##VIDEO ID:y3qRWxcDT8U## e e e e e a [Music] [Music] welcome to the 5:30 p.m September 10th 2024 first public hearing on the city's proposed budget we do have a quorum so I'll call this meeting to order would you please join me in a moment of silence and the pledge to the flag I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible andice for all city clerk would you please read the rules of speak yes sir individuals wishing to speak on agenda items must complete a signup card prior to the item being introduced sign up cards are available on the table individuals wishing to speak on non-agenda items May do so under public comment no sign up card is required citizens will be do 3 minutes to speak on all items all signup cards and Exhibits being submitted to city council should be placed in the box on the table okay thank you um city manager good evening mayor vice mayor city council um we're going to begin this evening with a presentation um by me and then we've also got our water rates consultant that will follow and then we'll get into the procedures of adopting these ordinances first readings okay thank you okay next slide this is the budget process we did hold um a workshop on the 8th of August um the proposed millage rate is five or 6.58 17ms you're at the first public hearing the final public hearing will be September 26th at 530 here in council chambers the FY 25 budget is built an operating millage rate of 6.87 817 Mills which complies with the 10% cap on prior year revenues in accordance with chapter uh 74430 Florida laws the millage rate is lowest levied by the city of Titusville in 16 years during the public hearing city council must discuss the percentage increase of millage over the roll back rate if any to fund the general fund budget and the purposes for which the ad tax revenues will be being used uh with the increase public comments will be heard regarding the increase of the adorm revenues and the millage rate the millage the proposed uh FY 25 millage rate is 6.58 17 Ms which is 3.59% above the roll back rate of 6.35 36 Ms generating $1.6 million in additional revenues U the proposed budget uses these to fund a 3.5% Cola to attract the best in work class we're also adjusting pay on certain um employees uh fund the increase in public safety technology vehicles and equipment and fund The increased cost of consumables due to inflationary pressures city council adopted its strategic goals and objectives and this this is here for your review and you did add the sixth goal which Community design the budget environment the property valuation is has increased 11% for fy2 the shared State revenues are up at a moderate 16.7% um the building department activities continue to be increased operating and Personnel costs have increased 7.2% due to the changing Workforce environment um the opep liability is still trending downward and there is a $1 13.3 million un funded operating and capital needs and just as a reminder Council ask us uh to find out what it would cost to do a public safety complex a public works facility upgrade and a new city hall those numbers in today's dollars the public safety complex is $45 million the Public Works facility is estimated $30 million and City Hall replacement is estimated to be $70 million and that's in today's dollars I'll go through these slides pretty quickly this is the budget priorities that staff used to build the budget the budget priorities were introduced in January of 2024 and that um continued through we did make some adjustments with the cola during the process and U the increase in the um operating budgets due to the inflationary pressures next slide you do see a 3.5% Cola cost of living adjustment next Slide the 5year operating plan um shows at A8 8% increase this year for budget and uh the the oute 26 through 29 we're hoping infl inflation will decrease so we're um building those out-year budgets at 7% next slide and Council this is uh one of your guidelines to encourage management excuse me encourage managed gr growth by using low impact development principles as a mean of means of developing attractive built environment while protecting and conserving our natural resources next slide and this is last this will be the last year we'll be able to use arpa funds the $86 million that completes the priorities the proposed budget that we used at the workshop there are one change uh two additional FTE for the CRA were funded with the CRA budget so we added those back in um as a reminder five FTE were added to this budget from the Enterprise funds and we have deferred 16 FTE until midy year 10 of which are of police and fire total uh budget of 46,6 191,50 41 the general fund makes up 63,000 or 63 million of that next slide these are where the expenditures are programmed Titusville enjoys the lowest per capita per resident uh uh millage rate compared to our surrounding cities the only one that's lower is bouard County County general fund um just the pure millage rate comparisons and we did change the property tax house this year so on a homesteaded house with the current millage set at 6.5 817 Mills um the property is listed at 24 $240,800 and you can see that of that uh the School Board makes up 38.888421100000 good evening I'd like to introduce Trevor McCarthy with ra Tillis who has handled our water Su rate study this year he'll be going through our rate presentation uh good evening like Mr cook mentioned my name is Trevor McCarthy I'm a senior consultant with ref Talis ref Talis has been um working with the city for for many years and staff engages us annually to to complete a rate study um the rate study entails developing a financial forecast from fiscal So currently it's from fiscal year 2024 through 2029 we evaluate customers and sales to develop a revenue to develop Revenue projections over that forecast period we look at operating and maintenance expenses and make projections of those um funding for ongoing Capital repairs uh rehab and replacement as well as up grades expansions so we're looking at the capital plan and and ultimately the goal is to review the adequacy of the existing Water and Wastewater rates over this period of time so um part of the rate study is is determining Revenue requirements so Revenue requirements are the total expenditures needed to be funded by rates these include operating expenses capital projects the debt service requirements both existing and and the proposed proposed new debt to fund the capital plan and the general fund transfer um we also keep in mind maintaining prudent Financial policy goals this includes maintaining operating expenses of at least 90 days of operating and maintenance expenses want to ensure compliance with our with the city's lender agreements particularly debt service coverage so the utility has both senior lean and Junior lean um debt obligations that require certain net revenues be maintained for for compliance purposes and we ultimately want to take a Balan and sustained a sustainable approach to to rate setting meaning we don't want we we want to try to phase in rates when we can and because the city looks at this annually um it really allows it really allows for ease in in that process some observations since uh our last update last year customer growth in fiscal year 2023 slightly outpaced last year's assumptions we're assuming about 105 units uh residential units per year in growth compared to the fiveyear average of about 135 units so we're trying to be conservative with our Revenue projections on the operating expense expense side of things the fiscal year 2025 budget is about $1.8 million higher than our projections last year that's that's worth about 7% of revenues um however for the first time this year recognizing that there's a historical difference between budgeted expenses and actual expenses which for example in fiscal year 2023 was about 8% we've reduced operating expenses from the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget level by 5% so we're recognizing 95% of Opera in expenses for for rate setting purposes um we've we've also made an allowance for future inflation from 2025 through the remainder of the forecast period annually that's increasing on average about 3.3% so we're looking at each line item in the utility budget and assigning you know what we believe is an appropriate inflation Factor uh those inflation factors range from about 3% to 5% the plan also includes uh five additional full-time employees that staff has identified from from fiscal year 2026 through 2029 so the first major dri of of rate increases in the for the city is operating expenses and the next is the capital Improvement plan so staffs identified about $117 million in capital projects uh from fiscal year 24 through 29 these are proposed to be funded through a combination of rates impact fees cash reserves grants and additional debt um approximately 60% of the capital plan is assumed to be funded with future debt so we've assumed an additional bank loan and additional srf loans one for the water one for water one for the waste for Wastewater this next slide is just a graphical um presentation of the funding plan in red there that represents the uh projects funded with Debt Service it's about 60% of the capital plan the remaining 40% is a funded through a combination of Grants and internal sources uh namely Revenue rate revenues operating cash and impact fees all right so just to jump in for a moment to highlight some of our projects that are continuing as we pass the fiscal year these are on started and this year previously just to give you an idea of what we have going currently these are larger projects we have number of small projects well but these are are large ones just highlighting the morning dove has a number of projects ongoing filter Replacements enhanced water treatment and the replacement of the CO2 system uh we have a number of valves being and water remains underway with replacement both St plants are currently ongoing screen replacements and the inter enforcement project is working its way to a completion date in November we also have just permitted our first subject of sewer project expanding our sewer system to serve currently septic customers to be converted to sewer uh eligible and then we have three Force Mains in design for replacement veret assist and Lao all under design additionally some items that will be hopefully closing up very soon is the replacing the ReUse Pump Station at Blue heren and the work on the clarifier at Blue Heron as well and then just moving forward to next year uh we're going to be undertaking some uh well Rehabilitation area TW and three so these are older well Fields looking to rehab them back to better condition on Wells that we've not using as heavily as we have in the past we continue a number of water main replacement improvements we do have some building needs at the plan and field Ops in particular and we have a critical valve replacement at the Coco interconnect um likewise on the Wastewater side the a resiliency grain is going to have the baby BL station uh removed it's a river front station now and the seminal BL station will be replaced in place um we continue to do Wastewater collection lining which was heavily done this year with arpa and we'll be looking into two additional areas for septic the SE expansions with soil grants additionally we have dewatering underway for blue hery watering system and the Osprey plant will have some Plumbing improvements to the reject tank and the ReUse tanks turn back to Trevor so here here you can see the projected annual revenue adjustments um for for fiscal year 2025 we're recommending 5% adjustments for both Water and Wastewater rates this is consistent with our recommendations last year um just for just for some historical record the last several years have been 3% adjustments for for water and wastewater for fiscal year 2026 through 2029 we're recognizing a need for greater increases to the water rates most of the city's customers are both Water and Wastewater customers but we do look at water rates and Wastewater rates independently so that we can make sure that uh the rates for each are being charged equitably among among those customers so the analysis is showing that we need to increase we water rates a little bit more how um f the the rate impacts for for the typical residential customer bill that for a customer that's receiving both Water and Wastewater service and using 5,000 gallons per month W um would not increase greater than 5% under those proposed rates that you see here fiscal year 26 through 29 now other customers that are using different usage levels of water or if you have water only or Wastewater only customers they would see a different other than 5% um we're going to review this again next year and so these values may change a little bit um but and we can and we can provide some Bill impacts um next year for those for those differing uh Bills should we should the city decide to move forward with a uh different rate increases for for both of the systems the reasons for the rate adjustments the first keeping Pace with inflationary increases in operating expenses uh like I previously mentioned operating expenses are up about $1.8 million from where we projected last year that's worth about 7% of revenues um and the second factor is the funding the capital Improvement plan um renewals and Replacements and overall Capital funding needs um the the city's Capital plan is is rep is represented by about $20 million in capital $20 million per year Capital reinvestment so that's that's a pretty robust uh reinvestment plan for uh the city um for a utility the size that the city has so that's a you know that's a pretty robust repair and replacement plan um we also want to maintain cash reserves between 90 and 120 days that's a minimum of 90 to 120 days this looks favorable to rating agencies and it's just prudent Financial practice the utility needs cash for for working capital and it's it's a very intensive uh Capital intensive um Enterprise there's also a need to maintain the debt service coverage requirements um and maintain reliable service and and I'll point back on that note to the robust Capital reinvestment plan and we also want to balance cost recovery between water and wastewater rates and and that's what we showed you on the on the prior slide with a differing rate increases um in fiscal years 26 through 29 so uh little bit hard to read here apologies for that um we've got some Bill impacts this is for the typ the average residential monthly bill three 3/4 in meter so this would be your typical single family home um using 5,000 gallons of water the water bill with a 5% increase would go up about $161 Wastewater Bill approximately $2.97 for a total increase of $458 at this average residential Bill we've also got an average bill for a uh average commercial Bill same meter size same usage level um the city does have differing rates between residential and Commercial customers that that bill would increase $5.90 and finally we have a bill for a 1 inch meter using 15,000 gallons per month would see a $162 c Bill increase um again at 5% increase for both water and waste waterer this next chart is a uh comparison of rates with your neighboring uh communities you can see Titusville is is right around the average there the average in this survey is just under $92 the proposed and again this is an average water and wastewater Bill 5,000 gallons for a residential customer um the city's bill at the 2025 rates would be $93.7 so just above the average shown here again this is the 24 average we know a lot of these other uh cities and counties are going to be passing on rate increases to their customers so in in conclusion it's it's our opinion that the city should adopt a 5% Water and Wastewater rate increase for fiscal year 2025 to cover operating EXP expenses the capital Improvement plan um fund and and fund the anticipated new debt over the forecast period um based on the forecast assumptions and the estimated rate increases for fiscal years 26 through 29 uh the revenues based on these rates shown to you today are are adequate to fund the the capital Improvement plan and operating expenses over the forecast period and the projected rates are also projected to meet the the bond resolutions rate Covenant as well as the srf loan criteria and the financial policies of the city and uh thank you for your time and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have council member stokel yeah um I don't know if this is for you or for staff I think we have a scale of if you use under a certain amount of gallons you pay this much if you go over that you pay this much do we can you explain what that scale is it does it is it at 5,000 gallons does it go up after that and my second question is where are we getting that 5,000 gallons from um because I was just doing a quick search I I feel like most people use more than 5,000 gallons per month um yeah I'm sorry I don't have your rate schedule on me it does start at 5,000 gallons okay um so that is tier one okay and then for water conservation purposes the city us it tiered structures and the more water used to higher the cost so it does limit the high usage on things such as watering Lawns and things that are pable irrigation uh it we did survey a number of cities it varies from 3,000 in some locations to to a no tier system some communities don't use tier which is considered water conservation effort so it is variable I will say that the bulk of our customers do fall in that 5 th residential fall within the 5,000 range we don't have a lot in the residential communities that exceed that there are some but that's the outlier to the bulk or within the 5,000 have we thought about rather than raising the rates across the board like the 5% the 8.75% we say it stays the same for the five the tier one and we just increase the rate like maybe 15% for 5,000 and above so then that would again strongly encourage conservation and then not hurting all of our citiz like we are able still to kind of lower the cost or keep it the same we could definitely look into that um like Mr cook pointed out I think the average based on the customer statistics we received was 4,300 gallons uh per month for an average single family home so there's a lot of usage in that first block and and you also have to remember that everybody goes through that first block so there's not a whole lot of revenues uh in those upper tiers M you can't collect all the revenues in those tiers you can't apply all the rate increases and get an 8% it would be difficult and and frankly people might change their watering habits which you want to change watering habits to some extent to incentivize conservation um but that's definitely something that we and that also would make our infrastructure potentially last longer too if you're not utilizing it necessarily as much um the other question so if we were to not raise the water rate you know the 5% % the 8.75 do you have what that amount is so if it stayed at 0% and then if it did raise 5% how what is that cost estimate and the reason I'm my question being is I'm thinking what if we were able to get some type of State appropriation uh potentially to help with infrastructure to offset that cost instead is that even feasible I I think and I can get I think you're asking about the revenue amount that it produces correct yes okay I can find that for you but I I I would say that in in the case of the operating expenses for example that's going to occur every year and we've made a 5% downward adjustment from the 25 budget in this plan so it's already got almost a reverse contingency if you will recognizing that there's always a little bit of a difference usually favorable in what's budgeted to what the actual results are so those costs are occurring annually I think it would have to be significantly more than the amount in revenues that that produces for the capital plan because the capital plan again is a is funded significantly from debt service so we're already turning that large sum of money to some extent about 60% of it as you saw in that chart into an annual payment amortizing it over 20 to you know 15 to 20 years in in the case of our our debt service assumption so it's really an annual recurring um so if I hear you correctly these rate increases have more to do with the operating expense rather than necessarily those capital projects Absolut absolutely especially for fiscal year 2025 uh the city the utility just issued new debt and plus with the operating expenses the fiscal year 2025 increases is is largely to cover those two items now if we can reduce the capital plan from additional Grant in the future that could change the picture um but it's not a one toone offset for that additional uh revenues that were and my last question is can you I think you mentioned that our expenses were 1.8 million higher than we had anticipated or budgeted or can you just elaborate on that a little bit Yeah so to clarify last year our analysis was based on the fiscal year 2024 budget and then our assumption about inflation into 2025 so what we had projected for 2025 the this budget is $1.8 million higher than that projection and and I will mention that okay you know for the last several years Titusville has passed along 3% increases to rates that's been well below inflation so I think that 25 budget really represents sort of a catchup in in inflation over the last couple of years okay thank you anything else from Council the Water Guy okay City mandator yes sir um at this time the City attorney will read the five ordinances for the record ordinance number 28 2024 an ordinance of the city of tville Florida providing for the millage for the operation of the city of Titusville and voted Debt Service Levy for fiscal year 2025 and providing for an effective date ordinance number 29 2024 an ordinance of the city of tville Florida adopting the general and related budget to the city of Titusville for the fiscal year 2025 and providing for an effective date ordinance number 30 2024 an ordinance of the city of tville Florida amending section 21241 and 21243 of the code of ordinances by amending and increasing the schedule of rates and charges for Water and Sewer Service providing for separability repeal of conflicting ordinances and effective date and incorporation into the code ordinance number 31 2024 an ordinance of the city of Titusville Florida amending section 16116 of the code of ordinances by amending and establishing an increase to the residential monthly charge for solid waste recycling and additional cart fees and by amending section 16117 of the code of ordinances by amending and establishing an increase to the commercial dumpster and Commercial can monthly charges for solid waste and recycling fees and increasing the commercial dumpster rental fees and by amending section 16118 of the code of ordinances by amending and establishing an increase in the extra charges for special services providing for separability repeal of conflicting ordinances and effective date and incorporation into the code ordinance number 32 2024 an ordinance of the city of tville Florida adopting the Enterprise fund and Capital Improvements program budgets of the city of tville for fiscal year 2025 and providing for an effective date required by um ordinance to be read uh the city of Titusville Florida is a taxing Authority uh 6. 3536 is the rolled back millage rate the operating millage rate to be levied is 6.5 817 Ms the percent of increase over the roll back millage rate is 3.59% which is characterize as a tax increase the vot the voted debt millage rate to be levied is0 1 1936 Ms and staff is recommending that the council adopt the tentative millage rate of for 26 September 2024 at 5:30 here in council chambers all right um C attorney yes sir uh we will open public hearing on each of the ordinances tonight I would suggest with regard to ordinance number 28 2024 and 29 2024 which are the millage and budget ordinances that we open the public hearing on those ordinances since they are related and anyone who does have a card of course on ordinance 28 or 29 certainly U will be heard um on those items as we open those together and you can speak to both of those items at this time during the public hearing and you will have time for each ordinance following the public hearing we will then adopt a tenative millage rate first and then we'll adopt a tenative budget then we will move on to the public hearings on the other ordinances all right so at this time we call the cards correct okay vice mayor um you may have said this but uh may I ask one question here on determining um the usage for um 20 uh 23 25 2324 do we have any way of determining what percentage of that increase is due to new Services added other than inflation what the if if the home or the family usage was not in existence in 202 uh well 23 20 uh 24 what percentage of the added new residents or new usage what percentage of of the U monies that we were short what impact that the new Resident have on that is there any way of determining that um yes if you bear with me one one moment so it's about $80,000 a year that that new the new growth is repres New Growth yeah that's what I New Growth is about 80,000 it brings in about $80,000 in additional Revenue per year roughly okay but we still came back we still had a short fold is that correct that's correct we're we've we've layered on growth for the forecast period at about 105 accounts per year a little bit lower than the 5year average um but there's still a shortfall it brought in about $80,000 but how much did it add of of usage oh of usage so of usage do you think well on the residential side on the residential side first each each account uses on average about 4,300 gallons uh per month so um so you would multiply 43 times the amount of new times the number of additional customers okay yes yes sir thank you all right thank you anybody else questions no all right call the cards please Dwight saers I Dwight for the record uh my name is D sers together here with my wife certainly both of this long time residents of the city of Titusville I served 40 years as a City attorney and a retired City employee we live here in Titusville because we love Titusville and want it to be continue to be our home I appear before you to talk about the proposed 2025 budget and the propos rate hike above the roll rate back rate uh as former City attorney I've reviewed more than 40 budgets uh and uh interesting enough many times we had at least public six public workshops all day on Saturday Etc I see you accomplished all of that in one sitting I certainly asked to compliment the city manager for getting you to do that in addition I I have to say up front that there may be some things that I say tonight some of you may not want to hear but I feel as though they should be said I own two properties in Titusville with my wife and under the proposed ordinances and budgets my taxes that I pay the city will go up also the proposed 5% increase Water and Sewer rate the 18.5% increase in storm water and the 7.5% increase in solid waste I want to compliment Dr Sarah concerning her suggestion of encouraging the conservation rate I think that is a good idea in my mind it's certainly a deceptive practice to show how much the millage rates have gone down when in fact to me many residents of Titusville my taxes have gone up and that's the reality of the situation fortunately I have saved your homes and but for that I'm not sure how people on fixed incode can necessarily make it in addition to that I feel sorry for some my neighbors whose tax bills I know are7 to $12,000 in the some us even more and taxes together with insurance rates have created a crisis for many so budgets are very important in many ways I feel blessed because I have a city pension since retirement in 2011 at age 67 which is not such a sizable pension at that my purchasing power compared to 2000 give me one more minute pardon can we extend you one more minute well what I suggest I don't know if you're you're speaking to the millage in the budget and I would provide if there if if speakers want to speak as to the millage in the budget and they want to put a two cards I would provide three minutes per card okay so we given him three minutes I would suggest another three minutes if Mr C just speaking us to the mil and the budget okay we do that we'll go three minutes go okay since retirement as I said my purchasing power has gone down by 40% with no cost of living adjustment in addition I want to point out that my city city taxes during that same period of time have gone up 42% and certainly other things like water sewer Etc have gone up in reviewing the budget and look in particular page 53 I see Ador tax revenues have gone up 1.63 million page 57 I see a variety of expense increases uh and one of the reason for I think the tax increase is retirement contributions have gone up 26.2 187% or $690,000 repairs have gone up it has gone up the contribution to the north Bard economic de development Zone has gone up 20.8 7% to 1, 240,000 why has retirement contributions gone up 26.8 7% or $690,000 is that because of the management of the plan or is it in part because of the significant salary increases that certain people received in the city and they didn't budget for it that is the pension cost at the same time why is that and according to the numbers on page 57 pension contributions is 14.3% of payroll and I've included overtime is that in that for most pension plans you target a payroll of approximately 4 to 6% and certainly not more than 10% in defined benefit plans it's usually less in defined contribution plan why is it that we need such more that much more revenue and taxes I note in looking at the city manager's budget the retirement contribution increased by 17.94% the city attorney's budget 20.85% why is that I've received a copy which was online of the all employee salary listing for employees dated March 21 2024 24 I think it's quite interesting and quite concerning it reveals the city manager in 2024 makes about 90 to 100% more than the city manager did in 2011 and we had a well experienced long-term city manager then the City attorney makes about that's I'm talking about the budget and I've asked some questions so what are you saying I'd rather not have to come back on the so I'd like more time to finish my presentation is a present so how much more time do you need I probably need a total of 10 minutes and there's six items on the agenda 3 * 6 is 18 City attorney this is this is different than my Norm here so I need some help right we do we will open the public hearing as as to each ordinance tell me again we w we will open a public hearing and provide three minutes per card for each agenda item so yes each agenda item there will be a public hearing and each speaker will get at least three minutes for each item okay so we hold on member Nelson so I'm sitting here thinking is five ordinances that would be 15 minutes if Dwight wants 10 minutes that's what I was saying if he's doing it all in one time rather than getting up and down let him so I'll put um four more minutes down there this is not this is not our normal procedure so I'm a little bit questioning here I'm not sure how this all works so go ahead thank you okay as the state of manager indicated he's recommending the 3.5% col increase for all employees I note that he's included 3.5% for himself on uh page 61 of the budget which would be $772 the City attorney on PID 60 would get $7,250 increase you have approximately 78 employees that earn less than $440,000 per year and they will receive $1,158 is this Fair they pay you basically the same thing for gas food water and other Essentials to survive you have about 228 employees making less than $50,000 and the 3.5% increase would equate to $1,750 is this compared to Lely Fair across the board to give everybody 3.5% my suggestion and recommendation would be that you cons giving those employees making less than $60,000 an adjustment of $2500 and with regard to employees above that either the same or or none at all because I think there's quite a disparity I see some employees for example the assistant making a $100,000 less than the boss I see other employees assistant longtime assistant in making $60,000 less have you really looked at the salaries and the budget and how it is in this budget and has has been for some time in addition I would like to respectfully suggest with regard to the zone that you look at it again in November excuse me in September 2022 i p appeared before you and at my appearance when I finished speaking I was called back up to the podium by Mr Jordan who said you have made false statements about the Grant and you are putting out falsehoods and you are definitely not telling the truth and in particular I was talking about the grant to Riverwalk Apartments of adval arm tax dollars of 2,224 295 I did not feel as though you had complied with your own regulations one of the documents I've given to you which wasn't disclosed to you in any of the reports by anybody that says this is your policy this is your ordinance the cost of trunk line extension when required for the development of a s shall be paid by the developer not by The Zone in addition if other properties are benefited they shall pay their proportionate share that's what your ordinances say you didn't follow your policy and your ordinances whatsoever why this wasn't pointed out to you I don't know in addition in the budget of the $1,230 th000 for the Zone $800 and some, is going to be paid back to that developer is that right is that fair in accordance with the law and your own ordinances why don't you why don't you following your own ordinances wouldn't the general fund love to have $800 some, which it should have I would respectfully suggest in addition I find [Music] that that's it that's 10 you want to take another minute because you look like you're kind of concluding I'd like to hear your final conclusion there kind of I'm trying to I ask you to look at the Zone I was ignored by everybody and I'm writing that down that's how I too and and frankly you have a new County Commissioner you will you're going to have to look at the Zone whether you like to or not in addition I think it's highly irregular unusual what's been happening you know it's just it's still happening for example one of your Council candidates gave Mr George a campaign contribution that is the CEO or manager of the great outdoors and in turn and I have the language Mr Jordan makes a motion to give the Great Outdoors $400,000 for irrigation improvements of a private golf course using County's own dollars but we're all County taxpayers that's not all right Dwight thank you next card please L sers and just to verify are we doing six minutes or since we're doing two ordinance it won't take me six minutes my name is Lori sers I live in Titusville I've lived here for 45 years and I'm Dwight's wife I appear before you tonight to talk about the proposed 2025 budget and proposed tax hike above the roll back rate the city manager States in his budget message and it was stated in the presentation at the beginning of this meeting that the Strategic plan adopted by council is a road map for staff in building the budget and allocating funds one of the goals stated in the city manager's budget message on page two is stated in goals four and six is to quote encourage managed growth using low impact development principles as a means of developing an attractive built environment while protecting and conserving natural resources in Green Space end quote of the last 10 development projects that have been approved how many of them have used low impact development principles when Dwight was on pnz they recommended that on each project where possible at least 50% of the retention be designed using low impact development principles staff rejected that recommendation and Council accepted staff's recommendation only encouraging the use of low impact developments instead of requiring it are you meeting your goal or do you even know whether you are or not we own property near the 300 unit apartment complex known as the registry before it was withdrawn before Council heard it as designed by your engineer as kimley horn and they did not utilize low impact development certainly neither tranquility nor River Walk Apartments have utilized low impact development at all another goal you state in the budget is to preserve wetlands in the last eight years how many acres of wetlands have been destroyed with the changes in the comprehensive plan and ordinances proposed by this Administration the Advent of plan development land use and Zoning which allows building on wetlands and the enhancement of density by those changes it has led to more destruction of wetlands are you achieving your goals as outlined in the city manager strategic plan and if not how does the 2025 budget help achieve those goals and I have one additional thing to answer my husband worked for this city and did his very best for 40 years as City attorney and the people that were sitting on this Podium when he was called a liar by Robert Jordan need to apologize to him it's the most UN believable and egregious thing I have heard ever thank you okay next C please Kristen lordy good evening Christian ly I will will take the six minutes for both of the items so again I'm sorry I will accept the six minutes for both the millage and the budget items just so we're clear on time there you go good evening I am an advocate I talk uh regularly in several meetings and I this is one of the meetings I speak at uh I look at practices in Central and North Bard and so some of my comments um will have that in mind uh as a non Titusville resident that I am an individual who cares greatly about Titusville and who is very interested in your city so one of the questions that I ask myself when as I'm going through the budget season is how can a person be familiarized with the budget how can they be acclimated how can they learn about the budget I speak frequently about transparency issues and access issues one thing that I've already noticed tonight is that the presentation that was on at the beginning is not in your meeting minutes in your meeting agenda items that are online and I'm appreciative that the city has now gotten the packets online in bulk but now I'm finding out that they are not complete so I'm not pleased with that the public should have had access to that presentation as a part of the materials and it sends a message to myself and other residents that now we have to Circle back with the city clerk and and get more materials that are not online secondly the budget itself is not hyperlink in the agenda items so there is a website that has a portion of the city website that has the budget it is not in the agenda so someone trying to get informed would need to know that the proposed budget is in a different place on the city website that is disturbing for people who would like to be informed and who would like to work with facts as Miss stokel and Miss Nelson have spoken about at the last meeting that I watched facts and accurate information is important so my encouragement to the city is to do what you can to improve Pro that and take very lwh hanging fruit of just helping your citizens get informed so I'm starting with the presentation materials itself next I want to talk about what's actually in um the budget itself and the millage and I am not going to comment directly on a for or against a tax increase or not increase or the millage my uh concern and my petition to council has to do with the level of Serv service that is provided within the budget in which I have brought up numerous concerns about the level of service that is provided to residents for example I sent this all to you in April this is was in side of a of an attachment and it has 15 opportunities that the city could do to enhance and expand access this is without requiring a public information officer or person to help you message things if you want to help people get facts out I have taken the time to craft this item in the midst of several other um emails and attachments of the city to help people get informed on transparency issues this is a helpful document one of you have done to your credit you've done one of the things in there there's one of the opportunities which is to get the public documents online in bulk but what about what the rest of Bard is doing and why I report that Titusville is one of the least transparent cities in Bard County because the rest of the county actually has online meeting materials that you can go up you can see you can go to attachments you can do research you can um go to various uh you can see an agenda item you can see all the attachments to the agenda item then you can go and you can see the link to the video it's all right there and sadly the council members and the residents of Ty don't realize that they're missing out on this this is a level of service that the city can provide now who do you have to provide this service this is that's that's one big thing that is in my advocacy another big thing is your live streaming of meetings which is an ongoing soreo with residents with myself with nonr people want access to your meetings so what you've done this year and is is to your credit now we have 50% access to the Titusville environmental commission meetings so people are glad that we have some access and I was talking to a Titusville resident this morning and I said you know it's a little bit like walking barefoot and someone gives you one shoe and you're happy about the shoe and that foot is a very happy foot that has that shoe on it but the other sh the other foot now is extra unhappy because it wears no shoe and so if people seem a little bit crispy on some of your moves forward it's because there's yet ways to go and as of last night the citizens as of 525 last night I wasn't even sure if this was the meeting that was going to be the month the happy month that got recorded this is completely unacceptable it's not even written on the agenda item that this is the one of the every other month meetings that is being recorded for the benefit of the public these are very lwh hanging fruit requiring zero extra dollars to just inform people now what about the other meetings that we might have to have a staff person there might have to have our av person there well the city of Titusville has 13 people in its it Department spends over three it sends $3.7 million and it's not all dedicated to the live streaming of the meetings but you certainly have the the you certainly have help with this this is not asking you for extra money in the budget the clerk's office has over $800,000 last in just 2022 it had $600,000 to work with and we are having trouble getting access to meetings and on online meetings what is going on why can't we have the access that we want why is it so much effort oh and I have to make sure this go ahead P this is my souvenir I hope that Titusville never ever hands out one of these ever this is the CD that I was required to purchase and I'm happy to spend 25 cents for the CD you're welcome and thank you this CD signifies everything that's currently wrong with Titus you are handing out outdated archaic technology fortunately Christopher child's in this room helped to put this online for me which the city could have quickly done and he did in five minutes and Miss conin picked it up for me because I don't live in Titusville this CD should be a relic of the past and I should never ever be able to bring one to another meeting you are feeding The Narrative of those people that you think are naysayers by simple actions like this this is my souvenir I will keep it I will March it all all around the county until this ends and you start live streaming your workshops and you start making all of them available and following your strategic planning that has been butchered over the years because you decided to take out the goal of having all of the meetings live streamed so I we shall wrap it up um thank you thank you for um humoring me in the comment but this matters these things get reported on these changes need to be made these do not cost this is not expensive changes level of service level of service must say it's a good visual it says a lot are there any questions I have a comment yep member Nelson well one can I unless you need it can I have your piece of paper yes okay you may have my piece of paper you beta okay I'm actually going to give you my 2022 email with it because I've been crewing about these things not just in election season 2022 go ahead second realize that we took all the information off line because of an attorney hate to say this about her Brethren was going around the state suing all the cities for ADA compliance very aware of that I have studied it extensively I watched the city managers and the attorneys comments on that and none of the other cities are letting that trouble them their meeting minutes their their agenda items are all in line but I hear you I I followed up on that and realized that we had some guidance and when you started talking we decided to go with that so that anxiously await having you guys join the 21st be better I think you were at the meeting when we voted and say take a shot because I think you guys were saying hey everybody else is so yeah we had an attorney problem but I think that as you said I think we're moving past it and I see what happens I look forward to having better reports in the future and thank you for hearing my comments appreciate you next card antonet I know this person my name is antonet Lori I own several uh rental properties here in Titusville I have lived in Titusville I currently live in Mims I am opposing the new M millage rate as the taxes are just going up up up and this is money coming out of my pocket that I cannot charge my tenants we are in an inflation period right now with insurance rates I just can't afford to pass all of these rates on to my tenants I will have vacant units if these rates continue as I have right here last year year they went up they went up again uh in 23 22 21 the only time that there was a roll back was in 2020 uh if the proposed taxes go uh go ahead and be voted on my taxes are going to be going up over the course of my four properties over $1,500 and I'd like to know who is going to be paying that bill I like I said cannot afford to charge each one of my tenants the difference in the tax bills and the in like I said the insurance on all these rental units keep going up people are losing their jobs people can't afford to buy groceries I drive through the city of Titusville every day to visit my rentals to work on my rentals because I can't afford to have maintenance people come to take care of my rentals and I see guys that work for the city of Titusville leaning on shovels for 15 20 minutes standing there smoking cigarettes driving new vehicles I don't drive a new vehicle I can't afford to drive a new vehicle I think that this I think that all of this needs to calm down I think everybody needs to take a new position on all of this and I think that we need to roll things back to square one to at least where it was last year people cannot afford this people are on fixed incomes I'm in my 60s I can't continue to do what I'm doing and make the little bit of money that I make off my rentals which is not nearly enough I'm having to get a second job plus having to work on my rentals so I am working literally seven days a week so this is not fair to the people that are that own properties here people that live here I live in Bard County up in Mims and my tax rate is a heck of a lot lower than what it is here in the city of Titusville and I get more services from the county in Mims than what my tenants get in the city of Titusville but yet these tax bills reflect a heck of a lot more than what I am paying on my property up in t in uh Mims and I have six acres of property up there and that's all I have to say thank you next card Susan copelan hi uh Suzanne Noel Copeland I'm a Titusville resident um I had just a few questions and clarifications about both of the items I guess um one question is uh on the multif family residential it's not clear to me what that is is that duplex quads apartment houses apartment complexes what is the qualification there um at some point does an apartment become a commercial property you know and why are the rates different um the other one kind of goes to the the gallon usage the commercial gallon usage is a flat rate for all gallons under the commercial item on uh page I guess 10 of 27 and that gallon usage is below the standard of the 5,000 gallons that you're saying a you know a residence uses so I was wondering why that is lower for the commercial and Industrial usage um other than that uh let's see here the the reasoning for the increases looks to have stopped on page 13 Pages 14 plus are with the increases are way more than 5% um these are for things like cross connection control programs these are increasing 33% 49% 60 something perc so I don't know why we didn't have an explanation of these costs or increases um same with the items on page 19 that are going up 33 121% in some instances um and then also on when we get back to the recycling all the recycling is going up 23% so I'm just looking for reasons why you know the increases are wide swings when what was explained was it's going up an average of 5% which only really talks about the water rates so it it just I'd like to have a a better understanding of what those other increases are Kevin you want to comment on the um any of that is the if nothing sure so the one of the questions was commercial rate versus the residential rate so commercial doesn't utilize a tier so they're all charged as a single tier and it is a higher base rate so commercial industrial charges start at 481 where a residential 3/4 meter uh water users at 382 water also doesn't cap its sewer side where residential is capped at 15,000 commercial plays the full Freight of both Water and Sewer throughout the tiers they also enhance they have an enhanced meter charge uh commercial customers have a different usage of water so they do have a higher meter rate um the other charges that were discussed when it comes to cross connection control programs that listing is for the installation of new backflow preventors that is the actual cost to our crews to install a backflow preventor so if we have to reinstall a backflow preventor for commercial property under cross conduction control we pass that cost through dollar for dooll no labor so we've adjusted those rates they weren't adjusted a year ago so this is bringing us up to what it actually cost our field op screws to provide the service normally that is covered by the customer they don't usually don't ask us to do it so they pay a plumber to do it and they have that option of paying their own cost um then there's two versions of that there's a regular dcva and then there's the U vacuum breakers rbpa so there's two different items the actual assembly monitoring fees are unchanged that's again a pass through a contractor we used to monitor All Back Field preventers which is a life safety welfare of the public to prevent contamination entering this the water system from a commercial customer the final items are meter charges again this is a reup to the actual cost to install a meter previously was $334 we are already paying $445 per meter so the city is absorbing the $110 currently in the current year but we are adjusting to make up for that next year to make it dollar for dooll for what it cost us on our last round of meter purchases so so that's the adjustments and now those only affect a new customer coming on line for the first time they get a meter that's not a recurring cost the 5% are on recurring charges these are on fixed charges that affect you when you buy a new house gets a new meter set you upgrade to a new meter those costs are separate as part of the uh application for service they won't carry on to the bills the billing is the what we talked about is the 5% on each side and I hope that helps and you can see he's the expert and I know he'd be glad to give you his card for further answers as needed um so if you want to do that Kevin that would be great thank you so much next card Tony shiff good evening Sho Tropic Street the historic Norwood house um I've been coming to the budget Workshop hearings for a number of years my folder goes back to 2020 um and I have documents even before that um but I still don't understand the process particularly well and so I'm here to just talk about two things in particular and I wonder where's the real line item budget where you can see where things are actually um designated for particular things like in public works road maintenance tree planting tree removal that kind of detail I I wasn't sure where to find that um I I want to remember that I was a research librarian before anybody could Google back when you had to go to the library and ask the librarian to use the Lexus Nexus and stuff so I'm not real naive to searching around but and it's probably there but it wasn't easily accessible which brings me to the second thing I want to talk about I was digging through and looking at the budget trying to find out where perhaps it was that the IT guy would switch the video to live stream all of the Tec meetings versus just half of them how much it might cost you know how much does it cost him to to do six of them instead of 12 uh that's the kind of line item stuff I was looking at so I'm thinking that maybe education of the public is really important and Tuesday night y'all touched on the idea of hiring a public information officer which don't do that that's a wrong approach there are so many things in your budgets and in your goals and objectives and strategies to educate the public that are not being done at one point up until 2023 under the um city managers effective governance was eight public workshops a year and then when the public started attending a mokal they dropped off the charts we no longer have them on the goals and objectives so um I think that was kind of strange and I'd like to see that happen uh one of the effective governance things that was under this year's for year 25 was to continue to broadcast Advisory board meetings expanding the broadcast when appropriate I would think that after two years of Miss Lori coming up from Coco For Heaven's Sake we would throw the switch on all 12 of those meetings so that we would stop hearing that it is appropriate to broadcast to the public because there is an interest out there you don't need a public information officer to um do that and so I was looking under um community relations and and there's this line item 4801 promotional activities that eight departments out of the ones listed throughout the budget you know where they itemize each Department's things eight departments get this promotional activities what is that for because some of them like poor planning they're getting for the first time this year but it's only $103 but um the economic development they're getting 90,000 this year which is an 8.48% um 8.48% increase over last year so what are those promotional activities those could be used to create fun activities throughout the communities where we could have staff perhaps citizen Advocates can you imagine IM the trees that could be planted on private properties if you let K on get out there into the public and start talking about it at some event why don't we tag on to the events that well there aren't that many events why don't we create events so I was looking through the line items I'd like to see that too art there's nothing going on for culture and art in the Titusville budget and I'm not going to take up anybody else's time um I just wanted to get those things out there the 2% or the $2 per capita for tree planting and money for fun things art the people want to do things in this town they don't want to have to go to Melbourne for everything I miss out on a lot cuz well I don't miss out on a lot because I'm play in a band and I get hired to go a lot of places but not every citizen gets to do that and I have to leave town to play there's no place in this town that hires my band thank you Tony so Tony Tony come back I'm just going to say one of the reasons for having public relations we would call it a public information officer was like I said last the other night people asked me if the re river is dead and I hear it over and over again and the river is not dead it's not where it was not where we wanted it to be but it's looking a whole lot better and so I wanted to make sure that the citizens were informed about things so it's more this is what's going on and I hope at some point we we actually do that because I think it would be great for the citizens to have somebody they could contact you know I got a question how's the seagrass doing in the river how are the clams doing in the river uh having uh Captain Wiggins here I mean 22 years on TV with a fishing program not that I watch it but uh yeah yeah I don't watch it um but you know you would expect the sport fisherman to be packing this place and saying I want to hear from him I want to hear what he's doing um well maybe City Hall isn't the place a lot of people are intimidated you notice I'm not but a lot of people are and that's why I say taking things out into the community even if you just took the big Pavilion at Sandpoint Park and had a had a Saturday afternoon meet a dolphin and you had somebody dressed up as a you know you don't have to hire a person to do that don't we have people on staff in public service and and um I you know I'm I'm sure they don't want to take on the extra Duty but there's a woman in the fire department that does that what is the woman's name that does yeah she's a professional clown For Heaven's Sake send me out there I juggle people would come and talk to me and I could talk to them about the river well National National Night Out is October 1st talk talk Amy Matthews talk to Amy Matthews all right next card Christopher Charles S hey Christopher Childs 5627 Enchanted Avenue um yeah I so I did help with the CD thing I think um I'm a tech guy I'm a software engineer by trade and and I think uh there are a lot of things that we can leverage as a city for with technology and I think I think we're already heading that way with like the AI program for planning I think that's a great are to to Pilot uh that um for the for the audio that they put on a CD that's a really that's an easy thing now that you can do is put up audio uh and convert it to a video you just put like a black background on it it takes less than five minutes to convert it and then upload it to YouTube and that makes it not only uh saves you money and staff to to put it on a CD and and then also answer the calls and and emails about people requesting it but then it also helps the they can just get it online just like they can for these meetings or the planing and zoning and and the Tec and even if you didn't record the Tec meetings and you could at least put the audio up there really easy but it literally takes five minutes or less but um I also think that um uh using Consultants um for like the tree list of trr you know shrubs and tree list that we did I think I think there's a lot of people who have phds and stuff and who are volunteering and they come to these meetings they come to Planning and Zoning I think uh if you had the program to allow them to bid and not not for money but bid to work on it same deliverables same timeline and they can have you know and and they can come back and give you a list and instead of spending money on Consultants I think that'd be a a good saor too but yeah um but uh uh I think those things and and to dro the lawsuit for the right to clean water that will save money too so go ahead yes please do I'm sorry Mr child yes sir you're a businessman how do you when you were as a businessman how when you ask a volunteer to do something um are they always there to do what they promised you they that they were going to do you mean can you count on them all the time absolutely can you huh I'm just asking that can you count on a volunteer all the time um I think in business I I have interns that I could count on I had interns that I used that were volunteers that you that I did not pay determine your business output on volunteers I did I did uh one of my companies I did we we had two uh interns that were going to college for for programming that we had them some internship yeah yeah internship yeah so I'm talking about just a volunteer that you pend depend on five days a week to do a lot of things that you would have to pay an employee $15 $17 an hour to do and um then they going to volunteer their time and say that they're going to be there at 8:00 in the morning so that you can meet your business schedule and they I don't think your Consultants do that I don't think the Consultants are here all day I don't even think they work here you you build a business you know I've been in the nonprofit B you build a business on simple uh volunteers that do all of the things that uh cost extra you wouldn't build the business on volunteers would you no no it definitely would for sure we'll go from there thank you except Joe except for me well you and I are special I make a great volunteer I'm not sure where we went with that but we'll move on next card Nathan Slusher good evening everybody for the record my name is Nathan Slusher I live at 860 allenvale Street um here as a citizen of the city tonight for once listen I've been doing this for four years coming to these budget hearings for once I would like to show up to one and have a presentation with the proposal for reduction and I know I'm not alone now I'm not asking for something dramatic it could be a 1% reduction at this rate because some of us would like to see the usage the rates all go backwards even slightly we have been pushing forward year after year after year the first time I came was in 2021 and then we had to raise rates because of building materials were up because of Co the next year it was because of inflation and so on and so forth every year there's a reason there will always be a reason from here until the end of humanity there's always a reason for more what I want to see is somebody to say no we're going to hold on I came to this meeting specifically because this isn't the final hearing and I want to give you guys something to actually think on in the next two weeks and maybe just maybe see if the staff can help look at the numbers on what it would look like if it was done differently we have heard every year that those that are homesteaded won't be affected but that's not true maybe not directly maybe they won't directly be affected but when the cost for rental units goes up the costs for goods and services go up when the costs for goods and services go up Cola has to be increased for us to keep up when Cola gets increased we have to raise taxes when we raise taxes the cost of goods and services go up this is a perpetuating cycle that only you five can stop and for once I just want to see it a tiny reduction and I'll celebrate that we just even tried to go in the correct direction what I'm asking specifically is when you look at the charts that are shown are proposal is at 6.58 our roll back is at 6.35 put a tenative at 6.0 see what it comes back at on September 26th during the final hearing this is tenanted tonight this is not final if you put it at 6.0 you're going to get the mathematics and we're all going to get to watch it can the city function on that can we make adjustments can we find alternative funding you talked about alternative funding already I think we can and I think our citizens would like it I have been out knocking on thousands of doors this year and our top three concerns are Indian River Lagoon affordable housing and property taxes by the city of Titusville two of them you are affecting with this vote tonight you could argue you're affecting the Indian River Lagoon with it too I really would like to see us put a tentative at 6.0 see what the mathematics come back at so that the citizens when they watch this on September 26 can see how it plays out maybe it's possible if you go back on this chart that they put up there the very first pigra that hit showed that 51% of our budget is not military it's services and charges 51% now our budget is $146 million it's a big budget but at what point do we as Leaders go wait wait a second here maybe we should breathe for a year the last time we did it was in 2020 and we didn't go backwards all we did would stay the same with the roll back and since then inflation and economics have changed everyone's course of life that's not your fault that's not our fault that's the US in general that's the world in General Life changed after covid but at what point do we stop and say let's take a step back here this year has been crazy wild everyone has seen that maybe our citizens deserve just a moment of Peace just one year thank you may I ask yeah absolutely vice mayor I I I know you're not old enough to understand this question too much do you know how much a loaf of bread cost in 1963 64 no you're correct I'm not old enough to understand that question a quarter a quarter quarter in 1963 now but you can tell me how much a low for bread cost now right approximately $3 $3.50 you know what the difference in the cost of a bread loaf of bread in 1963 is you would say probably $3 but in reality a loaf of bread still costs the equivalent of a quarter of 1963 because of inflation because the value of that dollar has gone down and that's when you making a budget and when you putting things together you have to take that into consideration I'm not I'm not in disagree I'm I have rental property I understand all that is being said but understand that when you're putting a budget together you put it together on the on the cost of goods for today not based on what you think a dollar is worth because you use the term inflation the dollar is still is still worth about 25 35 to 25 uh 25 to 35 cents that's what a dollar's worth and you have to build things around that and understand the goods that you used to get yet for $2 last year three years ago before the pandemic you can't get those goods and service today for the same cost always keep that in mind as you are putting together and you making your concern yes water has gone up things has gone up everything has gone up and if you want to meet the needs of the individual uh or the residents of this city you have to make sure that you have the financial resources and that's going to look like is really going up but in reality that what's happening the dollar is just not worth as much as it used to be keep that in mind as you make your request okay member Nelson Miss oh hold on you want to say something I was gonna ask if I could I don't mean to interrupt you madam go ahead Mr Robinson I greatly understand what you're talking about inflation four years ago In This Very Room a handful of us that are in here tonight sat in front of you as you discussed taking money from the federal government for the funding for covid and we told you if you did that you would cause inflation you as in local governments not you as in Titusville local governments were the number one collector number one one in the entire country for all of the federal funding that came with Co not the big companies not the individual citizens who got $1,000 here or there local governments we drove inflation and now we are putting up budgets because of inflation we cannot continue to charge our citizens for a problem that we created it's just morally incorrect member Nelson okay Nathan can you take two deep breaths yeah I'm sorry I came straight from work I'm excited two deep breaths first okay that's one I'm waiting for the second okay very good all right okay when I ran Sarah ran Dan ran in 2016 one of the things one of the reasons we ran I did not want to run I wanted to stay home and play um and I'm still here so obviously I'm not having quite as much fun but one of the reasons we ran was because of the river for the Lagoon and for our infrastructure and I remember talking to a guy who was on Council that worked for the water department and what he told me was when we had the huge sewers bill that after that we got fined $20 million 1994 I think it was and he was like after that city council would not spend money on infrastructure so now we're dealing 2016 we're dealing with infrastructure that's 20 30 years old some of our infrastructure is even worse and I look at it and go if we don't fix our infrastructure that's impacting our lagon the septic tanks that are out there we're impacting our Lagoon and we're hoping to heal it but if we don't fix that we don't fix our sewer pipes all they're doing is leaking last sewer pipe that that broke was over on Indian River Avenue it was a pipe that was probably from the 50s cast iron so you know it was old and so a lot of what we've talked about and a lot of what we're spending money on and I agree with Mr s we we can look at some of that but a lot of what we're spending money on is infrastructure and I think that's a lot of Kevin's budget and it's something we we have to do you know citizens want the Indian River back and I do too I do too I went out what two three weeks ago um kayak with a bunch of kids against my better judgment and saw SE GRS all over the place and I was like Yay so as we go through the budget we are thinking about that but we are really thinking about the river so and I absolutely understand I understand infrastructure because my house has a giant trench in the front yard because we are doing cast iron pipes at this exact moment so I am fully aware of how difficult that one is we're certainly getting caught up in a bit of pay me now or pay me later and so because the infrastructure perhaps wasn't kept up with we are coming up with you know was it $40 million project so let me go we got another um member stal yep uh member Nelson kind of touched on what I was going to say I hear you I I mentioned in every budget cycle too I wish we could lower taxes as well one of the things that I have been pushing for and I'm glad to see is lowering our millage rate and that's able to happen as we get more development in our place like so one of the ways we can do it is increase revenues we do that through Industries and businesses so there's a lot of moving pieces to this where we're trying to do that we have I think it's around 15 million in Grants right now getting grants alternative funding hoping to get some State Appropriations um you mentioned the top three things Lagoon and reducing taxes and to member Nelson's point we could sit up here and say no no no which is I think what prior councils did and we're paying for that right now we would have more sewer spills in the lagoon we would have people complaining about flooding they things would happen but we could say we didn't we didn't raise taxes that can happen and that's what I really spend a lot of time on quite frankly and I'm always saying to the city manager can we just lower it a little bit more is there anything we can do and we have those discussions um so just know we're trying this one is proposed at 3.5 it could we could have set it at 10% but thankfully we built it lower um and are lowering our millage rate and I'm hopeful as like Tranquility Shores that development happens and we're getting additional Revenue in that we can kind of lower it that that's kind of where I'm coming from so I hear you I want to get there and I'm hopeful that we can are gradually making progress but we're balancing that out with large large infrastructure projects so thank you for sharing though uh member Cole and Nathan you know you're a very thoughtful person and I and I understand where you're coming from but as a councel well I can't talk for the council I'll talk for me uh when I look at the budget I look at the budget in a way that I want to make sure that we provide the services that we're supposed to provide for the city and I'm another one that's big on infrastructures because I I've done that all my life and it's not exotic but it's not something that you see and you have to convince people that it's something you have to spend money on I was the vice president at the University of Dayton and as such I had facilities under me and I had to convince the Board of Trustees that although they couldn't see the infrastructure the infrastructure was something we had to do it's not a brand new building it's not any of those things I guarantee you that we are thoughtful very thoughtful when we produce the budget you know we're thinking about the citizens and thinking about the increases that we put in but we're all so thoughtful and mindful that there are things we have to do to provide these things to our citizens but I thank you for your input and I always enjoy talking to you I think um Mr Mayor if you'll allow me I think there's been a little bit of a misunderstanding under no circumstances do I think any of you have not thought about this do I I do not under any way think someone is not thoughtful not talking with the city manager not talking with the directors of our departments but for anyone who has read his and read their history books the reason Cortez was so successful was because when he landed he told his people to burn the boats we go home when we succeed being thoughtful is not enough sometimes we have to take chances and risk and now I understand mitigating risk and managing risk is important which is why I came up here and instead of saying wipe off property taxes and being crazy I said let's aim for 6.0 millit rate and find out what that mathematic comes to setting tenative does not make it happen we have another hearing on the 26th and I would love to see a presentation just to see what it looks like and maybe you say oh well 6.0 gets us this but it's not quite enough we need more infrastructure let's go with 6.31 well that's still less than the roll back rate but we will not know until it's on the screen and we see the math until we hear from the department heads to see what is this going to look like in their apartments and and Nathan I and I got that and I thought that was thoughtful you clearly you came up with a number and I get that that's a goal um and and that alone instead of getting up there and saying we need to lower taxes blah blah blah you didn't do that so I I appreciate that I and I think it was stated up here pretty good um you know the biggest problem I see is that it's not even a problem it's we got to have the infrastructure we've got to stop playing with it we've got to do what it takes and uh and and as member stokel said there was just a lot of pre I shouldn't say I want to get into previous councils but it just hasn't been done properly and we're we you know I think everybody understands that's a problem with the Lagoon and with people's uh sewage and with people's flooding we have to get that taken care of but at the same time I certainly think that the thought that you came up with hey let's look at this number and just see what it does I get that and I appreciate you Nathan always good to hear from you thank you next card Trenton Mansfield hey Trenton hello Trenton Mansfield Pentax Avenue Titusville resident um really didn't prepare a speech but uh it's the same thing it is every year um it's about the renters um my taxes have not gone up substantially over the past eight years I've lived here in Titusville but it's about the renters the renters are renters renters um it's 29% of non-homesteaded homes are properties here in the city of Titusville I don't know exactly how many are renters I did do some research and I'll probably have some stuff um when I come back um as far as because last at the budget Workshop there was a guy here that said his taxes were low and that's cute I mean his taxes may be low and there are people in this city with their taxes low but the people that have bought their homes in the next past four years their taxes are not low not even close to being low some people are paying on a $300,000 house or paying $1,500 a month just for the city of Titusville um just some ways to cut um the city manager does he get a performance evaluation increase this year too that's just a question I have um can we see his performance evaluation ations um I got some notes here um that I've been taken throughout the thing um the the taxes are out of control but the insurance rates are also out of control my wife's an insurance agent and people complain constantly about their auto and home insurance and it's just just just questions I mean I I I I understand y'all go through the budget but can we set it like Nathan said I mean can we set it lower to see just just speculate to see where we could possibly go and the dollar is lower because of the printer the printer printed and people took those printed monies I mean PPP loans every all them loans all that free money everybody was it was like it was like Oprah Winfrey up there I mean that's just the way it was um and the ADA compliance we will never be ADA Compliant ever ever but that doesn't mean that the citizen shouldn't be able to see it okay I I I encourage you to go look at other City websites and look at their stuff um let's see and as far as live streaming the meetings the Tec the budget workshops we didn't live stream the budget Workshop I live streamed it but there's over $100,000 worth of AV Equipment in here these lights I know y'all didn't buy the cheapest lights around these lights are not cheap the the control controller that controls the lights are not cheaps it's DMX controller and y'all are probably running it off of a computer system Software System that's not cheap I've been in that room back there that that room is Hightech those cameras those cameras are over $3,000 a piece so we have the system and we use YouTube YouTube is a free service you push start stream and you control them with it with a stick it's super simple I mean and y'all are the coun so y'all can tell the city manager what to do he works for you he doesn't work for us he works for you guys y'all tell him what to do so um and I hear people say I hear you I hear you I hear you um and we talk about achieving goals um but are we achieving the goals is it just a word is it just a speech that we we have this goal out in front of us but we're not hitting the mark and another question is about infrastructure I hear it all the time every year like this year it's going to be 1.6 million more dollars and last year I forget what it was but it was well over a million dollars where did when we finish a project and then we add another $1.6 million on to where does when that project ends where does that money that was used for that project where does it where does it roll into um so that's all I really got to say I I do have to plan to have a better presentation next time I mean I've been working crazy hours now that I'm back to work um but we have raised taxes like people have said before um I got the numbers here 2017 was 8.26% above roll back rate 2018 was 9.9 19% above roll back rate 19 was 3.01% roll back rate 20 was roll back rate um 21 was 5.19% above rollback rate 22 was 9.81% above rollback rate and 23 was 6.0 8% above rollback rate can the citizens have a break can the citizens have a break and I get it y'all y'all have a hard job to do very hard job to do and but y'all set the millage y'all tell the city manager what to do we can't tell him what to do we we we we we elect you guys tell them what to do so that's all I got to say thank you thank you Trenton um I just had a comment oh I'm sorry just to give you some context a little bit Tren it takes a lot of money to run a city you don't have to sit here and lecture me no I want I want you to understand we have the we have the oldest city hall in the county I have come into City Hall and there are tiles falling from the ceiling this is what is last priority and it's I I feel horrible that our employees have to work in conditions of coming to an office flooding but we are continuously doing infrastructure projects So when you say okay when that we finish that project where does that money go it goes to another infrastructure project and another infrastructure project I I wish it wasn't that way but that is what is happening I wish I could take a video of my working conditions okay I wish I could I wish I could because people would be astonished thank you uh next card last card is Tom Perez Tom Perez Washington Avenue um making a very short statement I just wanted to come up here and let you know that I support many of those that preceded me okay we are concerned citizens we are trying to work with the city okay pointing things out but you know remember that we really or you're here to hopefully listen to us and and do things that are supportive of your citizens okay um most of the things that Kristen rattled off many of them don't cost anything literally you have everything in place it's just like throwing a switch like thee uh previous person and said you know and people want to feel like they're being listened to and it doesn't take much but yet transparency isn't available to us why that's a good question to ask I mean shouldn't be hard to do that um it would allow for more more citizen involvement maybe somebody's afraid of that okay we're bringing things to your attention that you need to know about but you're the only ones because you're in the positions that you've been elected to that can do anything about it and uh I can't sit down without saying oh by the way you know we could have saved $165,000 by not continuing this uh this legal lawsuit against uh speak of Titusville that's 165,000 two judges have already said hey you know give it up and we continue next Thursday we'll have an appeal it'll probably take some months before that goes into place but I have no doubt never did that it would happen we did our work we did what we needed to do in order to prepare for what we knew was coming just like we're doing now for the state Amendment we know that it's going to be challenged because there are a lot of I guess uh people that aren't interested in this kind of stuff for a good reason money anyway I don't want to take any more of your time thank you thank you Tom will you saved one more card okay um I believe it's c t en you can clear that up when you get up here hi my name is k Childs uh 476 for an Avenue um like many of my other citizens here uh we've seen nothing but inflation uh due from you know the federal government increasing uh loans and they move it up and down but what we can control is the city's inflation for taxes and other municipalities uh the main issue that we have here in tville is infrastructure but the main thing that I keep continuously see is the money keeps going up but there's not much infrastructure being fixed so and what I mean by that is you guys say you have tons of infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure projects but it's it's uh it's still collapsing and we're doing projects for roads uh but we're not checking the surrounding drainage just last week on Fern and Elder a a couple sink holes uh caused the road to collapse and they had to shut down the intersection uh it's still waiting to be paved uh but they managed to go in there and instead of replacing the whole pipe they just patched it instead and that's all that's going to end up doing is uh causing them to have to go back and replace more of the pipe or Patch It Again causing us more money more f u and more taxes so uh I went through one of the the whatever it's called the uh things they showed up on the TV uh for the average cost for the water uh taxes going up and one thing I'm noticing uh is the amount of people that live the population of the cities and uh it's it's kind of hard to see from all this but it it's just a simple Google search take that chart that you guys had displayed and uh write down how what the population is of each of the Cities uh tville from just not it may not be current but just uh the same year for population growth was 4ou uh 49,000 roughly and uh from the same years of all the other cities counties that was displayed uh what I'm seeing is ours are is going up steadily and uh while we are uh not as big as some of these other cities the prices for their taxes are staying steady uh in comparison with their population but ours is is not staying the same uh and that's that's pretty much and we're spending money on things we don't need to uh if you were to run it like a business like I know some of you guys uh know how to onun a business uh what happens if you don't have enough money you either take out a loan or you cut the budget or you balance it you can't spend more money than what you have so just because you raise the taxes doesn't mean that you're going to be able to fix the problem because you're spending money on uh paying people more when the problem's not being fixed so I'll open up for questions mber Nelson um you were talking about infrastructure tell me your name again KAS KAS yes okay Kevin I'm GNA pick on you I mean I know some of the infrastructure projects that we've done one being the sewer plant which was if I remember remember right was $13 million upgrading the sewer plant am I right am I close 30 years ago yeah that's probably about right no this last upgrade or blue her oh the Osprey upgrade yes that was around was how much money around 13 million 13 million roughly not 1300 No 1 I wish and then the getting the sewer pipes off the river I don't know if people realized this sewer pipes actually ran along the river so I I'm not looking for an education I'm just looking for questions what you might have for me I'm telling you how how I see everything is and what I want is questions for what you think I can do or what uh you you guys have questions on what I think you guys can improve on not I'm not looking for I thought you were asking you know what have you what are you doing with the money yeah yeah so okay then I apologize so any other questions I see none okay thank you all right um that was it yes all right um this is why certainly guidance here uh City attorney yes sir the first ordinance you'll need to do is address the millage which is ordinance uh 28202 24 nson get ready so when you first adopt the tentative millage you'll need to State what the Mills are the in percentage increase above the roll back rate and the service millage so yeah if you unless you want to address the budget if you want to make amendments to the budget you would need to do that and then you would recalculate your millage if you're not going to make changes to the budget then the first thing we'll do is adopt tenative millage de will adopt ative I think everything here says adopt tentative millage so that to me would be something to do here and um perhaps look for discussion for those that would like to see us do something different as we move to the next meeting so that's just my feeling about it I don't see any lights lit up so I'm thinking that uh we could have you read the the um uh tentative military I tend to agree and I think we're making small adjustments to the budget I wouldn't think that would be a huge problem right I would say that we move forward with all this and have discussions as we you know Pro manager as we go so I moved to adopt a tenative millage rate of 6.58 17 Mills which is 3.9% increase above the rad back rate of 6.35 36 Ms and to adopt the tenative voted Deb Debt Service millage at 936 mil City attorney that a solid motion sure I just want to clarify that the uh 6.5 817 Mills is a 3.59% increase above the roll back rate yeah going to second with that change yes 3. what 5'9 percent increase above the roll back rate of 6.35 36 Mills I said it and and adopting the 10 devoted Debt Service Mill at 0936 Mills is that correct okay with that second corrected or put in there correctly thank you very much uh we'll take we have a motion and a second by member stokel roll call vote member Cole yes member Nelson yes mayor diesel yes vice mayor Robinson yes member stokel yes and tended believe passes unanimously and I state that the percentage increase above the roll back rate is a percentage increase in property taxes tentatively adopted by the city council okay um we need another motion correct next you'll need to adopt a tenative budget okay go ahead I mooved to adopt the attenda to General and related budgets of the city of tville for fisol year 2025 in ordinance number 29- 2024 second I have a motion and the second roll call vote member Nelson yes mayor diesel yes vice mayor Robinson yes member stokel yes member Cole yes passes un tentatively passes unanimously City not city manager um City attorney you want to move us to the next one yes now we'll need to open the public hearing on ordinance 30 2024 okay call cards one card it's Trenton mansfi thank you um any other cards I think I seen a hand Christ l a few budget comments uh Co resident advocate for with provard care citizens Coalition and I just wanted to make a few quick comments one of them is that the millage now that you have set that um can go down at the next hearing it just can't go up with without doing a whole bunch of stuff so you still could go down making sure that the room and everyone is aware of that um the next thing on the uh budget that I wanted to know is that on the revenue summary page 12 it says that the impact fees have gone down 96.3% from 2,466 379 in FY 2024 to 90,000 in FY 2025 and there's a lot of talk about the impact fees and the impacts of not having those and uh residents regularly bring this up at meetings I know the city is having a study right now of impact fees so I seen that go by but it is curious that we would be going down and having that um budget change on the impact fees another item on the budget and a prior speaker had talked about it and has to do with the city manager budget and it has the an increase right now FY change between the years of 3.5% and the question that I have is is does that include the performance increase because last year Mr lorice got a both uh performance increase increase and a cost of living increase so he got two separate increases that equal the $25,000 of his salary and so the question is is does he also get a performance increase this year and a prior speaker Mr Trenton had asked about the per performance evaluation which people are interested in they're interested in the accountability and what's going on in Titusville and there has been a lot of interest uh generated in this topic and I think it's a fair question for the public to wonder about both the city manager's office and the city attorney's office these are both high dollar offices very visible positions and we would like to know more I have done an inquiry on have gotten the evaluations for the city manager but I actually don't know when they take place or if they take place or if you just send them documents there's no visibility to this and when we're talking about the budget we're talking about accountability the citizens would like to know so I think it's a fair question that a prior commenter and myself had asked about this topic so I have also put in a separate card for uh 20 24 but those are a few additional budget observations that I should think should be considered and answered would anybody available to answer those impact fees and city manager City attorney budgets and performance evaluations anybody over that would answer that or I will speak on performance evaluations it is a very transparent process it happens every year around October they are in our agenda packets they are all public knowledge so they've been there so is it agenda item that's discussed at a meeting it is under the city manager's report they are public you can see them they've been public so I don't I don't know what else to tell they have been available to the public is what you're saying but are they publicly discussed under the city manager's agenda item Council chooses to discuss but if they don't then it's invisible to the public would that be it's not that would not be it's available but it is not visible during a meeting and what and when does that happen in that city manager when when is that is October is it September I which I'm I'm sorry I'm listening okay so we don't know then so I'm leaving not Happ it happens in October thank you it's an individual thing that we do we don't discuss I don't discuss what how i rate the city manager she doesn't discuss with me how she rates them it's an individual thing and it's in the packet so that there is transparency there's nothing that we discuss to determine or we going to give him a good rating on this know we're going to give him a bad ra it's an individual thing it's how I some cities have a public discussion so I'm this city doesn't thank you you're welcome thank you and the impact fees did can someone answer that why are the impact fees going down uh 96.3 5% this year sure go ahead keevin if you look at the revised budget that the current year budget had a nearly $2.4 million influx from our impact fees that are housed uh forar County for Road impact fees so that transfer throws the percentage off greatly As you move forward because that is a compared to the year before the actuals are 214,000 so $2.4 million influx of Road impact fees that we got a dispersement changes that percentage greatly year it's still going down from 214,000 the year before so we're from 214,000 then if you just leave out 2024 now we're at the 990,000 we're still over half reduction so and we have many projects in the pipeline 60 projects in they're open we conservatively budget that because we never know from year to year what it's going to be and so it's just a number that we work in based on what we think we might get you don't ever want to over budget revenues because if you don't get them you're spending money on revenues you're not getting got it um I I have one um follow-up question and I forgot to ask but I'm also interested in when you guys get records fees where that is housed in the budget so when there's fees that are charged to the public for records access to records what part of the budget line item is that in does Miss Wells know does city manager now it's not a budget item it's the cost recoverable for that service cost recoverable but it it's nowhere in the budget materials then okay no thank you thank you clerk all right continue on so I think I'm here I moved to adopt the tenative Enterprise fund Capital Improvement program and related budget I believe just a second go back that that was the public hearing on ordinance 302 24 next we open the public hearing on ordinance 31 2024 which is the solid waste okay rates Etc city clerk we have one car that's Trenton Menville thank you Tron member Nelson now it be appropriate to the public hearing on ordinance 32 2024 which is the Enterprise fund and Capital Improvements program budgets for the city one card it's Kristen lording I swear I don't remember all these stops along the way Kristen LTE and on this item I was curious because I don't see anything on the websites on it and I don't see there's 27 pages of the documentation that's available in the packet on the website and I don't see where this is and I I really think these materials should be made available and so now that you've received the comment of what is not on the website we that can be immediately updated um by the city so that residents have the access so I have added access under Bard care citizens Coalition I have posted some of these backup documents on to help citizens but you know the city could pick it up here and make sure that the information is available and I would like that because I can't even see anything at least on the water you know some of these other ones on the Water and Sewer you have added the rates in the proposed rates into the 27 Pages even though we don't have the same information that we saw earlier um I would really encourage the city to put that but I would like to um know where it is uh on you know that the public would is the only way to have seen this for this ordinance to have made a special request to the city that's my question because I I before you answer I would say you were adopting the Enterprise funds and Capital Improvements programs of the city of Titusville for the fiscal year 2025 that sounds very interesting people might you know really want to um peruse that and understand it and comment on it but if the materials aren't available to the public it's hard to get relevant comments back so I am interested it's in the proposed budget yeah on in the 203 Pages yes so is there um narrative on it okay there's not because in the proposed budget so you know the the there's lots of numbers in the budget there's actually not that much narrative so on the budget side you can see um different information's Broken Out by Department you can compare year-over-year and that's very helpful to people once they open the budget but I did not see on that on the Capital Improvements but if that were added then the link back into the agenda materials and made available to the public so that it's I I think this is the kind of stuff we should put press releases out Facebook post let's all get the facts right and uh and I'm finding that there's opportunities here so it so you're saying that it is in in the budget um 203 Pages which is not a ailable right now in the agenda materials thank you thank you all right we good all right member Nelson I mooved to adopt the 10 of general and related budgets of the city of Titusville for fiscal year 2025 and ordinance number 29- 2024 it's second ordinance 3220 we did 32220 you did you already adopted all right did that the tenative General related budgets of the city of tville for fiscal year 2025 in ordinance 29 2024 that was your previous motion this would be a motion to approve the tenative Enterprise fund Capital Improvement program related budgets for the city for fiscal year 2025 in ordinance number 322 that I'm with you member now so I okay sorry I moved to adopt the tenative Enterprise fund Capital Improvement program related budgets of the city of Titusville for fiscal year 2025 and ordinance number 32 2024 second I have a motion in a second roll call vote mayor diesel yes vice mayor Robinson you did yes member stokel yes member Cole yes member Nelson yes pass unanimous city manager um we do we need to announce the date for the final public hearing that's why I said city manager yep 26 at uh 5:30 in council chambers announce the date of the final public hearing I think You' said it several times September 26 2024 at 5:30 p.m. right here that ends this correct okay we don't do meetings like this very often all right this meeting is adjured until the next one actually on your agent on the front of your agenda you have petitions what no actually on the front of your agenda you have petitions from the public whatever you just said it's too late this I don't like this I for