement to the board, because I know there are you know, we all have big hearts about trying to help, you know, residents out, but it's costing more and more, to make people aware of what's going on. Yeah. I think with that position, it was vacant last year. We had it budgeted at the minimum, but they have since hired a full time position. Right? Not at the minimum. Okay. That's pretty much all I had. I mean, I was just concerned, like I said, with the no. That's good insurance. That's it, that's good. Yeah. All that's we're going to be finding out about that a little while. What what would be the time frame as far as insurance goes? Not just the property but the health insurance. When we find out the increase, it's usually about the first part of August. I don't think any later than mid-August we'll know. So we'll we'll get it before the final budget document is put together. Okay. That's hopefully it comes in less. I might free up some money. Hopefully it doesn't come in. We've got our consultant and we're looking at of course, United Health Care and we've got gearing group that goes into this as well okay. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Koulianos. Commissioner Koulianos, I heard you. I'm harassing you. All right? I enjoy it. So, so I have just some general random questions. I have most of my questions are going to be for capital, but, trying to figure out how to do this here. So the, The. I'm sorry. I'm in trouble with getting this thing here. We go. Now, I got it. Okay So, again, these are random. So worker's comp, you said it's going up ten. You've got 10% increase in worker's comp, but you only have a 5% increase in a wage increas. So have you been are our worker's comp rates going up? Additionally? Yes, they're going up to 10. There's a different worker's comp rates for each time a type of employee. What they do. So yes they've got the 10% across those versus I can say the 5% for the pay increases. So if you say it's going up 10, that includes the 5% increase in wages, because that would bring worker's comp up. Correct. And then you think there's also a rate increase. The 5% rate increase affects worker's comp okay. All right. And we've been notified that you know that that's coming the 10. Yeah No that's a it's an estimate. All these insurances are estimated because I was looking at different worker's comp rates. And the vice mayor would know more about this than I do. But the, I was looking at clerical office and it's gone down three years in a row from 0.16, 0.15, 0.13. So I don't know, it's that it's not a big deal, but we're just you know, we're just going through this, on the, the water and sewer fees, the 3.75% you said per ordinance. When was that ordinance passed, back when we had the rate study. Well, well, last year, it's been a couple for about October. It went before the board, which did the 9.9% increase. That was effective December first, 2023. And then the 3.75% for October 1st, 2024. It will go into effect then. Right. But wasn't there a decision made several commissions ago to have a consistent 3.75% increase every year, what they had was a 2.7. So after the 3.75 is a 2.75, after that, 3.75. Okay. So they were supposed to be a consistent increase of you say 2.75. Right? Okay. And then one of the commissions decided rather than follow that they lowered it by what, 2? Oh you're going back a couple of years when the rates are reduced. Yeah. Because they reduced it. That went down 4.7. 2. If you had the 3.2 or 3 that it should have gone up. That's where we had to do the big make up last year. Right Correct. So this 3.75, this is, Thomas Kiger. Question is that going to be sufficient to maintain our reserves as we needed to with that rate increase we had last year? Or are we going to get a surprise, we're not planning on any surprises currently. We adopted a two year rate plan. It's very difficult when you're sort of planning out of a little bit of a crisis, you know, so this year we had a catch up year on our CIP. We were cleaning up old projects that had been on the books for a few years, and it looks like we're going to be roughly in the ballpark to build. We're going to maintain our 3.75% increase this year. That should be sufficient to fund our, operations and continue to rebuild the, the fund balance, we do have a few large projects like Becket Bridge that are very much, you know, up in the air right now as far as costs. But we're looking at some grant opportunities, and we're going to be doing a full rate study to look at long term where we need to be to support our full capital program over time. But the 3.75 you're saying should be efficient, sufficient to keep us on track? Yes, we seem to be on track roughly with where the previous rate study had us as far as operational expenses and capital expenses, and we're able to work within that. For now. We have had to push a couple projects around and we're working on our priorities. But we're focused on the fund balance right now and long term, we'll Dexter will come back with an updated CIP with updated cost estimates and, a plan for funding those projects long term. Thank you. The on health insurance, the increase, the 10% in, 10% increase. Is that consistent with the increase from the budget 20, fiscal year ended 23 to 24. Is that consistent? What the actual increase was? Yeah. Do you I'm sorry to put you on the spot while you're looking up that question. Last year, health insurance increased, 7. 7. Okay So you you're estimating ten. So you could be a little high, correct. If things stay consistent with 23 to 24. Remember our that's where our gearing group was probably been one of our our best decisions make it was higher. It was probably up I think even maybe beloved Gary negotiated down to the 7. And hopefully if we get the price this year, gearing gearing will do the work that we employ them for. And try to get it down further and stuff. So this is where the gearing group and the decision by this board to have them in, they, they save us, you know, more than we pay them, they, they've proven so far so I think what I'm trying to establish is that, that this budget is, has is conservative in nature. Right. Because you're it could be a 7% increase. You're figuring in a ten, you know, you're you're you're building in a little bit of buffer in there. But the 10% has been good across all of them. Health insurance, property insurance, liability insurance. I don't know if you remember, but we had a big increase in property insurance last year. So we had savings and health insurance, but we were able to use use that and put that towards the increase in property insurance. Okay And I know this may be a you may not have this off the top of your head, but, how much did we save in unfilled positions last year? If you, if you compare budget to what we actually spent in positions, how much did we save in unfunded, unfilled positions? You know, we've had a lot of times I used to be able to count on having a, you know, six, seven, eight vacant positions, but it hasn't been like that the last couple of years. And except for my department, I've got a couple I know department. Yeah, but you don't have a citywide I know when, we talked about that the in the Mr. You're asking about about that one position that $88,000 position that was unfunded, so but you don't have a number citywide of what our savings are for unfilled positions. No. But, you know, if you're getting to, like, in the general fund, how much do we spend versus what we end up during the year? We're usually at like 98.5 to 99. So we maybe we come under budget by 300, 300 to 400,000. In the general fund. All right. But I'm not sure if that's what you might be looking for that that is exactly what I'm looking for. Okay All right. That's it for now. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner DiDonato. Well, one thing about being last, most of the questions already get asked, so that's that's good, I don't know if the city manager or. Ron, you. I know that the city established a health clinic for employees to go to. So it was to aid his. Has has there been any any way to really look, I know initially he can't because you don't know. But after these amount of years that we've been doing that, it seems like we should be able to parlay that into our health insurance costs and workers compensation, and I just wondered if we know if that had any effect in helping to lower the overall health insurance, from what I understand, it has, but I'm not sure if that might be more of a question for I don't know, I guess I don't know who to ask here. Unfortunately, Miss Kniffen had had an accident and wouldn't be. Has not been able to be there tonight, but she'll be at when she's here for the second meeting. We can save all the a lot of those HR questions we can save for their. Okay. I just don't know. I want to know how it ties in to health insurance. For one, it seems like it should help to lower the cost. And two, on worker's comp, it seems like it should actually help in the treatment of those worker comp injuries, so it should be able to lower our rate. And I wonder if that's that's actually what's happening. If not, then we need to look at that so that that's that's basically my only additional on top of what's already been discussed. But I'd like to know that I have that down for Miss Kniffen to be able to answer for you. Yeah. The one thing that, I know the employees we've been with United Health Care for, I want to say a number of years, and that seems to be the preferred carrier. And they we try to do everything we can to accommodate. And we've been lucky so far. But, Mr. Gehring associates have always been. Every year they warn us, and we've been lucky that United Health Care has been reasonable in that. So I'm hoping that's going to be the case. This year. And, and also, I think that there's been some, discussions with, Advent Health, at least annually about with that contract with the, the clinic out on the highway is every three years. Ron, is that correct? Correct. So we just started that three year contract last year, I believe. Correct? Yeah. So another two years Advent Health may be interested in, providing the same there was one before that too wasn't there. Pardon me. Yeah. I just wanted to know I want to know that it's helping. If it's not helping, then we need to look at it. So all I'm saying. Yeah Okay, all right. Do you want to move on to the capital improvement program or. What's next, I'm not sure of the employees there. We've covered. We covered almost two is the department budgets, general fund. I know some of the questions are relate to both of his his presentation there. So yeah, this section usually all the part if there's any specific you have tonight of any of the department heads, most of them except some with last minute couldn't be here. Most of them are out out here. So this is usually a step where, this next one. Number two, before we get to the capital projects. And again, I know some of the questions to individuals were asked here, but if there's any other questions on their individual budgets, this is the time to ask that. Yeah. For, for myself, just speaking for myself on this first meeting, I generally take a broad stroke and look at the revenues and the expenditures and look at just some basic stuff, I do know that the departments do a pretty good job of, managing their own departments and they I know you your favorite one of your favorite wards is. No. So, I'm happy about that too, I guess. And, so I don't really have anything, specific. But I was just going to add in. I know we just finishing up the general fund, I'm sure what you think, but I know two members of the budget advisory Committee are here, they had a couple recommendations that, you know, they looked through the budgets for, like, say, those 2 or 3 days, and they came up with a couple recommendations. I know Miss Howard is here, and I'm not sure if this this is a time that you if you want her to come up and we have that wish list right for each department has a wish list of things that they can't fund for this year. Yes. Yeah So I mean, honestly, I think it's a little too early to start looking hard at each of the departments. The main thing is that we deal in a kind of a more sober way with our employees that, not not to cut ourselves short and, somehow that's it's a little different because we, we have to have operating supplies, cost and materials are going up, but also we're increasing the number of areas that we need more hands to do work, I guess. And all the departments went through the Budget Advisory Committee for those individual things and stuff there. And but this may be a good time. We bring them up for their two, their, their two, because they're, they're considered part of the staff and the budget process though. So this might be a good time. They've got two. One of them's going to affect the item on the agenda about the millage rate. And stuff there. So there might be a time to have Miss Howard come up and just tell you the two recommendations and stuff. Okay. Thank you. Here or there, wherever you'd like. Oh, just come right here, then. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor. Commissioners. I'm Christy Howard, and I proudly serve on the budget advisory Committee, and I'm here to represent the committee on behalf of our chairperson, Donald Bergman, who was unable to make it tonight. We have two recommendations. First, the first recommendation is on the unassigned fund balance. The Budget Advisory Committee recommends to the Board of Commissioners that 1% of the prior fiscal year's budgeted expenditures be set aside in a line item to increase the unassigned fund balance for the next five years. There is a concern that the unassigned fund balance is expected to fall to 24% in the 2025 fiscal year budget. The dollar amount in the unassigned fund balance has increased slightly over the past five years. However, as our annual expenditures steadily climb year over year at an average of almost 6, the percentage has fallen from 3,032% in 2020 to the expected 24% next year, while the mandated minimum is 20% and we are over that at 24. We have concerns that there is too much potential that our current trajectory will have us dangerously close to that minimum, and we might be forced to take reactive and drastic measure measures in just a couple of years to be able to keep the balance over that minimum threshold. Okay, and then the second, let's talk about the first one first, and then let's see if the commissioners have any questions. I have a question is 1% of the entire budget or the general fund for, we have it listed as 1% of the prior year, prior fiscal year's budgeted budgeted expenditures. So the general fund, I think that would be the it's the general fund. We have a fund balance policy that we have 20, the 20% minimum of the general fund expenditures. That would be about 250,000. The 1% or two, two 1% of 1% of the budget is 35 million. So if you're looking at 1, you're talking 350,000. Okay, so the way that has looked over the past five years, we had, in 2020, eight point roughly 8.5 million in the unassigned fund balance, which was 30, 32. So we were in good shape in terms of over the minimum of 20. We'd like to be at 25. That would make everybody a lot more comfortable. Instead of dipping down to that minimum threshold, so we were looking good at 32. And then over time, the balance has gone from 8.5, 8.7, 8.6, 8.6. Because like Ron said earlier, he hasn't had to go into that fund, but we also haven't added anything to it. And so but as our expenditures go up, we're just not that that 8.6 million just isn't what it used to be. So I think everybody felt good at 32. But now 24% doesn't feel as good. Okay, let me see. Anybody else have any comments, you know, is that something to, talk about with the city manager or. I mean, yeah, I mean, I that's what I would like to do. I think it's a, it's a, I was wondering about that. About how much, our, our, reserves have increased over time, and I doubt that they've increased. I know we haven't taken money out of them, but on the other hand, we don't know that they've increased that much either. So that's a very good observation, and I guess you want to talk to each of us and privately and get a sense of what? Yes, Commissioner. You want to say anything or. Yeah. Yeah, so I think what Miss Howard's saying is that the even though the numbers staying consistent as our overall, as our overall, revenues increase, the, the percentage is dropping. So as our expenditures increase. Yeah, yeah. As our expenditures increase. So we have to, I mean, Ron, I mean, we could we could test this out with your, you know, do do a what if test on your, in your, in your system of, you know, let's let's do a quarter percent 50, half a percent, 75% and then a 1% and let's see what that means. And because we have to know, how is that going to affect the bottom line of all your, of all your budgets. So I think it'd be nice to test it. And maybe if we if we can't go to 1% increase, maybe we can, we could find, you know, a half a percent or whatever, that would still kind of help edge towards, that safety buffer that they want. So I'd like to know what that number is and how it affects the whole budget. So I think we could talk about it as we go through this process. Well, I think, you know, the city manager and I talked about this in this current year budget. So we do have money set aside in the current year budget to fund the increase. I think it's roughly 350,000 to increase the from the 8.7 million to about 9 million is our plan. That's not built into your budget. Is it built into your budget now? It's built into this current year budget. And we also have money built into the budget we're working on tonight at 1. Yes. Okay. It's already done then. It's already in these numbers. We've talked with him and we've recommended it, but I do I do want to point out much to something that, I the mayor said earlier, was that in a couple of years we don't know where these values are going to be. And things like that. And as we, we, we kind of I think during the budget process, we kind of anticipated maybe a 5% increase on the property values and ended up being 9. And so we've we've spent that money. Right. Like so we've said, okay, we're going to have 9% instead. Let's now the budget balances nicely. We're spending all the money. Well if those things don't continue, it feels like we're building this world where in a couple of years, if we don't do this, we're going to be in a position where we're gonna have to make some hard choices because we're going to be closer to that 20. And maybe our values aren't where they are. And we've we've gotten used to this always getting a I want everybody to get those raises consistently. But if we don't kind of plan now and kind of anticipate that and then we get those increases in property values and then they're not there, it's difficult choices later and then we'll be up against the wall in the 20% we have to meet. Yeah you go below the 20, then you have to budget whatever to bring it back up to the minimum within two fiscal years. So you heard them and you've incorporated into your budget, correct? Okay Good. Okay. Anybody else for Miss Howard? Go ahead Commissioner. Well, I don't have it for you, Miss Howard, but don't you have this money invested in high interest earning to bring us up to snuff on that? Well, yes, we have the money invested, mostly, we're earning about five, five, between 5 and 5.5% currently. And that still would not be keeping up with what Miss Howard had said. Well, we budget for the for the interest earnings that that which also funding all the other services within there. But that also helps out with that 1% funding that we're putting in. I mean, it's something that we do have to, discuss because I don't want to put, you know, us in a precarious way, the other thing that I mean, I'm happy to speak about this afterwards, but I don't know if the market is going to stay the way it is, but we do have to prepare in case it doesn't, but I thank you for bringing this all up, and I would love to speak, you know, with the city manager about this and what we as a board would like to keep you know, in reserve and also staying above that, you know, that threshold. Miss Howard, you want to do for number two, anything else on number one? You know, can I ask something, Vice Mayor, Mr. Herring, what was the last time during the budget season, we did put money back into unassigned funds, we basically, we've kept it right around. It's gone from hovered between 8.6, 8.7 and 8.8 million. The last six, seven years. Okay So I think it's important at some point, even if it's not the 1, we try to, make an attempt to try to add the unassigned funds. So I'm happy to see them point that out regarding it all. Thank you. I remember the whole issue was not to take money out of the not the increase that that's in the past commission. So, yeah, just highlighting again that as, as our expenditures continue to grow year over year and they are going up at a steady pace, then that that 8.6 million doesn't really mean anything. It's all about the percentage. Okay, Miss Howard, anything else on number one? No. Okay. If you'd like to proceed. Yes, number two, recommendation number two is the millage rate, that the budget advisory recommends to the Board of Commissioners that it keep the millage rate the same at 5.37. The property values have increased at a brisk pace the last few years, and that is enough. Increased burden on the resident property owners. Okay, that that is all I have. I think for me that's probably a given. Given, rather than reducing it right. Yeah. Not increasing it. Okay Got it, anything on that for Miss Howard and the Budget Advisory Committee? Okay. I think that one is an easy one. Thank you, Miss Howard, city manager, of course. Oh, and again next. Next meeting. Next Tuesday. You'll you'll set the maximum rate, which our recommendation is the stay the same, which is the maximum rate we go. You will do that at your meeting Tuesday night. Next Tuesday is the maximum rate is going to be the 5.37 or the one that. Okay Yeah. There was some other number we always play with. Five point. What's, what's the other term called. It's the millage rate that keeps you at the same level from the previous year. The rollback rate rollback. What's it called? Rollback Rollback. We're not talking about that. No okay. All right. Thank you. Next So now if the if there's anything if there's nothing for and again we got plenty of time between the next meeting. That gap is a good gap between the three. If you got anything all the department heads are readily available. As you look at, because I know you, you just you haven't had your books very long to look in depth again, so plenty of time the next three weeks, before the next meeting and stuff. So we'll be ready to if you're ready, we're ready to go on to the capital projects number three. The only thing I want to say is, since y'all are all here, I've always thought, this this actually my last budget. So I just want to tell you all that. I've always thought you've done an excellent job in in your budgeting. And, sometimes things pop out and stuff. Sometimes we I know that there's always a need to have more than than what is, than what is actually given, I guess at the budget. But. Well, sorry about that. Sorry I know that's always the case, but I've never had an issue with the departments having been in, city manager courses, shoes. I know how hard it is to keep things going, but on the other hand, you know, it's also our job to make sure that you have everything you need so you don't wind up, creating a problem for yourself. And mostly creating a problem for the residents and all of a sudden, it's something that we should have handled, later, rather than just sticking our heads and saying, thinking that things are going to go away. So I just wanted to thank you all for one being here and number two, for doing the job that you do. Anybody else want to say anything? Absolutely. Okay City manager, of course. It's up to you with what you want to do. We'll go to number three capital projects then. Did you want to leave everybody here? The department heads. Oh, they may have some capital projects in there. You may have some questions on. So if anybody doesn't have a capital project thing, then then you can go, which is only a couple probably. Thanks for reminding me. I think last year I they sat through the whole thing and I could have let them go and they reminded me afterwards, thanks for remembering. Okay, we're into capital. I will give you a brief overview of all the capital, also called CIP, within the and within the 2025 budget. We've got 12.7 million of capital in the budget, the biggest dollar amount is physical environment at almost 7.6 million, highlighted in yellow there, physical environment is mostly all your water and sewer projects and some stormwater projects coming in. Second is public safety at 4.2 million, then we got cultural recreation at 499,000. Transportation 415,000. And then general government 16,000. This slide is public safety. Just breaking down all the 4.2 million that's at the police vehicles. Police radio system, microwave system for the police fire staff vehicle. The final amount needed for the construction of space Station 70 fire. The 2.2 million fire bunker gear, 170,000. They wanted to put it in a Ada handicapped ramp lift at the cultural center, 10,000. And we got the debt service on the two fire trucks and all that public safety told us a 4.2 million, then we got the transportation category with annual sidewalks, 100,000 street paving, 150,000 brick street and road reconstruction, 150,000, and then some money for a Marina piling replacement and the total transportation is 400. Almost 416,000. And then when the cultural recreation we got Sunset Beach pavilions, 50,000, community center improvements, 100,000, which, where it's grant funded, some work on the Greg Park back patio, 7500, at the golf course. They need an irrigation pump for 17,000. And then the design and permitting for a new clubhouse at the golf course for 325,000. And cultural recreation totals 499,000. And then all the water and sewer projects, additional CIP for costs for underwater 30,000 raw water, well construction 866,000. Well rehab 210,000. Hydrant improvements 110,000. Utilities for other projects 200,000. Those are projects that might come up during the year and they need some money for those projects. Lead and Copper Rule Management 50,000 metallic water line replacement 200,000. And then there's the Becket Bridge utility replacement water and sewer lines, a 3.9 million meter change out upgrade program, 153,000 sewer system improvements, manhole and sewer line, 300,000 manhole lining, 110,000. Utilities for other projects. Sewer related. 200,000 aeration basin. Concrete rehab 400,000. Triplex Bisulfate. Pump skid 30,000 CLT analyzer 10,000 a blower for 20,000. Capitalized repairs 20,000. Force main pigging program 120,000. Lift station. Pump rehab 103,000. Station rehab at Eryphus 152,000. Dixie Lift Station. Electrical rehab 92,000. And that totals 7.3 million and the last part is, physical environment, stormwater. We've got city pipelining 150,000 replaced two Godwin pumps, 128,000. And then electronic message board 16,000 for a total storm water of 294,000. And that's the final. What I've got on the all the capital that's in the 2025 budget. Okay. I have some questions. There's a couple of projects and maybe they're there, but I don't see them. The how are we dealing with the budget in terms of the cops and kids center, the new building. I don't see it listed, but I know we're we're doing the design on it. Right, right. But we don't have any anything in here one way or the other for actually construction. No Because we don't have the money. Right. Okay. And we're again, we're in the process of looking for grants or, or doing some, but we're getting the design. So because we need to be ready if we do, if the, if there's a grant available, having design puts us far up the line. But that's something we have to talk about in the future for the actual building. But it's important that we do have in here, the design of it. So we've got a ready made shovel in the ground project, if you mean for the design and everything. Yeah. Okay. So that money is taken care of and that. No, no. And that's okay. I was just. I mean, it's a shame that we can't, maybe this is something that Commissioner Koulianos, you know, as far as your long term funding, but I'll let you talk about that. The, Craig Park. I'm sorry. Spring Bayou sidewalks. That's another one. The phase two. We don't see that anywhere. Right No, but phase one is already funded, yes. Correct. Is that right? Yes. I mean, in previous, the only thing for phase two that's funded is, is a design. Phase two is what the design portion for phase two is funding. Yeah. Is funded. Okay. But that's the same as the Cops and Kids Center were dealing with. That's probably number two on the list of items. If we're looking and I'm not stealing thunder from Commissioner and the one and the one that I know that's not going to get started on until I'm out of office, which is the Athens Street, Dodecanese. Me and you both stormwater me and you both project. I don't see anything else. Any of the other intersections or, you know, that's four point something million that we're looking at spending for one intersection that again, I don't really believe is going to, satisfy what everybody's thinking the objective is, and that's to keep the street from Bob to come to that Mike. And just real remember, I've been saying for months that we are we need to come back to the commission meeting, and we're waiting for a few things. Bob. What what is the approximate date now that we're going to have all the information that we need to give the board so we can start work on the decision, if we're not going to do it or again after we're both out of office, that you're going to do it, when is that? We can bring all those facts to the board. I know you're waiting for a few things, so they have all the information. Any idea when that is, to bring it as soon as we can possibly bring it to the board. The one thing we're waiting on right now is, the response from the state on the grant funding. We do have an application. It was shortlisted as a high priority project. I expect sometime this fall we'll hear more information about that. So when we do get information about the grant, that's when we come back and talk to the board about how how much is the potential additional money for that. It's 3.3. 4 million. So it closes that gap. Yeah It closes the funding gap. I know I, I, I mean I can understand that. But the thing that I'm thinking about is that, we it two points. One, I understand building it is easy getting the money building it is easy. But there's this impression out there that it's going to solve problems. And I don't think that that's it's going to be it's kind of a communication and understanding of what our objective is and formalizing it and making sure that residents understand what it is, you know, we're we're spending we're asking them to spend five and $5.25 million on a piece of property that has got multiple uses for it and everything, and but but that's money that, you know, is we're changing it from cash to real estate. That's always going to be there. But now we're talking about 4.75 and maybe even something more once it's out to bid for achieving something that isn't going to solve the problem in most in most situations, other except the time, except when there's, unless we do something more, I guess. But then that's the other part. What is that more that you have to do, except the time when it's raining and you've got a king tide. That's the only time that'll work. But then that means that the water can't be over the seawall anyway, right? And this is a very limited, you know, when we get to more detail on the project, we need to see it as a phase of a first phase where other things we need to address are, further west down the street, as you and I have talked about, and raising the sea walls across the board on the sponge docks, those are things that take a lot of time and this could be seen as a first step, especially if we get it 100% funded. Yeah. I think the key was that, what is our objective to keep water out of the stores or to keep water out of the stores and the streets? It's you can't do both. I mean, one is really, really expensive to do or just to satisfy this. And that's the part that we need to talk to because honestly, obviously, since I'm not going to be here, whoever is going to be here is going to have to deal with the public when they come forward. And please don't say it was vatikiotis idea because it wasn't my idea, that, we spent an awful lot of money. We're really not achieving anything, and we've still got the other intersections that we still have to do. We still have to solve the problem at Athens and Dodecanese. So again, I guess you've made my answered my point from the, my question from the standpoint of the budget. We've got this amount of money for this particular location. At least we're waiting for the state, right? Yes, to tell us on that. But then we don't have anything else planned anywhere, whether it's Spring Boulevard and Reed Street or Canal and Spring or whether it's, Dodecanese and Hope Street, the other part is Canal and Roosevelt and all that other stuff. I think the importance of waiting is if we are able to secure that $3 million grant, then we could take our efforts in with our future funding or sun, we could take our efforts to start on those those phase two and phase three, without the $3 million, in other words, other locations. Our job, if we're able to get 3 million to almost completely finance that project, remember we got the 1.7 sitting there from from Congressman Bilirakis that they've been patiently, thank goodness, understanding us extending so 3.41.7 to do that our money and our future a lot and our are those other intersections and us building this one capable of being the start of spreading out and doing the rest of the intersection. That's what the importance of waiting for this money. Otherwise it's, you know, it's a whole different story and stuff. So our efforts, 3 million or more down, would go to those things needed to even see in effect because when was that, time frame that we're looking at? I'm thinking in the fall, it's hard to estimate. We did put the application in just last month for fall. Yeah Okay. At least I'll be able to update. We were ranked. The encouraging thing was we were ranked high. So high. Right. That's the encouraging LMS. Yes okay. That's all I wanted to talk about though. Not so much what you've got in there. It's what's not in there that we talk about up here that I was concerned. Now I understand, Commissioner Eisner, go ahead. Thank you. Mayor. I had a question. Not not so much. I want Commissioner Coleus to make his comments, but, Mark, is this a good time to bring up what I was bringing up to you with the regard to the inline pumps? Because I don't think we spoke about that at all. Yeah, this would be fine. Yeah. Okay. Because I know we were speaking about containing the water on the sponge docks and with vaults, but I've asked the city manager to look into inline pumps so that we wouldn't even have to deal with vaults. It's a lot cheaper. It's a lot easier. It's a lot smoother, the downtime is a lot, it's like non-existent. So it involves, you know, we have our duck bills or whatever we have on the outside. And, but they also make inline pumps. So as the water's coming in or if we have rainwater, it just gets pumped out almost like an ejector pump, they're just extremely large. High volume, you know, ejector pumps that we wouldn't even have to have any downtime, so that was something that I am just happy to share with you all now, because I did ask the city manager, to look into that because they are using them in other towns. So I do know that they, they, they've had those, special design pumps that basically drop in place and pull the water up and pump it over the seawall and mobilized. It's on wheels. In other words, it's driven. It's got its own engine and everything. And I think Mr. Funcheon had looked at that. But I think the results were not all that promising from the. That's a portable pardon me. That's a portable. That's portable. You're talking about a I'm talking about permanent installation. Yes. Okay. So it would stay inline and just, you know, remove the water as it's coming in of, of course, if it's going over the seawall, that's a whole nother deal. So, I'm not sure how you want to handle that. No We did. That's something on the list of looking at before. When we come back, when we come back and know all the factors. The other thing, that's something we'll look at to have that information, when we come forward to you all to make the presentation. Okay. Vice mayor, vice mayor, I got anything. Sure. I wanted to follow up, and I want to ask the city manager, can we please have the Spring Bayou main steps? The light poles replaced those, and I know it's a difficult situation. The way those main concrete pieces are. And trying to get the light poles on there again. But can we see that happen during this this year? Because it's one of the focal points of our community. And I'd just like to see those light poles back up. We got it on the list. Okay, I look at it and, the we see a lot of lift stations, being addressed here is, is there a lift station? Was it the Lime Huey lift station? MLK lift station? Is that scheduled to be addressed this year? Thank you. The, again, we're kind of in a catch up year on SIP. That was one of the projects that were. It's a little bit over budget, compared to the original opinion of probable cost, it's, we haven't bid it yet or we did an additional, bid with the, Joc contract to get pricing. Originally, we were planning on that being a $1.2 million project. Once we got through Final Design, it came in closer to 2 million. So. And it was supposed to be largely funded with water, sewer with, sewer impact fees. So we've got a pretty good cost overrun there that we're trying to address, we're hopeful that there's some other funding coming in. We've also been working with Ron on, that might be something we would try to potentially roll in with, debt financing as one option, but we're looking at our options on that. But it's, it's high on the list for priorities, and we want to get it addressed. Thank you, Mr. Kiger, as far as and then we. The, police chief, young I see that we got the police radio system and then the police microwave system for dispatch. Can you just explain the difference between the two? Certainly. The radio systems are handheld radios, they're coming to end of life right now. The fire department went through their cycle this year. We put ours off to next year, the microwave dish is actually something, the assistant chief and Major Mathis are working on right now. We're looking at possibly getting one at a much greater reduced rate, that's an existing one down at Pinellas Park. So we're working that right now with Janina and trying to bring that. And that'll come off that hopefully. building toe signal down south. Okay, okay. So not a microwave burritos. No, no, I didn't think of that either. I just wasn't sure because I said radio and dispatch between the two, but. So we budget for those. It seems like every other year, every few years, but for the radios, the handheld radios, about every ten years, they're about a ten year life cycle on those. All right. I'd forgot to mention what the little league, getting a golf cart for the little League somehow. If that would just have a golf cart over there at the Discovery Park. Because there's not a vehicle for them to move around at all as much. And it seems there's people bringing their own golf carts to officers that you know, the sports complex. Yeah, the football, soccer field. Yes. Yes, please. And that way they could share i. And, I mean, this is my personal pet peeve, I'm not going to lie. And it's not even a capital improvement project. I just came back to my head, the Christmas light decorations we spent $60,000 last year, and I'm not sure we got what we should have got. I mean, I see $8 lights being installed on the poles around spring Bayou, and I'd just like to see if we could get more out of $60,000. What we're getting some. Not the, you know, cheap looking decorations. And I don't think we're getting the best deal that we can from like, other cities are in this program. So yeah, and that's one of our notes too. If there's a little extra to enhance that because the price has gone up. That's one of the things when we're looking at the money as we see these percentages and stuff, maybe a small addition to that. So that's something we'll have later on in the budget for you. If we're able to look at that. No, I think, you know, just the holiday season is one of the best here in Tarpon Springs. And I just want the city to look as grand as possible. So just for, everyone that. I know I see a lot of the line replacements. Just a lot of work that's going to get done this year. No further comments at this point. Okay. Commissioner Eisner, you got any more? Yes, I do, I have one that I think I brought up, to the city manager as well. And I don't see anything in here for us, for the impact fees for Seabreeze and for Bayshore projects. These, are we going to put anything aside for that or just hope for grants? Well, the grants are first. That would be the decision that we we'd have to come right now. There isn't anything, the mechanisms of that would have to be worked on right now we're looking specifically at grants, right? I know we didn't do a we didn't have a vote on it, but it's something that I do want you to look into. And since I don't have the liberty of speaking to the board unless we're doing it in a public venue, then that's why I'm bringing it up now. I also at the same time wanted to share that, I did have another. This is off the beaten path, but it still pertains to stuff that we go through, I did have another, a couple of residents come up and share with me that they were charged $3,900 to hook up on Seabreeze. Which was far fetched from somebody making a comment of 80 yet much. Oh somebody made a comment about it being $80,000 on Bayshore. I just wanted the board to know that when people come up and tell me, I want to share the information, that somebody came up and was very satisfied with 3900 by a contractor to get themselves hooked up to us, to our sewer system. So, other than that, I mean, I really don't have too much. I see that the increases are here because of, they need to be. And, you know, this is a first go round, so I'll hold back and say more later. Your turn, Commissioner. I'm sorry. Yes. Your turn, Commissioner. Koulianos. You want Commissioner to go first? All right. Commissioner Koulianos asked that you go first. I don't really have much. I'm interested in the health care and insurance and property insurance and those things of nature. And we don't have that yet. So. Good. Yeah Mayor, can I follow up? So as we talked about the worker's comp, there's, you know, we come across some umbrella policy and I mean, yeah, we have clerical positions that are really, you know, a dollar 50 for every thousand dollars in payroll for them. And I mean, there's I'm not sure what the employees are who are out in the streets, out in the manholes, who are doing the heavy equipment, operating. But that that does add up. And that, that estimation does include any potential claims in the future that that happens. So, it like like Mr. Herring said, it could be 10, could be below, could be a little bit above, depending on if there are any other claims. So it just wanted to follow up with that. And, as far as, pipe and sewer extension around that, in the city manager's received an email around that 650 East Tarpon Avenue. Seems there's a lot of other businesses that are still on septic. Do we have any plans to try to extend to them regarding sewer at all or. Tommy, do you want to talk a little bit, it's surprising that that area of Tarpon Avenue and stuff for way back and stuff isn't doesn't have access to. I know it's on his his early plans to look at in the future. I don't know how far he's got yet, but, yes, we're we're really heavily focused, on existing infrastructure. Right now. We know that we've got pipe in the ground currently that, you know, we've had to defer replacement of existing infrastructure where we know that we're struggling with, like, you know, local water quality issues. So, there's a there is a property owner in that area that we've been working with, this is a case where someone bought a property that was on septic, is redeveloping it. This is very much we're viewing this as a case where, new development needs to pay for the utilities associated with the new development. Mainly, we're talking about the places where you would think there'd be line, and there's no line. Not just that specific incident, but you'd figure Tarpon Avenue would have have lines available. And we found out there's a lot of places on there along there that doesn't have them. So that's something where we have to look at the future, the main course of some of our areas where you would think would be sewered that end up would not be because there's certainly a surprise to me that wasn't sewer along there. So, as he gets caught up with the existing things he has to do that's on his list to look, you know, where where are those areas to add into the projects, and it may add into when we do the rate study, it may add into, the cost and stuff. But he just got to sign that and stuff. So he just he just started to do the working on that. That's fresh. Yeah. I just want to if it's something that we need to try to budget for to help infrastructure in the area, I'd really like to see it happen, so thank you. Mr. Kiger. Thank you. And, I know we talked about, you know, like those, there's vacant positions at times. And, as we get towards the end of the budget, sometimes those vacant positions are, are used to help move money around for extra budgeting needs for those departments. So, you know, they do serve a purpose. If they're if they're not filled, we understand positions do need to be filled. But it does create a buffer for any budgeting. And as we get closer towards the end of the fiscal year. So I just wanted to bring that up with, the board. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner DiDonato, you you're done. Okay. Commissioner Koulianos. Your turn. Thank you. Let me ask you on, this is, Bob Robertson question, but on Beckett Bridge. When do we when would we have to expend that money for the sewer hookup? Right. So best estimate is, the end of next year is what the county is telling me. So, right now, as you probably know, they included us in their grant, right? For the utility work that we have to do associated with the Beckett Bridge project, the Federal Highway Administration back in June says that the application was rated as highly recommended. So that's encouraging. But I don't know where we are exactly in that time frame. And I don't I can provide more info when I have it, but I don't have a whole lot more. So our expenditure goes at the at the end of their project. So if we get the grant funding then the project will go, well, I'm just talking about the timing of spending the money. Right. So we would have to relocate our pipeline before they start the bridge. Okay, okay. That was that's okay. That's a good answer. Thank you, let me, you know, I've been working with Ron. Well, let me ask Ron one question. You you and I were talking about. And you, you came up, you just started popping stuff off the top of your head of money that you either found or money capital projects that weren't not. We're not going to be spent. And you said, okay, I, you we have something here. We have something here. You were just you were rattling off a whole bunch of things to me, are those items give us give the board a little example of some of the things you were talking about with that, you and I were talking about. Well, you know, we reserved off some money for Kocoras Park, so there was some money that we, you know, I set aside 800,000 for that. But sounds like we're not going to need that money for that. So that was some money that was freed up. Okay, well, just to clarify, we may not need to buy it. We may need it. We may need it for the lawsuit. So it that's going to be all that's going to be a long time. And having to have that money ready for a need that could be into the next fiscal year, could be more likely, would be. All right. So for this budget, this budget year, we could find that extra funds go ahead. Go on with your, another one I think was Orange Street Construction. We talked about that, you know, whatever portion is in the CRA, we've got, you know, in the CRA, we've got some CRA funds. Yeah. Okay, my projection for this year is maybe 1.5 million, unless it's used for something else, because I know we've reserved some money aside, we've talked about parking, so we maybe have 300,000 for parking, there has been the jitney garage out there, too, so there's been money that we budgeted, but we haven't used it yet. So that that was money maybe pay for Orange Street construction from the CRA. Okay, that's a nice lead into our little project that we did. Could you put that up on the screen for us? I broke your thing into two. So we could read it up here, so. Yeah. No, I like it that way. First, let's do that first, so what we got here is, Tarpon Springs is very low in in our debt to revenue ratio, that's highlighted in yellow down. Yeah. And it's bold. They can see it. You want to steer them there. So, right now we are in this budget. We have budgeted debt service of 375,000. Compared to our general revenue of 42 million. So. Right now we have a debt to revenue ratio of 0.89, which is. Which means that out of $100, we're spending $0.89 on, servicing of debt. When you look at the other, I just I have a sample of municipalities here, and, and I tried to I really didn't cherry pick. I was just looking at ones that are close to our either close to our size in our, or, Yeah. I mean, I didn't put, Saint Pete in there. It's just they're just a different. They're a whole different game. So, when you look at, Dunedin has, they're spending $12 out of every 100 on covering debt, new port Richey ten, going down the list. Bellaire 8.7, treasure Island four. Saint Pete Beach four. Pinellas Park three. Oldsmar 2.7. Safety Harbor 1.79. And there's only two that are actually below us. In this sample, Gulfport and Seminole that didn't borrow any money. So, so think about, you know, when we're looking at debt service, finding a healthy spot, where we can, you know, if, if we're, if we postpone a project, let's say cops and kids for example. So if we wanted to fund cops and kids with debt and we're talking about going no more than ten years. So if we wanted to fund that, if we postpone the project, inflation kicks in, right? The projects are going to just be more expensive next year and more expensive the year after that. And if we can borrow money at a rate that's close to the inflation rate, because right now in our calculations, we have here, it's about, you said about 4.25, right? That's the going rate for the for a bank note right now okay. So we can go ten years at 4, 4.25. And if inflation is going at, you know, three and a half, 4 or 5, whatever it's going at, it makes behooves us to go ahead and go ahead with the project, pay the interest instead of having the additional, costs going up by by an equal amount. And we get obviously the, the luxury of having that project to be able to benefit our city can benefit from it earlier rather than waiting 4 or 5 years to save money to do it. So go down to the, the next section. Okay. So what we have here is, is if we look okay, we have our general revenue and I've, I've used three different, debt limits. So if I said if we went to 3, debt service to revenue and then 4% and then 5. So let's look at the 3% first. So if we were at 3, which again, if you went back to that first slide, you'd see that that would, put us a lower than, if most of the municipalities that were on that list. And that means we would have, we could, we could cover, 1.2 million in debt service. We currently have 375 already in our budget. So mean we would have additional debt service, about 100 of 893,000. So what does 893,000 correlate to in actually being able to, do a capital project? So that would be about eight. $8 million worth of capital projects. Assuming that the citizens were to, to approve that Stamos property, which we had already agreed to go on the ten year plan on that, that would free up about $2.7 million in, capacity, of we could fund a project for 2.7 million and still stay in that 3% debt rang, and again, if you go to for if, if, if by chance, the citizens, reject the, the Stamos purchase, well then now we have $8 million in capacity. If we wanted to stay at the under at the 3% or less of debt service. So and again, if we go to 4, you can see how much 1% matters. It means a it means a lot. Because if we go to 4, and we and the citizens approve the Stamos property, that still would give us about $6.5 million in capital projects that we could fund. So if we were in that 3.5, like if we were writing that 3.5% range, we could we could take care of the cops and kids and we could do that now and probably still have some money left over. So, I just wanted to show just and, and, Ronald, pass this around and we can, you can send it to everybody in a, in a PDF or whatever, just to have an idea that if we decided to fund some of these projects that we could do them with, with debt, and we're only talking about going ten years. We're not talking about excessively long debt. And these and you always got to think again, we're doing something now that has I never want to you know, you never want to have debt. There's bad debt and there's good debt. Bad debt is going is charging on your credit card for a vacation. That's bad debt because you're paying on that credit card next year and the year after. You've already used the vacation, doing capital projects that that benefit our community. Going forward. That's that's good deb, like like the mayor says, you know, we got a piece of property in lieu of cash. It's still an asset. And I think we can convert. We can we could do some more things, and yet still have a very healthy, balance sheet. And our, and our debt to revenue ratio would be very under, very manageable. So I just wanted to show that as, as an example, because we really are very low compared to the other municipalities in how much we borrow, again, for capital projects, can I follow up? Yeah, yeah, I was going to ask city manager, I mean, we were talking about the ten year financing anyway for whatever, 693,000. Was the, the debt, the debt service. Right. Per year? Yeah. Is that correct? Yeah. For stamps. But what about this other stuff? What were we planning on? We have to do that this fiscal year, right. If the property is approved by the, by the voters, the 5.25 million, we have to actually do the ten year debt this year, this fiscal year? Yes, because we have to close on the property before the end of the year. So and, so and I recognize we don't have that in the budget yet because we've got to wait till the residents decide that in November. Right, right. Okay. And then we do a budget resolution. Would we, and so the timing for perhaps picking up on what, Commissioner Koulianos is saying, as far as additional debt, we would talk about when maybe the late summer, early fall. I mean, we have to kind of I think probably during this budget process, you need to identify those things that are important and its value of doing them now and having the cops and kids center, maybe phase two of you need to look at what those lists, the prioritizing the priorities, that we keep using. So here's a list of them. They're probably more than you can do, but here's what they cost. And then when you're looking at this, if you're thinking of going to one, you see the money that it gets you with. And without the stamp of this property, and I believe under the ten years, no matter what it is, it doesn't go to referendum. Correct. As long as you keep it under ten years and under. So it's not something you have to go to a march referendum to, or we got to pay stamp this by December. So, you know, it's a problem. So it can be done as you're going through this budget and you identify if you identify things. Listen, we really need we don't have the money in the budget. We don't want to wait and we want to get it done. Factoring in with the stamps we'd factor in, you know, here are the projects. Here's how much they cost. We can fund one, two and three. And, you know, possibly four, because there are priorities that this board decides, that would be one way to do it. Go ahead. Well, that's why I led off with that question about what items do we have budgeted that, you know, those are the things that he found where those are additional funds that have been in our budget that don't we may not be spending, which could cover probably all this debt service. So and it definitely would cover the debt service on that property. So Right, no. And but what I was getting at was a timing, I don't know how long it takes to get a ten year bond issued and done, packaged and everything, I guess, is what I'm getting at. So we need to kind of back up from that if we're going to take that approach is which. So that's tell them the timing that we're figuring just for the stamps. It's not a bond though. We're talking about we're not talking about a bond. We're talking about a bank loan. Yes Okay. The ten year bank note when I got with our financial advisor the day after the, if the voters approve it, we'd be sending out the RFP, we give them about three weeks. I think the date was we'd have the RFP back by by November 22nd. 23rd. Review them, I believe by the middle of December, I think it was December 14th. We would have we would select whoever the low bidder for the low interest rate on the bank. Note, we would have the money. According to financial advisor, by December 15th. But we wanted just a little leeway there. So to have it, if you want to close by December 30th and stuff. So, so just a tad over a month between starting the RFP process and having the money available, could we, I mean, I think that, from what Commissioner Koulianos is saying, that even if the stamp is property is turned down, there may be something that we would want to borrow that money and do anyway or else, because right now we wouldn't have any money. That's where that list would come in your top priority is if that left. So you may want to do it okay. That's five. You go to the next 5 million on your your list of this board decides that are priorities. I'm not trying to lead us in one direction. I'm just saying that at some point I think before the November referendum, we should probably have that discussion and proceed, maybe with Miss Lewis on a on RFP package, and then see how the referendum, and have that discussion. If the voters approved, then stamps plus something else. If the voters don't approve, what do we do? Do we do we cancel the bank note or do we continue on and do something else with it? I guess is what I'm getting at. I mean, that's the kind of discussion I'm talking about. Yes. So, so that would be sometime probably in the August time frame. August. September, do you think? Yes, I think so. And the RFP would, you, Ron, you said Janina would issue the RFP after the referendum. Yes, the day after. After that Tuesday. I think it's November 5th. On November 6th, the RFP would go out because it'd just be the amount. It changed the amount from what this board decided what the amount would be. Isn't it 15 days? Isn't that cutting? It kind of close? That's what a financial advisor that in his history of doing. And he said, you know, that's plenty of time. Plenty of time. All right. Well we might get it to the banks. Okay. I would know how to explain that to, to people. So, you know, the financial advisor told us we had plenty of time. He's been doing a lot of them. So But anyway, so let's plan on having an agenda item, and, you can get a feel for that. Maybe late August or early September, and then we'll go from there. Is that is that, I mean, did you have anything else? I guess, Commissioner, I just again, I just wanted to just play another slide. No, no, this is the only slide. I just wanted to plant the seed, so you guys have some thought on that, and, and when and I agree, we have to we're going to have to do a what if we're going to have to have, a and B plan on our budget. It's if the if it passes, we go this way. If it doesn't pass, we go that way. But if it doesn't pass, then I think, you know, it opens up the door to cover more capital projects. We have to prioritize the priorities. And that's what we need to do. And yeah, you know, we're committed contractually to, the stamps property, which is what we want to do. But if that doesn't get approved, then what are the priorities that. And when do we next man up? Yeah, right. Next project up. Okay. So All right, let me go. Is there anything else from anybody as far as the capital improvement program goes? City manager, of course. What else you got, in the miscellaneous, we usually anything else you can think of or to give us any direction before the next meeting on the 30th of some information, you may want. Obviously, you don't have to give it tonight. If you come up with it next week or tomorrow or son, just call myself or Ron to look at. But in the miscellaneous section, is there anything else you want research brought to you, that you know of right now before the before the next meeting on the 30th, how how do you want to. I mean, I'm maybe I already know the answer, but how would. It's not so much how you want to do it, but how would you prefer to do handle the extra people that have been asked for, do you want to handle that yourself? First with the departments? Or rather than letting us know what the shopping list is and then us to avoid us getting involved? Yeah, to start with, I'd prefer. Yes. That's good. Okay. All right. That's all I that's all I wanted to and that's I'm comfortable. And again we try to put that into a plan of the three year plan. Maybe this can hold. This can be the next year or the year after. Look at look at look at that. We do need to, we're going to have to make some adjustments to the city manager budget. I would suspect that you're going to be carried out of that as well between whatever. Let's assume, for example, someone's hired, they come October, first or whatever. Then there's going to be three months where you're going to continue on, and then, and then that individual has to be paid. I think we already got some contingency in this budget. Right, Ron. Correct Okay. That's all. Yeah. We we've got some to cover that fact. And, the three months that if it's the October frame, which is a three month period, we've definitely got that. You haven't got that covered. And, all right, commissioners, anything else? Okay. We're done at meeting adjourned at 816. ---------  call to order the special session of the Board of Commissioners of the city of Tarpon Springs on Tuesday, July 9th, 2024 at 4:30 p.m. Roll call please. Mayor Vatikiotis here. Vice Mayor Coleus here. Commissioner Eisner here. Commissioner Collins here. Commissioner DiDonato. Here. Okay, I've got one brief announcement to make. We've got some technical difficulties with our remote access call in, so there's not going to be any remote access comments this evening. The zoom is simply not working. They've been working on it for a while trying to get it up, but for whatever reason, it's not it's not working out. So, Let me go to public comments. Are there any public comments on anything? Not on the agenda. The agenda tonight is for, two parts. One is select some, select the finalists for city manager candidates and als, finish up on the final process on how we would actually select a city manager. Go ahead, Mr. Lucas. Thank you. Relax. 514 Ashland Avenue, I would like to stand up here and commemorate Mark and all the staff from public works parks. Attended the picnic. The patriotic picnic in Craig Park. I haven't seen so many happy faces on kids in a long time. That was nice to see, because so often we get caught up in the big world, and maybe some of us don't have young kids anymore, but to see their faces and enjoying their snow cones and drawing artwork on the courtyard and the music was goo. I don't know who booked the band, but they played a good variety of music. So overall it was a really nice affair and I want to thank all the staff that worked so hard, to put that together. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other public comments on anything not on the agenda, Miss Jacobs, we don't have anything, for emails, right? We do not. Okay, let's go to the agenda then, the special session is to primarily select, some x number of, of final candidates that actually would come to Tarpon Springs and, and tour the city and then, would be interviewed and also interact with the residents further, some months ago we advertised, in a variety of different locations for city manager applicants. We received about 38, 40 something applicants. And, we had two staff members, one Paul Smith, our former public services director, and also Miss Jane Kniffen, our human resources director. Go through those and, determine which ones actually fit the qualifications that we had advertised for and that reduced the number down to I think it was 9 or 10. I'd like to think nine, and so between that nine and to the number that we have today, there's been, a couple of things. One, one of the candidates, one of the nine that selected had gotten an appointment somewhere else. And then a couple of them, we required them to, allow us to do background investigations on each of them. There was a release form that needed to be signed, a couple of them, for whatever reason. I don't think it was a personal, but they didn't, they didn't follow through. And there may have been that they were seeking positions elsewhere as well, or maybe got a other position so that reduced the number to five. The ones that we have this evening, which are, Joseph Gore, Thomas Hutka, Patrick Jordan, Douglas Maxeiner, and Charles Rudd, with these five, and this was reduced to five. The next step was to actually, have the staff, do their own interview as a combination of, department heads. Assistant department heads, directors, sat in and they each, I believe was five questions posed five questions to each of the, candidates. And those were video recorded and those were, put on our city manager link for the public to see, at their convenience, which, is there. I think all of us have seen those and, and I think it was very telling. I think our staff did an excellent job. And one of the purposes was to get a sense from them and also kind of introduce them to, perhaps seeing a new face here after the, at some point in the future, let's say as early as in early fall to as late as December, so that, that was all achieved. So the next step was and I and I think some of the commissioners have discussed this with, those, I'm hoping all of the commissioners discuss those with, perhaps the city manager, maybe other staff to get a sense from them of how they felt about the candidates. So here we are this evening. We've got the five and, we are going to, I would think, talk about how many of these were going to interview. I was going to say, I'd like to, think about reducing that number to some other lesser number. You know, we the last time we went through this, we had three finalists. But by the time we, got to where we interviewed them here in Tarpon Springs, one had obtained a job. And so we wound up with two. I'm not sure how the commission feels or on the number that we should we should look at. I, I think the sense I got was and also from my personal perspective, there's at least three that I'm very comfortable with, actually three that I'm very comfortable with. So, one approach to pick those finalists is actually, go down, by seniority and name, first of all, I'd like to hear from the commission of whether, they would want to reduce that to some number, of, of individuals. My preference would be to three, vice mayor, what do you have a preference? Three, Commissioner. Three. Commissioner DiDonato and three. Okay So then, what we'll do and Miss Jacobs, if you can keep tabs on this to get the three, so let me just start out myself. The, the three that I have is, Douglas Maxeiner. Joseph Gore and Charles Rudd and vice Mayor Kolody. Those are my exact three two mayor. Those are my three as well, those are my three as well. Same three. Okay is that a hard calculation to make? All right. So, I say we argue this out. Pardon me? I say we argue this out. I'm kidding with you. That's okay, so the three that we would, ask to come to the city is, Douglas Maxeiner, Joseph Gore, and Charles Rudd. Now, I, Mr. Smith, did you have an, if I may, did you have an opportunity to speak to the commissioners of the update that you provided me today? So they're aware that one is a finalist at some other location? Is that right? Okay And, that doesn't seem to bother anybody, so I'd like to extend that invitation to that individual as well. If you recall, he's the one that was moving to Florida. But the location that he's entertaining is somewhere north because, you know, it was cold. But we'll see. So maybe maybe we can entice them down here if that's the way it works out. Okay So, I'd like to have a motion to accept. Douglas, Max Unger, Joseph Gore, and Charles Ruud as the three finalists to invite to Tarpon Springs for the next step. So moved second, roll call, please. Can we get to comment on this? He wants a public comment. You want to make a comment? Go ahead. You never asked you before. Go ahead please. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Peter LAX, 514 Ashland Avenue. It's good to see unanimity on the board in fact, those were my three choices. If you go by your first criteria of someone Icma, that knocks out Hutka and Jordan right off the bat, and the other three, as I listened to their interviews, I listened to them all at least twice. Some of them three times. I got the resumes. I went through them. I went through the resumes. As I was watching the video. I think these three give you an opportunity to have quality people come in. But the thing that I liked about these candidates is their approach as far as how to mesh in with the city and staff, and to me, that's going to be the one of the most crucial things you're going to have to look at as far as the person you're bringing in there, the way they've explained or when they have further interviews, their process as to how to integrate themselves with the staff and how they. Because I heard a lot of nice things. Collaborative, authentic humility, servant leadership. Not micromanaging. And I like that a couple of them stressed that they want to go out in the field and meet all the employees, and some of them coming from small towns like they described, where it was like 1500 people. And you really know your neighbor, then how you learn how to get in touch with the people. And I think these three candidates offer, the best solutions for us. So I welcome, that they are able to attend hopefully sooner than later. So we have a chance to look at all three of them, please let them know as soon as possible. So if the one considering to leave, I don't know which one it is or where to go. Doesn't matter, you know. Knows that tarpon is still an open door for them, I appreciate the time that Paul Smith and Miss Kniffin went through to accomplish this, their five questions were spot on. It wasn't overbearing. It was a little hard to get follow up information once I realized you know, there were interviews I had to call in and get referred to where to find it. And then, I wanted resumes and I guess supposedly those were public records. So again, openness, transparency and ways to make it easier for us to find this information. But I highly applaud the three selections you've made, and I welcome their visit to further discuss their opportunities and potential, for serving with tarpon and growing with it. Also, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other public comments? Katie Taylor, 1991 Douglas Lane, Tarpon Springs. I also listened to the candidates and I read the applications as well. I agree with you on the three, but is one I am favoring more so than the other two, and I'm kind of concerned about one, that their probationary period. But to be in a probationary period and was released before that time was up. Kind of concerned about that. And also one, in his conversation, he was more so telling the employees what he would do versus asking their opinion. So one of them leading toward that, he's he sound like an excellent candidate, and I hope he's the one that y'all pick. Yeah. Thank you. Are there any other comments? Okay Did we do we did we did not do roll call. You need a roll call now. Let's go ahead and do roll call. Mr. DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner Collins. Yes, Commissioner Eisner. Yes vice mayor. Yes, yes, mayor. Vatikiotis Yes. Okay, the next item and I'm going to go to public comments first on that is, is the process that we would go through. And I'm, I'm thinking that some of you may have had conversations with Mr. Smith as well. Miss Kniffen, concerning this, one, we would invite the candidates to visit the city of Tarpon Springs over a two day period. The dates that we've proposed, is July 26th, July 27th is one set of dates, or August 2nd and August 3rd, I think the city manager's preference and I don't think that there's an issue, would be July 26th and 27th. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. And, from my perspective, I think the sooner the better, the day one would involve a tour of the city and meet the community. That would be a meet and greet and, the city manager is going to work on a kind of a process for that to try and, and, I discourage, prevent whatever the word would be, that any one candidate's time is monopolized by one individual so that a variety of residents that they choose to speak to the a commissioner or city manager candidate, they will be able to, without somebody just, talk and talk and talking to them and then, and then either in the morning or in the afternoon, vice versa, there would be a tour of the city, and that would be all three of them together in a van with a staff, and the city manager would arrange that as well, day two would involve interviews and, before I go to that one, that one's going to take most of the time the, the day one. I think we're going to leave that if the commission is up to that, leave that with the city manager and Mr. Smith and Miss Kniffen to organize on that. That really doesn't involve us. And as I, for planning purposes, if I discussed with the city manager, really there isn't any need for a city commissioner to be present at that time either. And I would certainly it's your choice of what you want to do, but I'd certainly allow the time for that meet and greet to be taken by the, by the residents rather than any of our commissioners, being there and, and talking to residents about this as well, so day two would be the interviews, which we're going to have a discussion on that. So let me go to public comments concerning the second part, of, which is the actual selection process. Pivotal acts 504 Ashland Avenue, from what I read online and from what you're describing, sounds like a good system, I guess, for the interviews, I'm not really clear. Would you be doing round robins like you set up on the last time where you got three commissioners interview, and then it, you know, floats through the day and then do appreciate the ability to, meet and greet with them. My concern is, is, is I don't know why it can't be set up to be later. I guess maybe there's scheduling issues or to get time to schedule them, but I just would agree with the mayor. As soon as we can get this process in motion, the better we'll be off. Thank you. Okay any other public comments? Is that Atkinson? 621 East Warren Street? I would just ask that the interaction with the communities be sometime, you know, after 5:00 when most people are off work. So that will give more of the citizens time to meet with the prospective candidates and vice versa. Thanks. Yeah. The 26th is a Friday and the 27th is a Saturday, right? Yes. Okay. Do you want me to go over what Paul and staff and all of us have envisioned a little bit on that, or not yet. Okay, there's one thing I think what. You mean for the meet and greet? They they one for. Okay. Go ahead. Yes. They one. That was good. Yeah. So what we had envisioned is, probably noonish or so. The tour of the city, we would probably take them all around in parts, we thought of identifying the areas where it be. So if we're down at the docks, the community business people would know we're at the docks from two to 2 to 245. We're at downtown, where Doris at the different. But we will be taking them all over town, teaching them every. We everything we can about the community during that time and in the time, having them walking among the community and seeing them in a more informal not to stop and grab a talk, but maybe the meet or the business owners or people who can't get to the meeting. They're probably step two. And again, we've got a meeting plan for the more this more tomorrow morning after tonight to see what the board says, the meet and greet would be at the at the Heritage Center, probably 630. I'm thinking somewhere around 630 ish, it would be a, just a meet and greet on general things and stuff. And then we'd have some kind of session, a question session that we'd work on, but that would be in the evening, that would be 630 or sometimes like that. It'd be at the Heritage Center. And that's kind of how the first day would go. So there would be interaction also along our tour, because we, we tell what the approximate time, maybe three hours, three and a half, four hours, we'll be going around from noon ish for give them a little break to freshen up, since it'll be probably 90 to 95 degrees, to come back for the, for, for the meet and greet. And then, of course, we turn it over to day two, which I know you're still going to talk about, but that was kind of our idea. If there's any other input, again, we're meeting Irene's involved. Irene. Karen Lemons. Paul. All of us are going to meet in the morning to put a little bit to finalize all these things and get to you. So we have time to adjust them and stuff, the tentative thing we're going to work on that tomorrow after we hear tonight what everybody says. Okay, what I want to do is just kind of, give you my thoughts, and I really want to hear from each of you as far as, not necessarily whether you agree with me, but your thoughts as well. If you've got some different ideas to put that day two. I was thinking along the lines of what we did with the first round on this thing with Slovan, where we would interview, each commissioner would interview each candidate individually, in the morning at some point. Whatever, I don't know, half an hour or whatever. We would decide to do. And then, and then, and then and then in the afternoon, we would have a, basically reconvene and, obviously discuss who we would want. My only, reluctance. Certainly it would involve, public comments, the meeting in the afternoon, the morning will not be public meetings. It's just meeting one on one. But in the afternoon, it will be a public meeting. It will involve comments. It may involve residents there, observations from the day before and the meet and greet and that sort of thing, and then I guess my, my only reluctance last time we had the, and I honestly, I didn't go back and I, to look and I should have, but I can't remember where we interviewed them again or simply asked them to make some, some comments if they choose to, I, I'm, I'm a little reluctant to put them in a position as we did last time, where it got a little bit, from, you know, in my opinion, a little, out of hand and probably, should have been approached in a little less, aggressive manner, the one thing, one reason is that we you know, in dealing with the city manager, all of us don't have the city manager get up at the dais. We don't, sit there and deal with him. One on one at commission meetings. We deal with each other on at commission meetings, when we need to talk to the city managers, usually private. I know that sometimes that there's some pretty lively discussions that occur, but that's always, private. And I'm just not sure what other than may be allowing the, candidates to make a presentation, and of course, there are questions from the public should be answered at the meet and greet as well. And, I'm just not sure what, it would achieve to have another question session, in the afternoon before we make our selection on them. And that's, that's the only difference that what I had last time. So I'd, I'd like to hear from each of you, vice mayor, do you have anything that. I think the dates are set good as, the city manager stated for the 26th, 27th, the interviews for the 27th, I think, if we're spread out the main building between the conference rooms, the city manager's office, your office and another one, I think we should be able to, at least 30 minutes for, all three candidates. And then. But I do prefer a private interview process because we as commissioners, you know, we talk with the city manager. It is on a, it is on a different level, as opposed to when we're speaking here publicly and so I think that the mayor did bring up a good point. And I wouldn't mind if they they gave a presentation if it had to go there, but not to be a second round of questions, as we did had that other time. So, no, I agree with you, mayor, on that. I think it's smooth and they need to get to see who we are, behind the scenes as we talk with them, too, because they do work for us. And, there are different perspectives from being up here, speaking with the city manager and privately. So, no, I agree with that, mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Eisner. Thank you. Mayor. I I'm okay with the dates, either one, the 26, 27 or August. Both, but I'm okay with the 2620 seventh, as far as, having them, meet with the residents, I think it's a good idea, but at the same time, I also want to have not you don't hear me. Okay? I also do not wish to have any one person trying to monopolize that discussion that is going on, which we could have, so meet and greet, we're talking. This is the meet and greet. Yes, I just would like to have everybody have a chance to meet and speak. And, you know, I've been to meetings where that's not what happens. So I do want to have that under control, I do agree that we should have our meeting the following day. Whether it be a half hour, 45 minutes or an hour, I'm okay with any of them, I'm not really in favor of having them get up and speak here, because that's not what our city manager does. Of cours, is I agree, if by the end of the couple of days of meeting with them, we should be able to form a judgment, just get a feel and go from there, I'm okay with having a discussion with them here, but I'm not looking to have them be put up on another pedestal here to be, to have people throwing comments at them at the end of days of their being here. And it's a nerve wracking experience. There's no doubt about it. It's it's like a campaign. So I would prefer to have it as smooth as could be and then be in their natural environment. That's what my comment. Let me go to, Commissioner Collins. Go ahead, so, I'm in agreement on the on the schedule here, what I, what I would probably do to avoid the monopolization at these, public forums is to assign each of these candidates a liaison, somebody one staff member to kind of be assigned to that person, they can go to this thing if they see somebody monopolizing them, they can go. Excuse me. I have to take Mr. Rudd over here, you know, and rather than Mr. Rudd being rude and say, sorry, I can't talk to you for too long, I got to go somewhere else, we could have this liaison, and then they could also make sure that, you know, they're comfortable. Could be their person. Someone who contacts them. If there's any schedule problem or they have an issue, they could contact this person who could then, you know, get with, whoever they want. So I think that might be nice, the interview, the individual interviews, that's the most important thing. And so I, you know, I, I could sit with one of those people for 45 minutes. And, and, and it's really kind of it's part of the test because if they can't engage you for that long, then, you know, maybe then you learn something from them. So when it gets down and then on the, in the afternoon, so I'd like to have as much time as we need to be that we all individually feel comfortable with this. The these, candidates. And then in the, in the evening, I think if they just wanted to get up and, and express some casual remarks as to how they enjoyed Tarp and what they observed in tarpon, and, you know, it doesn't have to be an intense thing that evening. It could be something, you know, much more casual, and they could express how they they enjoyed being in tarpon and what the things that they like. You mean like an optional thing if they wanted. Yeah. Yeah. When they can just get up there and I'm sure all of them are going to want to take advantage of that, because they don't want to be one up by the other characters. So they're going to get up and they'll talk about, hey, I love the sponges, I love this. What, you know, what did you take from from being in tarpon and how did you like it? And let's see how what what they and let the citizens get a chance because, they, you know, the city manager is sitting up here at the dais, I'm sure that these people are all experienced and they've spoken from the dais, and they're comfortable, but that's important, too. They he has the city manager has to communicate with these people out here, just like we do. So, we want to see that he's comfortable behind the microphone and, and that as such. So. But it doesn't have to be intense. It could be light. But anyways, I was thinking the liaison idea that would really help with, the being at the, the Heritage Center here just kind of keep them moving along. So, you know, when Peter gets a hold of him, you know. Hey, Peter, you've had enough. Let's go. Next guy. Mr. I'm just joking. I love Peter, you know that. So Oh, good. Peter. It was a joke. Mr. licorice was thinking of a speed dating approach with an alarm clock and everything. So, Commissioner DiDonato, I guess I differ a little. I to me, the tour and the meeting. Social meeting night is a time to get to know the candidates one on one. I, I don't care how we do it, but a lot was learned by our commission when we went through the process. All five of us asked each individual at the same time. And the reason why I like that part, and I don't even care if one commissioner asks all the other questions, to me, you can read, I study body language and those kinds of things, and I like to see how they react to each individual of us. And you don't see that if you don't have one candidate to five of us asking questions. So I would hope that we would include it. I agree, I don't want to repeat a lot of the things, but to me, the one one is fine. I don't care how you want to do it, but you could use all day and into the evening for that very thing, there's only three of them. I don't know whatever y'all want to do, I'll do. But I just think we might be missing something because you learn a lot just by watching. Sometimes instead of talking. And. And I like to observe people's reactions. And you can't do that if we're going to go one on, I can do it. But it's one on one. And John may ask a question that that I didn't think to ask or Peter or close to you or or Mike. I'd like to benefit of hearing all that. So that's why I'm a proponent of one candidate to all five of us. So I, as far as the rest of the format, I'm fine with. No, no, the, I think the, I mean, I've got some specific questions that I want to ask that obviously were not part of the five that the staff asked that are a little more, from from my perspective, key as far as the things that we've been working on and how much experience they've got in that area. And the only issue is, from a public perspective is that oftentimes, and it's good and bad. I guess my point is that, you know, we interviewed them privately and then in the afternoon, if we start, asking questions again and making observations and things like that, it didn't go well last time. And, and I really don't want to get into another, situation. I think all of us learned from that last time. I just don't want to. And if we do that, publicly, all of us, then by right, the residents would be able to ask questions as well, and that's another thing that I'm trying to avoid all of that because quite frankly, the city manager isn't, put in that position, as I said, naturally. Anyway, during meetings we meet with them individually, during the day, residents meet with them individually. They'll get up there and they'll tell the city manager what they think of them. They'll people get up there and tell me what they think of me. And that sort of thing. But it's usually not anything that I'm required to respond to. So, and then of course, the other part that we learned, I think during the internal audit interviews, we when we interview one person, the others are either here or they're somewhere else waiting to be interviewed, but they're they have access to the, you know, they're watching what's going on here because we're televising it. And then the next person comes up and has a little bit better idea of what they're going to be answering. So I that's the other reason why I'm not sure what we would gain by, doing that. Again, I like the idea of, of, at least an hour or something. Not just a half an hour, but maybe an hour for you, in which if we eliminate the one part in the afternoon where we have that, where we're going to require them to come back and we have this whole thing again of, of, comments and stuff like that, then, then, we would be able to, to extend that interview time in the morning and maybe into the early afternoon and spend a little more time with them from that perspective, I that that's just some thoughts. Let me ask you, how long would you want to spend with them privately? Let's take it. Nibble by, an hour, at least 45 minutes. At least 45 minutes is enough. 45 with a 15 minute break in between. How's that? So one hour, one hour, one hour, 45 minutes and allow maybe a little bit overrun if there needs to be, but allow the candidate 15 minutes to get ready for the next, Commissioner, is that right? Okay. And, what time would you want to start that, on Saturday. Do you have an idea? City manager? Last time we started at nine, I think nine. So 9:00 is okay. All right. I was going to suggest, at an hour between. That would be a seven hour process, basically an hour for each, candidate per commissioner. But the interview would actually be 45 minutes with, you know, time to get to your next class sort of thing, sort of, start at nine with a lunch break, probably be finished in about five, nine, ten. That works for you. Okay, well, we'll time out again. We were thinking, I'm bringing in bringing in the lunch, so. Right. We bring in sandwiches and stuff for the lunch. So okay, that's some of the stuff we'll work on tomorrow and have it for you for the 16th meeting, just to make sure we're set. Okay. And then, we will have, we will have public comments in the afternoon meeting. It will be a public meeting. I don't know whether it'll be a special session, I would assume. Right. Yeah. The special session. And we'll have public comments at that time. So residents could make their observations of what they've seen from the, the meet and greet from the day before. But in and, and obviously the, the candidates can be here, if they'd like to make a comment to the city, maybe we could figure out whether they come in, make their comments, and then excuse themselves and let the residents make their comments. And then, and then we have a discussion from there. Is that is that sequence okay? Does that sound okay to y'all? All right. Okay. So, Paul, did you kind of roughly run through the one hour, one hour for the five of us? It'd be. It would be five hours, right? Yeah I think I was assuming a strictly sequential process, but you could rotate other people in it later time. So, yes, five hours. Sorry. Five hours. So if we started at nine, then the earliest we would be able to have a special session would be at two. But probably 3 p.m. on Saturday. Yeah, I think last time it was for 4:00, I think, five hours from nine. So that's three, isn't it. So some sometime probably between three and we'll figure it. Oh, for lunch I forgot about lunch. Yeah. So 4:00 half hour lunch. So probably like four. Let's plan the special session at, at 4 p.m. on the 27th. The interviews will begin at 9 a.m. That day, there'll be 45 minutes, but the interval will be one hour. And then, the 4:04 p.m. meeting will be, we'll start off with, public comments. Of course, there'll be a special session. Yeah. Go ahead. So if, if the first. So the first round, the first three interviews would start at nine. So then would we would be notified as to if we're on the second route, we wouldn't have to be here at nine. Not all five of us have. No, no. Right. Nine. Yeah So Paul will organize that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Last time, maybe an hour or two. Yeah. The commissioner isn't doing anything. Yeah. Well we, we'd all be here for the lunch though. We'd all be here for the lunch. Well, yes, we can meet for lunch, but we can't talk business. Right right. Yeah. Okay. What was I going to say? The first thing would be the. Mr. Smith. The first thing of the special meeting would not be public comments. It would be allowing each of the candidates to make a, you know, a five minute presentation if they'd like. Comments if they choose to, and then they would excuse themselves. Then we would go to public comments and then commission discussion, to, to select a person. Okay Is there anything we're forgetting just before we go to the public. So let me let me talk about the speed dating idea, that's what I called it too, the idea for the for the meet and greet, and the monitor thing was in our discussions about monitor with each of them. But the meet and greet would mostly be, just a general get to know the person. The person thing. Then we had thought of a session where the three of them would be up front, every each citizen, there would be able to ask one question. That one question would have to be a question that the candidates could answer in a minute or less. And then the public could ask whatever question. Everybody would hear the answer, not just the little group you're in with one person here. And the answer, you have one question. It has to be a question. The three candidates can answer within a minute or less. And then the 1520, whatever the questions is, it should be a fast. That's why. That's why I call it the speed dating process. Now, any resident can attend this. Yes, yes, this is open. This isn't by invitation only. An invitation to everybody. So all the groups we send everybody to can come and we'll be prepared at the Heritage Center for as many as they're all right. Okay. So that was kind of the idea of what we would do. So everybody could hear because what it is, you'd ask a bunch of questions in a group with one. The rest of the residents wouldn't hear the answer. They might not get a chance. So this way, every resident's question will hear all three of theirs answers and give them a lot, lot better information to come the next day or let you as a commission, know beforehand. You know what they thought from that result. So it's I forget what city I heard that from. And there's one that had a three day process. So it was, I forget where I kind of heard it, but there needs to be a moderator, right? Yes. In other words, yes. If things get out of hand, then. Oh no. Yeah we would. And do a cut off. You know, you look at the clock and do a cut off time. Okay. Yeah, we do that whole procedure, it'd be a process, but that was kind of the idea. And again, we'll put it all together tomorrow. We're meeting all tomorrow. Put it together. Get it to each of you, and we'll have a chance. If anything needs to be tweaked, you can tweak it. The 16th at the meeting. If anything needs to be changed or something needs to do, we can do that. Then Oka. The last thing I wanted to talk about, it's just for you to think about, but, we've got the one, thing in the morning. The afternoon will be the 4 p.m. will have the, candidates making, you know, a little, you know, we love Tarpon Springs sort of comments. The public comments, then commissioners. And then if we do choose a person that we would negotiate a contract with, I'd like I'd like that for it to be an agenda item as well, to authorize somebody. And my, my and I had a brief conversation and I, with the city manager on this, I think the best two people to negotiate a contract would be the city manager and Mrs. Kniffen. Miss Kniffen knows the retirement, everything else. And then the city manager, of course, he he he knows what, we're looking for as well. We also probably involve the labor attorney because she would be the one writing up the contract for you. Do you want, miss, Jackson. Jackson. She would be there as well. Probably negotiating you there by zoom when we talk and stuff. Okay. Because she'll be the one who also. She'll have she'll have to write your final contract for three people. Yeah, three people. Okay, so if you all can think about that, that will be an agenda item to authorize, potentially City Manager Miss Aaron Jackson, our personal attorney, and Miss Jane Kniffen, if she's available. Yeah, yeah, to, to be able to negotiate that contract, she may be able to do it by zoom. If she's not able to come back. So Mr. Smith, do you have anything you'd like to add or something that we're forgetting or anything that's obvious, that I think we've gotten some clear direction and we appreciate it. I did want to acknowledge, Jane Kniffen, human resources director, and her staff. They've been very helpful through this process. She unfortunately wasn't able to attend tonight. I know she'd be here if she could, but I just wanted to thank her and her staff for all the help through the advertising, the, getting back and forth with the candidates, helping line up the background process and helping review all the applications. It's been a lot of work. Okay. I'm, I don't think we need to have a motion and a second on this because if we do, then it's going to lock everything in. I'd like to have some flexibility that if Mr. Smith or City manager sees something that may be a little bit of a hiccup, they can they can change it to make sure it works properly. So is that acceptable to everyone? Okay All right. The other thing, well, those were the things. Okay. The other thing, as far as the if one is selected, the salary, the availability, that person when they would come and that's something that, if we get to that point at we do we will need to, it's already in your contract, right. As far as the follow up from that to January 2nd. Okay. All right, that's all we have. It's 514, and our next meeting is at 630. Yeah. I'm sorry. Go ahead, I just want to have a I just want to get a sense from the board. You know, we opened this process up to, accept applications from two internal candidates. We haven't really ever discussed those two internal candidates, they weren't in the interview process that these other candidates went through. So I just want to get a sense from the board that if we're not if this is, we want to go outside, we're not looking inside, then then I think we the those people need to know that. And also, I think the citizens need to know that we that we are not considering internal. We are considering only external, and I just want a sense from the board on that, because we do have two candidates that interviewed and they've kind of been stuck in, kind of limbo. Let me. So I'd like to say a couple of words, or do you want to say it? And I'm and I'm not trust me. I'm not bringing this up. This is a controversy. I just want to address it. Look, I've been. First of all, you have, they work for the city manager, so he's been extremely sensitive to them as well. And so. And I have as well. And what I'd encourage this, you know, discussions with the city manager, if we were, going to first of all, let me just say there's applicants and their candidates and I know we referred to, these individuals in the videos as external candidates. And I kind of question what is an external candidate? I could see external applicants. I can see internal, applicants, but we haven't we don't have external candidates. We have candidates. So, the two, employees or department heads have not risen to the level of candidates. And in the in, in what I would like to have done in the city manager knows, is to have had this discussion way back when we were looking at the 38 applications and how do we work all this together and, and kind of, decide how, where, where the internal applicants would fit into all of this process. And so, for me, it goes way back. And I think it probably sits with, commissioner colleague and Commissioner Eisner as well. Way back to the 2020 election, when we were going to be looking for, advertised nationally and, and look at some, some standard qualifications like Icma certification and getting some, people that are experienced and professionally trained in that area and bring in some fresh ideas. So that was the whole idea behind that. And then I have talked to, at least one of the internal applicants and, and I know what their concern is at least if, if, if, if what? You know, I recall correctly is there's this concern that we bring somebody new in and, and they kind of that new person tends to, change things to for the worse. And in other words, it would not be the same system that we have right now. And, I don't think with the candidates, the three that we have right now, we need to worry about that. I think that was, kind of some reassurances that we got during the interviews with the staff. And I think the sense I got, they felt pretty good about a couple of the, the people that were interviewed as far as, being city managers here, I right now, I, they do work for the city manager. They are department heads. They do have a role and responsibility here. They've got two extremely good departments, and I'm not sure how much further we would want to go right now with that until we get through this process. And city manager, of course. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, these candidates and I, I've, I've been in talking with them from the start of putting in the application, which I don't want to encourage one way or another, but I thought they knew the circumstances of what the commission had been looking for. The what the what most of the commission had said from the time they were elected, they realized that process. But there's a lot of circumstances that goes on in in the process, you might not have got any good applicant. You might. There's a lot of circumstances why they thought their name being in there with the unforeseen. But but they realized from the very start, what the goal of this commission was and what they were looking for, they're, they're ready to be called forward. Or again, as I've told you when we talked about the training process for whatever we call assistant city manager or assistant to the city manager in the training process, these two individuals, this is part of the preparation. Remember I told you I wasn't training them to be a city manager. I was training them. I was training them to be able to someone brand new coming in doesn't know the place to be. You know, the right hand people for those people. And whether the position comes up later on. And so they were fully aware from the whole process. They were fully aware that you would probably do the external process first if that fell apart, if something happened, they would be in there either to serve or, or, you know, upon my retirement day of January 2nd, I'm sippin strawberry daiquiris by the beach and say, I'm I'm ready to go and somebody needs to do interim. Either of them would be ready to be interim while we either continue the process or went on. So all this, all this was, was, was talked about and understood before and that the process was going to go probably like this in the internal, but the names are there for whatever, whether it be assisting, something later or something else. So so there will be no hard feelings. And again, that what we did with the, with the employees, with the directors and interviewing went a long way. So we are in a good spot right now for y'all to do that. And then and then, you know, whatever happens in the process happens with the process. Go ahead. I think that's a very thoughtful response. And I think that's all I wanted to hear. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I was going to say that that could have been said. Now it could have been said 3 or 4 months ago, yeah, I know I think it's a useful okay comment that was done. Well thank you. Thank you, city manager. Pardon me. Thank you City manager, for that was a very thoughtful. It's a very thoughtful, thoughtful process. They do work for you, by the way. They do so, and there were two outstanding, department heads. So, No, we've done that public comments. Yeah. Y'all did it already. You spoke already? I spoke originally on the motion or on the item. I we had public comments on this before. I'm not reopening it. Okay. Unless the commission wants to reopen public comments again. No. We're good. No Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Eisner, if there's our next meeting is at 630. Is that correct? Okay. And that's our, first budget, first budget workshop. Workshop. Okay meeting adjourned at 521. I didn't want to shortchange you, Peter, in case you had something more you wanted to say. Okay.