City Council - workshop

I'd like to call to order the City of Apopka budget workshop for September 1st, 2026. We'll be running through whatever.

Wait, wait, the mic. Sorry, talking to the mic.

That would have been helpful. Thank you. All right, there we go. We'd like to welcome everybody to the City of Apopka Budget Workshop for September 1st at 1 p.m. We are at the Apopka Community Center or VFW due to some repairs going on within our city chamber that I'm very excited for our next meetings later in the month to be held at. We'll move on to... presentations, but beforehand, I know we're, I did want to bring to everybody's attention the QR codes that we have. That should make it very easy to scan and for anybody in the public to look at QR code and go right to the agenda and all the material for it. So trying to make it as simple and as easy as possible for everybody. And those will be out at every meeting moving forward, not just here, but moving forward. And I do want to thank IT as well and our media team for getting us all together and all of our other departments for coordinating these efforts to have this meeting. So we will move on to Ms. Sherman.

The floor is yours.

And I guess commissioners, as Mrs. Sherman is walking up there, we have obviously a lot of paper in front of us right now. You have your iPads, things of that nature. We'll go, there's a presentation of sorts, but also obviously we have the spreadsheet here that's in front of you as well, available online, has been sent to you a few different times. We can go exactly line by line if that is the preference. or my preference would be, hey, we hit the mayor's office. Is there specific questions for that? Nope, okay, move on to the next one and go from there. And from there, we can go, we can talk about what was removed in the first round of budget cuts, what was removed in the second, third, and then figure out and discuss for each department what we wanna add in, what we wanna take away concerns. So as long as everyone's okay with that format, we'll start with mayor's office. We'll start with revenue first. That's perfect. Ms. Sherman, take it away.

The revenue is this last sheet. Oh.

Little red button in the back.

Once again, good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, and our staff and citizens. We're going to start out going through the FY27 estimated revenue budget for the tentative revenue budget. I'm going to try on the screen to go a little bit like line by line here.

Well, let me ask the commissioners, before you go line by line, are there any questions for the revenue, or are you wanting staff to go line by line by line? My goal was to address any specific questions that you guys had, and if there aren't any, we can briefly go through it, kind of go to the bottom line, and say, hey, here's where we're at, here's what we changed, and if there's specific questions, then go into it from there.

I prefer that myself, too.

That's no problem.

If we want to have a discussion about something, it leaves us more time, and we don't get... I'm good either way.

I'm good either way. Yeah, so let's go to the bottom line then.

Okay. For the general fund, the bottom line that we have right now for the general fund. Oh, come on down. This is why you didn't want this, man. This amount here, which is... 102,999,723. I can go through some of the highlights, if you don't mind. Sure. Okay. One of the first items was at the top, which is our property tax revenue. That's at 41,212,742. What page is that? It's at the top of this page, first page. Oh, okay. We went to the top. Page one. See this amount here on page one. Okay. Okay. For the revenue, 41 million, 212,742. Of course, that's based on the mill that we set back in July. So that gives us, as you can see from the prior year, an increase of about 6.5 million. Some of the other highlights that I want to emphasize still on page one is for The building permits, we're estimating here at about 5 million. As you can see, year over year, that is a reduction of about 3.4. And as I emphasized in the July 8th budget workshop, some of the key revenue changes was related to some of our growth slowing down. So there's not that much new development. And of course, the building permits are impacted by that. The other one that I wanna highlight is the planning analysis fees. As you can see, budget over budget is going down another 2.5. These are some growth revenues that we have relied on in the years past that are now going away or slowing down. So we cannot continue to rely on that going forth until the growth comes back. Okay. Yes. I want to, I like some changes. I'm looking for the 4.5. Bill on page one. That is our state revenue sharing funds. We get those estimates from the state and they came out on August 18th. So we are seeing some slight increases in that from what we originally had in the earlier revenue budgets. So overall between that and the sales tax revenue here of 12 million, with an $875,000 increase, we're looking at a little bit over a million. So we're kinda seeing some increases there based on the state projections. Yep, 726 based on that calculation.

Do we have any fear that that may increase more than that?

It's possible, but again, most jurisdictions, municipalities rely on the state estimates, and this is where that information came from.

Do we have monitoring mechanisms that we can kind of, I mean?

Yes. Sorry to interrupt. I just want to make sure your mic is on. I just want to make sure.

Bring it closer to you. Under the bottom.

Testing. Yeah, mine is on.

Testing. Thank you.

Yes, we do have monetary. I get a monthly, you know, when the money comes in. We're kind of looking at the trends.

Yeah, I just want to make sure we've got a trending mechanism to keep an eye on that. 19% is pretty sizable.

I know.

Thank you.

So those are some of the key revenue changes in the general fund. I'm going to go to the streets fund.

What page is that?

Streets fund 101. And that starts on page three. Page three. Yes, ma'am. On page three. OK. OK. With our street funds, we usually, based on gas tax revenue, at the time that we were updating these numbers, the state had not given us those projections at that time. So it's still like a 2% or something like that increase based on trends. So we haven't gotten those projections from the state as of yet. So you see the 1.7 compared to the 1.735, 1.775 compared to the 1.735. So if you'd like, I will emphasize, please note here, originally we had kept this transfer the same as last year, but you'll see in your third round reductions, there's a reduction of about 1.4 coming from the general fund, which is right here, okay?

Impact. That transfer from general funds is 23%?

That's a 23% reduction. Reduction. Yes, sir. Impact fee revenue for fund 102, a 4% factor there. The law enforcement trust is almost status quo, a slight increase right there in projections. Looking at the trends, going about 4% for each one. And going down to the impact fees for recreation. Again, you're seeing that large change here. Let me get to the right one. Up here. Because again, we were anticipating growth in 26 that is not being realized. So therefore, we're bringing the budget in line with the current trends and you see a big reduction there in both cases. And that goes the same for some of the other impact fees like fire and police impact fees. The discretionary funds and the state forfeiture funds basically are somewhat status quo, a little bit of change, less use of reserves for the state. Well, at this time, we haven't factored the reserves. Let me be clear on that. Okay. But it'll be about the same. I'm gonna go to page four. starting with fire impact fees up here. As I mentioned, again, everything is kind of going down due to the growth slowing down here, so our projections are going down. Same thing for the police right here, as you can see. And then we just get into the special revenue funds. And again, this is based on the assessment that we sent out through the trim process. And that assessment is basically calculated on what it costs to maintain these areas. So that's all the way from Mainline Village down to Emerson Park Place. Emerson Park is the one that you'll see on the agenda for Thursday. That's the roadway improvements. And this is the assessment revenue associated with that. And that's to pay back the debt. It all comes from that assessment. Okay. I'm getting to the water. Am I there? I got to move it down with the spreadsheet, though, like that. I can't. I'll try to point.

Can you juggle, too?

Hey, I got it. I'll do my best. I will do my best. I'm sorry. So as I go down, let me do here. I'm going to try to use it.

In residence, if you can't see, we do have chairs closer up here too, if that's a whole section. You don't have to pay extra for this.

Which one is the pointer? You don't know either. Anybody know which one is the pointer? The red one? Okay. Where is the light? It doesn't like me. It's not pointing. I apologize, Mr. Olson. I can't get it to point. But I'm still on page four at the bottom. And we're talking about the $15.2 million for water service fees. Basically, the water utility operations revenue is based on the raft tillage projections at 6% increase. And this is something we'll be talking about tomorrow in that planned rate increase. So that revenue has been factored in here to balance that budget. to help support the expenses.

So you're on the water service fees?

Yes, ma'am, I'm down on the bottom of page five.

Oh, page five.

I'm sorry, page four. Page four or five? Very bottom. Water fees, okay. Now you see why I gave you the paper. So all of that revenue is basically as a result of that projections from Ralph Tillis and that 6% increase.

Okay, and this is the 6%.

Yes, ma'am. So the next one I'm going to page five now. Next one is sanitation. And again, the sanitation revenue is based on the Ralph Tillis projections. And that 6.5% increase, that was a part of the adopted plan, that five-year plan that went from 2025 to 2029. And we're in year 2027 of that plan. So that $9.8 million is related to those projections. And again, this again is, as we talked about with the sanitation budget, this one is operating within the revenues being generated each year.

Can I ask you one question? Yes, ma'am. What is effluent penalty? Right on the top, on the sewer service fees. Effluent penalty.

What is that? Glenn. Effluent penalty. You know when they get penalized? Effluent penalty. EFF. EFF. Effluent.

What does that mean?

I said it wrong. It's a revenue, a revenue. So obviously we penalize somebody.

A penalty?

Yeah, it's not that much, but I don't know what it is.

Okay, we'll get you that. We'll get you that information. Thanks, Glenn. Yeah, I don't know what that means. Any other questions on the utility operations water, wastewater revenue? Okay, we talked about sanitation. So now we're down into the impact fees. Our total here based on RAF Tillis projections that was contained within that 6% increase, we're looking at about 10 million, 10.7 million there for that. And the CRA, we've already met with the CRA, and they've recommended certain changes to their budget, but the revenue, of course, is the 7.8 million, and that includes about 6.1 in carryover funds. So in total, right now, we're looking at 203,911,470, and this total does not factor the use of the reserves that we'll be going over later.

And you see us decreasing another 31,000? No, 31 million?

That 31,000 is compared to the 235 million that did include the reserves, okay?

I meant million, not thousand.

I do it all the time.

But we'll probably be going down. No. It'll only be going down $25 million after reserves are used, approximately.

Approximately. We'll see. Okay. Yes, sir. Any questions on the revenue?

Any questions from the public on revenue? All right. Keep moving.

I like it.

Now we're going into the expenditures.

IT help.

Are we going with this big one?

Yes. Expense side.

Expense side. I'm going to go. As the mayor just mentioned, go cost center by cost center. We're gonna start with the mayor's budget.

Are you trying to break it out?

I'm trying to filter, Mayor. It was on that, but then I don't know where they went. So into the right here. I see it on some. I know. Hold on. It was here. See, then it goes. I have to take it off.

Here, let me just try something here.

I'm trying to.

Because you're expanding out the mayor's budget, right?

Yeah, but I'm trying to filter it, and now all I've got to do is a certain way. Let's see how that works.

Well, shouldn't it be?

Let me filter on another way. Good luck. I know, that's what I'm feeling. But I got it.

Oh, is it under fund sum?

Yeah.

Well, because you have the tabs at the bottom, too.

That's where I'm at. This is what you get with all these .

Here we go.

That's what I wanted. Thank you so much.

OK.

So I won't go through the summaries right now. We're just going to go through the detail. And again, I'm going to filter. It's not like me. If this doesn't work, I'm just going to go line by line there because it won't clear them. There we go. Okay. So going with the mayor's budget, any questions? You do have this in front of you. It's on page, the first page. You're looking at the salaries and wages here.

Any questions on the mayor's budget? Any line item questions on that from the commissioners?

Well, I did ask about those says luncheons table sponsorship fees for various luncheons, mayor's breakfast, chamber gala, love banquet. I mean, is that the total that you've spent in the past or is that just sort of a general?

So I got elected in May, so I haven't had any, but for that specifically, I don't know. I think we may have removed some of those and decreased a lot. I'll tell you that.

Mayor, I believe those are some examples. I believe those are some examples that have been done in the past.

We're not doing all of them. I think it's more so the prayer breakfast and some other kind of staple events, but other than that.

You see in the past, out of this area, operating supplies included a few things. Like in 25, spent about $21,000. The prior year budget for FY25 was like 44,005. See these numbers here?

So on that, yeah. So on that budget, it was budgeted in 25 for 44,500. In 26, it was 51,000. And then so we reduced it by 37,000 to a total of 14,500.

Correct.

So we took out a lot of the fluff in that side of things.

And this should have been where your discretionary was as well.

Okay, and yeah, so in reference to discretionary funds, we removed all those as well, at least from my office, and we'll go through the commission side too. That was removed. It's up to the commission if they want to add that back in, but that was removed from everything, and we can go line by line to see what we want to add back in, if anything.

So in the 1010 budget, because we created a new cost center for the commissioners, which is 1025, at some of these previous list of what was in the budget, it included that 10,000, 10,000, 10,000, and 1025. You'll see that that has been removed. So any other questions in regards to the mayor's budget?

If not, and per the policy, after every department for budget workshops, I need to allow public comment. Anybody from the public wish to speak specifically to the mayor's budget? If not, I'll close public comment.

One person is actually getting up.

The regular salary and wages, that 300 and some.

Can you say it for the record?

Up under the, I think the regular salary and wages, the 300,000, what that entail? Just how many salaries or how many people involved in that?

It's myself and my executive assistant, and it's not the 300,000. It's 229. It was budgeted at 325,000. and is now 229.

Your assistant, so that's minus 133 with your salary? Correct. And that's a created position or is a position already?

The mayor's always had an executive assistant.

Has one been in here for how long?

Decades. Okay, thank you. Anybody else? We'll close public comment, move on to legal services. Questions on legal services?

Where's legal services?

It's the next one.

It's the next one in line.

Yeah, I think I'm not gonna filter. Let's go down. Any questions on legal services?

I think it's just on the side, actually. Is it on the side? Yep, right there. Oh, that one. Yeah. Right.

Okay. You're good to go now. I am good to go. So I just had a question in reference to, it's on page one. Okay. Almost at the bottom. There, I guess, for 111,610, there's a PD advisor. PD advisor. Joe? Joe.

Okay.

It's at the bottom. Probably if you count from the bottom three up.

That may be a PD question. They do have their own representation? Representation. Correct.

Okay. Okay. I was just wondering if that was in addition to... the city attorney on the next page. So obviously it's two different. It is in addition to, yes. Okay, that was my question.

And our police chief can reference, say a few words to that as well.

Okay, yes, that's for our in-house legal counsel who's available to us 24 hours a day, Commissioner.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions from the dais specific to legal? On the mic. Make sure your mic is on.

Is that better? So page one. Line 1200. Line 1200. 314-896, up under regular salaries and wages.

That includes the risk specialist or risk management person and a position for the city attorney.

So do we have it breaking down what's the amounts for each position?

I do not have that with me, but I can definitely get you that information.

So there's two positions. That's a city attorney.

Yes, and a risk manager.

That's a city attorney. One second, please. But we have another line item for 475 for the city attorney as well?

Yes. It's always included both because the decision of which way you want to go has always been.

But then we have professional services at 702 as well. Is that included for professional services for the outsourcing of a city attorney as well?

The 702, are you talking? Yeah, that includes only 475 for the city attorney. If you go to the next page.

So all those, so the 702, it's broken down through the post-exposure services, insurance agent broker consulting fees. It's all of those wrapped up into one there.

Yeah, but for the city attorney, it's the 475.

But I thought the 314 was for the city attorney risk management for 314.

The outside city attorney. for Shepard, Hand, and... I'm just gonna, okay, hold on. We include funds in here for the external city attorney, which is $475,000. We also have kept the salary for the in-house city attorney, depending on which way the city decides to go. That's always been for the past...

But I just don't think that's a realistic estimate, because we cannot run a city off of one attorney. We just can't. So I'm just a little confused with budgeting for a city attorney, but then still keeping something for an outside attorney when we know we cannot run a city with one attorney. So I just don't think that's proper expectations to set.

It's what was approved last year's budget.

I know, but it's the new budget.

I agree. Yeah, absolutely. It should be adjusted. And that's why we brought this up, I think, last meeting, that we need to have the discussion of which route we want to go. And if we budget this way, then we can reappropriate that 475 or any portion thereof to in-house. Or if we're not going to go in-house, reappropriate that down. So we need, if we're going in-house, we definitely can't do it with one. And there needs to be a more robust in-house council department. So that, but also we are, it's professional services that we are getting right now.

So I guess the question is, realistically, will we have enough money in the budget for paralegals, for about two to three attorneys? What does that look like? Because right now it's just not a realistic...

Well, I provided a legal analysis in your initial book on the July 8th. I apologize. I don't have that with me, but it will cost us more than what we're paying to an external attorney at this time. So as the mayor just mentioned, if we decide to go in-house, we're going to need more than one attorney, a paralegal and someone else. We will need those funds not only in the salaries and wages, but what we're paying for the city attorney.

And we'll probably need more.

Potentially, depending on the approach.

We need to budget for it now. If we're going to go in-house or we're going to source it out, I think we need to budget for it now because if not, we're going to have a deficit.

But that's the problem. We haven't made a decision.

I know.

We need to make a decision.

Can't make it now?

Can't make it now. We can't make it on the fly. Well, we need to remove this out the budget.

Why would you remove it out of the budget?

We have right now, we're budgeting for two things, and we can't make both things happen within this budget. So while we put a city attorney in here and a risk management position in here when we cannot fulfill that obligation, even if we decide to go. We do have risk management. We have to just keep the risk management, but not the city attorney. It just doesn't make sense. Maybe we need to plan for it next year budget.

We need to make a decision as a commission, which is what I brought up at the last meeting. Are we going in-house or not? And I brought it up as well. Are we doing an RFP or not? Mm-hmm. So we've got to save spots basically here, but we need to make a decision, and it can't be right now.

But what we need to do is, once again, we're putting something in the budget that we're not going to use.

That happens a lot.

That's why we're having this workshop now to make sure we're not making the same mistakes again. So we should not be budgeting for a position that we're not using and we cannot use because we have not properly vetted what that looks like. So because we have not done it and we had other workshops focused on other things that wasn't important, like removing me from Metro plan, we should have been discussing it then, but that's here or there. So with that being said, we need to remove this city attorney position out the budget until we're able to properly figure out what that looks like. Because it's a waste of money in the budget. So we should have definitely cut that. So that's my recommendation.

We need to prioritize our needs, not our wants. We can't just write blank checks.

Absolutely. And a city attorney that we know that we cannot fulfill right now is a blank check. Thank you for that support, commissioners. That wasn't support. Well, it sounds like support to me. That's a blank check. If we're saying that we have a city attorney that we know we cannot fulfill because we haven't properly budgeted for it, that's a blank check.

We had all this discussion when we were trying to set our millage rate.

No, you were actually more concerned removing from Metro plan.

But here they are. What do we have budgeted for the city attorney?

We have funds budgeted for an in-house city attorney, one position, and we have funds budgeted for the external city attorney, which is the $475,000 that you see at the top of page two.

But of the 314... This includes the risk management position. That includes the risk management position.

Separate them. How much is? Mrs. Sherman doesn't have that on the flyer.

I do not have that amount.

What I'm saying is that we know that we does not have enough money in the budget to create a whole entire legal department. So why would we staff for one position when we know we can't fulfill that position?

Because we had an in-house city attorney. We have a precedent. We had an in-house city attorney, so they kept the salary.

I mean, that makes sense if you don't have another outside attorney, but we have outsourced it. We still should not have it in the budget.

This whole budget is based off a budget that was previously done. So I hear what you're saying, and I echo that same sentiment that it should be based off staff that we actually need. The problem is when we went through that, that wasn't allowed. So right now we're basing it off of what was approved last year. and making adjustments from there. We can make, and there's nothing wrong with making budget amendments as we navigate forward to pivot off of things that we find efficiencies for throughout the year, where we need to add things, take things away, absorb things into other departments. We're gonna be making budget amendments as we navigate through, especially as we change the trajectory of our city. So if we unilaterally right now take that out, we may well be putting it right back in in two to three months.

Well, no, we'll be doing more than that. We'll be creating a whole entire department, I mean, a legal department. So I guess my question is, so we're not taking anything out of this budget? Do we just sitting here just going through? Well, we just started. But I'm just trying to say that we're not taking anything out. So are we removing things out of the budget or we're not removing things out of the budget? So I can understand what we're doing here. Is this like a listening session? Are we removing things out of the budget? Mayor, I'm just wondering.

If you come to a consensus that this is something that you want removed from the budget, What is the goal here?

To remove or to dismiss? Please don't interrupt. Mrs. Sherman was just explaining that.

If you come to a consensus that this is something that you want removed from the budget, when we have the first budget hearing on the third, I'll bring that back up again. At that time, you'll be able to vote on that.

That's correct. So what this does is it adds placeholders. We have not had the conversation about city attorney, which is what I wanted to do, and we still do need to do. But right now, we need to keep the placeholder to make sure if we do want to go in-house, it's here, we can add to it, and that it helps us. If not, and we get to the point where we are for sure going outside, we can then bring that savings back into the general fund in some capacity, move it to somewhere else, and... do what we need to do from there. But right now it needs to be held to ensure that we have the flexibility as a commission to add there. And again, it would, this was provided back July 8th. And as before that of what it looks like to truly build out an in-house, uh, council department with two or three attorneys, I think it was two attorneys, two paralegals, maybe an executive assistant.

Correct.

So it was there and that conversation was had. So there was concerns then when the information was provided, that's when this should have came up.

No, concerns can come at any given time. And I have a concern that we have something in the budget right now that we have not properly budgeted for. That's half budgeting. Why would we budget for one position when it's just a entire department? So I just don't, I'm making a recommendation that we remove this out the budget because it's just half budgeting. That's just my recommendation.

This is what you approved last year.

I had approved it last year. We're in a different year. Things changed. The needs have changed. We're going to get better. I promise you that. But the needs have changed of the city, and I'm able to express at any given time where I feel like in this budget there needs to be a change because we approved it last year. We are trying to be more efficient this year. I agree. To say what happened last year, I don't think we should keep talking about last year's budget. What I approved, we're working on a new budget this year.

Okay. Well, I appreciate your feedback. Any other questions on legal services? Anybody from the public which to speak about?

Excuse me, Vice Mayor. I just had a question, because I know we have one staff member for risk management. Do we have anyone else that we are training or helping to? Is it on? Okay, I'm sorry. Thank you. With risk management, we have one staff member. In the event that that staff member is out sick or is unable, for whatever reason, resigns, do we have someone else in place? Does she have an assistant?

I'll ask Dr. Patton to answer that question.

I mean, because the city's growing, we're dealing with a lot where we have our residents filing lawsuits, and we have one risk management person.

Currently, that's what we have.

And we've had, and I know that we've had her, whether we had 25,000 population and we're up to almost 60, and we expect this one staff member to be available all the time. And I mean, that staff member has vacation, has sick time. Do we have someone else? Dr. Patton.

Yes, so Dr. Patton. I'm the director of HR. So to answer your question, that is correct. That is the only person here. However, HR covers, I have two individuals that cover Christy when she's out. However, They're only trained in so much like workers' comp, so on and so forth. Because this position not only does legal, it does workers' comp, it does all the events, making sure that insurance is covered with vendors, so on and so forth. So it's a tasking position.

So was that a position that you... See, that's a position that I felt for some time that should have had a second staff member in her office. And I know that. I know that when the staff member, I don't like to mention the names, When they're on vacation, they're out sick, and we absolutely need someone else. And I do know that HR has two staff members, but that's not their specialty. So we do need an additional staff member for risk management. And I say that because we've grown in the last five years, we've grown over 20,000 residents. And I know that we have events, we have lawsuits, we have where residents, whether they trip and fall, and we just have one risk management. and we should not be depending on one person. We absolutely need a second staff person in that office.

I think what makes sense too, a lot of what I'm realizing having been here now three or four months is that we don't have enough cross training going on.

No, we don't.

So it's everybody's kind of in their own lane and do not veer outside of that. So a lot of cross training is what we're going to be implementing soon to make sure that that exact scenario doesn't happen to where we're just left out to not have any help in that capacity. but you're absolutely right, we are growing, so it's definitely something to look at.

So, Joe, may I ask the question, Dr. Penn? Are you referencing more so the risk management specialists? Didn't you have a specialist that you had originally requested?

I did. We had one for risk management, and we had one for HR, and those were both cut.

So the risk management specialist is what I'm hearing that you want to add back to the budget. Right.

So as you eliminate or you put on the side the city attorney, the in-house, make sure that we can allocate for a risk management specialist.

Well, we'll go with two and be able to provide the different costs for that as well on the final one to just show and make sure everybody's on board and all on one accord.

With the legal is what you're referencing? Correct. Okay. Great. Anything else on the legal? And I think you were going back to public comment?

That's right. Public comment, anybody wish to speak on legal? Feel free to sit up front too.

Rod, I want you to sit right there.

It doesn't hurt anyone to sit up front.

You can get your steps from right there. Phil keeps me good company.

Rod Olson, 3156 Rolling Hills Lane. We have to look at this as a transitional year. We've had a cluster over the years of budgets and I've been the most critical of it. We don't have the information that we need to make effective changes. We need to build in a contingency for both. The fact is one attorney isn't gonna do it. Even if we have two attorneys, a paralegal and administrative assistant in the office, we're still going to have outside legal counsel because there's going to be special things, whether it's labor, whether it's liability, you're still going to have that outside expense. So we need to build in both. And we refer back to what we had before. The aspect of having your own internal attorney or attorneys is you can walk down the hall when an issue comes up instead of picking up the phone. Oh, they're tied up now. Okay. And the meter's running every minute. Am I right, Cliff? Every minute that goes on the meter and we're going. And it's how they do business. It's how attorneys do business. But we need to look at that. We need to build contingencies for both. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Olson.

Do I answer the question or just let it go?

No, you're good. We know how much you charge.

I understand.

That's okay. I think it was more tongue-in-cheek.

Can I add to this?

Absolutely. Anybody else from public comment? Then we will close public comment. Commissioner Ruth.

The only thing that I want to suggest is if we're going to make these ads, because we've got a balanced budget. what I'd like to say is if we're going to make an ad, we need to suggest what we're going to cut. So, I mean, we've got to remember, we work really hard to get to where we're at.

Exactly.

I mean, we can wish on one hand and one on the other, but at the end of the day, if you're going to make an ad, give us an idea of where you're going to go cut so as we can also look in that area and, you know, I hate to belabor it, but I don't envy your job.

So to that, if I may. Sure. We are currently, based on this budget, at a 21% level for our reserves, where the target for the policy is 25%. So anything that is an outright add will reduce that.

Which is why I'm emphasizing this now, because we're already below our projected where we need to be.

Our target.

And my goal, too, is that it's similar. I put it in the sense of people buying houses years ago where debt was very cheap and everyone got addicted to it. In these budgets, what we used to do is kind of pull from all of our enterprise funds and pull from reserves as needed. And so I'm trying to wean us off of... that type of budgeting and just base our general fund based on what we truly need and stop pulling from other things. So that is part of it. I don't want to pull as much from, I don't want to pull any from reserves that we don't have to. I don't want to have to be pulling like sanitation. We years past have taken around 680,000 out of the sanitation fund and put it into our general fund to help balance it. We can't do that this year because there's no money left in there. So that needs to be built back up properly budgeted. And we don't need to keep taking from those. So that's where some of the pain and angst comes from this is that I'm trying to wean us off of budgeting that really wasn't based on facts, but based on what we've done in the past. All right, let's move on to administrative services. Any questions from Council Commission on Administrative Services?

That's 1020, and that is on page three. That's on page three. Two and three, bottom of two, top of three. Two and three.

No questions?

Nothing on Administrative Services, we'll go on to

I gotta have public comment. Any public comment on administrative services? If not, we'll close public comment. Moving on to facilities maintenance. Any questions specific to facilities maintenance from the commission?

And that's at the bottom of page three going into page.

All the way to page five.

Page five.

We took 639,000.

Going to five. Excuse me.

Of which for other contractual services.

Can you say that a little louder?

It's on page three. In the 2027, apparently we took 639,500. So it's.

That was the base.

We took 104 out.

Right, only 104, 500.

The 639 minus the 104 equals 535. Okay, here it is.

And keep in mind, I mean, we can go over it now or later, but you have your list of those items. Anything else on facilities?

I'll open up to public comment. Anybody from the public wish to speak on facilities maintenance? All right, we'll close public comment for facilities maintenance. Any final questions on those? We'll move on to city commission, 1025, bottom of page five.

And keep in mind, this is the new cost center in this year's budget.

So you're not gonna see historic data on this because it's a new separate cost center. Where you guys can control your own budget effectively. Add in, take away. It builds autonomy. Something we've never done here.

But we did, just so you know, in your list of cuts, we did take out the discretionary funds.

That's right.

Which was $10,000 per commissioner.

That's all gone. Correct.

Yes, ma'am. And going back to, I apologize, for the administrative budget for 1020, we did take out the 100K for the nonprofit program.

Which one was that on page?

That was under the administrative budget under 1020. 1020. Yes, ma'am. And that's on your list as well.

So I make the recommendation that we... where we have $75,000 for city hall second floor renovations that we remove that from the budget and add back in $100,000 for the nonprofits. Because a lot of nonprofits actually depend on that money and have it already budgeted for scholarships and things and senior citizens and stuff. So I think we can delay $75,000 or we can make it the same exact. We'll put $75,000 into that fund and go ahead and take off the city hall second floor renovations.

City hall second, on the facilities? On the facilities.

That'll keep the budget balanced.

Okay, tell me pages. What pages are we dealing with right now?

He's referring to page five. Page five. Where the $75,000 is under buildings and is City Hall second floor renovations?

Renovations, yes. Because that's not a direct impact on the community, the renovations for the second floor, but that $75,000 is direct impact. For the non-profits. For the non-profits, yes.

And so I'll just rebut that, is that if you've walked up there, you've seen that the need of, that it's been so delayed. Furniture is beat and used and has been there for decades. The walls aren't even real walls up there. And at the end of the day, that $75,000 that we're spending on the second floor this year is going to be $90,000 to $95,000 next year. So this specific project, or any of our projects, especially with facilities, the more we push that out, the more expensive it gets. And I have employees that have been waiting.

It's not right to have our employees come in in the conditions that we have on the second floor.

I don't think, I mean, I walked up there, I mean, a lot, and I don't think these conditions are that third world country living. It's just not. That's not how I would describe it.

Well, I'm just saying, that's how I'd describe it. I don't think staff

come to work every single day complaining about the walls and the paint and the flooring.

They absolutely do, actually.

Not every single day.

I'm there every day and they do.

I do not think every single day the staff come there complaining. I just don't think that's realistic. I think that's a mischaracterization of county. What happens? But I feel that the community does want the grant program. And removing that grant program would affect a lot of the communities that we serve in the nonprofit agencies that we serve. I mean, that's something they was proud of. There's a direct impact of that. And I'm 100% against removing that nonprofit grant. but if the council feel that the needs of, you know, of marble floors and new carpet and new paint is more important than serving the community, then hey.

I just don't agree with that.

And I'll do a live video so I can show the community that there's not paint chipping They're not sitting on floors. That's not what's happening up there. And I'll definitely, when I leave here, I'll go and do a recording of that, because that is not what's going on there at all. That's fine. And of course, I do not want staff, and if staff is never complaining to me about feeling like they're walking into a third world country when they go up into the second floor. No one's ever referenced the third world country. Well, the sand and paint is chipping off the wall. That's just not what's happening there. And they're having trip hazards, and it can't get into the second floor. That's not what's happening. I think we can delay that for a year and that $75,000 needs to be put back in the budget to serve the community. We have senior citizens that use those programs. We have youth services that use those programs. We have different homeless shelters and facilities that use those programs. I don't know how we can actually sit here and think it's more important to renovate a second floor of City Hall.

because it hasn't been renovated in decades and decades.

No, it hasn't been decades and decades, but that is your personal opinion. And if the whole entire council agree that it's more important to renovate the second floor to provide more luxury than to serve the community, then I 100% disagree with that.

Well, we'll take your recommendations, and when we get to the hearing on Thursday, make sure there's a vote for each one of the recommendations. Thank you. Is that okay, Mayor?

That's fine.

Thank you.

Any additional comments? We were on.

And to be clear to the community, please, the mayor has decided to remove our discretionary funds. I didn't decide that. Who took out the budget?

We took out everything, and it's your job to put it back in if you want it in.

But you took it out the budget. We didn't take it out the budget. This is your budget. This is the mayor's budget. You presented us this budget, so you removed it. So the mayor has removed it. Our discretionary funds, the commissioners can no longer support your organization. So all the ones that we have been supporting for years, we can no longer do that because the mayor has moved out the budget, his budget. Our request is put back in the budget. So you can put that on line item as well. Then I'm requesting that it be put back on the budget as well. The commissioners discretionary funds that we use to support nonprofits as well and other community events is put back in the budget. And I can find other ways to cut it. Recommendation of Commissioner Ruth.

So what the public and yourself have recommended is to remove all fluff, any extras from this budget. It's what I went back into. City Hall's second. Excuse me, you're out of order.

My apologies, Mayor.

Thank you. It was requested that we do bare, bare bones. That's what this budget is. Now there's some projects in here that have already been started, already was based on a previous budget that has to be completed now, regardless of who agrees with it. So it has to be finished out. There was planned stuff already ordered previous to me coming into this position. It was requested that we bare bones this, that the city of Apopka government is not responsible for anybody's businesses, for their nonprofits, for not events. This is bare bones and One of the biggest things with our budgeting in general is that we don't have a spending problem here in the city of Apopka. We have an execution problem. We can budget for all these projects and all these different fun things with CRA and all these events. Who is executing on these? This is why we have so many tens of millions of dollars of rollovers every single year is because we don't have the staff to properly take care of what is being requested. And if what was requested was to bare bones this, the commission should not emotionally add in whatever they feel they need to add back in. We took out any fluff, whatever gets us to the day today is what we kept in. I think we need a lot more staff. I've already said that. I think staffing is the biggest issue having met with over, I think it's 250 so far that I've met with one-on-one. Staffing is our biggest issue right now. And also properly compensating our staff is another big issue. And you gotta understand, while we're in this time with our employees, they need to enjoy where they're at. They need to enjoy where they're working. And if we don't have a proper building that's built in 1920s, properly rebuilt, we will not find the employees that we need to conduct the city business. So add in whatever you feel to add in, but don't mischaracterize it if I make an executive decision. I bare bones this, it was what was requested. It's your guys' job to now add it back in. Are there any questions specific to city commission budget? Anybody from the public?

Scott Olson, I've made a point and I've sent you guys a note, but I think you need to be looking at our commissioner reimbursement. The aspect of 18,000 a year are just under that. When you get 250 to 1,051 pages every two weeks to go through, I get to pick and choose on the agenda. I spent about two hours, two to three hours going through the agenda for tomorrow. You guys to do your job need to go through every page And this reimbursement, $18,000, is not getting it. We need to look at what we need to do based on the size of our city to have proper representation that can spend the time required to go through these budgets. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Olson.

in your street, compassionate Apopka. I know you have to cut, you have to do a bare bones thing to keep the city running. I understand that, but also you have to put the human side of it. There needs to be something there for that as far as, I mean, for each one of you, I probably have pulled from your fund that you had set aside that you could help nonprofits. So that resource being removed is something that not only helps me, but it helps the community. And also, we just established the scholarships or the, what do we call it?

Grant funding.

Grants. We just established the grants. And then we're going to turn around and not fund the grants? I didn't apply for the first ones. I wanted to see how it ran. But my expectation was that this would be something that the community would continue to offer or the city would continue to offer and to continue to improve on. So it's not just about the numbers on the paper, but it's also about the people that you're supporting. with the numbers on the paper. So I really ask you to reconsider the grants and also consider the money that's set aside so that if there is an issue or if there is something that you would like to support, that you don't have to try, we don't have to fizzle out and try to figure out how to get that funds, that you have what you need to do your job for the community. That's all I'll say for those two things.

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Leroy Bell Apopka. The city of Apopka is not printing money. You're not printing money, paying your staff. The money is coming from the citizens of Apopka. This is how you get paid, the mayor. $75,000 for a renovation of the upstairs of the city hall. You're taking everything out of the budget that would help the community. Here it is, we voted for a strong mayor, a mayor to get out there above a weak mayor and a city manager. It seems to be that, We're paying our PIO, it started out $180,000. If you look at the budget line item, it come up over $300,000. $193,000 base, $30,000 retirement, your assistant, $297,000 base salary, add in the benefit, We're over half a million dollars. And here we're going to sit with a straight face and cut from the very hand that feeds you. You got to do better.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Anybody else? I do want to correct. My assistant does not make $297,000 a year. She makes $85,000, which is below the median for, or the midpoint for that pay grade.

We need to keep the conversation to the topic we were talking about was commissioners.

Well, let me just address it because it's something we have discussed. And as a city commissioner, I know it's awkward. Do you want to have the discussion about your salaries at all?

Right now I'm taking a position that because of the budget cuts and stuff, I'm not even entertaining the idea of addressing our salaries right now. Because I understand the needs of the community. I'd rather take whatever increase in my salary and put it back into the fund for the nonprofits. That's my position on it. So I won't be taking an increase in the salary right now.

I'd like to take that $75,000 and hire a fireman or a policeman, too.

and then we can take that $210,000 as well for the office furniture replacement. That's in the budget as well. I wanna remove that line item out of the budget as well. I just think right now that's just not critical, it's a critical need right now. It's a nice want. I mean, I work in city government, I worked in the federal government, and I worked in the county. And some of our furniture was 20 and 30 years old, but it was a service industry and it was about the community. And I think our staff would want a pay increase instead of a new chair that they can't take home and enjoy.

They are getting a pay increase.

I'm pretty sure they would want that. They want to continue to get a pay increase. Or they would want us to be able to create a new position to help carry the load.

We've moved off commissioners. Are we somewhere else? I don't see none of the stuff we're talking about. There's a line item. Oh, you're right.

So it was in the facilities budget. Same as the 75 that you referenced.

75.

The 75,000 and the 210 is in the facilities budget on page five of 101. Page five. It's page five of 101. So it's just above the commissioner's budget.

75,000 city hall floor renovation, $210,000 for office furniture replacements. So I definitely think we can find some money there to contribute to the nonprofits.

Bouncing back. We're going backwards. We're not going forward. I guess facilities is going to take the hit.

That would be facilities.

Yeah, that's facilities. Blanche, the $210,000 that Commissioner Anderson is referring to, if you go over to the proposed line, is the $210,000 on the proposed line?

Yes, ma'am, right here.

I've got it under the itemization for 2027.

So page five is 210 and it says office furniture replacement.

Yep, I see it.

That comes to, that's one of the details of the 560 in total.

Okay, it's included in the $560,000. Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you.

So I'm trying to highlight now. I can see.

All right, we'll move on to city clerk. Any questions specific to city clerk?

Any questions on city clerk as the mayor just mentioned? She doesn't have too much. The major difference there, I think we're trying to move something to IT for the Civic Plus programming and municipal codification and programming. Take that out of there.

No questions? Any questions from the public, specific to city clerk's office? Closed public comment. We'll move on to public information office. Questions there?

I do. So the $75,000 for printing of the city newsletter, what does that service look like? There's another $75,000 that we can put into the budget for the nonprofits.

That goes into the... That goes to utilities. Yeah, that's that newspaper they print.

But it's out of the public information, so we move that to that budget?

Yeah, it was transferred. Transferred over. Yeah, it should have been transferred from that to that. The 75 relates to a marketing plan and a rebranding plan right here.

Is this for utilities or is it not for utilities? The newsletter is 72. The 72,000?

That's coming from utilities.

It's transferred from utilities over to this? Yes.

We're trying to centralize all of those type marketing type communication type stuff under the PIO office.

So that's coming from utilities?

Yes, ma'am.

So it's $74,000.

$72,000 is what I'm seeing.

But $74,000 of other beautiful printed materials.

Well, Keep Apopka Beautiful printed material is $2,000.

That's $74,000 right there. Plus the $2,000.

Yeah, the $2,000 is for the Keep Apopka Beautiful.

Yeah.

Okay. You see that? Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. There it is, printing for the city newspaper.

Any other questions from the PIO office?

No, I just wish that the mayor would have consulted with us before he created a whole entire department. That's all.

I will say typically how you do it is through the budget process.

Yeah, but we didn't do it through the budget process. He just created it and threw it on us.

It was in our strategic plan.

You did not have a meeting with the council to discuss creating a whole entire department. You reclassified a transportation coordinator essential service position and created a whole entire department without coming to the council. That's exactly what happened.

That's correct. I was following our strategic plan that we did last year with the commission and with the residents. So I'm gonna continue to follow the strategic plan. And I'll address this now as well. We're going to be pivoting quickly as a city. With these economic times and political times, we have to be able to pivot quickly. And the powers that are bestowed upon all of us as a commission allows us to do some of these things very quickly because it's going to help us save money. When we start to find these things, we've got to pivot quickly and we've got to do what the residents want and are asking for as well. So, and I'm gonna follow the strategic plan. That's why it was there, that's why it was paid for, and I'm gonna continue to follow the strategic plan until we choose to change that as a commission, and with resident input, obviously, as well.

With resident's input following the strategic plan. There was no resident's input when we reclassified this position. It wasn't resident's input, it wasn't a commissioner's input, it was an executive decision of the mayor to create a whole entire department without speaking or talking with the residents. It was the residents' money, and you did not, having any conversation with residents or with the council before you create this position. Now we have the positions in the budget and we gotta figure out a way to pay for it.

I will open it up to public comment. Any public comments on the Public Information Office?

Well, I'm kind of confused because on one hand, on the commissioner, I'm hearing in the budget we need to add this back on the count of the residents. And on the mayor's side, no, we don't need that. We're just going to move on without that. But then when it comes to the mayor, you're saying that with community input, The thing about it is, the same thing that Commissioner Anderson is advocating for, I know that some of the residents want the same thing. But yet and still, we're having a clash between the commissioners up there, along with the mayor. If you're gonna be the strong mayor on one thing, You need to be the strong man on everything. With position, creating position, department, we're already behind the eight ball, but it seems to be all right pivoting to other positions, adding more salaries, and don't have the money to pay for it, and don't want to do anything for the citizens. Taking everything out. and you creating stuff that we got to pay for. I understand that we got to move forward, just like a chain to command in the military, one of the oldest structures that it is in the world. When things don't go good or great, they haven't changed the structure, they just change the leader and keep the same structure. but creating more positions, adding more money is not helping the cause.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Anybody else wants to speak on this? Close public comment and we'll move on to finance. Any questions specific to the finance office?

I will add that I did add some funds to do some assessments going into the next year and for fire assessment at 75,000 and for the citywide street light assessment for 75,000. Those are some rough estimates that I got from our rate consultant for those fees. Okay.

Any questions? I'll open up to the public. Anybody from public wish to speak? All right, we'll close public comments. We'll move on to human resources. Any questions specific to human resources?

Starting on page 10. What page is that? 10. Oh, here we are.

I know risk management sits in that same office, but it's under a different call center.

Why is there 4,800 projected over time?

I think he has some hourly employees, Joe. Dr. Patten, I mean. It's based on trends.

The reason being it's based on past practice because every year I have to do overtime. Certain individuals that don't get, they're not exempt. So I have to pay them overtime for certain things that come up. We have situations sometimes where I have to keep somebody back. I have to keep somebody in the office. Like last year when they were re-carpeting the floors, I had to have somebody there when they were re-carpeting because they couldn't be there without someone from HR overseeing that. There are other different types of projects that are worked on. Right now, as everybody knows, we're working on Tyler, so there is some overtime involved in that. We try to keep it as minimal as possible, but sometimes it's unavoidable. That's the reason for the request for the additional staff.

Any other questions? Public comment, anybody from the public wish to speak?

Rod Olson, I guess the question is I see the rate go up. Is that the two and a half to three positions that we need in HR? I saw that looked like the rate came up.

On the salaries?

Yes.

Okay, new positions, they're not factored.

When we looked at, it's an area that I looked at in detail, we are two and a half to three employees short based upon HR functions and based upon like-sized cities with nearly, with over 600 employees. So I would make an appeal for us to look at at least those positions in order to adequately serve the staff. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? We'll close public comment, move on to fire.

So Mayor, are you gonna?

Yeah, so what we're working on on fire side is that there was the fire chief found some cost savings specific to salaries. You run that email. But so what we're trying to do is get the six employees that were requested to take advantage of this year's savings, but we still need to obviously budget for that moving forward, but we're gonna be able to hopefully capture that savings now because we do have a pool of firefighters that are ready and able to go and so.

But you wanna add back the six positions.

In this year's budget, it will be obviously moving forward as well, but correct. as long as the commission wants that as well. And then two, we're gonna need to be, this is specific to contract negotiations. We will be needing to do a special meeting for that to do a shade meeting to discuss what, just where we're at, where we need to go. I suggest you meet with, take time to meet with the fire chief if you have any specific questions and please come to that meeting prepared and ready so that we can, make progress, get it done, and send it back to the union for final review and adoption. Any questions specific to fire? Yes.

That means we're looking at 2110 for the fire chief, 2120 fire suppression, and 2130 by your EMS. So any questions on any of those? And keep in mind with some of the vehicles for fire and police, I kind of the expansion vehicles we push to the impact fees because they are eligible. And the funding is generated in the rate structure associated with that. So that million dollar is really a $2 million truck went to the impact fee side of the picture and some of the expansion vehicles for PD provided which were for two new roles that were expansion related in that mobile command center. She added that.

I want to thank you for working with them on that. That was a good catch.

Like the mayor said, we got to get creative.

Ideals like that's going to help us get through this tough time.

We're trying.

I'll open it up to the public. Any public comment on any part of the fire department?

Rod Olson, I'll save a trip up. It's the same message for the police department as well. We have to factor in the square miles that we cover. We have to have additional coverage in police and fire to cover the square miles that we do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Olson. Anybody else from public? I do want to say in reference, we do need to have the discussions while we're kind of pushing up the CIP. We're going to be discussing that here soon, both between fire and police, well, all of our CIP, but very specifically those ones. The need is there for a new fire station one, and the need is there for an independent separate fire, excuse me, police station, as well as a police substation as well, and a training center. So all of these are high needs that we need to reassess, relook at, and make sure we're heading in the right direction, and then figure out how we're going to fund it. We are growing to the point that was just made, and we need to make sure that we're growing both our facilities and our training abilities with that.

Can I add something to that? Absolutely. I would suggest to the other commissioners, both applicants, the police chief and the fire chief, there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes that everybody... I encourage you to reach out to them because the information they're sharing is, it's mind boggling to know that there's some low hanging fruit out there that we can take advantage of. Both police and fire.

For impact fees.

Impact fees and other creative methods that we can do, but strategically locating our whole strategic plan for the city as a whole. Because like I said, we've kind of expanded A lot more than our coverage can maintain right now, and there's some creative ideals that are being had behind the scenes, and I encourage you all to catch up on it.

When you say behind the scenes, who?

The ideals that I'm hearing that are coming from the creative minds that we've got a fire chief and a police chief that are, they understand the problem at hand, and they're very active behind the scenes making sure that we adapt to it.

Okay.

Is that the conversation we had that each of us had today with the police chief? And then I had a separate with the fire chief.

Okay. So the police chief starts on page 20 at the bottom.

Page 20? Yes. And we have several, several call centers associated with the police.

21, 22, I'm sorry. 2210 all the way down to... 2250 dispatch. Yes. To 2250 going to dispatch.

All right. So we're on page 20. Yes, ma'am.

And it goes all the way to 2250, which is on page 44.

44.

The 20 to 44 is what we're going over right now. All things police, including dispatch.

Any questions?

If no questions, open it up to the public. Any questions from the public or comments specific to anything police department related? We'll close public comment and move on to fleet maintenance.

That starts on page 44.

44, wait a minute. Fleet maintenance. Are we doing anything with their building fleet maintenance? We do. Has all the commissioners ever taken a tour of fleet maintenance to see?

I'm not aware if all the commissioners have taken a tour, but we did include debt service payment relating to the fleet building in the current year budget and also in this year's budget. And we're estimating that cost to be around $6 million. So as I go out for this master lease and some debt to cover some of these renovations, we'll try to do all of that at the same time. Right now, we're waiting on the final design. So, and then we got to go out, we need to know what it's really gonna cost before we go borrow the money. Similar to what we did with Emerson Park, similar process.

The fleet maintenance, the building itself is, I think we've outgrown that building and not that the conditions are bad, but we don't have- They're not great. They're not great. That's something that's been kind of pushed back for years and years and years.

They do a lot with very little.

And they keep up all the department cars, the trucks, everything.

And there's some efficiencies there since I've been doing my one-on-ones with fleet, specifically the one that I just finished up with. There's going to be some moving around we're doing down there just on shifts and things of that nature that we can find a lot more efficiencies and I think be able to give better service to the rest of the employees as well. Because they're an internal service similar to HR or finance, and we're going to be able to find some efficiencies through moving some shifts around and things of that nature.

Yeah.

Any specific questions other than that? Anybody from the public wish to speak on fleet maintenance? All right, move on to cemetery. Cemetery. Questions on cemetery?

Now we've added how many in the cemetery? What did we add to it? Susan can tell me that. We added one whole section. How many? Three new sections. And what's the staff on? What's the staff on at the cemetery? I think we only have two.

Caretakers. Talk away.

Yes, we have two full-time caretakers out there. We've always just had two, right? Yes.

Any other questions? The only thing that I would suggest is the $25,000 for the tree maintenance. At least send somebody from our staff out there to evaluate. Some of them trees are at their extended life cycle. It's only going to get worse. So make some decisions on... Yeah, you know, cosmetic. At least get the ones that we know are going to fall in this upcoming year. Okay.

We'll take a look at that. Anybody from the public wish to speak on cemetery? Okay. CLOSE CEMETERY, MOVE ON TO ATHLETIC CONGRESS.

YOU WANT TO DO PARKS AND REC ALL TOGETHER? YES. OKAY. SO PARKS AND REC STARTS WITH, ON PAGE 47, 3514, ALL THE WAY, SHOULD BE TO 3614, WHICH INCLUDES THE ATHLETIC COMPLEX Recreation, athletics. What number are we looking at? On page 47. All right. I think I'm starting on it. 3514. Actually, it starts at the bottom of page 46 after the cemetery and goes all the way to page.

Kind of all the way to 52 if we're going to include recreation impact fees.

And actually, that is Camp Wewa.

Recreation impact fees is?

Yeah, the problem is the same 3614 is in the impact fee fund, and our lovely system picks up that first thing.

Gotcha.

So it's actually, in this case, for general fund, that is Camp Wiwa.

Any questions specific to that? No, so this is where we're going to have... A lot of hurt there. Yeah, I mean, we...

Removed a lot of community events.

Right, this is the opportunity to add back in what you feel is appropriate, if anything, and if not, we'll keep it moving.

And that list is on your round three cuts. What, where's that list at? In your round three, round three cuts. And I know, Radley, you can speak to some of those you are sending.

That list is on the budget reductions?

Yes, the round three cuts. Remember where you were? Oh, round three. Round three.

Oh, here we are, round three.

So that's inclusive for those that may not have this exact paperwork. A reduction in social media, in office supplies, amphitheater events specific to Kitland Nelson, holiday orchestra, Saturday sounds, health and fitness fest. Community events, Halloween in the Park, Holiday Tree Light Up, Can't We Walk, Breakfast with the Bunny, Fourth of July, Hispanic Heritage, Emancipation Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Parade. Which are the big...

I know that I have gotten some feedback and there's been some concern that the big community events, our community is like the Christmas, Halloween...

Yeah, that's all on this list.

It's all on this list. Go to your fourth page of this list. Go to the fourth page.

So that's where I didn't want to make any assumptions on one way or the other, so I took them all out. And it's the commission's job to add in what they feel is most appropriate to add back in. If it's all of them, it's all of them, but it's coming from reserves then.

Yeah.

You see the community ones or the big ones are worth keeping.

What's the dollar amount that you're referencing? The 75,000, is that what you're referencing? That's the... That you're referring to, are you referring to the 75,000 for the community events grant program?

No, I'm referring, we're talking about the events. Right. Yes. The events, certainly the Christmas event, The Halloween in the Park, because that brings out a lot of, I mean, our community literally looks forward to that. And at the Halloween in the Park, actually, we have a lot of the nonprofits and organizations that come and set up there, so they contribute to the event. Christmas, absolutely, that one. to keep.

And I'll tell you, too, on some of these other events, there was, from state legislator's side, there's some events that, and some things that the municipalities can no longer fund.

Right.

But that doesn't mean we can't partner in some capacity. So that's where I've been starting to get ahead of some of these events. Right. Hispanic Heritage, Emancipation Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Parade, of seeing who can partner with us in that third party, because it can't be our event. Right. But we can still partner. So... Some of these events we'll be working through to make sure. Just because we're not fully funding it doesn't mean it's not happening. We just got to get creative with it.

So our city attorney, can we elaborate? Because from my understanding, we can partner with and use city funds, but we just can't 100% do it ourselves. I thought there could be no type of city funds used for those events.

Are you talking about CRA?

Not the CRA, no. We're talking about like Hispanic Heritage, Martha Luther King Jr. Parades, Juneteenth. New Senate bill. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear what you said. That new Senate bill that passed. New Senate bill that passed.

Yeah. If you're saying can you partner with private organizations to help fund? Excuse me. The answer depends on whether the funding constitutes a public purpose. And so to the extent it does and it doesn't promote DEI, whatever DEI is, that's the hard part to get your arms around. The answer is yes. But the problem is what is promotion? For example, I think it's been determined that federal holidays are not included. Martin Luther King is a federal holiday and other federal holidays. But there are other things that aren't federal holidays that might be on the list and I have to know exactly what you're talking about to determine whether they fall under that exemption or not. So the real bugaboo is trying to figure out what is promotion of DEI as opposed to helping a charitable event of some sort. And it really depends on what the event is attempting to do, I suppose.

So my recommendation is that the $210,000 that I requested be removed for renovations, for furniture, that we put all these events back into the budget and just Because these are community events. They get the community out. A lot of different nonprofit organizations, this is kind of how they support their budget throughout the year. Definitely counseling Christmas parade has been going on for 50 plus years. I think that's bizarre. But I do think that if we remove that $210,000 for office furniture, then we're able to continue these different events. So I'm recommending, should I go line item by which event?

Okay, so the...

Health and Fitness Fest, the Community Events Grants Program, the Halloween in the Park, the Holiday Tree Light Up, Camp WeWAP, Breakfast with the Bunny, the 4th of July Hispanic Heritage Emancipation Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Parade, South Apopka Minister Alliance, Spring and Fall Rotary Fair with Apopka Rotary Club, the Apopka Christmas Parade, Memorial Day Ceremony with the VFW Pulse 10147, Veterans Day VFW Pulse 10147, the Apopka Art and Foliage Festival, Juneteenth, our New Year's Eve celebration, and also the scholarship revenue from AdventHealth scholarships. I think removing the other things from the budget with the renovations of that office second floor, I think we'll have enough money to continue what exactly all the residents really, really want.

And Mayor, just to add some more to this discussion, there is some additional funding that will be put back in for police and some city staff overtime for these events that are not reflected in this event budget. But there were some reductions in that police budget for sure that will have to go back into that. But we can add that to the list.

Okay. So there's more funding for it. There's Christmas at the budget meeting.

There's more funding or more cost? More, no, he says. Well, basically, yeah.

Yes. That could be included back. I thought it was added back to it.

We took it out.

We'll have to put it back in.

Back in.

Yeah, for these events, this isn't the final cost.

Yeah, we added, it was like $35,000. Okay, so $35,000. Okay. Well, I'm pretty sure there's other furniture cuts we can make in here as well.

All right, let's go over this list again because what I was looking at, we have the, why don't we start from the top? Kitland Nelson Park Amphitheater Events. What do we have there? Yeah. I didn't say that event. No, I'm just saying let's go from the top. Let me just go down this way.

Sorry, Vice Mayor, I think we usually have is the... Halloween in the Park at Kitland. We have the Christmas tree lighting. They have it separately.

So like Kitland Nelson Park event theaters, we don't know what that is. That's 10,000. We don't need to add that. Security services for amphitheater, 10,000. What is that?

That was a reduction in need. Reduction in need for security services at the amphitheater.

Oh, so this is. So we already show it in there, this additional? Oh, wait a minute. So when anyone, oh, so when we have.

When we have promoter events at the amphitheater, they have to bring security for some of those events. We do have a pass-through opportunity for security services. This is a reduction in the need of that. So we took that down.

And so then we have the Holiday Augusta Concert, and that's that symphony, right?

Correct.

Okay, so we're gonna eliminate that one.

Oh, I didn't ask for that. Yeah, I didn't ask for that.

I know, but I'm going through the list right now. Saturday Sounds, which I know was something that we always had done, but we're going to eliminate that.

That is on the list.

Now, what's the health and fitness festival? I've never been to that. What is that? I think the first one was this year. This year.

At Kitland Nelson. It was really well attended.

But for the seniors, right? For the seniors and.

Cindy can give some information on that. It's actually been running for a little bit now.

Oh, 20 years. For 20 years.

It was pretty cool, I was there. Yeah, it was great this year.

Yes, we've been doing the Health and Fitness Festival for 20 years. And I don't know in the room anyone that came, but it was pretty an amazing event. We celebrated the 20th year, so it was really nice. And we would love to keep doing it because we charge our vendors $50 to be there, and we had $75. It only cost us $4,000, and we made our money back, so. It's one of those events that we would like to keep it going if we can.

Okay, so I'm putting a check mark on that. Thank you, Senator. Thank you.

We made $4,000, but we're saying it cost us $4,000. So is this... And then the... Well, it just helps offset the cost of...

So we have the community grants program we want to keep in. Halloween in the Park is a well-attended event. Mm-hmm. Holiday tree light up, it is very well attended. Camp Wiwa, this is probably our fourth year doing that. And it's been attended by, I've gone to those every year.

A lot of people there this year.

Yeah, 4th of July is, we're probably gonna get a lot more people because Altamont canceled their event. So you're gonna see people come to ours. The Hispanic heritage, which we always have at Kitland Nelson Park, are we keeping or we're eliminating?

I recommend that we keep it.

Well, that's the one that we have to be very careful.

Well, I think we keep it in the budget and depending on what the advertisement looks like, we get with our city attorney to see if there's some needs to be with that partnership, that language fits.

And then emancipation, is that a federal holiday? Yes, it is. Okay, so that stays in because it's a federal holiday. Martin Luther King stays in. The Spring and Fall Rotary Fair.

The fairs, and they've been around forever.

Yeah. The Christmas Apopka Parade. Or the Memorial Day, that I go to every year. The Veterans Day. Of course, the Women's Apopka Art and Foliage Festival. Juneteenth. Juneteenth. Juneteenth. Juneteenth. New Year's Eve. And the scholarship revenue from Advent Health. So what does that all add up to?

$282,500.

Oh, go, Mayor. That's all I can say. What is it? He said $282,500. $282,500.

But then keep in mind, too, that there are extra expenses with police, with other departments that do add to some of these. So you'll probably have overtime costs, things of that nature.

That $35,000 came from the off-duty police through roll call. So that was in the professional services line.

Okay.

That we removed that $35,000.

But there's also, and it's not exclusive to that, we do have streets that comes in and cleans up after some events and helps with some events that... is under their budget that is not included in these costs.

So do we have part-time that we could utilize in these events? Do we have part-time personnel?

Part-time personnel like PD and fire chief? No.

Or just services, part-time people across the city that could help?

We have part-time Parks and Recreation staff. Those are going to be like your facilities attendants. They'll be there with golf carts doing the trash, being on site to help us set up and break down. But that's the part-time staff. We also do have some full-time event staff that will help with these events and then services.

Do you utilize the part-time for these events to assist in? Yes. And is there enough that we could at least have maybe one or two full-time, but the majority of them being part-time, we kind of comp out their time?

Most of our event staff, our Parks and Rec staff, are going to be that seasonal part-time staff that are going to work these events.

Can we talk about, I mean, we want to try and we want to keep these. This is what we're saying right now. We'd like to keep those. All right. So what's this other contractual services? 100,000. Is that being eliminated? Bike Walk Central Florida?

So that's on community development?

Yeah, that's not.

That's not with parks? If we can, just stay with parks right now, and then we'll move to community development, if that's okay.

I'm sorry. I'm looking at the bottom of the sheet. Didn't see that. Recreation marketing plan, $10,000. Tree maintenance is $5,000.

And keep in mind, this is Camp Rewalk. Should be.

I guess let's address this too while we're on it. Camp WeWa. We spent $4.7 million approximately on it a few years ago. It costs approximately a million dollars a year to run. We do make income on it and there are good programs that the programming that goes on there actually either breaks even or makes some money. So the programming there does an absolutely incredible job The facilities is very draining to our funds. My goal is to spend time and all my extra time to actually build out an actual marketing and business plan for Camp Wewa. But at some point, we need to make a decision on how much money are we gonna continue to spend on this, because I think we've spent something close to $9 million on Camp Wewa so far.

with the purchase? Correct, all in.

So, and I'm okay with that if everyone's on the understanding that this costs money to run and to own and maintain. And is it a priority? So I just I need to know that and if it is, I will do my absolute best to create a business plan that at least comes close to breaking even. If I spend time doing that, though, it will take me from other things, which is okay. That's where we need staffing to be able to jump in and allow everybody to work together here. But I guess I just want to hear everyone's mindset or thought on Camp Wiwa, the overall sentiment on what you see happening there, or more so, do we want to go down the route of trying to really make this what it was sold as, as a world-class event space and center where people are coming to vacation and enjoy? I guess I just want to hear from the commission.

I think a workshop would be great to kind of, because I know a lot of the commissioners, including myself, don't know the history of Can't We Wild. Of course, we went back and looked at some of the videos, but I think having a council, a meeting to kind of look at what the, because parks are not made to generate money. They're not. That's not what parks are for. So I don't think, I know from, I understand the history and the reason why we purchased it was because of the, it's been around forever in Apopka. And I know that's a lot of the residents want us to keep the park. So I think that we need to, we don't have the time now to analyze Camp WeWa. I think that we need a meeting, a commission meeting where we kind of go through and look at the pros and cons of Camp WeWa. That's my recommendation.

Okay, well, I still want to hear overall sentiment though, so that I know which route I'd like to hear from the commissioners.

I'd be somewhat hesitant to, it is an asset. It's a property that we have already made a major investment to. I want to kind of let everybody know that 20 years ago we were promised a downtown center and we spent a major investment on that. We got a shopping center. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It was just I think we went backwards when we sold it. So let's be careful. It's a prime piece of real estate. And what you'd hate to do is let it go. And once you sell it, you can't control its destiny. And right now we can. So I would urge you to. to at least entertain the thought of making it somewhat cost neutral. And like I said, it is an asset to the city.

Yeah, I kind of agree. I feel that when Camp WeWa was offered to us from YMCA, there were two choices. Developers wanted it or YMCA was offering it to the city first. And at that time, my understanding was that we would have a partnership, sponsors, that there were other interested parties. And the only interested parties at that time, and I do remember, were all the former campers that raised money. And I think they raised about $40,000. You know, it was a good effort. But I agree that, you know, Camp WeWa itself, yeah, it's sort of a money pit right now, but it is a prime piece of property that we should not sell as a knee jerk. And then, like you said, once we sell it, we have no control over it. And as we know, our residents really want to see more green space and they want us to conserve more green space in Apopka. And that's a prime piece of property. It's over 56 acres, is it? 56 acres of... of green space and it's park and it's just trying to figure out how we can market that and have some kind of that our residents can actually use it and we don't always have to be renting it out or having just specific events but something that our residents can use and have available to them all the time. So that's something that the commission needs to kind of, you know, at some point in time is decide, you know, how we can give that part to our residents on just a regular basis. But it's definitely something that we need to hold on to.

So has this historically, has Camp Wiwa had like a strategic plan for it or a marketing plan for it?

So when we purchased it, we just purchased it assuming that thing, it was just gonna be- No, it was sold as, and staff had worked on a plan to make it cashflow in some way, at least break even or come as close to possible. That plan just never came to fruition.

No, because once we took it over, there were so many repairs that we needed. That was needed. We just couldn't rent it out as is, because the YMCA really just ran it, the camps, and by the time they gave it to us, it was really run down. And we didn't have no ADA compliance. There's a lot of things that we've... renovate it in order to bring it up to some standard so that it can be used where it's at right now. But yeah, I know it's a money pit right now and when you're kind of trying to struggle, but you definitely don't want to sell it forward. It's just too prime, it's green space and we'll just have to find a way to market it. And again, so have it so that it's an open park for all our residents. Right now it isn't an open park, it's subjective to some time during the year, but the camping, the camp during the spring and summer, even the winter camps have been very successful.

I think that would be my recommendation is to obviously keep camp where we want, but to utilize our marketing strategy to really invite people outside of our city and give them that opportunity that we have, you know, a couple week stay away camp or, you know, I know growing up there was friends that were sent away for camp twice or three times a month, if you will, during the summer. So that could be something that we could utilize in marketing our surrounding cities just to kind of leverage that.

Just remember, when you market camps, you have to think of staff.

Well, of course, yeah.

And the one thing that we do need at Camp WeWa, at some point we will have to kind of research is the pool needs to be replaced at some point. We keep putting little band-aids on it to make it functional, but eventually we have to do something with the pool.

Have we had that assessed in terms of how much that's going to cost our city?

Well, we've had, you know, again, anytime we put something on the wait list, by the time you go back to it, it's increased.

How much is that?

So I know at that time.

I think we had originally budgeted something like $125,000 or $75,000 to kind of plan a new pool. The new pool is going to be a seven-figure pool, though. So, I mean, it's a tangible dollar amount because that pool was never made for recreation, from my understanding. It was a diving pool. So the most shallow, and no short jokes, is like five feet. So, like, I'd be underwater there. And then the deepest is like 13 feet. So it's just not a recreation pool. It's cool for what it is. And we've had some scuba people out there and doing stuff like that. But there's a lot to it, and I will say in the beginning it was sold as in five years there's gonna be a plan that maybe not cash flows it, but makes it get as close to break even as possible, was kind of what it was originally sold as. We also utilized a grant that we shouldn't have done that cost us more than what the grant required us to do. So we got a million dollar grant, It came with requirements. Those requirements to get that grant cost us more than a million dollars. And then also put a provision on it that we can't use that park for certain things too. So we got to work through a couple nuances there, but we will. I think it is important to, I just wanted to hear overall sentiment. And I think it's definitely worth a workshop as well to just see and hear from the public what the goals are there. It's expensive, but I just walked it two or three weeks ago. and not two smiles in a three-piece suit, but it is a gorgeous park. It is so cool and unique and right in the middle of everything. So there's some access issues though too. There's no sidewalks to this. It doesn't connect to the birding park or Lake Apopka, the trail. So there's a lot we can do and we can definitely build something out for it. It's just... It's gonna cost money. How much more money are we willing to throw at this? So we'll do a workshop. I just wanted to see overall sentiment. Are we loving it? Are we hating it? Where we're at? The joke, my wife said she'll strap herself to a tree if I put a for sale sign out there. So I told her we may be on the opposite side of this and that's okay. But either way, any other questions specific to parks and rec and the events?

I just recommend that we keep our events, the ones that have been historical here in our city. I mean, I've only been in our city for 14 years, but I know that certain things have been around for 60 plus years, and I certainly don't wanna see those go. So I would recommend to keep those as long as we can.

The $282,500 that the mayor was referring to, Vice Mayor and Commissioner Anderson. Okay.

And I think what's important, too, is one thing is, and I'm going to continue to say this, as we even after budget, is that there's nothing that we shouldn't be looking at to just review again and again and again. There's nothing that should just be stale that we did it before, so we're going to do it again. So that's the reason why I wanted to have the conversation about events, grants, all of that stuff, because if we like it, great. If we don't, then that's okay as well, but we need to have those conversations. And it was brought to my attention too that last year we did vote on specific events that we wanted to continue with. Not the commission obviously as it sits now, but the previous commission did vote on events and most of these were on that, if not all of them. So there's somewhat of that exact historic vote that was made to say we want these events. They are community building. They are valuable. It's part of what makes our city a city. But again, there's nothing we are not going to look at to make sure that we're being as fiscally sound as possible, but also progressing our city forward. So with that, public comment on parks and rec events, things of that nature. Camp WeWa.

I'm Eric Mock, 2439 Verde View Drive. I'm standing here today as president of the Foliage Sertoma Club of Apopka. And I wanna thank you and your comments in support of events and specifically what we do in the planning and promotion of the Christmas parade. This year will be the 50th year that the Foliage Sertoma Club of Apopka has worked in conjunction with the city of Apopka putting that parade on. So we're fully aware that there are additional costs. This year our costs are roughly $15,000 that the club raises money for to help support. And this year for years we have provided a stipend to the high school bands. For years, we've been giving them $500. That $500 will increase this year to 1,000. So with costs for anybody, there are several schools that had written us and asked if there was any way possible because some of the schools that bring the bands just to leave their parking lot to come to the parade cost them $4,500. Now, yes, they get funding through their budget process and that type of thing. But as anybody knows in the whole discussion today, there's always a need and there's not as much revenue for that type of thing. So we really appreciate your interest in that. This year, the theme is gonna be a 250 year theme for the birthday of America. So we're already in the process of planning that and moving that forward. One last thing that I would say because you guys talked about Camp Wewa. Some of you know I'm a cyclist and I am involved in cycling and that type of thing. And I do believe that one of the things that Apopka sits at a strategic point in Central Florida is ecotourism. And to have a location with appropriate lodging I think that there would be multiple places that would come here during the cold season and provide lodging for their training teams. I've thought many times that the dump that sits on 414 could be turned into an amazing mountain bike park. And there would be teams that have mountain bikes. Unfortunately, a couple weeks ago, a cycling team from Tennessee was out training 11 of them and a pickup truck driver hit them and killed two of them and injured nine of the 11. So that was the whole university's cycling team. And I think if we create an environment and there's lodging and it's close, yes, you'd have to connect it to the Apopka Loop Trail and that type of thing. But that's part of our whole thought process because I've also joined a Facebook group that's across Florida. And every time somebody posts something on that site, there's one specific thing they ask for. Where can you stay? Where can you stay? Where can you stay? The second, where's a good place to eat? And the third is, where's the trail gap? Where do I have to ride on the road and how rough is it? And it is just, it's constant, it's year round, constant, everybody trying to find that. So I really think that Camp WeWall offers an amazing opportunity in that respect, and that's just one. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mock.

Thank you. So it's ideas like Mr. Mock shared. You know, there's niches, right? We've got cycling teams. We've got running teams that I know for a fact come to Apopka just to work on our hills. Because it's training ground here. So I agree in terms of our ecotourism. Let's start leveraging on that. I think that's all I keep saying is let's leverage. We need to leverage on the natural beauties that we have here. Yes, some of them do not belong to us. I understand that. But we still have... in terms of getting connected to those areas. So thank you for that idea. I think that's a really great idea.