Commission - workshop

Thank you. Thank you.

We'll be starting in just a moment once Commissioner Cruz and Vice Mayor Turkin join us. Good morning and welcome to the City of Boynton Beach City Commission Budget Workshop and Meeting. Today is Tuesday, June 30th, 2026 and the time is now 9.01 a.m. We will now turn to the Interim City Clerk for the roll call, please.

Commissioner McCray.

Here.

Commissioner Cruz? Present. Commissioner Kelly?

Here.

Vice Mayor Turkin?

Present.

Mayor Shelton?

Present. Mayor, you have a quorum. Thank you. Commissioner McCray will lead our invocation and I will lead the Pledge of Allegiance. Let's all stand for the invocation and the pledge, please.

Let us bow to the creator maker of all mankind. Father, here we are once more and again standing in your presence. Father, as we come to deliberate this morning on the budget for the city of Boynton, we ask that you would lead us and guide us and let us make Decisions that will not only affect our city now, but for the future. All this blessed we ask in your name. Why? Because you live. Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and invisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, everyone. We are now moving on to the agenda approval, additions, deletions, and corrections. Let's begin on my left. Commissioner McCray? I have none. Commissioner Kelly?

No, thank you, Mayor.

Vice Mayor Turkin? No. And Commissioner Cruz?

No, for me, thank you.

Motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion to approve the agenda. We have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes unanimously. The first item is a discussion about changing the final budget hearing in September. Can we please have staff start the discussion and explain the reason why it needs to be changed?

Good evening, Vice Mayor and Commissioners. Morning.

Morning, sorry.

It seems like their evening. We've been burning the midnight oil, the staff, so we appreciate it. So we do have a conflict with our second meeting for the final budget adoption. The county has their budget hearing on the 15th, so we have to move ours by statute. So we provided the four dates that would work. Basically any one of those days that week would be acceptable. So we just need a consensus on what day you'd like.

Wednesday after or?

The 16th.

Yeah, I was gonna say 14th or 16th.

14th or 16th work for me too.

I have to make it work.

Do we have- CRA? No, on the 18th I have, maybe it's an old hold, but I have a second budget public hearing final adoption on September 18th already. All right.

Is that just an old hold? I got a hold for the senior prom that day tentatively.

I mean, I'm fine. Monday's fine or the Wednesday's fine.

Wednesdays would be better for us just because we, yeah, there's a day between the weekend if there's something that comes up.

Wednesday's fine for me.

Okay.

Okay, excellent. Thank you.

From all time, 6 p.m.

Yes, correct.

There's nothing else to have a motion to approve the date change for the second. We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. We will now move on to the budget presentation. Staff, would you kindly begin?

Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Alan Lawson, CFO, City of Boynton Beach. 16 months ago, actually almost to the day, I was hired, loved my job. But there were five things that were given to me during the interview, as well as walking the halls as I began to introduce myself. The big one was budget, budget, budget, budget. You gotta fix the budget. The second thing was ERP. The other one was policy enhancements for both investment, financial, travel, P-card. And then actually fixing the investments that we have within the city to grow our just residual income. And then the last thing, which is probably the most important that ties it all together, is begin to develop transparency with the finance department to instill trust and communication amongst the departments, as well as the commission between the finance department. Then on February 4th, we had our first ever strategic meeting to talk about continuous improvement. From there, we developed what's called an AOP, which is Annual Operating Planning Process. No more will the city be doing budgets from March to June. It is an October to September activity. With that, we instilled for the first time a zero-based budgeting, a ZBZ process where budgets are now flat from last year, and that will continue to be going forward. That is the goal. What that has done is that has continued into what's called continuous improvement, which with the leaders here, directors, PD, public safety, all of everybody has worked together to find ways to provide the services that the city need. With this strategic foundation, We've been able to simplify the budgeting process. I think it's been the easiest it's been so far. When your budget is flat, it becomes very apparent what you need to be doing. From there, what that does is we look to ways to secure fiscal sustainability, maintain a balanced budget while preserving adequate reserves. That has been the charge that I've been given from the CM. From there, when you do a ZBB, you have to find ways to optimize resource allocations. It has created action amongst all the directors to find a way to continue to support the economic development and improve operational efficiencies. From there, you'll be able to address the equity in the community needs. You can't do that without that. Ensure that there's equitable distribution of resources across our neighborhoods. Ultimately, we have to invest back in the infrastructure. And then this is no longer a one-year plan or a three-year plan. It is a five-year to 10-year plan of what we're facing today. So we have to strengthen our long-term planning process. And that's what an annual operating plan does, which is our new foundation, changing this culture. Today, we're gonna go through the budget process. Fabio will walk you through that. There will still be some changes. What's been happening is we've been having some very energized discussions and activities with all departments looking at different ways about the funds availability and being able to do things that we can still operate the city efficiency. So we'll go through that. Some things will come up in September, but there will be no impact to our overall fund balance. We are committing a zero impact to the fund balance. And that's what we're charged with today. And that's what we will go through first with, we will, I will transition Fabio, then public safety will come up leisure services, public works, utilities, and then CIP. And now I'll transition over to Fabio.

Excuse me, mayor. I'm sorry. Before we transition, I need to deal with this book first. Okay. I looked at your, um, What you all call a organizational chart. This is wrong. And the reason I'm going to tell you that is wrong because we have combined the CRA along with the commission and we've given the city manager some tasks to do. And that's not reflected on this flow chart. Understood. So if you all can just kind of straighten that out, that's first. Second, I've been asking ever since I've been here that I need a... list of the phone numbers and the emails of senior staff. So now that I have a list, it shouldn't be hard to get me one. Thank you.

I'll take care of that.

Sure. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. I'm the Division Director of Budget. The goal of the rest of the presentation is to give you an overview of the changes in the general fund and in the rest of the fund. So I'd like to draw your attention to the next slide, which displays a decrease in the proposed budget for the general fund when compared TO LAST YEAR'S, TO 25, 26 AMENDED BUDGET. THIS DECREASE IS MAINLY DRIVEN BY ITEMS THAT WERE REMOVED FROM THE BUDGET WHEN WE ROLLED IT TO THE PROPOSED BUDGET. THESE ITEMS ARE MAINLY FOUND IN THE CAPITAL OUTLAY CATEGORY THAT YOU SEE IN THE PRESENTATION. THESE ARE ITEMS THAT Our one-time purchases that the city does not have to make every year such as buying vehicles buying computers and buying pieces of equipment You know, we don't buy those so they were removed from the budget As it's displayed there. So that's why you're showing a decrease of 1.1 million dollars or 0.8% So this is virtually more than a flat budget. It's a budget has actually decreased and THE NEXT SLIDE SHOWS YOU THE DIFFERENT BUDGET DRIVERS OF THIS DECREASE AND LIKE I MENTIONED BEFORE THESE ARE DRIVEN BY THE ITEMS THAT WERE REMOVED FROM THE BUDGET WHEN WE ROLLED IT. However, I'd like to highlight some line items that did increase and did have an impact in the budget, such as health insurance. It increased about half a million dollars. And the pension contributions increased a million dollars. But these increases were offset by the items I already described. The next slide, it gives you a perspective of the expenditures in the general fund going back to 21-22. Back then, the budget for the general fund was $104 million, and when compared to today's budget or the proposed budget of $139 million, you see a difference of $34 million. And this tells you that, of course, the budget has grown, but also reveals the reasons why. When you look at the different expenditures throughout the years, you realize that $25 million of this increase have to do with personnel. So I mean, it's not a mystery. We are aware that our budget is driven by personnel costs. And this slide reveals why the general fund budget has increased $3 million, $4 million. Excuse me, if I may.

Sure. Of that personnel, can we just go over what that personnel is? And do we have, because I think it's important for the public to know that to identify what that personnel is. Because if we're just, someone can look at that and say, well, you're just hiring people to hire people. Whereas is this an investment in public safety, firefighters, police? I think that's important. I don't want that to be misconstrued amongst the public. This is recorded. So I don't want people to look at this and say, all right, this is 35 million increase.

You know, what is that for? Thank you, Commissioner. Absolutely. And I was intending on elaborating on that, but we'll go there right away. That's important. Yes. It's brought up.

It needs to be identified as to why right afterwards, because it will get easily misconstrued. Absolutely. I agree. Thank you. And I agree with Vice Mayor Turkin.

All right, so this particular slide shows the head count throughout the years, starting in fiscal year 21-22. Back then, the head count was 854 FTEs. Today's count is 1,002. That shows an increase of 148 FTEs in all your funds. to highlight or to break down this increase, out of these 148 positions, 94 of them were in the general fund. So out of these 94, 30 are found in fire department and 24 in police. So pretty much 50% of the increase that we see in this slide within the 148 positions, about 54 of them are found in public safety. and then the others you'll find them in utilities, sanitation, and golf, your business funds, and then other funds.

Fabio. There's a shift, so there's a, is there, so in addition to there being some additional employees, there's also just a shift between funds and moving employees to the general fund. Is that my understanding? That is correct.

That also takes, that is correct. In this year's budget, even though the headcount did not increase, it actually, it decreased, there's movement between divisions and also between funds. And to be more specific, this year, nine FTEs were moved out of the traffic fund to the general fund. That is reflected in the budget. The headcount did not increase. It was just a shift.

And just to note as well, we currently have, I think, almost 90 positions or vacancies. I think our head count right now, we are on trajectory with the current hiring freeze to probably be somewhere between 940 and 950 employees. That's the trajectory that we're currently on right now at the end of the year.

So this is just showing what, if every position was filled, what our employees would, where we would sit in all of our funds. But that's not actually where we're sitting as far as staff on payroll, correct?

That is correct.

I have a question as well in regards to vacancies. When you all get to your departments, I would like to see, I'm just saying if you got a Say number two or something like this is not filled, not going to be filled. Let me know so I could put an X so I could watch this and see what's going just in case something comes up and say that this look like they're overly. I'm just saying show me where those employees are not working because I know some have left and I'm looking at your list that you all gave us and they're still listed. So I'm just trying to make sure I'm on the same page you all are on.

What I can do is, Danielle Whitefield, HR Director, she's provided a very comprehensive vacancy report. What I can do is, after this meeting, we'll sync that up and update that chart so you guys can see where those vacancies are currently sitting.

Thank you. I'll go back.

Thank you. Next. All right Moving on to the next slide this particular display shows you All the budgets for all the funds in in this year's proposed budget overall when you account for every single fund the proposed budget went down a hundred million dollars and I like to draw your attention to specific areas of the budget that explain why that's the case. The biggest driver of this decrease is found in the CIP funds, which are in the general fund, in the utilities fund, and also in golf. There's a decrease of $77 million because the way these funds behave, we don't budget the same every year for CIP. And in this particular year, there's less projects that are funded in your CIP. And there's multiple reasons for that. One, in the general fund, the funding for your surtax dollars has sunset or is about to sunset, and therefore we cannot fund all the projects that we wanted to fund.

Hold right there, because I have some questions. When I came back up here as a commissioner, the CIP budget was zero, and I'm like saying, what happened? Okay, is that mandated by the state of Florida that we do not have a CIP budget or what?

We have a CIP budget. What has happened is we received the surtax dollars from the county as a flow down through the state. That program is sunsetted, will sunset December 31st, 2026.

That's my birthday, go ahead.

But the actual dollars, it was either or, it was certain dollar threshold or by this date is when the funding stopped. So we received our last check probably in May. So we are no longer receiving any surtax dollars from the county or state. Thank you.

Yes. Just to put that in perspective, that's about a $4.5 million loss to the city in reference to capital improvements. and that's on an annualized basis.

All right. And again, this slide shows you all the funds from a historical perspective. Back in 21, 22, The budget for the entire city general fund and every other fund was 226 million dollars the proposed budget today is 353 million dollars these these reveals an increase of 127 million dollars out of out of these 127 59 million dollars have gone to capital improvements 52 million dollars have gone into personnel and the rest has gone into your operations the operational budgets and And again, this is the slide I showed you earlier that shows the changes in personnel.

Give me an example of what's in other funds.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Other funds. You're going to find impact fee funds. You're going to find your special revenue funds. You're going to find an example of those would be building fund. I can give you the whole listing if you like right now.

I need to know. Thank you.

You're welcome. Ready? The next slide is gonna display the risk opportunities and different items that have been already executed. There's different budgetary risks that I would like to highlight this morning. And the first of them is that there's a one million revenue increase in the traffic fund. And we see it as a risk because this may not fully realize. Another risk is that adhering to a hiring freeze IT IS SOMETIMES A CHALLENGE. THIS PROPOSED BUDGET INCLUDES A SIX-MONTH HIRING FREEZE, AND LIKE I ALREADY SAID, THIS MAY BECOME SOMETIMES DIFFICULT. ANOTHER REASON WE HAVE IDENTIFIED IS A $5 MILLION FIRE BUDGET INCREASE THAT WE MAY HAVE TO INCLUDE IN THE PROPOSED BUDGET IF THERE IS NO MERGER OF THE FIRE DEPARTMENT.

And if I may interject, I think right now we have already been aggressively working these risks and they're moving towards the right of the page towards more or less being executed. We're working with fire to mitigate the $5 million, working with PD on the million dollars. So my confidence level from that from a risk perspective is getting very low. And as I said earlier, as we continue to look at adhering to this hiring freeze, if we can end the year at roughly 940, 950 employees, there's been a long time since the city's been there. That'll change some of the discussions and resource allocations and look at kind of reorg and what we need to do here in the city.

We also have identified an opportunity to increase the revenues for the city and that is to increase the fire assessment at a minimum of $505 that will cover multiple needs within the city. I have a question on this.

Will that be for everybody in this city? I'm just saying like VRG, et cetera, those who's retired. I'm just saying I represent district two and they're already complaining about what they're paying nine fire assessment. I'm just saying. So this is going to be a hard pill, you know, something that must sell to the public. I'm sorry.

So just to clarify, this budget does not include an increase to the fire assessment. This is just if the fire merger doesn't go forward and we have to absorb that additional cost, then we would have to look at that in the future potentially as an offset. It's just an opportunity. We don't have to do that because it's going to be bad.

Thank you. But that proposal is in anticipation for the ballot referendum in November. So I just don't like I don't want that. I don't want to give the public the idea that there's a shortfall or that or that there's an unknown expense that we need to cover that is contingent on what happens in November. And that's just one proposal that is increasing revenue versus decreasing needs and decreasing wants. So I just wanna correct that so people aren't thinking that, hey, it's an opportunity, here's an opportunity. The way this is being communicated, here's an opportunity for us to take more of your tax dollars. And that, with all due respect, I don't think that's appropriate given all the language that we're seeing in this time. And so what we need to be talking about as far as opportunities is cuts. And so I just want to make sure that this is communicated, that this is a contingency and an idea that staff has, not something that the board here is looking to do. That's ultimately our decision. And so, you know, this should be last case scenario. In my opinion, this should be last case scenario. And when we talk about public safety, you know, the most important thing is personnel. How do we get that personnel? We approved a contract a couple years ago to go 24-72 for the firefighters. Maybe that needs to be looked at. I'm not saying that is, but I think there's a lot of different things that we need to do before we get to the point where we're going to raise the fire assessment. And again, this is contingent on ballot passing in November. If it doesn't pass, then this is a whole different conversation. And so I just don't want... I don't want the sentiment to go out there that the city of Boynton Beach is saying, hey, you know, we're not going to listen to what the residents want. We're going to increase your, you know, this is my opinion at least. We're going to increase X, Y, and Z because that's not my prerogative, and that should not be staff's prerogative first and foremost because I think that, Essentially that that kind of it's almost like you're not listening to, you know, what people are saying. And so I just want to make sure that as we move forward with today that we're communicating this appropriately with multifaceted options. Not, hey, we're gonna increase X, Y, and Z. No, it needs to be a conversation of we're gonna reallocate resources, or we're going to cut X, Y, and Z, and not just focus on an increase to make things easier. Unfortunately, we have to make decisions. A lot of this is just the communication, which I think we need to fine-tune a little bit.

And when Fabio's done going over all the funds and the expenditures and revenues, I'll give a more lay approach for everyone to digest as far as like what we're looking at as overall city, but you're exactly right. There is no plan to increase the fire assessment this year at all. We kept the budget status quo with the exception of one thing that we're needing commission direction on. As of right now, none of your public safety pay raises that are to be adhered to through the CBA are built into this budget, which represent about $2.6 million. In addition, I froze all general employee pay raises. Now obviously, none of us up here have a crystal ball, and we have to navigate this property tax referendum item the best we can, same as every other municipality, So that's the only thing that we don't have built into the budget. So that would change in the event that the commission would like to see public safety pay raises implemented. And if that is the case, I would also like to see a 3% COLA for general employees, because I can't have the discrepancy, that gap of public safety getting 6% and 7% pay raises and general employees stay static. So that is the only thing not built in here and there is no fire assessment increase. I believe the only increase you guys are gonna see today are some CPI adjustments and is it solid waste? Did we do a CPI on parking? No, we did not. And then there's going to be a utility presentation that you guys will have to give us direction on. So and that's going to be a fairly substantial increase as far as from a percentage standpoint, but from a dollar denomination amount, it's probably going to equate to about a 15 to 16. average dollar increase monthly for the utility bills that the residents are going to see and that is for that's twofold one you have to anticipate that your infrastructure is coming to end of life over your utility plant the other is the fact that you need to If we're not doing a fire assessment increase in the event the property tax legislation does pass, you have to give staff time to build out a strategy that we can actually get to without looking down the barrel of a $10 million shortfall in next year's budget. And that's what we're outlining as far as right now. So I'll give a more elementary breakdown as far as the city's funding mechanisms that we have, what we've been facing, because what's not being talked about is the fact that if you look at your general fund, 35% of your general fund is being absorbed by inflation from 21-22. This board remembers in 2021, because of COVID, you had a 9% CPI. The following year, it was 7%. That's 16% right there. And so the government is essentially built off of the free market and the private sector. That's where you get all your utility chemicals from. That's where you get all your vendors whenever we're doing HVAC repairs. That's where you get your fleet services from the private sector. So those inflationary costs are going to be passed on to the government. And that's not being talked about enough. So if you look at how your general fund is built, there's been some, Very efficient, efficient work with how we fund the city overall. And I'll go into a little bit more in depth. Fabio, I don't want to steal your thunder, so continue, sir.

Hold on before you continue. I want to tell you thank you because, first of all, being human, the only thing we remember is an increase. We don't remember savings, so I'm glad you said it like you did. Thank you. Now you can continue.

And real quick, Vice Mayor, just so you know, been working with Chief Bruder. Honestly, half the time I think my office is his office because we've been working so hard. So we've been very creative. So like I said before, the $5 million impact, he's looking at things, being very creative on this continuous improvement to come down from a budget perspective. So very aggressive. So it's been very interesting to see what has unraveled over the last couple of weeks.

That's great to hear. Again, I think the thing is communication. When I think of opportunity, I think of revenue growth from a business perspective. And what's that revenue? That's the taxpayer, right? And so it's just with all this stuff going on and it's split, there's people that are one way, people in another. I just think that the language of like, here's an opportunity, we're gonna charge you more, it just is not the best way to communicate. A budget during this time. That is my soapbox. So I would just think about that because people are going to look at this, they're going to run with it, they're going to take it, and then we're going to have Sheila getting blown up by every news outlet out there.

Vice Mayor, that's an excellent way to look at it. Honestly, you have to turn a blind eye to revenue growth. And that's why you focus on the ZBB, making things flat. If you ignore what's happening at the top line, focus in the middle where you can squeeze.

Acronym, CBB. Can you tell the public what that means?

Zero-based budgeting.

Thank you.

Alright, so I like to wrap it up just by highlighting items that have already been executed in in the budget as we just mentioned This is a ZBB budget. It's been executed Also, the police department has identified additional revenues of about half a million dollars that have been built into the budget health insurance the RFP has been executed and there's no cola reflected into all the budgets and So those four items have been executed. So what's next? The next step is for us to come back in September for our first budget hearing and then to ratify it in the second budget hearing that has been set for September 16th. So there's a correction to be made in this slide. And that is the end of my presentation. Is there any additional questions?

So with that being said, currently, Avalorum is projected at right around $82 million. You guys should probably have those figures. Of that, 17.4 million is going to transfer over to the CRA. 17.4 will be met with the county's contribution as well. It should come up to right around $28 million, which is an increase to the CRA funding side. So you lose those monies and whatever's left out of your Avalorum revenue, is going to go fund the general fund for the most part. So when you look at the general fund and the departments it's comprised of, public works, parks from rec, police, fire, they make up the vast majority of it. So when you remove the 17 million, you're left with about $65 million. Your police department overall's budget is right around 56 to 58 million. So what do you do to fund the city? you do it through transfer fees. And you do it through transfer fees from your utility department, you get a sales tax share with the state, and overall that comprises your $138, $139 million general fund. I'm oversimplifying the comprehensive breakdowns in your budget workbook. So, Of that, I said that about 35% of your general fund is directly correlated and built in with that overall CPI increase we've seen over the last five years. We have pending state legislation. And I've given a presentation to you guys before. You guys know the economic impact. Since that presentation, the numbers have changed. Originally, the property appraiser sent us a breakdown saying that it was a $32 million shortfall in October 28, 29. That has changed recently to where now we're going to be facing probably about a $16 million shortfall. So the $16 million shortfall, as far as putting that in perspective, you could eliminate your entire Parks and Recreation Division, every event in the city, including the library, children's schoolhouse, museum subsidies. You still only get to about $10 million. You still have a $6 million shortfall. So... We're trying to navigate those perils by being responsible and keeping your budget flat. And I can't say enough about Allen and my staff. They have busted their butts to try to present a budget to you guys. And I know public safety is in the room. They obviously have their CBA agreements. We can make that happen. I will be very clear. in the event that we do have to make substantial movements next year, then those individuals, the city's gonna face a financial urgency situation to where we can do the pay raises this year, build them in, but we will not be able to do that next year in the event it is a yes vote, unless certain things happen during this budget workshop, and we're gonna have to have the foresight to navigate those challenges next year. We're not really doing a fire assessment increase because the fire assessment increase, even if you do move to $405 next year, what that's going to do is that's essentially going to get us to survivability mode to where we can just float for two or three years until the $250,000 is built in. And to put the homestead exemption aspect into perspective for you guys, currently we have about 17,500 homesteaded within the city of Boynton Beach. So all the residents you have, you have 17,500 that are homesteading. Of those 17,500, about 12,500 are valued at $250,000 or less. That represents twofold. The value of the home is $250,000 or less, or two, those are your long-term residents that have been here the longest. They homesteaded originally and it kind of locked in their price. And to give you a little bit of perspective on that, my home valued at 500,000. So in the event that this passes and I have $250,000 taking off of my home, it stands to reason that I'm going to experience about a four to $5,000 a year savings in property taxes. So it's substantial. Overall pay about $11,000 when you cook in homeowners insurance and some of the different assessments and how the county breaks everything down on their end. But in the city, it is substantial. You're going to be left with probably about 5,000 homes paying some sort of ad valorem. So if you don't transfer the cost of the quality of services in the city next year in the event this passes, you're not going to have a funding mechanism. And I spoke about this close to four years ago now, to where you have to start moving away from ad valorem taxes. Like you just have to, because it's not a stable income source to provide the services. Now, I'm not up here to get on a soapbox and rah, rah, rah, saying don't pass property tax legislation. Ultimately, it's up to the residents. If they want to see the size of government shrink and do cuts and reduction in personnel, and not see pay raises and things of that nature. But you're gonna have other cities do that. And you're gonna have cities like Boca Raton that are going to essentially raise their fire assessment from $140 to $224. You're gonna see cities like Delray Beach who do not even have a fire assessment. They're gonna be looking to go to an MSTU to where they enter into an ILA with the county for a share and implement a different funding mechanism for their fire department. They're gonna look at implementing a fire assessment. Every single city, this year is going to be looking at ways to navigate the challenges that are in front of you with the least amount of impact. I can assure you what we've plugged into the budget this year, with the utility increases and things of that nature, It's going to help us navigate these challenges and provide staff the necessary ammunition to avoid cutting whole departments. Because when I tell you guys the city can't withstand a $10 million haircut without eliminating your library, eliminating the Children's Schoolhouse Museum, the Arts and Cultural Center, every single event July 4th. 250 years celebrating. It's gonna be the last time that the city's gonna celebrate as far as using public funds to do such. So that's the perspective it is. Again, we definitely have some challenges, like I said, Your general fund, $17.5 million of that going to the CRA. We have a very large substantial library. It's about $2.83 million. And this isn't me undercutting the work that those specific items do. I'm just trying to put into perspective that you realize these are quality of life departments. They're not core essential services. Core essential services, fire, police, public works, paving roads, fixing potholes, utilities, making sure your water's running, your toilets are flushing, and whether or not there's a revenue there's a revenue opportunity, that's a key word today, opportunity, with what we can do with our utility, then we were exploring a lot of different options before this came about. The county has since frozen a lot of those opportunities that we had, understandably so. I would do the same thing if I was on their side until I can do a proper assessment. But we're navigating a lot of challenges as is, as the city, because you just don't have the property values of Boca. You don't have the property values of West Palm. You don't have the property values of Jupiter. So we're running about 10.1 billion in Avaloran value. Of that, I just told you about 12,000 of those properties are valued at $250,000 or less. Delray has about double that value, and Boca Raton has about probably five times the value that we have. Yes, sir.

Thank you. You know, I'm glad department heads are sitting here this morning and hearing what we're saying, you know, about we have challenges, but we're not talking about elimination. So when you go back to your staff and they start talking, you know, we're looking for you all to take the right message back, you know, because they decide getting phone calls. I'm going to start saying, Dan, you're you didn't explain something right to your staff. So I'm making sure that department heads are sitting here, please listen to what we're saying. We have challenges, but we're not looking at eliminations. So make sure you tell your employees that. Thank you.

Yeah, the way we've strategized some of these specifically the utility increases and or a fire assessment increase. This is all the fire assessments predicated on next year, utility increases are predicated on this year. So essentially we're going to be looking at direction from the commission, obviously it's your guys' authority to dictate whether or not you want cuts here, add-ons there, but we do have a framework that we want to operate in. And I'm just giving you guys the option that if we were to increase a rate or something, then there may be an appetite to decrease something somewhere else. That way it can be fairly commiserate. Mayor.

Thank you, Dan. To get back to, you had mentioned, you know, I understand, I appreciate the zero base budget. I feel like we've been talking about that for a long time. It's kind of starting fresh, and so thank you. I appreciate that. disingenuous to our staff to come into a zero-based budget not considering them and their efforts and their time and their their household requirements as well. I mean, we're all living through these times and we depend on, you know, our salaries, you know, to live. And just like everyone else, everyone's feeling the crunch as well as our employees. And so I, I appreciate that, although I feel like it's not realistic to go into a budget cycle not including some sort of because our employees are also phased, and some of our employees are barely making above minimum wage, or making very small wages, and so to think that we're going into a zero budget and coming in without really having that, it's easier to work down, or it's easier to go, okay, do we do a smaller percentage, or do we do that to make it, to make it work, but, you know, I just, when I look at, you know, when you're looking at pay increases, when you're looking at COLAs, you're not looking at performance-based. This is truly just, you know, sustainable, and to keep them here and employed and in their homes and being able to, you know, we have to take care of them And I think that when we go into looking at budgets, I feel like it is easier to find the money and it's easier to cut other things out when you've accounted for those increases. When you've put the line item in there that says we're going to let's see what the budget's gonna, where can we cut if we're including a 3% COLA, as opposed to coming in and saying, okay, we've given you and presented you with a zero-based budget and hasn't changed a little bit, it's changed, and now we're having to go, shoot, we didn't think, what are we going to cut now? Because now we're going into having to have more conversations about what the budget's gonna look like if we decide to add a 3% COLA for our employees who show up every day at work and keep the city running and keep our roads clean and keep our roads going. I struggle with starting out there as opposed to including it and then we can work from there. But to start at a zero base and now we're gonna have to have further conversations about what the budget looks like or where we're gonna cut in order to make up that difference. PD and fire, and our SEIU, I know SEIU is out of contract and we can talk about that at another time, but these are contracts that we approved as a commission. And I struggle with right now when we're not in a budget crisis per se, stripping all of that and saying we can't figure out where to make that up. We can figure out where to make that up. We have figured out how to make it a zero-based budget. Dan, you just sat here and said we'll figure it out. and we'll make it happen. I know that these department heads that are sitting here can figure out how to make it happen. There's a training budget here, there's a car allowance here, there's a this here, there's a way to make it happen, and I feel like if we talk about eliminations, and then have to add it in and figure out where to eliminate, then we're extending our budget hearings as opposed to saying, okay, we have factored it in, and this is what it looks like, and we need to find this money. Because now we're sitting here like, where is this gonna come from? What are we gonna do? And I know, Dan, you and I have had conversations, I've had conversations with various people from the departments, so that is my struggle, is that now we're sitting here like, well, we could do it, okay, but where are we doing that from? Because I don't wanna see, our contract employees that we've agreed. I mean, how do we go back on our word? How do we not honor a contract when we're not in a budget crisis? Next year, that's a whole different ballgame. Then we're having different conversations, if that's what we're looking at. But I feel like right now, having a conversation, starting out and going, yep, sorry guys, we appreciate you showing up every day, but we don't appreciate you that much. And so I struggle with that, and that's my position on that, that I feel like, you know, I feel like we should have had them in the, and then we can figure out how to manage the budget. But to start now having to try and figure out where that money's gonna come from, I just feel like it's not transparent for the public or for the employees.

Thank you. I do want to say a couple things. I want to thank city leadership and the finance team as well as every single department that's been, I know you guys have been working real hard to trim the fat and find opportunities to cut costs and try to keep costs the same. I think I, well, I appreciate the comments and yes, there's absolutely truth to those. I do want to commend staff for doing a zero-based budgeting this year. Because if you hear what's going on on the news in Tallahassee, we're talking government efficiency, transparency, accountability, all the key words for trying to function and do more with less. We understand inflation, we understand that, as Stan said, we purchase materials, chemicals, from the private sector. That's why a lot of the costs have gone up. I would love to see if we could afford it and if it would make sense honoring our word and honoring and treating employees the same whether it's a CBA employee or it's a City Hall employee. So I do agree with those sentiments. At the same time, I think that we need to have, some sort of a change. We need to find opportunities to trim the fat. We need to find opportunities to reduce costs. As Vice Mayor said earlier, very good points. It's not just about increasing revenue, but it's also about finding ways to reduce costs. So one thing that I would like to see going forward with the presentations as every department comes up, specifically non-CBAs, I would like to know not only how many full-time employees are in your staff, but also if we have a position that is manager or director or anything above that, I would like to see how many staff members are directly reporting to you for those positions and what the pay is for that position. Thank you. And I do have some thoughts, but I might not be ready to say them yet. But we have a challenge in front of us, right? There's a potential where we could have a pretty catastrophic situation for local governments as a whole come November if the ballot initiative were to pass. So I appreciate our leadership and our staff looking for opportunities to allow the city to survive and to continue. But I do have concerns, right? And I think everybody in this room probably has the same concerns. What is going to happen come November and how are we going to continue to function? So yes, it would be great to be able to give everyone salary increases and all of that. And that's definitely in our hearts. And although we're not in a crisis yet, we do have to be proactive and look at the future and the potential and how that would affect. As the city manager stated, the new figures appear to be about $16 million shortfall. So every time we talk about millions and increases and things of that nature, that's only going to increase the shortfall for the future because now we have a different baseline. That's all, thank you.

Give me one second, Alan. So right now, you guys saw we have about $139.3 million projected general fund. Of that, your public safety represents close to $100 million of that figure. That means every other aspect besides police and fire that's housed in your general fund has $40 million. In two years, if you take $16 million off of that figure, that's what you're going to be left with to fund everything else. So like, And I've heard the mantra saying that this isn't going to affect public safety. It may not affect public safety from the prospect of overall numbers right now. But through attrition and hiring freezes, it will have a detrimental effect on public safety. And I know I applaud this board. You guys made public safety number one priority in a strategic plan. When I came in, I saw a lot of, there was roofs being put on houses without a foundation. There was walls being put up. There was landscaping. But the foundation wasn't there. So we went back and we put the foundation in place. And we built upon that. And obviously now what we have going on is you've got a, I want to say it's a timing crisis rather than a budget crisis. Because right now you've got probably about three or four months before November 2nd. And we have to see whether or not this is gonna pass. And we're trying to navigate the best way we can. So Alan, you got the floor again, sir.

Sorry, you said some of the things I was willing to say. And honestly, I'm not panicked because the team's already engaged. You talk about trimming the fat, but really it's about optimizing what we have. And that's what we're doing. I'd be panicked if the teams here were not engaged and doing what is right. And through attrition, but if we can get to that, 930, 940 range people, you're looking at kind of restructuring the organization. You can take some of those dollars and look to be creative in giving some of that back if necessary. It would be up to the commission. A lot of things can happen between now and September. But because we started so early and ahead of it, even though we didn't know what was going on, we are ahead of the game right now. and I think everybody else is trying to catch up to us. We're in position right now, so I'm not panicked. This should happen whether or not there's a yes or no vote. This should have been happening anyway, and that's where we are right now. Move forward? Okay. Mine just messed up. We're moving on to the department budget presentations. Uh, and the first one will be, uh, PD police department.

Morning mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, city manager's office. All right, we'll move to the first slide. Something that's important to just highlight on this slide is, as you all know, that personnel represents about 87% of our budget. And our personnel cost on this particular item shows a reduction. Generally speaking, it's probably more even compared to last year to the amended to what we're proposing. And as you know, it doesn't incorporate any of our contractual obligated raises. We also see a somewhat flat operating expenses. In fact, we did have some increases during the amended budget year, but we're back down to the adopted of 9.2, which represents $800,000 reduction. Our capital outlay compared to last year is reduced by 1.6 million. And part of that was we did receive $1.3 million Motorola credit that we utilized to offset our radio expenses. So that's what you're seeing in that number right there. And lastly, our non-operating expenses is a reduction of $500,000. So our total reduction for last year versus this year is a reduction of 5.1%. Some of our drivers, our pension obligations for sworn increased 8%. General employees increased $300,000, which, I'm sorry, that was a reduction of $300,000, which is roughly a 26% decrease from last year. Our health insurance went up. We also have reimbursable overtime wages of $500,000, partly because our detail rates have increased. And we have also opportunities where we were getting reimbursable grants for overtime to include something that recently came across with 287G, as well as the presidential escorts and protection. In our operating expenses, we did see an increase because of some federal funding we received. So in order for us to allocate that funding, we had to increase our operating expenses. So essentially it is a push, it's just additional funding into that particular account. And like I mentioned, we are reimbursable wages from our police detail. We also saw an increase as well. Moving over to the capital non-operating that I highlighted on the first page, a big chunk of that is our radio expenditure, and partly because of the Motorola credit that we received from our previous RMS system of 1.3 million that we were able to utilize for our new purchase on our radios. I believe our radio total purchase was $2.1 million, but that was in a prior fiscal year. All right, some of our arrests. As we mentioned before, it doesn't represent any of the contractual obligations to our CBA employees. We do have frozen positions currently in this budget. We represent three frozen positions. One's a record supervisor, one's a police admin specialist, and one is a police records technician. So it's frozen positions for six months. And as we all know, the SEI contract negotiations is something that's due at the beginning of the fiscal year. I'm not sure what the status of, but they're in negotiations right now. So that is also a future risk. Some of our opportunities, I think we've done a really good job with our grant opportunities. Our grant officer and our finance department has brought roughly in about $1.9 million of grant awarded and received over the last fiscal year, which is fantastic to be creative and to augment our current budget. We also have an opportunity looking at our city events and our overtime and how we're policing that. And we've done really well, so I'm gonna knock on wood here. We do have very safe events and would like to keep it that way. But we also have an opportunity to look at how we're staffing it and be a little bit more fiscally creative. And being that we do have more officers out on the road than we've had in previous years. It is also an opportunity to offset some of the details with on-duty officers to include our security detail here, which we're moving forward with. There'll be an on-duty officer instead of utilizing overtime. Just another way to be a little bit more creative in the way we manage our city overtime and events. Another opportunity is freezing positions. Currently, we have six officer positions that are vacant, and we have nine civilian positions that are vacant. So those are opportunities to freeze those positions. And if we did freeze those positions, it would represent $1.5 million. Some of the things that we've executed in this contract, and it's mentioned by Fabio, is the COLA raises and the CBA contractual obligations. We also have a capital outlay reduced to $240,000, which is roughly, last year we had $500,000. Vice Mayor, do you have a question?

Yes, Chief, thank you. That COLA, what is the amount? Is that that $204,000? What is the amount of the contract obligation for the raises?

The, um, for the officers, sergeants and captain all together. Yeah. It represents, um, $1.2 million. 1.2 million. Okay.

And so the freezing is 1.5. Correct. Okay.

That was just for the freezing. That wasn't all the opportunities together.

Yes. Okay.

Chief. I'm going to assess something is the freezing for the six months.

So currently in the budget that's proposed to you, there's a six-month freeze for three positions that we've already worked with finance. As a future opportunity, we have positions that are not filled, and it represents an opportunity to freeze those positions.

Let me make sure we... My question is, the positions that you're frozen now, I'm just saying, we freeze them for six months, we're going to save $1.5 million, this is my question.

That's not what I'm saying, no. The positions that we froze right now is for six months, and they're three positions. Those are separate, they're already included in the budget. The opportunity here is if we chose to do so, we have additional positions that are not filled, that we can freeze them throughout the whole entire fiscal year, which represents six officers and nine civilian staff, and that would give us the 1.5.

Let me ask another question. The three positions that's frozen for six months at push come to shove. Can you freeze them for the rest of the year? Yes or no?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Also in the executed is the reduction of our capital outlay. We had roughly $500,000 coming from the red light camera to fund some CIP projects. We're not gonna be doing that anymore. Those projects, we're shelving the projects. We also included in there is our radio. We do pay $288,000 to the building department for the remaining amount of the radios that we owe. So that's the $248,000 reduction in our capital outlay. And we've also eliminated three positions in our budget. One was a police major, one was legal advisor, and one was division director of public safety communication. And that is the conclusion of my presentation.

Thank you. I'm going to sit.

you know, first look like you're already built in some savings. I'm just saying, you know, so we come back and say that we need you to do a little bit better. Do you still see opportunity where you could do a little bit better?

There are opportunities. Thank you.

You answered my question. Thank you.

Anybody have any questions or comments for the chief? OK, moving on. Thank you, sir.

Next up is fire chief Bruder. They're what?

They're healthy.

If you really were.

I'm good. If you need some chairs, let us know.

As long as I can lean. If I can lean, I'm good to go.

Yeah, or you can sit there. I just didn't want you standing all day like that, if possible.

Good morning everyone. Mayor, vice mayor, commissioner, staff, Hugh Bruder, your fire chief. Let's wait till we get that first slide up. Let me hit this little thing forward for you. So what you'll see for the fire department for next year's budget, essentially we're coming in just a little under $200,000 under flat. That was for making some reductions in paramedic equipment and some facilities. repairs that we can put off to the following year, and then some other purchases that we can go ahead and wait on. If we go to the next slide, in terms of budget drivers, one of the things we look at with the vacancies that we're currently holding, and so right now we're currently holding nine vacancies within the fire department. Of those, five of which are uniform vacancies. I have one civilian staff and three lifeguards right now. So the issue in the fire department with holding vacancies is that when you have a vacancy, we have minimum staffing. So we have to staff our units. So when we staff our units and we don't have a person filling that spot, we have to fill it with overtime. And then that overtime is pensionable. So actually there could actually, when you look at it, you might actually be better off filling those uniform vacancies than having them vacant.

Yes, Chief, thank you. While we're on the topic of overtime, do we have or do we have access to today to look at the overtime expenditures from 2022 up until this year? Because when we were discussing the switching contract, the big why was we're going to completely reduce overtime from the former assistant city manager, Jim Staples. And so I just want to look and see if that actually came to fruition because that's important. And so I just want to know how much overtime have we utilized? If we have, is that an issue with retention or attrition? And so I just need to know all the facts because that was the reason, at least for me, to move forward in that direction because it was ultimately going to be a cost savings with that overtime. So I just want to take a deeper dive into that if possible. Right.

Well, I'm not sure what the numbers are showing here, but I can tell you that prior to going to the 2472, we were running about a $2 million overtime budget. And right now that budget's between 500 and a million. I think the reason why you're seeing this year it's higher is because we're holding those vacancies. And remember, as I mentioned, with minimum staffing, you have to fill those positions with overtime. Not only are you filling them with overtime, but now you're overworking your public safety individuals because now you're, You know, we put this program in place to do 24-72, not just to cut overtime, but it's also looking at the mental health of your first responders, you know, who suffer from high amounts of post-traumatic stress, suicide, divorce, addiction. So this body recognized not only the fiscal impact, but the human impact to your firefighters.

And I appreciate that, and I was happy to support that. Also, to that point, I don't want those. Those are very important. Objectively speaking, though, I also want to look at the overtime and not masquerade those important things to look at with those issues. Those are extremely important. However, we cannot masquerade those issues to what the objectivity of the overtime spend is and why we did this. And if you look at other departments across the state of Florida, not every department is at a 2472. And again, let me be very clear. It's not that I'm looking to go back to that. Is that an option? Maybe, I don't know. What I'm looking for is what has been more cost efficient and where is the ROI for our residents And the budget for that, is it justifiable? That's what I'm looking for is, you know, we went from 2 million. We were told it was going to be almost eliminated completely. And now here we are at 500,000 to a million, which you explained why. It's because we have those vacancies. So I understand. So it seems like it's almost if we don't have the vacancies, it runs a little bit more efficiently than if we do have the vacancies.

If I may, so yes, to answer your question. So if we were fully staffed from a uniform perspective, you would see overtime costs come down. You would see your pension obligation come down over the long term. But every fire department in the state of Florida has a certain systemic overtime built into the budget. You're never going to be able to eliminate 100% of the overtime. But keeping Boynton Beach Fire Rescue at around a half a million dollars in overtime would be the goal. That's the goal. And that would be my goal because it's systemic. You're going to have overtime because of the nature of how fire departments operate, which is minimum staffing on the units. See, in other departments within the city, if someone's not there, you don't necessarily have to put a person on that.

Correct. 100% agree. The conversation with public safety is completely, with all due respect to general employees, completely different conversation. We're talking about the absolute standard and the human right to safety. And so, you know, I just want to make, like, I'm just trying to understand. So... the total cost is less if we're fully staffed compared to that gap of that overtime and the pension liability. Is that what you're saying?

That is one of the drivers. For long term. That is one of the drivers. It's the major driver because if you're fully staffed, you're not backfilling with overtime and then you're not paying because the overtime rate plus the pension obligation- drives that from a time and a half perspective to almost a double time perspective. So it compounds for the city. But if I may, just something that you had said earlier that I really want to key in on, which is the fact that when this body did put public safety as a number one concern, it isn't just about the 24-72 for the fiscal nature of it or for the mental health. It's for ensuring as a body that you have the best fire rescue services that you can provide for your constituents. Prior to the 2472, we were having difficulties keeping staff. We had a high turnover rate. People were leaving to go to other fire departments. So with the assistance of senior city leadership to be able to, and you and the board, to be able to increase salaries so that they're competitive, Right now, I have probably half of my department has less than seven years on. Those younger firefighters, they cannot afford to buy a house in Palm Beach County. And so how do they live? How do they survive? So not only did we set up this 2472 for the aforementioned reasons, but we also set it up so that we have a sustainable fire rescue department one that you're going to be able to have and maintain into the future that's not only fully staffed, but as we've said in the past, a destination fire department, one that people want to come and work for because they know that the elected body and city leadership are behind them and behind their pay and their benefits to keep them whole. So in a nutshell, that's the picture.

Thank you, Chief. And the nine vacancies, is that through attrition or is that through the inability to recruit or do we see a slowdown in being competitive?

No, we have no issues recruiting with what we have set up together, all of us. We have a very solid foundation in place. So there are vacancies that were created through attrition, through retirements. We had a few. We had one person that left with... within the last year that decided to go to Colorado. And we have some vacancies within the Ocean Rescue Department. I feel that we'll be able to fill those vacancies quickly if we get approval to do so. Which will then help with the overall cost. I believe it will.

Yeah, that's my whole thing is to justify filling these positions because long term, you mitigate that overtime and pension cost.

Well, and there's other ways as well. As I mentioned, those were the couple of drivers in the beginning, but I think you heard the finance director say that he spent quite a bit of time with me recently. And the reason for that is because we're going back, and you'll see one of my things here at the end, in terms of going back and looking at our operational efficiency. How can we look within ourselves, not only contractually, but as an organization, and And one of the things I was going to mention at the end that I'll mention now, and Commissioner Cruz had asked, I have 187 employees. I have six uniformed staff in my executive staff and three civilians, one of which is vacant. I have a vacant admin position. And I have one out having surgery. So for 187 employees, I had one admin until I just got a temp. But the point I'm trying to bring out is if you compare Boynton Beach Fire Rescue's executive staff and administration to every neighboring fire department, we are at 50% of the staff. Boca, 16. Del Rey, 17. West Palm, a little bit bigger. They have 20. So we are essentially half the size of in terms of your white shirts, your fire administration, is half the size. And we've done that to help the city gain not only twofold, one, to be fiscally responsible and show that we're going to work hard for you and staff and the citizens, but that at the same time that we do that, every one of my people is doing two jobs. And that's okay. A lot of people in this... A lot of people in the city are working two jobs because where we need those firefighters, we need them out in operations. Yes. Which I did. When I was here and I first became the fire chief, we eliminated the second deputy fire chief position. It was something I felt was not needed. We were able to put four firefighters into operations by eliminating that deputy fire chief. But keep in mind, we are running 50% admin executive staff in every other fire department.

That means you're doing the right thing. That means you're doing the right thing in consideration of what you actually need versus what you actually want. And if I was West Palm Del Rey, et cetera, I'd call you for advice.

Do you find it harder to staff the ocean positions than you do?

Just due to the nature of the salaries in those positions, and we've done a great job together collectively to increase those salaries since I've been here. But when you see what Ocean Rescue has to do every day out on that beach, and we do have some rough waters and they do a fantastic job, but we lost one to death who passed away. and we lost two who left to go to other departments because they're getting paid a significant amount of more money at those other agencies. Now one of the things we did two years ago or three years ago when we took over Ocean Rescue and subsequently a year later, We started a program that allowed our firefighters who are watermen to work for detail pay, not overtime pay. That was something that we worked with labor. It's very, very important that any municipality, any public safety director works very closely with labor hand in hand because it isn't about how much can we get, it's what can we do. How can we operate as effectively and as inexpensively as possible and be a high-ranking professional organization? So unfortunately, Mayor, to your point, the money just isn't there, and it's a lower-level position. It's very hard to fill those positions. So having my firefighters work part-time has helped, but we're at the tipping point right now with vacancies there where it's becoming operationally difficult for me. You're welcome, sir.

Yes, sir. I have a question. Are we still offering services like the Ocean Bridge like we used to do before? We still offer no services.

Yes, sir. If I may, we have four service areas. Tell me. So we have Town of HypoLuxo. We have Briny Breezes. We have Village of Gulf. And we have Ocean Ridge. One of the things, again, on the second slide I was going to allude to is that one of the things that we're looking at is that they have pretty sweetheart deals right now. And I believe that we have room. Even though some of those contracts have already been renewed, I don't think that our city's getting a good fair shake for the buck that we're putting in. They're getting way better rate than our citizens are getting for fire rescue services. So we're gonna be taking a hard look, legal, myself, the city manager, and assistant city manager, we're gonna be looking very hard at these four contracts. And it is gonna be my opinion and my recommendation that we're actually gonna go back and look at increasing those contracts. Currently, it's about 2.7 million, I believe, give or take. I mean, you can look at the number, 2.6, 2.7 million for the four contract cities. Not to freak the public out there in those municipalities, but we could literally double those contracts and still be under what would be a fair rate. And that's an additional $2.5 million for this city. So yes, sir, we are looking at that and many other things to try to bring in revenue.

Okay, I'm glad you're looking at it because we're talking about cutting. So that's one avenue we need to be looking at. But I'm saying that everywhere in Texas, you know, the increase of it passes. How will we? How would that affect our bottom line? I'm just saying, you know, they don't want to. They can't pay it. I'm just saying we're going to

explain it to me well they're not going to have much of a choice they're they're going to have to pay it because they don't really have much of a choice so it's not as a municipality and as a professional organization we're not going to be looking to gouge anyone what we want is a fair rate of return for the services we're providing. And Boyne Beach Fire Rescue provides world-class fire rescue services. And we deserve to get paid because we're out there using our trucks, our fuel, our man and woman power. So we are going to go back and take a serious look at that contract, sir. We are. And I'll allude to a few other things as I continue with my presentation. Thank you. So if I may, So we talked about the vacancies. So in terms of operating expenses, and this is something that the finance director, CFO extraordinaire had mentioned earlier, which is that So what we're looking at is every aspect of how we spend money. And one of the things that we recognize is fleet is a tremendous, tremendous source of expense for us. So we are looking right now, and this is gonna be part of what you're gonna see as we come forward, because when you asked for how are we gonna pay for these pay raises, we've identified how we're gonna pay for them. They'll be coming to you later, just that all of this kind of came to fruition kind of quickly. So it's not that the team didn't present you properly, Commissioner Kelly, it's that all of these things kind of came to fruition as the budget was coming together. And I think there's plenty of time for us to address this. But I will tell you that in looking at our fleet, we've got $8 or $9 million worth of fleet coming in. If we lease those vehicles instead of buying them, which is tenfold the best thing to do. You see fire departments all over the country that are now leasing their vehicles because, number one, you're going to reduce maintenance costs. If you look at the maintenance costs on this budget, it's ridiculous. And last year was a tremendous amount of money. In this year's budget, we've reduced it, but we have a lot more vehicles, newer vehicles. So one of the strategies is any high dollar equipment item within our particular budget, and I would recommend it citywide, go to leasing. So let's look at a fire truck. A fire truck that costs $1.2 million in cash. You don't want to give up your cash. You're giving up $1.2 million for about $96,000 a year in a lease for 11 years. Turn it back in. At the end, you get a new one. Yes, sir.

Chief, just real quick, I think it's important for the public to know this. Yes, sir. Prior to COVID, during COVID, what was the average cost of a fire truck?

About $800,000, $700,000 or $800,000. So it was a 50% increase. Absolutely.

So I think that's important to know.

A rescue truck is $588,000 for the ambulance rescue trucks. And how much was that? They were $250,000 or $300,000 prior to COVID. There is lawsuits out there now that your legal team is looking at for us to jump on that may bear some fruit in the future. Price gouging? Price gouging. We can engage in that and I suggest that we do. But the bottom line for this board is to know that your fire department and your police department and other departments are trying to look at alternative strategies to save money. And I think we've identified one that's gonna bear some pretty major fruit. Unfortunately, safety clothing and equipment is an ongoing expense. Our firefighters need to have safety clothing to do their job. Not only that, I believe they need to have the best equipment to do their job. As I said before, and I've said it this day as for the last six years that I've been here, my job is to protect the men and women who serve first. If I can't protect them, they can't protect the public. So they must have adequate gear. That gear has a cost, and it's ridiculously expensive. It's about $5,000 for one set of gear per firefighter. That's expensive. Commission McCray, you had asked me about the contract city. So when we look at that last item on this slide, an annual review of all revenue generating ordinance structures, contracts, let's make sure that our fee structures with respect to fire prevention are adequate. Are we in the top two thirds of the county? Again, we don't wanna be the top, We don't want to do that to our citizens, but again, we provide a good fire prevention service. If you look at the number of fires over the last five years, they're down. Why are they down? They're down because we have an extremely well-functioning fire prevention division with a world-class fire marshal and a staff who are making sure that they're getting inspected and reinspected, and it may be onerous for some of our businesses, but It's to make them and to make their customers safer. So by going back and looking at these ordinance structures to make sure that we're charging properly for what we should be getting for our services. And that's kind of what we're looking at. Now, budgetary risks. Now, I know Commissioner Turkan, I know that, I didn't like that opportunities thing on there. No diss to the finance director. I didn't like that opportunities with respect to the fire assessment. But the city manager said it very, very plainly and clearly. Ad valorem tax revenue to fund public safety is a huge, it's like, it's terrible. It's just, to put it plainly, you cannot, if you cannot properly fund your fire rescue agency, then people are going to suffer. Not only the citizens, but the firefighters themselves. And I mentioned also the, you know, holding the vacancies and what that means, you know, is a long-term perspective. So opportunities, we're going to continue to look at grants. The last eight or nine months for us, we've been kind of in limbo, you know, with the potential merger. And so, you know, we're continuing to operate. We're continuing to be fiscally responsible and look at every aspect of how we do business. but that has kind of affected us. So when I talk about increasing the fire assessment, Commissioner, I'm doing it from a place of solidifying funding. I'm not looking at it as we have to tax you more money. I'm looking at it as what is the life worth and we have to make sure that we provide that service. The flip side benefit to that is the potential to lower the millage. If you increase your fire assessment to cover your cost, there is a potential to lower the millage to offset as the city manager indicated. Now, there's a fine line there, but that's up to you and the city manager to decide. So I think that we have to look at increasing that fire assessment. Every fire department throughout this state that doesn't have one is looking into it. Everyone that has it is looking to increase it. And that's not a spending free-for-all. As you can see, just the way we operate our command staff, we run lean, we're gonna continue to run lean, and we're gonna continue to be fiscally responsible. And that really just answered the last thing on that slide. So at this point, that does conclude my presentation. If any of you have any additional questions.

Anyone have any questions before we move on?

I wanted to add one thing that he was talking about, leasing vehicles. It's not just about fire and PD. We are looking at all departments. So that has transitioned. It's one of the things that kind of came out of the whole zero-based budgeting and kind of the creative financing. So like already working with Kevin, the fleet team, every vehicle that comes in here, we should be leasing. Save that cash because cash is king. Got it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the opportunity. Have a good day.

Okay, moving on to Recreation and Cultural Services Department. Come on down, Craig.

Good morning, everyone. I'm going to first start off my presentation with the general fund leisure services departments, which include Recreation and Cultural Services Administration, arts and cultural center, women's club, specialty events. Oh, sorry. Specialty events, library museum, recreation and parking services, which includes our park ranger program. Later on will come golf, which is an enterprise fund. And for the public that may not know what an enterprise fund is, It's a department that raises its own revenue and pays its own expenses, so it doesn't come from general fund. Just to give you an overview, our general fund FTEs for all these divisions except golf are 81.5 FTEs. which is plus then 35.6 for golf. That's 11.6% of the city staff, just to kind of give you a overview. Starting with our overall budget, personnel services for these divisions have been reduced by 3.1%. Operating expenses went up 2.1%. Capital outlay minus 43.8%. There are a lot of one-time purchases that are not going to be in next year's budget and non-operating. So it's an overall reduction of 1.7%. budget drivers for these divisions, just press the wrong button, okay. Personnel services, there's a decrease in the library pension, minus 60,000, that's due to retirement and drop participant. Vacant positions across all the divisions, hiring freeze is a savings of $170,000. Operating expenses for fiscal year 25-26 special events had an amended budget. They added 120,000 for an additional FTE. There were three, and that was not enough to put on all these events, so there are four now. Special event expenses for entertainment and activities and logistics, 1.585 million. Capital and non-operating women's club had a one-time expense removed. They had bees in the roof. They had that repaired, so that's minus $22,000 for next fiscal year. Recreation had a one-time expense removed of $33,000. It was a utility vehicle for Hester Center.

I have a question. Since we have this hiring freeze across all divisions, Services is not going down, am I correct?

Well, no. I think that staff are working really hard to keep up with all the programs and everything that they provide, but it is a strain on staff at times, to be honest with you.

Okay, it might be a strain on staff, but let me say this, from what I've been seeing staff doing, they've been top notch.

Thank you.

And I want to give them credit. Thank you.

risks and opportunities or possibilities, I could say, and executed. Recreation, budgetary risks, there's increased expectation to find dollars in existing budget to cover emergency repairs such as playground equipment. Many of you are getting phone calls about playgrounds that need repair or replacement. It's very much a struggle to look into our current budgets to find dollars to do that.

I'm gonna stop you because I do need Let everybody know the council that one of the playgrounds, I'm just saying it was talking about something was wrong. You know, people need to read the history of that. You know, they had citizens that built that and there's nothing wrong with that. They gave their time and their labor and they need to go back and really read, read and understand how we got that castle built because it was taken from off a city property over here and taken to where it is now. And I don't see anything wrong with it. I'm just saying I have to say it. I saw my mind. Go ahead.

Thank you. And there's other maintenance needs that unexpectedly occur that we constantly have to find dollars for that in our current budget. So we use money for one thing, we can't do the other thing. Arts and Cultural Center and recreation, budgetary risk, rising costs of performers, instructors, and production services. Revenue fluctuates due to attendance and rent, attendance of programs and rental demands. special event, rising event costs in library, increased print materials and database costs, opportunities or possibilities, increased revenues with event and program sponsorships, something Sheila's currently working on, and increased vendor fees, possible event mergers, which we're gonna talk about in just a couple minutes, and possibly developing a VIP ticketed package for signature events, Consider charging admission to special events. That's always a possibility, and a future parks bond is a possibility, if that's the direction the commission would like to go down the road. Executed, obviously there's no cost of living. So for special events, We need commission direction on something. So there's, we need you to consider if you want to take over the two CRA events, the Boat Parade, which costs approximately $30,000, and the Night Market, which is approximately $140,000 for a total of $170,000. It's been suggested by Amanda on our events division director consider the merger of the holiday parade which has low attendance with the holiday tree event lighting which has a high attendance and we could add a stage and have performances there that would save a hundred and five thousand dollars another consideration is to possibly cancel four low attended first fridays at five concert series for a savings of seventy thousand two hundred dollars leaving a savings of $175,200, which would be budget neutral to add those two CRA events to our budget. So if we could have direction That'd be appreciated.

Thank you, Mayor. For the boat parade, have we looked... Is that our... Just a quick question, because I don't know if I've asked this before. Does that incorporate... When we do the boat parade, because I know we'll have members from other cities attend, are those cities paying into this? Because I know you typically run from, like, Lantana down to Delray, and so they don't. So maybe... Maybe we go to Lantana, Delray, Hyperluxo and say, hey, can you chip in seven, eight grand for this, right? And then – because we always – I think we even advertise these other cities as well. And so I think that's fair.

I like your suggestion, but I'm sure that they're – Scraping for dollars just like we are as well.

Well, I think Del Rey can afford it Because I know Del Rey Didn't do it one year for funding reasons and then they got a lot of flack and then they put it back So I think they will double check.

Yeah, I think there's an opportunity there. But yeah to where we can just kind of you know, yeah, I

Could definitely ask. It doesn't hurt to ask. Yes, thank you. Craig, there would be an existent ILA for that. If they're funding that, they would have to be an ILA in existence. So it would probably be a legal question. Maybe Kathy.

I have a question. Sorry, go ahead.

No, go ahead.

With regard to the four potential cancellations, what months are we looking at? And is it because of rain? I know that a lot of times it's a lot of rain.

Yeah, we've used Placeur AI to, and maybe Amanda can come up and answer that. We use Placeur AI to identify approximately how many people are attending these, and it's probably the lowest four.

yeah it tends to be january and february due to weather and rain and then also november and august tend to be the four that have the lowest attendance so you would still host a first friday quarterly august when it's also the end of anything comes in because of the holiday thanksgiving with thanksgiving that was kind of low attended as well okay and then it's right on then we come up with the following weekend is the holiday exactly then you have the tree lighting okay

Amanda, while you're up here, sorry, real quick, Craig. Amanda, since you're up here, on the consideration of the merger between the parade and the tree lighting, they did that one year. It was maybe in 18-19, and I'd be curious to know why we... went back to having them separate back in the day because there was a point and it may have to do with because there were two entities that were doing it that it was cumbersome and it wasn't and also I think it even had to do with maybe the businesses along Ocean. There was an issue where we did do it as a combined, and then it was immediately not done again like that. So I would want to go down that maybe, I don't know if you've had conversations with CRA staff to figure out what Mercedes may know as far as logistics. I think it was a logistical issue, so I'd be curious to see how that would play out because of the timing of the two events and and all that, but I would want to know how that looks. But I agree, I think if we can combine those two, it financially makes sense, and I think it would then, we would have more attendance I think with the parade, and then we know the attendance is fantastic at the tree lighting, but I think fiscally it makes sense to combine those two into one. But I just, we had done it that way once, at least once, and I'd be curious to see why that changed.

I believe it was due to logistics. I can get more information about that. But our idea is instead of actually doing the physical parade and closing down the road and putting out barricades and having all that police presence needed, that what we noticed last year, everybody just enjoyed the performances right in front of the stage. We really had no one lined up. So therefore, we add a secondary stage. We'll invite everyone properly. They can do all their performances and just expand the tree lighting.

Kind of like a hybrid.

Exactly. Without the actual parade part, yeah.

Got it, okay, perfect, thank you.

So do we have consensus? I'm okay with moving forward with your suggestions and thank you for bringing these up and looking to making everything flat and neutral, thank you.

I support it as well. Yeah, and Amanda, moving forward with event sponsorships and ticketing certain things and You know we can talk offline to about some of your thoughts on that, but you know I don't any right I think there's a huge for sponsorship. I know there's a huge opportunity. I know that Before you came in it was one of those things that we were just starting to really get on board with and doing and I think that there is a large opportunity to really You know sponsor Get that sponsorship, so I'm you know happy to to see your ideas and moving that forward and how we can keep our events because it is a We have come to a point where everyone loves the events and loves coming and being part of. It's what makes Boynton Beach, Boynton Beach. And so I think the community aspect of it. So I don't want to see any of that go. So whatever we can do to shift financial feasibility, I'm all for that. So thank you.

Absolutely. And Amanda, excuse me, I know this is a budget, but I wanted to say since you've been here, there has been an increase. And I want to tell you, keep up the work of what you're doing.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Okay.

I do have a question quickly. If we were to combine it, would it still be on a Friday or would we do it all on a Saturday? Because I'm thinking some of those acts were kids.

That's what we were hoping to move it to the Saturday and add maybe an extra hour or two to the evening.

Okay. Just because I know to get a kid home from school, get them ready to come and do it, that's going to be chaos. But okay, I think that's a great idea.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you for that direction.

Okay, moving to the golf course. I have to tell you, Bo is doing an amazing job at the golf course raising revenue. We've never seen it go so well and he's just doing a bang up job over there and I can't thank him enough. And all of the staff that we work together, I work together with, they're just amazing. I wanna thank them publicly.

Excuse me, I wanted to tell, since the golf course is doing so well and taking care of itself, when I was here for years banking everything, golf course was always a problem. I'm glad to know that you all are doing what you all need to do. Thank you.

Yes, the golf course is now giving back 8% of their gross revenue to the general fund.

Good news.

So that's an amazing feat.

Yeah, no, I mean, in 23-24, they transferred $80,000 to the general fund, and now they're exceeding like $300,000 plus to the general fund. So, you know, to be able to sustain themselves and still contribute to the general fund. It's a big winner. Absolutely. Thank you.

I'm very proud of you.

Kind of a good operator.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So their personal services at the golf course, they went up 6.5%. He was able to add a few positions to streamline his operations and to raise more revenue. So I can't tell you exactly the number, but their revenue in the pro shop has gone from maybe 60,000 from when Bo started into the 200 and some thousand dollars. So that's how well they're doing in the pro shop alone. Operating expenses were reduced by 0.2 million or 21.3% due to the purchase. They purchased the golf carts in 25-26 instead of leasing them, which moving to capital non-operating, we have minus $1 million in operating because the golf carts almost cost a million dollars, but there were, I want to say, 120, 125? Yeah. Yeah.

so we we own them now right let me ask the question since we're talking about renting do we own those golf carts we own them yes okay maybe next time we could probably look at the possibility of renting because as we're looking at it was that is it feasible yeah we leased them before and it was cheaper to buy them this particular situation that's why it went down under me and then um

A one-time equipment purchase of a mower and a boom spray rig, minus $300,000. Budgetary risks. There is a need for additional draining in certain areas throughout the golf course. Updated technology is needed to maximize revenue and improve customer service, which he's working on right now, Bo. And the driving range needs some improvements as well to ensure quality hitting areas throughout the season. opportunities or possibilities, acquire autonomous maintenance units that could allow reallocation of labor to work on special projects in other areas that need attention. Bo has explained to me that there are lawn mowers that power themselves and mow the lawns themselves, so that could alter the maintenance to other areas that are needed. So there's some really cool technology out there for golf courses now. Acquire a new tee time reservation system which will allow for increased online bookings, allow for customer service at check-in, and increase sales to pro shop. Rerouting golf course to improve pace of play during busy times so people don't get jammed up so much. What we've done already, we purchased new golf carts as we mentioned. There has been some new drainage completed. The purchase of new maintenance equipment has been completed. and the updated organizational chart to improve services and revenue. And that's the end of my presentation. Oh, I'm sorry.

It happens to everyone.

Which one did you want to see? The next one. Okay.

Okay.

That pretty much sums up the presentation. Does anyone have any additional questions?

No, just a quick comment on technology and autonomous. I think it's always interesting to look up doing more for less. And when you ask AI how to do more with less, or for less, it's autonomous and technology and utilizing those in order to decrease revenue in other places. So anytime we can look at restructuring and autonomous vehicles or opportunities, I think that's how we do more with less, so to speak. Thank you.

once again i'm so proud of everyone i work with i'm honored to work with them tiffany is doing a great job at the library marvelous fabian amanda beau they're just all wonderful so thank you thank you okay moving on to public works

Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission, Kevin Ramsey, Public Works Director. This morning, I have multiple accounts for covers different departments. So first, we'll go through 001, which covers facilities, beautification streets, forestry and grounds, construction services, and PW admin.

Okay.

All right.

On this sheet here, you'll see that we have had, in personal services, a reduction 3.8%, $200,000, and we'll go into why in the next slide over. Operating expenses are down 5.5%, $400,000, and capital outlay is down $300,000, 100% because we didn't do a transfer, but I'll get to that. And non-operating transfers, we have none. OK, BUDGET DRIVERS. IN PERSONAL SERVICES, THE SALARIES WENT DOWN $200,000 BECAUSE WE HAVE CRA PICKING UP SOME OF OUR CIP PROJECT MANAGER COST, AND WE ALSO HAVE CRA PICKING UP TWO INDIVIDUALS IN OUR BEAUTIFICATION INDUSTRIES DEPARTMENT. We're replacing hiring replacements at a lower cost than what their existing positions have left in, and we have expanded our in-house custodial team for PD headquarters and fire department. We've done that for their 24-hour service, so we have in-house staff actually doing that work. Operating expenses, contractual services are down $300,000. We have done that by doing in-house service through our forestry and grounds department. We took away some areas, which we'll look into that after this presentation, a few things that we've done. Janitorial grounds stays flat at 1.8 million, and our capital non-operating capital outlay is $300,000. All vehicles, equipment, and technology purchase have been deferred, and non-operating flat at $400,000. Mandatory transfers are unchanged.

Okay, risk and opportunities.

Okay, the risk with a zero flat what we have right now for facilities would be no funding for emergency repairs, HVACs, major roof leaks, tinting for termites, beautification streets would be limited on enhancement projects. We will still do some, but we won't be able to do like we have been doing. Forestry and grounds are reduced in in-house landscape projects, similar to the one in Meadows. We just finished that one, I think, this past Thursday, finally. Opportunities, we will use in-house staff to do energy efficient retrofits through our buildings. In-house sports lighting retrofits, as we've done in the tennis center. Streetscape and corridor revitalization, we're actually doing some right now in Federal Highway. and plan on doing little projects like that. In-house street resurfacing designs. We plan on, even if we don't pave, we are going to design all the other neighborhoods that we can get done, have it ready to go for exhibits for bidding and whenever such time comes that we can afford to do those. What we have executed, we have executed the Inca Street Lighting Project. We went out for bid. We had bids between $300 and $700,000 and our in-house staff did it for $37,000. Um, tennis center court lighting. We had a price for $11,000 from a vendor to do 17 lights. We did 128 for about $60,000. Um, he still has their center scoreboard. We have a two part, we have a vendor doing the work and we're doing the electrical part to it. And in-house resurfacing projects exhibits are, are constructed services guys. We'll be designing all those and they have in the past.

All right. Fleet management. Can I ask a question about lighting real quick? Yes, ma'am. The Ocean Avenue, when we were getting the Broadway light complaints, has that been resolved? Are we still waiting on FP&L for that?

I believe that Will Leedy, our engineer, is working on that project. Perfect. Thank you. I know what you're talking about, though. I was there. You can't win.

No lights, two bright lights. You've got to figure it out.

Plenty of them. All right. I'm pissed. This is fleet. Let me go back one.

No.

Fleet management. That's where we are. Okay. Fleet. So in this department, we had a personnel reduction of $100,000. Operating expenses are plus 3% or actually 0%. Look at that one. Capital outlay is negative 68.3%. I'll tell you why that happened. and non-operating is flat at zero. Sorry, I missed a slide. Everyone does that. I'll go to the next one. Okay, budget drivers. Replacement, we're hiring people lower than what the ones have left before them. Fuel and parts are staying flat in operating expenses, and capital non-operating, capital outlay is down 10.4 million, because this year we had to come to pay for a whole bunch of fire trucks, Chief. So that's let down, and now we return to a standard $4.8 million vehicle annual expense. So risk, we defer to tire shop. We would like to have a new safe tire shop with the proper things. That's one of our risk. Opportunities, we are exploring possibilities of providing services to neighboring towns such as Barney Breezes, town of Hyperluxa, town of Lantana, and town of Oceanfront. we should be able to provide them fleet services. And they're small enough that they may be enticed. So Dave Prasad is talking with them now to see if we can do that. And there's been no call applied for execution.

I can't, but I'm sorry. What kind of services are we providing? Because your voice is up and down.

Who is it? Yeah, to me. Okay. I'm sorry. Well, we want to offer them what we do for our fleet. As far as their police department, they have police cars. We can service their oil, tires, things like that. Instead of them going to Goodyear for tires and all that, they can come to us. We're trying to see if they want to entertain that.

Well, see, that's the part I didn't get. I thought you wanted us to go and take over the police department.

No, no, no. We just want to fix their cars and get some money. Okay. All right.

I'm good.

We're in a zero flat budget. We're trying to find some money, right? And that company, we could do that. We have the proper fleet to do that. Dave has them in shape. Risk and opportunities. Sorry, guys. Cemetery. All right. Now I'm watching TV. Sorry, guys. My papers are sticking together.

Now for the dead news.

Go ahead. The dead news. All right. The dead news. All right. Cemetery. All right. Here we go. So the cemeteries. Personal services are down 1.3%. Operating expenses are down 5.2%. Capital outlay is down 100%. I'll explain that one. and non-operating is down 89%. This is what happened. So in replacement, we've had a few retire, one person retire, and we've hired the replacements at a lower grade, obviously. Operating expenses, flat at $300,000, variance driven by internal budget transfers. Capital non-operating, Reduction reflects elimination of one-time mid-year CIP transfer on budget maintained, operating budget maintained. Capital outlay is minus 100%. Improvements of grounds and equipment all deferred, remaining non-operating transfers at 85,000. So, this is a good one. Risk, equipment breakdowns and deferred maintenance, irrigation system failures, tree and canopy management. These are a risk, but we can manage these with in-house staff, but they are a risk that could happen. Opportunities, additional plot sales from Sarah Sim Cemetery, which should be coming online early fall. Digitizing and plot mapping. Repaving of the Boynton Beach Memorial Park, that is actually, we have the quotes in for that, and we'll be doing that shortly before the end of this fiscal year. replacement of mausoleum roof those bids are in and we're going to be speaking of those in the next few weeks executed no coal applied capital improvement transfer eliminated increased cemetery fees which this board has done transitioned from contractor to in-house grounds maintenance which we are making a much better run at it than what it has been enforcement of cemetery rules and in-house facelift of cemetery exterior and entrances

Sanitation. Before you go there, let's go back to the cemetery. You're flipping too fast.

All right. All right.

When can the citizens start purchasing plots for Sarah Sims?

That's a good question. I can tell you when I'll be done building. I think we have a few things to do with that.

That's one thing they want to know. That's first. The second thing they want to know is can they get them and pay on time? Because a lot of cemeteries do that. So that's something else you all need to look at. Okay, that's two. Okay, we'll get together.

Okay, all right. Sanitation. Okay, thank you. Sanitation. Okay. In sanitation, personal services are down 2.4%. Operating expenses are flat. Capital outlay is down 42.2%. That's me on that one. And non-operating is increased by 13.2% or $300,000. A transfer is what that is.

Excuse me, is personnel service down because you cannot find somebody to work or you all just keeping it down?

Personal services are down only because we have less overtime because we became more efficient. Okay. It's not that we're lacking people. It's a constant higher in that position, that department there. Okay, budget drivers. Regular salaries, nearly flat. Car allowances have been eliminated. Operating expenses, current budget assumes flat service levels with no growth factor. Waste disposal and vehicle service represent 62% of operating, both held flat. Vehicle purchases are down $700,000. This year we're going to pay, we're going to buy a million dollars worth of vehicles, not $1.7 million worth of vehicles. Transfers to general fund is $300,000. All right. risks. Fleet capacity and scouting conflicts, equipment damage and operator injuries. opportunities or expand services to include construction site grappling. We just started that this year. We have all these high rises being built. They don't have the capacity to put in six or seven dumpsters, so we entertain putting in a 40-yard dumpster and starting our own grappling service using equipment that we had and staff that we had. We started just now, and we are on board to do the one across the street on Federal between Boynton Beach Boulevard and Ocean Avenue. We're in talks with them, and we're just pushing out the competition, and it's a great thing to be in sanitation right now. We started to provide a grappling service, put out legal notices through our legal team, help, thank you very much, to all the invaders within our territory. In Boynton Beach, we are the ones who takes the refuse, okay? And we noticed there was one, two, five, six. So we reached out to... legal team they send out letters and we've been responded to and they are leaving our city and giving us the names of who they had business with and what service they provided and that will be increased our revenue okay um yes ma'am do you mean so for instance um

The businesses on Hypoluxo and Lawrence, when they use Coastal to empty their dumpsters, is that what you're talking about? That they shouldn't be using Coastal and they should be going through us?

You can use Coastal and one of those if it's recycling only. But what we saw with Coastal is they had dumpsters at McDonald's and everywhere peppered around. They were doing grapple service for contractors. which is not allowed because it wasn't just sole source recycling. It was a mix. That's what we do. That's what started what's going on here. That's where we're at.

Can you just, can you, not today, not right this second, but can you verify what Coastal is doing behind the 7-Eleven on Hypolexo and Lawrence just so that we know that they're, because I do see them early in the morning.

I know, you're an early person, I know. I get those texts. Luckily, I'm up. All right. So now we're going to solid waste proposed rate increase. Now, we're proposing residential multifamily rates go from $23.45 to $24.27. That's a 3.5% increase. That's $0.82 more a month. And what that does, we would like to maintain a six-month operating rate. fund reserve. Right now we're at $6.5 million. Our budget is $17.6 million. That's $1.4 million a month operating cost we have. That means I should have an $8.5 million six month reserve. So that would take care of that. And that would also help offset our fuel increases and all the rest of just the typical inflation that we have. The drivers of that request is because of Palm Beach County inflation trends and CPI, fuel disposal and hauling fees, and cost of cart and dumpster replacements. So we ask for that. Yes.

Yeah, I'm okay with the increase. I see an increase in service, right? And I would even go and venture to increase the commercial even more than 3.5%. That's my opinion. Keep the resident costs the same at that 3.5, what is it, 18 cents? 82 cents. It's 82 cents. 82 cents. So I'm okay to go move forward with the commercial increase even larger. I don't know what my colleagues think, but I think 3.5% for residential is fair. I've seen the increase in quality service. And thanks for all you do and all your departments.

Could I ask legal if that would be something that we can do, have different rates for commercial versus residential?

We need to do a rate study. You can provide direction for them to do the rates study, or we can look at the numbers as well.

Isn't there a state law that states that if there's any financial impact to a business, they could sue the city?

You have to provide a business impact statement in connection with any ordinance that we bring, but you have to have the legislative support to support that with regard to a rate study, or we could see what's already um in place i i don't know i'd have to get with kevin to see when the last rate study was done i just want to i just want to be cautiously you know yeah walking this line kevin when was your last last year and it's on trend to follow we had just like a five-year plan so it's it's on track okay if you could just send that over to stacy and i will take a look at that and then we can we can get back to the commission on july uh 7th with that update

Any questions? Okay, all right.

I have a question. I'm just kidding, bye.

Next up is the

we were at item b5 so if there's any other oh i just want to make sure was there any other departments you guys would like to call up okay but now now we're going to capital improvement yeah cip yeah yep okay no i think it's kevin cip first cip sean oh sean yeah yeah everyone

Ryan.

No, we're gonna front load utilities. Yeah, do CIP after. Come on up, Poonam. He can wait until next. Gabe, he will wait until after utilities.

Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Poonam Calcutt, the Utilities Director, and can we pull up the Utilities Operational Fund 401?

IT is not ready.

IT. Can we pull up utilities 401 budget? while i'm on the podium i'll just i'll just take the opportunity to really thank utility staff i can't say enough about them they work all kinds of hours and i'm so proud of the team that we have and we have experience of over 20 30 years and we have fresh trainees coming on board and all of them really really perform we are starting to provide a lot of training on different things so we can kind of do a lot of things in-house so we don't have to contract out but at the same time we also look at is it more cost beneficial to do things contractually than have to train people for specific kind of tasks that are not done all the time. So the overview, providing you personnel services, we are down by 2.2%, and that's by moving some either some positions, changing some positions, maybe, I'll give you an example, we had, in media services, we had a superintendent position, and we had a division director position, and we eliminated the superintendent position, created it into more of an assistant director position, who would, provide oversight to financial services and media services because that's a revenue coming in and customer service and then change the supervisor position, made it into a supervisor instead of assistant supervisor. So different things that we've done and we continue to look at how we can keep our personnel costs down. operating expenses is up and that's mainly because of inflation materials and services as well as chemicals for the water treatment and wastewater treatment that's really is what drives that cost capital outlay is down that's a one-time equipment purchase we have purchased two vac trucks this year in the future years we are looking at do we buy a cctv truck do we leave it like what Fire Chief Prudhoe was saying or we look at doing contractual services for doing CCTV is just doing using TV to look at the pipes because what we if you don't look at the pipes really well then we are the cost that we could defer for either replacement or repair and that sometimes if you don't do a good condition assessment of the pipes you won't be doing that so that's prudent way for us to keep costs down. Non-operating cost is mainly our debt service and any transfers we pay to general fund. So general fund transfers are 8% of our revenue, so that's based on that, and so that's up. But overall, we've kept the cost low and kept the total budget in the black as much as possible. some of the budget drivers personnel services we talked about the pensions there's a reduction in that health insurance went up cost of living increases and trying to make sure that we have the right kind of people that we hire for the with the right skill sets and experience that can become a little bit hard as you know because there's so many utilities and so many municipalities in this area so people can be living in the same place and be able to go to another municipality without any problems, and we've seen that happen to us. Operating expenses, the water treatment plant, like I talked about, especially the chemicals, fuel, And power costs, that's what the major increase for us is. Same thing for sewage treatment at the regional plant. You all have seen their budget, and they've really worked hard to keep the budgets flat too, but the increases are really because of chemical and materials and services. Water distribution went up slightly. We have seen the cost of repairs for some of our water mains really go up. Really, it is the materials that is costing us, and then any contractual services that we do, that also has increased for us. Utility administration, we have been trying to offset some of those costs so that we don't see a large increase in those. Capital or non-operating. Capital outlay, like I talked about, the $2.1 million, that was a one-time purchase. Just like the fire trucks, some of these VAC trucks and CCTV trucks, you're talking each piece being close to $700,000 to $900,000 and used to be much cheaper than that a couple of years back. Just after COVID, it's been going up. That's the other trend we've seen, that when the fuel cost goes up, the contractors, as you get those contracts in, the price goes up the cost goes up but it never comes down even if the fuel price has come down so that's that's a trend that we've seen again and again non-operating went up 0.6 million that is because of any revenue increases we have the transfers increase based on that and debt service is flat over year over year and you'll hear our rate consultant Ryan Smith talk a little bit about how we are going to be our and that's going to be retiring because we will as you'll see in his presentation that we have two water treatment plants that we really need to it's aging infrastructure but also regulatory drivers we have a huge Regulation that's coming up that's costing treatment wise a lot more so there is we will have to issue a Utility bond in the next two years and that's going to be a pretty big substantial amount for us So we're working on some of those so this debt will retire and we will go into more debt after that for the next 30 years risks, opportunities, and what's being executed. So some of the budgetary risks, operating cost pressures from chemicals or utility inflation, these things we cannot control at all. There is also uncertainty on grant funding availability to help CIP budgets. Ryan will talk a little bit about that. We have over the last couple of years gotten almost $30 million in grant funding and we keep going out and look for as much grant funding as possible. We are also going after if there is another thing that we've done and we'll talk about the opportunities there too, but we have been able to recoup some of the costs from sometimes these subcontractors, maybe it's a FPL contractor or subcontractor that might hit one of our lines and in the past we were not able to recoup that so we've been working very closely with risk and legal to recoup that cost. We're also working very closely with our procurement department to really try to get contracts as best as possible so they're tighter and also if we can piggyback some things to save cost, we're doing that. Any kind of co-ops kind of things that we can do, we're looking at that too. So any which way that we can keep our cost low, we are doing that. So I want you all to know that. Aging infrastructure is a big risk for us, as you've seen. Sometimes one pipe break can really be a huge cost to us depending on the size and where it is. Workforce development as experienced personnel are retiring and we have to get people in and trained and be ready to perform the work that you all expect, the level of service that we expected to provide day in, day out. There's also, like I mentioned, increase in regulatory compliance requirements that is driving a lot of our costs. It's also state as well as federal regulatory requirements that have really gone up in the last couple of years. Some of the opportunities, we are doing the rate study to look at what kind of revenue alignment, what can we get we have. I'll give you one more example for getting kind of looking at increasing our miscellaneous revenue. If somebody has a sewer backup and it's really a private line, that is really the problem, the private system inside the house. In the past, city would provide that and not be able to recoup that cost. So now we've put it in place, a system, a method. So we tell them that it could be this cost if it is your private. So we will come out, we can diagnose it. Most of the time, we work really well with all our customers. But if it's a repeat customer, that is every few weeks, months that the same people are calling, then we tell them the next time we come out, it'll be a charge. So we're working closely to continue providing the level of service, but also being able to recoup the cost when we have to send back trucks out and clean up lines that may be private lines. That's just one example. Water treatment plant upgrades, improved treatment and efficiencies will allow reducing some of our operational cost. Some of the automation will allow that. With the aging infrastructure and the aging nature of how our plants are right now, we are running a lot of things in manual. So it's a great training ground, but it's not practical to continue doing that in the long term. We are completing our condition assessments of infrastructure, and that should help us defer replacement costs. I'll give you an example. Sometimes they may be like, hey, this pipe is really, really old. Let's go replace it. But when you do the condition assessment, you can either just do point repairs, or you can do lining at less cost, or you may not have to do anything. So upfront, if we put that money in the right place, then we can save money down the road. implementation of a customer interface system. It'll provide a more interactive dashboard and improve customer service so people can see what they're using, how much, and what can be done conservation tips-wise to keep that cost low. We are also implementing an asset management system, and that should help us with improved R&R planning, which is repair and replacement planning, and mainly some of the things that I was talking about with condition assessment, but also knowing a pump has run so long, so instead of just going and replacing a pump, you know, can you maybe switch and rotate pumps so you're doing a much better and more efficient way. Maintenance, making sure that our maintenance costs are kept low but we're doing maintenance that's needed instead of just going and replacing things when they break. So those are some of the things that we've been working on in the last couple of years and we are coming closer to implementing most of these. Some of the executed things to help keep the cost low is not having a COLA. And capital outlay, like I said, that was a one-time cost that we were able to defer. So that's the operating. Do you want me to go into our CIP right away and take care of that first? Okay. Can I get the next presentation for the utilities CIP budget, please? And our biggest driver is really for most of the cost, operation cost efficiencies wise, we can keep low. We can do a lot of things with that. Capital cost is very hard for us to contain. So I just want everybody to know that that's what's driving most of the things for utilities these days. And this is just sort of like an overall broad category of projects and what we are spending for each category. Our water supply and treatment projects this year, we put it as 25.1 million, that is some of the internal projects as well as the planning and design for the two plants and that is ongoing right now. Neighborhood synergistic projects, which is water, wastewater, and stormwater combined, that's 19.7 million. Wastewater collection system improvement projects, 6.3 million. Stormwater and drainage improvement projects, 10.3 million. Distribution system improvements, including meter replacements and any other replacement and repairs and replacement, 3.0 million. Reclaim system improvements, 100,000. And some of the studies and master planning efforts that we are doing to get some of these things in place and get better efficiencies, 0.3 million. This is just going to go quickly through the number of projects that we are working on right now. These are neighborhood projects category. Gulfview Harbor, we have a $2.5 million projected cost. So what are the headings are basically the first column is the cip project name and brief description second column is total planned project costs for the next five years then it's a budget for this year so sometimes you'll see it's already says incumbent so that's not this year it's already been incumbent in the year that's there and where the funding sources are for this and what is the current phase which may be in planning in design in construction or something like that and then when is the projected completion in commission district So Gulfview Harbor, that's a $2.5 million project, and it isn't planning. We plan to complete it by 2029. Sea Meadows South, and we've got two projects in Sea Meadows, the South and the North. Just the South is around $8.5 million. We have completed the design, and we are really trying to find some money to help with the construction cost and keep that construction low, but we're still hoping to complete this in the next year or so. Southeast First Central Seacrest Utility Improvement, that's a $3.1 million project and some of the unforeseen circumstances, I actually just heard yesterday that that cost will be higher and that's what's happening to us sometimes. That's why we've got to have a really great GIS system, got to have good condition assessment, you got to have good asset management system because some of those things don't come up after the fact once you've already planned a project because we don't know what's in the ground. so we were working very very hard to get those gaps filled and we've been working last two years for that in the next year year and a half we should have those gaps completed this has been encumbered and it is in construction completion is slated for 2026. Coquina Cove utilities improvements this is almost completed we are almost at the finish line in this project we also worked with the residents to try and get undergrounding for FPL Comcast to try and maximize whatever the inconvenience that doesn't happen for the residents and also keeping costs low so we are really pushing FPL Comcast FPU so we are almost at the finish line keeping our fingers crossed on a daily basis we've been working and we're working very closely with the residents on this project I'm very proud of this one because I was told when I came in that you will never get this done they've been promised this long long time I told the residents we will get it done. So proud that we are getting to that finish line. Heart of Boynton Neighborhood Improvements. This was an FDEM grant. Coquina Co. also was a Resilient Florida grant. And this is, we are in the, it's out on bid to get a grant management in there. And then we're going to start doing the design. And the completion is 2029. Sandcastle improvements. Again, there's a Florida Commerce grant in there, and that's a big project too. It's an $18.6 million project. It is out on RFQ for design. Completion is in 2029. I-95 and Boynton Beach Boulevard interchange, that is an FTOT project. And because whenever FTOT comes in and has any projects that they have to do, we may have to relocate our lines, do something else. change connections and all kinds of things. This one we actually were able to get some FTOT funds as reimbursement. So we're very thankful for that. We got an agreement in place. A lot of times you have to do it on your own dime. So glad that we were able to negotiate that. It's a $5.9 million project. You've seen it working. So we're working water and sewer and stormwater and it is in construction. The completion is by 2027. Water treatment plant, emerging contaminant treatment options, this is the regulatory drivers I was talking about. We are looking at a big price tag of around 300, over 325 million. This also has some contingency in it, so hopefully we can drop that number down in the next year, two years, once we get the design in place. Right now we only have 5.4 million appropriated that was an SRF loan that we got but we will have to just the design for the best water treatment plant is around 12 million so that number has to go up and then for the east plant we've got to do and we're looking at everything can we really do just one plant and not have to do the other plant? Can we do a very small plant? Can we do some kind of other options for treating the water at the raw water, source water at the wells instead of bringing it in and treating it? So they're all kind of different things that we are going back to the drawing board every couple of weeks to actually look. And that can be a little frustrating for our consultants, but we've told them that we want to keep our costs as low as possible. And what can we do to keep those costs low? So we are in planning and design and completion slated for 2029. It is a regulatory driver. This is going to be very, very hard to meet those, so we might have to do some interim options to look at how we can meet those deadlines. EPA has put out that there's a 2031 deadline that you can go to, but that comes with a lot of strings attached, so it's not going to be as simple that you just tell them that we'll finish it in 2031 and we're already working on it. It'll require us to do a lot more, many more things, so we're looking at what's the most prudent way to go about this. East Water Treatment Plant generator replacement, this has been an ongoing project. It started out just with the generators, and this was before my time, and as they started doing the generator replacement part of it, and this also has a Florida Commerce grant portion of it. I want to thank Myrna. You have a phenomenal grants person. because she was able to negotiate. They were only going to give us, Florida Commerce was only going to give us 0.7 million for this, and she was able to negotiate it up to around 1.2 million. So everybody, I just want you all to know that we have our staff throughout the city who's working on a lot of things to try to keep our costs low, and she watches every invoice for a project like a hawk. And if there's somebody who's not giving her the right descriptions, she will go out and ask those questions. I'm very proud. We're learning from her as to how to do these better too. But that project involved a couple of other things that we had to put in. There were some pipelines that were not part of that project that needed to be done before we could do what we needed to do. So that cost had gone up and has been one of those projects that was kind of not probably not planned properly so we are really taking the time to plan our projects better because when we don't it comes back and bites us that's also supposed to finish this year remodeling of water quality facilities that's another project that is pretty much done and if some of you have toured the west plant you saw how bad the lab was and it was another one of those projects and nobody thought we will get done so i'm proud of that the lab folks really felt that nobody cared and they needed to be able to work in a good lab to be able to do analysis, so that project's pretty much done in its final closeout. Water supply. Treatment projects continuing. West Wellfield electrical upgrades, this project is done. Pretty much we are in the final closeout. It was just one thing that we needed to work with FPL and that was getting done last week. East Water Treatment Plant high service pumps, five and six improvements. Again, to bring efficiencies and to be able to, produce the water that we are we need to be producing this project had to be completed and we're almost almost there with this one so a number of projects we are finishing up and you'll see them fall off the books in the next year wastewater collection system improvement projects we are doing a city-wide what we call cipp lining which is again instead of replacing a whole pipe If you can line a pipe, sometimes that buys you 30 years, most of the times it buys you, it's like a new pipe, so it's almost 30 years of life that you can buy for that. And this is, we look at everywhere, look at the condition, and then in this one also we've gotten some appropriations funds, so worked very hard to get some appropriations money to help out with some of these projects that are ongoing. List station 801. We are in planning stages for this one. It's a 3.5 million projected cost. And we are looking at how best, again, this is another one of that, that we are going in and looking back at the condition to make sure that the replacement needs to be done or can we do some point repairs and keep the cost low. Left station 410 and 414, this project is in design and we should be completing it this year or early next year at the latest and $2.8 million project. Oceanfront Park Wastewater Treatment Plant, this is for that ocean park, there's a small beach plant is what we call it and we are in the last stages of completing this project too. Master lift station, we have six master lift stations throughout the city. Each of these master lift stations, the cost of rehabbing them can be $10 million or so. This one is a $10 million project, and we are designs pretty much done. We should be starting construction very soon. I just talked to the team last week, and they're working on starting to do some of the construction, and so I think outside this lift station, and so we should be getting done in the year. or so from now. Stormwater and drainage improvements, stormwater repair and replacement, we again, this is another one of those that we are trying to get some appropriations money whenever we can or any grant funding for helping with these projects, but we appropriate around 1.5 million to continue doing some of these projects to continue finishing up pipelines and keeping them in better way, better kind of condition. Chapel Hill, we've talked about this a couple of times in the past. The design is complete. We are looking for grants. We have identified a couple of grants that we are going to be applying for. We want to at least have maybe two grants, and we want to get at least one decent-sized grant so we can start moving forward with this project, and that's a $10 million project, and we are still hoping to complete it by next year.

Did we earmark any funds for those?

Yes, it is budgeted right now.

Okay, it's all budgeted.

Yeah, but we're trying to get some additional money in so we don't have to. We're trying to really stretch our dollars as much as possible. That's what we're doing, but it is budgeted right now.

Thank you.

Studies and master planning, you already heard me talk about asset management, getting a work order system in place, a GIS system upgrade, CIS system upgrade, that is ongoing. We are implementing it right now and we should be completing that implementation early next year. GIS development, very, very important. The other day I got a call that we had a water main that broke, and for isolating it, initially the GIS had some incomplete information, and that took us at least an extra hour to try and find that information and get it. So we are really closing that gap. I'm very proud of the GIS team. They are working so hard, and our field crews are bringing information in. So it's going to make a huge difference in the next couple of years with some of these things, the level of service we can provide because of the ongoing effort that everybody is doing. Infrastructure risk assessment, we are finishing this study, we are almost at the end of this and that'll give us a desktop analysis of all our horizontal pipes and bumps like that to see what needs to be replaced or not replaced. At least it'll tell us what are the highest risks and what would we need to focus on and then we can do more condition assessment if we don't have that information. Capacity management operation maintenance study. This is to improve our collection system and to reduce chances of any kind of sewer spells. This is ongoing. We've been working on this. Some of this was required by DEP. So we're providing that information. Some things we went out and did over and beyond for helping our system do better. Hydraulic modeling, water and sewer. That modeling is almost done. They are just doing some kind of... checks and balances on that, and we have given them some scenarios. For example, you heard me say that we're trying to see if the west plan can produce most of the water for the city. So we don't have to have two separate plants and at least initially, but that needs to we need to see whether hydraulically we can move water from the west to the east because that's not what traditionally we've done. So those are some of some of the scenarios that we've looked at and we've brought forward. Last slide is about a couple of things that we are required to do. One's a climate adaptation plan, vulnerability assessment, and sustainability and resiliency studies. The first two, climate adaptation and vulnerability assessment, are grant funded. I want to thank Alana and Myrna for really working hard for any of these studies that we are required to do to try to get funds in so we don't have to spend our budget towards those. And the sustainability resiliency, the green infrastructure, trying to see whether when we do stormwater projects, when we do water and sewer projects, can we do some green infrastructure projects in there to improve how our systems are, and that's coming from the Green Building Fund. That's the last slide I had. I can answer any questions about any projects. Otherwise, I'll call Ryan in for the rates. Thank you.

Anybody have any questions before we call Ryan in?

Thank you. Can we get the rates study presentation, please?

because I could be asleep.

Can we get the rate study for utilities? You want me to briefly introduce you? No, I'll be happy to introduce myself.

Mayor, commissioners, thank you very much for having me. My name is Ryan Smith. I am a rate consultant. Effectively, really what I am is a financial analyst that specializes in municipal enterprise funds, water, wastewater, stormwater, solid waste, whatnot. I've worked for over 130 different municipalities throughout the nation, and I've been doing this type of work for over 14 years now. Over the last four years, we've kind of started on this journey of adjusting rates with really the long-term goal of focusing on moving forward with the water treatment plant improvements. Now, over those four years, we've had your support to make rate adjustments that's moved us in the right direction and really allowed us to move forward with system planning investing in our infrastructure and technology and really start to refine what those water treatment projects are going to look like right now Staff has done an excellent job of working with your consulting engineer to evaluate over 10 different alternatives for both water treatment facilities. And we've selected, at this point, the most favorable alternative that's recognized in your capital improvement plan. Additionally, over the last four years, with your support, we've moved forward with operational and safety efficiencies, and staff has worked to secure over 30 million, almost $30 million in grant funding. um so recognizing that i really want to kind of thank you all for the support that we've received and what we've been able to accomplish over the four years and it's put us in a really good position to start to move forward with the water treatment facilities now Over the last four years and really looking historically, our rates have still, even with substantial adjustments over the recent years, are still below inflation. And that's kind of what you're seeing on the screen now is a comparison of the city's rate adjustments in the blue line compared to the Water and Sewerage Maintenance Index, which is an indice that's published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that really kind of presents the cost of providing water and wastewater service. So historically, even with the rate adjustment in 27, we still see ourselves at approximately 19% below the average compared to the national cost of providing water and sewer. Additionally, when we look at our rates compared to our peer utilities, coastal Florida utilities, we can still see that we're approximately $25 below our peer utilities. And this is a comparison of residential water and wastewater service, assuming 5,000 gallons per month of monthly use, which is very close to your average consumption for the residential customer class. So, overall, when I see this, it tells me that, hey, we've moved our rates in the right direction, and we are still competitive compared to our peers. And one of the other things that we've done over the last four years, if we've continued to monitor our financial metrics, right, and really what we're doing is putting on our rating agency hat and saying, hey, what are the rating agencies going to look at when we go to the bond market to fund these water treatment plan improvements? Over the last four years, we've seen these metrics improve, which is a really positive thing, right? Because the rating agencies are going to look and say, hey, do they have substantial reserves? Is their operating margin consistent with its peers? is their total debt outstanding reasonable right how much of our house is mortgage and all of these metrics we've seen improve very substantially year over year and has put us in a position to work towards securing a favorable bond rating when we do go to market Now, what are the biggest cost drivers? We have seen a small increase in our operating expenses and that's core operating expenses from fiscal year 26 to 27, but really the largest driver of the need to adjust rates and adjust our revenues over the coming years is really associated with those two water treatment plants. Now, I do wanna mention, In total, what we see, the combined cost, including planning, design, and construction, we're assuming $325 million in total. I do wanna mention that includes a contingency, right? And so we wanna include that contingency because we wanna be fiscally conservative, right? To make sure that we're meeting our needs and we're coming up with a plan that is gonna allow us to secure bonds. Now, the financial forecast is really kind of a balancing act when we develop it, right? That we want to match our inflows, our sources of revenues, which are primarily from rates, interest income, the grants. We talked about the $30 million in grants. and then other revenues and capacity fees, we wanna balance that with our outflows. And our outflows are generally our operating expenses, capital and debt funding, which is our largest driver of need to increase rates over the forecast period, and then those reserve and compliance targets, which are really associated with maintaining those improved financial metrics as we go to the bond market. Now, recognizing the need to fund both plants, that's the primary driver in our increase in revenue requirements that we see coming over the forecast period. Primarily right now, we see a larger increase in fiscal year 28, right? And that's associated with that debt financing of the water treatment plants. And on a totality basis right now, when we look at our five year capital improvement plan, you're almost at half a billion dollars, 500 million or so. However, the majority of that cost $325 million of it is really associated with those regulatory driven projects at the water treatment facilities. Now, recognizing our capital plan, we are looking for direction and support from the commission. Item number one is we would like to continue to increase our renewal, replacement and improvement fund deposit to $18 million a year. And really that fund allows us to move forward with more PAYGO or cash funded capital improvements It strengthens our financial metrics and shows the rating agencies that going forward, after we utilize debt for the water treatment plant projects, we're setting aside enough to mitigate the risk of using debt in the near future. We want to maintain that strong cash position that you have. Right now you all have set yourselves up with a very strong cash position, and we want to maintain that over the next several years. We want to continue to improve our financial metrics. We've seen those metrics improve over the last four years, and we want to continue to move forward with that plan of presenting strong metrics when we go to market. City staff has worked to identify a line of credit, right? And we want to make sure that line of credit is secured, which will allow us to provide funding and dollar appropriations for near-term improvements. And then going forward into fiscal year, the end of fiscal year 27, beginning of fiscal year 28, that's when we will be working towards securing those revenue bonds to fund the water treatment plan improvements. Now, to do all these things, we are requesting a rate adjustment. Right now, we've identified approximately 17 and a quarter percent of a rate adjustment. And how is that going to impact our customers? And what we noted is looking at our peer utilities, Our total proposed bill would increase to approximately $77.19. I do want to mention that that still puts us approximately $14.20 below the average for our peer utilities, and really we're not comparing apples to apples here, right? Because we're comparing our fiscal year 27 rates to the rates of everyone today, right? And many of these utilities are dealing with the same regulatory PFAS driven requirements that we are, right? So as we move forward and we go into fiscal year 27, many of these other utilities will be adjusting rates which will further improve our competitiveness compared to our peers. Thank you very much. I would be happy to answer any questions.

Anyone have any questions?

Real quick, can we go back to the rates? I just want to point out Palm Beach County is the lowest there, and that's what you see with economies of scale. The other question I have is, so this is for 5,000-gallon usage. What was the change that was made? Wasn't there a change, like a consumption? Yes, sir, we did change. And is that, do we have comparisons over 5,000? Is this up to 5,000 gallons? Yes.

This is right at 5,000 gallons, right? So taking a snapshot, right, of, hey, what's the average? Now, we did do a rate structure change, and we consolidated and reduced the tiers. And what we did is link them to our level of service per ERC. That was done for a two part process. When we looked at the average revenue collection per thousand gallons in between residential normal use and high use customers and then also commercial customers, we noted a drastic difference in revenue collection per thousand gallons. So by consolidating those tiers, that helped to kind of improve that, make sure that everyone was paying a consistent cost per average. But when we talked about making that rate structure change, what we did is we took that first tier and we reduced it down to 7,000 gallons, so effectively, All consumption from zero to 7,000 is charged the same volumetric rate. And when we talk about how does that impact our customers, approximately, I think it was 80, and don't quote me on this one, but I believe it was 85% of our residential bills were issued at 7,000 gallons or below. So when we made that change, the majority of our residential class were not impacted. The only people that were impacted were higher use residential and commercial customers.

Perfect, thank you.

Yes, sir.

Just a quick comment. We talked briefly about PFAS, right? And I understand there was a settlement, a PFAS settlement recently that the city received funding. How much was that, $12 million?

Just between $12 and $14 million.

What do you mean? Like, how much did we receive?

12 points. I believe it was $12.7 million.

So during our review of the budget, one of the questions that I asked was, I'd like to know where every dollar's been spent with regard to the PFAS settlement money. We received about 12 point, I think you said $6 million. Where is that money? What are we using it for? What's the plan? So I just, for transparency, I did send an email and asking for information to provide what are the legal parameters as to what that funding can be utilized for. Because sometimes with settlement funds, it's limited in scope. So I just want to make sure that we understand what it's supposed to be used for so that we can see if maybe we could invest some of that back into our utilities, or if that's something that's permissible. So I think it's important for us to understand that as we look forward. Thank you.

Real quick, Ryan or Poonam, if you can just briefly talk about at the state level and the federal level, we're seeing huge increases in regulations on our utilities, and we're talking about the age of our infrastructure. how much has changed and then also, we continue year after year to go out for appropriations at both state and federal levels and most of the time we don't get that funding. So we're really, we keep holding out for grants and holding out and now we're put in, we continue to be put in this situation. But if you could just very briefly, because I think it's important to note the regulations that are coming down that are impacting cities, municipalities, us in particular and our residents Without providing that funding source to make those updates and those upgrades and leaving it really in the hands of our residents to make those upgrades with with funding

I can start us off and Ryan if I leave anything off please interrupt or add on. So yes you're right and there's a lot of regulation coming from state level whether it's for collection systems asking us to do replacement of certain percentage of infrastructure every year and do condition assessments. So more and more of programming changes that are coming. PFAS is a big driver for the treatment and it's not going to just stay with water treatment. It'll go to the wastewater treatment too. So you may be in the next couple of years, you may see that the wastewater needs to be advanced wastewater treatment done for that. And so there are those drivers and that's just right now what EPA did was They reduced two of the compounds that for PFAS that they originally added. But that doesn't mean that they've gone off, gone away. There's an unregulated contaminant list that is done every 10 years or so and more things are added to that. So microplastics, pharmaceuticals are being added to that. Right now EPA is going to be collecting data in the next few years and based on that data will provide some regulatory direction as to what needs to be removed and all of those things. So, what we are asking our consultants is whatever treatment we are putting in place is keeping track of those future regulations coming too. What we don't want to do is be able to meet just these two PFAS compound treatment and then three years later Two other compounds are added, and now this treatment will require something else. So we're trying to really preempt and think it through. Not sure whether we'll be able to think about every single thing, but we are really trying hard to do that. So that's one issue that's coming up statewide as well as from federal level. The other thing is the money is drying up. We've been told even some of the grant money that we have, say, for example, we have a grant from FEMA for two phases. So the first phase is funded, we are good. The second phase, we've been told we should be good, but don't count on it for surety. So it's possible we might be able to finish design of something and not get that money because FEMA is... Really getting closing up a lot of these either you're taught you asked to like provide more information that was not asked before and said Okay, this project is not really even though they had said it was okay that now this doesn't meet the criteria That's now in place. Some of those things are also happening to us. So that money is drying up Appropriations wise also everybody is looking for the money. So Your legislators are really trying to spread that which means everybody will get a little piece of it. I

not enough to do what you need to do i don't know if nationally you've seen anything else i think that was good okay any other questions thank you thank you thank you very much are we going to talk about the rate increase now are you guys looking for direction we're looking for a direction from the commission so I don't know if I could support 17% now, but I would consider that if... One of the things I keep hearing is our water keeps going up. Everything keeps going up. And so I don't know if I can support that increase. I think there's alternative methods that we can look at as far as utilities from a bird's eye view. But what I could consider... is an increase if we gather community feedback over the next few months and do a real grassroot, I don't wanna say initiative because that could imply bias, but an educational initiative as to why the city is looking for this increase. Because not everyone watches budget meetings, not everyone understands the importance of legislative mandates they just look at their bill and they see that increase and so you know given that we have a thousand employees almost i think there's an opportunity here where we can go to the residents and at least acquire a large enough sample size to get feedback as if this is something that they're okay with knowing the why behind it Because when I try to talk to residents, you know, all I hear is my rate is increase, increase. I try to explain to them, you know, the why. And, you know, we don't get, you know, it's hard to just increase something and then explain it afterwards. But I think that if we launch this huge educational initiative and explain the why and gather feedback on a yes or no, you know then i think first people are aware before they see the increase right versus just uh you know facebook posts saying hey here's here's x y and z we could do an email campaign we can do text messaging we can do mailers we can apply on the bill so that way come september when we talk about this again and we make that final decision people are aware and maybe if they have a better you know, understanding of this, you know, then you get a larger consensus from the residents on this. And so they understand the why. And I think that's something that we should do before, at least that's my opinion, you know, that way I can know, you know, get a better pulse. And I think if people have the ability to understand this on a more comprehensive level, and on a more personal level versus just grand wide, I think they would, I don't want to say supportive, but understand it's necessary. And so we pay thousands and thousands of dollars for consultants to come and look at this review. I think part of that scope of work should be public engagement and like surveying as well. right because that's important and you know we we have 24 hours a day we can only do so much you know but i think this should be a collaborative effort not just for utilities and not just for us on the dais in the city manager's office but for the city as a whole because this helps offset the budget elsewhere and so i would like um i would like to see that i don't know if there's consensus from my colleagues but i think that makes it much more easier to get the conversation going about these issues. larger increases versus you know discussing it up here yes no and and uh keeping the public out of it and you know then they just see their bill increase and they're like hey you know we're gonna we're gonna fire you because you know the cost of living is going up i think also it's important to know when you look at the comparative rates you also have to look at the comparative um local economies cost the cost of living and then also their average income as well There's a reason that rates might be lower in another city because there not might be as much economic opportunity within those cities, right? And so I understand that the rate here is comparative, but we're leaving out a lot more information for making this decision. right and there's cities that are left out of this i don't want to say intentionally but probably because they may be lower maybe they have a better economic opportunity i don't know i just think there's a lot of information um that goes into this that isn't being addressed and so i think to counter that is to go to the residents And have them explain or explain this to them and then garner that feedback. And then we make that decision. And I think that's fair, you know, and it gets everybody involved. And most importantly, it's it's very transparent.

The only thing that, I do have a question. It's a comment and a question. I think that you're right. The residents don't understand a lot of the back end stuff of the state of the plant and all of these things for safety and water quality. However, one thing that they do understand is the level of customer service that comes out of the city. I was talking to the city manager about this yesterday. The second year around I don't get complaints on permits and i'm not getting complaints that there's not enough police but what I do get are complaints of our customer service level when it comes to Dealing with our utilities and I think that when people see hey, we have to increase this They they deserve to have a level of customer service that is representing them all of the time and I know it's a hard job But I I know we talked about this last year, but people call the city from 12 to 1 and wanna talk to somebody in water, and the whole department's on break, and that's the only time that these people can get on their lunch break to make calls. So what they see is we're increasing their rate, and we're not also leveling up the customer service to their needs. And I just think that's something that we do need to iron out. I understand we have to make some decisions for safety and quality, but I think along with that, should still be making decisions about providing the best level of customer service across the board.

Yeah, I can address a couple of these points, just comment on it. Yes, customer service-wise, we are definitely, that's something that we've talked about in the past, and we will look at it again and make sure that we're providing the level of service that's expected. We are doing a customer interface system in place that's going to help a lot, because people, it'll be more visibility as to what their bills are, what do they mean, what money is being spent, and so on and so forth, like how much their usage is, what time of day and stuff like that. So you will have a little bit more visibility on that. So that should help a lot. To Commissioner Turkin, your point, we have no problems going out and talking. I don't have any problems going out personally to everybody. neighborhood area that we need to to attend some HOA meetings or other neighborhood meetings and explain. I would like to at least make everybody on the dais understand that we don't have choice on some of this. So even if every single person says, no, we're not going to raise the rates, there is no place I can go for an enterprise fund to get the money for the treatments. You talked about economy of scales. Even with economy of scales, the two plants will still have to be treatment-wise, regulatory-wise, will have to meet those. Otherwise, there will be violations. And we would have to provide what are called point of use filters for every single resident and maintain those. And there's a huge, huge cost in that. So there's not, I don't, I would love to, but I don't have choices at least with what the plant's needs are. Everything else, we are doing everything to keep the cost low. So I hear you. I will absolutely go out. That's my personal commitment. But just understand that that driver for what the plant treatment needs are is not something that I can control at all.

And that right there is what every resident in the city needs to hear, that explanation. Okay. And because I would argue most people don't know that. And so it's a matter of communication and education, and that should be part of any increase, really. Here's the why. And the mayor touched on a great point with customer service. Things are so competitive, at least in the private sector nowadays. Businesses and companies focus on customer loyalty because they – customer service is the outlier nowadays, right? And customer service builds trust. It builds for business. It builds understanding. So when we have situations like this, okay, they didn't just increase my rate. For example, they told me why and we understand, you know? And so I think that's huge. And I think that's, an opportunity, you know, not just for utilities, I think, but for everything as a whole. You know, when you look at, for example, when you look at like a lot of the stuff with the state, you know, from the financial office, they do account for inflation for some of these, you know, and a lot of people are saying, okay, what we didn't know is 20, 30% inflation over the course of COVID, you know, for the cost of doing business, you know, in a municipality. People look at CPI, you know, OR, YOU KNOW, OR OTHER INDICATORS AND, YOU KNOW, THEY SEE SINGLE DIGIT PERCENTAGE INCREASES, THEY DON'T LOOK AT IT ON A GRAND SCALE. SO WHEN YOU CONDENSE ALL OF THAT AND THEN YOU COMMUNICATE IT IN AN EASY WAY TO COMPREHEND, RIGHT, I WOULD SAY A WAY FOR MAYBE COMMISSIONER TURKIN TO COMPREHEND, LIKE, IN 2020 BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED, MAYBE EVEN 2022. You know, someone who doesn't have the experience on how governments actually work, it's an easier pill to swallow and it's more transparent. So, you know, again, back to what the mayor was saying, it provides that customer service of understanding why we're increasing. and why we're looking at that. So then it's not just a increase, no input, it's more of an educational component. And I think when you look at rate adjustments like this, it should be a requirement. And so that is my ask. I'm not saying yes or no, I'm saying I think it's important to do this and be extremely aggressive with it so then that way we can come back and we can say hey we've talked to the residents we've explained the why you know and whether that's again different methodology of surveying educational meetings whatever that is I think That just makes it easier down the road to say, yeah, we did increase, but here's the why. You know what I mean? For those who didn't catch up, or the neighbors are going to talk. People are going to understand, and then it mitigates, you know, misinformation. It mitigates, you know, false narratives about not caring about residents or their feedback or just, you know, increasing costs left and right, you know. People... people will appreciate just the simple communication. So that is my ask from now until September to move those rates up.

Are you looking for an education aspect? Because a survey, if everyone were to say no on a survey,

Well, I think the survey, I think the, like, I don't want to get too ahead. The survey, it all depends on the language of it, right? Like, you can get different answers for different questions. And so, the same answer for different questions. So, I think when you ask, hey, do you want your utilities, you know, to meet local standards, you know, the yes, probably going to be high, right? If you go, hey, are you okay with us increasing the cost of your water? Probably no. You know what I mean? So I think it's how you ask the questions, how you educate is the important piece. But more importantly than the answer is the action that we're taking to aggressively communicate with these residents and explain to them the why, right? You know, people don't, you know, people don't really come. They don't, you know, um, I don't want to say don't contribute, but people are busy. They're not going to spend all their time digging into our budgets, digging into year-over-year increases, et cetera. That's what they trust us to do. But also, too, we're five people with a city of over 80,000 residents. And so I think that they're our bosses, right? Like Commissioner McRae mentioned with the organizational chart, the residents are at the top of that. And so we owe it to them to work our butts off in order to make sure they understand the why behind all of these increases. And so that is, again, that is my ask is develop a strategy to not just educate. Yeah, I think survey is important, but I think it's how the survey is going to be done. You know, and I don't know if this is something staff can do internally. I think so. And, you know, just get the conversation going so that people understand the why. And then I think when people are involved, they'll understand, you know, hey, this is for the safety of my kid. This is grandma, grandpa, whatever. Right. And so I just think that's a much. better way to conduct than just to, you know, look at an increase, yes or no, and that's it. I know it might take a lot of time and effort, but I just think it's something that we owe our residents. And again, you know, there's, I think a part of this piece too, is that there wasn't increases for, you know, a period of time that's led us to this place. And those are things that people should know, you know? And so I think if you take the last few years, I'm sorry, I know I keep talking. As you take the last few years and you look at, you know, the why that we hear and we get that out to the residents, I think people would absolutely understand the needs for this. Yes.

Commissioner Kelly and then Commissioner McRae.

Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor Turkin, I support the education portion of your sentiment. I feel like it's very important that we continue to educate when we're looking at something that is truly, this is one of those situations where we're past the point of wants and we're to the point of needs. And clean water and what we provide, the services that we provide to our residents from utilities, should never be political and compromised and it should never be, and I'm talking 10 years ago when it was, the rates were kept the same or reduced and I can't say, you know, the position then, but it puts us in a position now where clean water and the services that our residents get is a must, it's a requirement. And so I think, and the residents that I speak to, I've supported, I supported the tier structure last year that didn't, equate to an increase, but when I'm out there and I'm speaking to the residents and having town halls and you educate, like you said, Vice Mayor Turgan, when you educate them and they understand the why, it becomes clear and they may not, be happy about it but most of the time they want clean water and they understand it and they say okay i'm i'm good with that or i understand or maybe i won't flush my toilet 20 times a day maybe i'll flush it five times and i'll be a little bit more conservative in how i use my water in my home so that i i control my rates in my home and what I use and my usage and we can all be a little bit more responsible when it comes to our autonomy and if we use it, we pay for it. So I think you're right though, I feel like an education component is necessary. i think a survey might open up a can of worms that we might not want but i think resident feedback is always important um and and having that you know taken into consideration so anything that utilities and the city can do to educate moving forward as to why We see it, and it's just like Vice Mayor Turkan said, we see it in our meetings. We've seen the pictures. We've had the tours at the water plants. We know what our system looks like. We know, I've spoken to staff and the uphill battles that they have on a daily basis, keeping our water clean and everything as good as we can with the infrastructure that we have. But that's something that we have the privilege of seeing and it's very difficult for us to really show that to the residents. or to explain that to them without saying, sorry, it's a need. But anything that we can do sooner rather than later on educating the residents on what this looks like and why I think is very important as we move forward. And also we have to remember that we have many water service agreements outside of the city. So our residents have to see this, and it's unfortunate that the state continues to mandate how we can how we can collect from our water usage agreements outside of the city limits. So I think it's important that that's part of that education component too, is that our residents We continue to get regulated and our residents are footing the bill, I would say the majority of the bill through taxes and then our utility rates to carry water service to outside of the city. And those are decisions that were made 30, 40 years ago that we're living with and dealing with now. And so, you know, but I feel like the education component is necessary so that the residents understand the why. And I'm happy if you have a flyer, I'm happy to hand it out to my neighbors and my residents and have it on hand so when they ask a question, I have the facts and I'm not just throwing it off or send me an email and I'll connect you with the right person because it really does come down to education. when we're talking about this because it is something that's important. And unfortunately, the can was kicked down the road for so long that we're having to deal with it over and over again for the last four years. And we'll continue to deal with it moving forward as well. So thank you, and those are my comments on that.

Mayor, can I answer one thing to Commissioner? Or I can wait, Commissioner Kelly, if you want me to wait. Okay. Okay.

Thank you. I agree with what both of my colleagues have said before about the educational component, but I feel like it should be for this entire budget. And the reason I said for this entire budget is because when we go to our constituents, they say, what are you doing to us now? The fire chief stood up and gave us a perfect example. He said he has one of his firemen who said that they can't live in Boynton. And I'm just saying that should be a red flag for all of us who's sitting up here. I'm just saying when people say that they cannot live here. We should say, what can we do to help cut costs to make them look what looks more appropriate for them to say, I want to go to Boynton because I see what they're doing. They're not taxing the people to them. You all work and know what's going on, but we're the ones that have to deal with the constituents. When we go out and they say, well, what the hell? And the reason my water bill went up, I had one lady to tell me, shit, water is free. Well, I got to pay for it. And this is what we have to deal with them. We have to say, you know, then down the road, we're looking for your vote. But I'm just saying you all don't have to hear what we have to hear. Sometimes they're not so kind as you know, to my customer service. They don't treat us like we're customers when we go to them sometime either. But I'm just saying we all need to work together. Thank you.

Mayor, just two points. One, the conservation piece really is important, because not just for what the water bill is for individuals, but also how much water you need to treat. If we don't have conservation, The cost, capital cost of keeping, so for example, we might be producing only 10 million gallons today. If we don't conserve it, and we're not increasing as many people, but we continue increasing the use of water, we might go to 12 million gallons, which means we have to treat two more million gallons, and each of those additional costs for increasing the capacity of the plant can make a huge difference. So any conservation efforts we can do help us out tremendously. The other thing I just wanted to mention was as an enterprise fund, pretty much all our rate payers pay for everything. So I just wanted to clarify that point, that's it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, do we want to break for lunch or how do you want to do this?

Public audience.

Yeah, do you want to do public comment?

Well, we still have CIP, because remember, we skipped over CIP. So if we break, we'd have to come back CIP, then public comment, or you would have to do CIP and then public comment now, and probably you wouldn't get the luncheon, depending on dialogue.

Right. Yeah. You unilaterally changed it.

But you wouldn't have public comment on CIP, then, as far as the changes?

Well, I just think if somebody wants to then stay or come back after lunch, but I don't want to take a lunch break and then say, well, you've got to come back for public comment. What if somebody can't stay, but they've been here for three hours, and they would like an opportunity to speak?

The only caveat is the fact that CIP is the only aspect. They wouldn't be getting the updates. Can we offer it twice?

Why don't we offer public comment twice?

Yeah, I'm okay with that.

We can do one now, and then after CIP, if there's any wrap-up public comment.

or if there's a CIP request, you can email me or staff, and the good news is this is just a workshop. Right. Yep.

Okay, so we're good with public comment. If anyone would like to do public comment, now's the time to get up and speak. You'll have an opportunity later this afternoon, too, but... You can go first.

There you go.

Cindy Falco de Corrado.

I have a lot to say. I noticed on my bill that it started out with $2 and change for zero to seven of the gallons, and then it went progressively to $5.91. I didn't know we were gonna be penalized for using water. You know, when you go to a gas station, you see the price at $2.85. You know what you're paying for. Whether I get zero gallons, five gallons, or 100 gallons, it's the same price. And I was told by the department, I think her name is Anna Lee, and the lady that actually does the billing, she said basically it was to train all of us to conserve. When is it the government's job to teach us to conserve? It doesn't cost any more money for the pipe, for the water, or anything else. God gave us the water. I'm very bothered by this, and most people don't even understand what's going on on their house bills, but I hear it from my neighbors. What is wrong? Why is this bill so expensive? Now, they keep comparing us to Boca, Delray, Jupiter. Those are affluent places. Why don't they do us to Riviera Beach, which is probably more closer to what our incomes are in this community? And then these smart meters that they're making everybody put on their houses. There's got to be an opt-out program. I don't want a smart meter. Do you know that she sat there on a computer while I was talking to them, looking at my house. I felt like I was being raped and invaded. Every time I turn on the water and I'm like, oh my God, somebody's watching me. It's a horrible feeling. It's an invasion. And it should not be. And we have to have an opt-out program that's feasible, not $55 to have someone come read your meter because they want to cause you not to have an opt-out. You are not supposed to tell us how we are to live our lives. We have a Constitution of the United States of America and of Florida that protect our God-given rights. Besides the flock cameras that we're gonna spend $2.2 million on, why don't you save money there instead of spying on us, we the people? It's not just catching criminals, it's taking all of our data, putting it into a base system that anybody can capture. We have no more amenity. We are based on freedom, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I am appalled what is happening, especially here in Boynton Beach, because we count on you guys to keep us from having government encroach upon our life, liberty, and freedoms. It's got to stop. And I think that you all are being used. Boynton Beach has been used for a long time to support and to pay for Ocean Ridge and all these other places. They're not paying their due taxes. They don't pay city taxes, but yet they reap all the benefits. They don't pay. It's not fair. They have the money. And I know we have a lot of politicians that live over there on that island, and they just laugh and mock. Let's just hit Boynton Beach. You're the redheaded stepchilds. Let's just throw affordable living in there because nobody else wanted to take it. So where are the guinea pigs? Aren't you tired of being the end of the conversation, a joke? It's time, guys. You've got to protect us. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, please.

David Katz, Boynton Beach. The idea of customer service, the idea of letting people know that it should be done. But as an end user, whether it be public safety or utilities or water or sewage, I want a Cadillac, I don't want the Chevy. If it means paying $15 more a month or 17% more, I'm ready to do that because previous administrations, previous utility directors have kicked this can down the road, and regrettably, it's landed on your lap. But you need to bite the bullet. And Commissioner Kelly addressed it. The secret sauce is the 25% surcharge on people that don't live in the city, except for, I guess, the people out on the island. I'm talking about people we have water service agreements with. I'm sure Mr. Lawson has probably figured out how much more money that's gonna bring in, and that's where the secret sauce is. And no matter how much you raise our rates, their rates go up 25% more on top of that. And that's gonna bring a lot of money into this city. And I think that, You need to take care of the system, and the system is starting to age, and if it means an increase in water rates, whether it be, again, the $15 or the 17%, you're going to have to do it. You're going to have to do it because people like their water. They like their garbage picked up. They like the sewage getting cleaned. They like the whole thing, and that's where you've got to go for it. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Harry Woodworth, Boynton Beach, Florida. Just want to take a second to thank you guys. I've come to these things for about 30 or 40 years. This might be one of the better ones I've been to. The formats are much clearer. There are numbers with the words for a change, which is refreshing. I appreciate the people that do that, the comments on engagement and communication with the citizens. I really appreciate the bit of a sea change, I think, coming from Boynton Beach in general for the last few years. So just wanted to get up here and just say, what I'm seeing is probably the best effort that I've seen here in coming to these things for 20, 30, 40 years. So thank you all very much.

Thank you. Anyone else would like to do public comment before we take a short break? Okay. And there's no one online. All right. How long are we breaking for guys? 30 minutes. Okay. With everyone. Okay. We will come back in 30 minutes. Okay, we're gonna get started. So Capital Improvement Fund, if you wanna get ready to be coming up for your presentation, whoever's doing that, getting everybody rounded up. Welcome, sir. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor, really appreciate that. All right, here's my clicker.

Going back and forth.

Pretty sure they adjusted the air, right? Kevin in the room. I think it's warming up a little bit in here.

Are you cold?

Have you been cold? Yeah, right? Okay. I'm up here holding my nose. That's what I said.

Yeah, you were right. Yes.

The floor is yours, sir. Thank you very much. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, City Manager, Deputy City Manager, Assistant City Manager, City Attorney, thank you so much. I'm going to be presenting the Capital Improvement Program for the General City Fund. My name is Sean Shutton. I'm the newly onboarded Division Director of Capital Improvements. and the presentation today is going to be pretty straightforward going to go over the existing city capital improvement process in place talk about the 2026 2027 fund requests go on to the projects that comprise that request and then talk about that sales surtax sunsetting as well as what we have previously historically funded the capital improvement program by All right, so the existing city capital improvement program is a five-year look ahead for the rules and replacements of the city-owned assets. The city categorizes that into seven different categories. That's the general government, recreation and parks, information technology, public safety, transportation, utilities, and a golf course. There are, let me click it on here. I can't really see that TV, but there are five CIP accounts associated with the capital improvement plan. That's the general city. They have three accounts, the 302, the 303, and the 412, and the utilities capital improvements are housed in accounts number 403 and 404. The utilities already conducted their presentation. They take care of their own capital improvement discussion, so that's not going to be discussed in the general city capital improvement, but I did want to mention that. THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM IS OUTLINED IN ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY NUMBER 090401, AND THAT'S THE PROCESS BY WHICH THE CITY DOES DO THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT STRATEGIZING ON AN ANNUAL BASIS. IT STARTS IN JANUARY WITH THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROJECTS ON A DEPARTMENT LEVEL. IT MOVES THROUGHOUT THE YEAR THROUGH REVIEW, THROUGH BUDGETING TO TODAY, THE BUDGET REQUESTS, AND THEN THROUGH BUDGET ADOPTION, AND THAT CYCLE CONTINUES ON AN ANNUAL BASIS. Over the last 10 years, that's the data that I had to review. There have been 13 different funding sources and at least the three accounts that are the general city, that's account 302, 303, and 412. One thing I did want to mention is that the largest funding that we did receive is that penny sales surtax that is sunsetting December 31st of 2026. So we'll no longer be seeing that funding. Excuse me. Okay. I had to put that slide forward, and that had really driven the capital improvement program over the last 10 years. So the 2026-2027 budget request does pull from six of those funding sources in the 302 and 303 accounts, and the 412, which is the Gulf account, will be relying on four of those funding sources. And the 2026-27 budget request looks like this. It's a $6.588 million request across the three funding accounts, 302, 303, and 412. There's 22 separate projects identified and requested this year through nine funding sources. It says eight, but there's actually nine, as there was an additional one in the Gulf that I discovered through review of the presentation. And then for the next couple slides, I'm going to go over the actual individual projects that comprise these budget requests in each account and within each category as defined by the city's administrative policy on conducting the capital improvements. In the general government account or category, we are requesting approximately $820,000 across four projects. Most of those projects pertain to the implementation, personnel and salaries required to get the ERP program up and running. In the next category, we have Recreation and Parks. There's four projects identified within this request, the largest being the Mangrove Park Boardwalk Removal Project, followed by the Living Shoreline Project, which is also grant funded. This is going to be seed money to get that project up and running.

Excuse me, what was the Jensen Pool pump last replaced?

And that's a great question. I don't have that information available. I think we can follow up and get that information. Yeah. And then R and R that's essentially repairs and replacements or renewals and replacements on various, uh, recreational park projects, discretionary throughout the year. So that there is some seed funding for that. The next is information technology. This category is requesting three projects funded in two different accounts. That's 302 has computer replacements. Generally the city's, the IT department's strategy is to replace 1 5th of the computers every year. So this is one fifth of what we'd expect for a phase replacement of a full computer cycle. And we could possibly anticipate this to be an annual occurrence for technology improvements. And the largest cost is in fund 303, that's replacing the enterprise resource software planning system as a one time cost of $1.7 million. The next category that we have is public safety. Three projects, $600,000 being requested. Again, this is going to be laptops and workstations as well as a co-location workspace. And the transportation category has, yes, yes, sir.

Okay. What is a police workstation?

The police workstation? I may have to rely on the police department, but my understanding is that is desks, tablet, not the computer itself, but actually the tablets, the cubicle, furniture upgrades and replacements.

so my understanding is some of the replacements are there's some space that was not utilized within certain areas so these were not replacements but additional spaces that they're using so like in the d bureau we didn't build out that whole area so and then the co-location i think is not an actual space that's for i.t uh services i believe correct hi uh commissioner um mccray

The Craig Clark, Director of Recreation and Cultural Services. The pool pump has never been replaced and there's a crack in it so we had to move it up. Originally it was scheduled for 2028 or 29. We had to bump it up soon because we don't want it to be damaged anymore. So, thank you.

Thank you for that. Moving forward then to the transportation, this is going to be funded five separate categories. Two plans, one is ADA transition plan, another is an engineering assessment of city bridges, and then three accounts will be supporting renewals and replacements to pavement and sidewalks. And finally, the gulf category, that's going to be fund 412, has two items associated with it. That's the wet well and the pump house repair, $250,000. Excuse me, as well as the golf course clubhouse possible renovation rehabilitation it's going to be the feasibility design and permitting for the continuation of that project going forward. So, that being said, those are the seven categories that the city identified this year for the budget cycle. And do want to touch back onto this penny sales surtax dollars and fund 303. This is the historical context of what was received by the city from this program over the last nine years. It's $55 million. It funded 450 projects, approximately $6 million per year, sunsetting by the end of this year. So we are not anticipating any additional funding into the capital improvements from this valuable resource that we previously had. off to the right there is a chart that does show the project categorizations as they are tagged within our within our system uh multiple pro park projects that includes uh hester park sarah sims park uh kapok park or your park fishing pier these are some of the projects that have been Renewed or replaced with these dollars. Looking at the transportation side, some of the projects are Lake Boynton Estates, Southwest 8th Improvement, Meadows Boulevard. It seems like almost the majority of the project that the city has done over this last 10 years was funded from this account and these dollars. So the next account that I did wanna highlight is the 302 fund. This primarily has been a supplementary account to that 303 account and those surtax dollars. It has increased steadily over time. This request this coming year in 2026 and 2027 will be the highest request that we have within the last 10 years and it's going to be the primary engine to fund the city's CIP projects for the next year and possibly going into the future. It is being funded. LEASE PROPOSED TO BE FUNDED FROM SIX FUNDING SOURCES IDENTIFIED ON THE SIDE, TRANSFER FROM THE GENERAL FUND, THE GAS TAX, AND I DO WANT TO POINT OUT THE GAS TAX AND THE TAX DEBT HAVE CONSISTENTLY FUNDED THIS ACCOUNT. SOME OF THE OTHER FUNDING SOURCES WITHIN THE PRIOR SLIDE HAVE OCCASIONALLY INCREASED AND BUMPED THIS UP FROM TIME TO TIME, BUT THOSE HAVE BEEN THE TWO CONSISTENT FACTORS OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS. SO IN SUMMARY, The 2026, 2027 CIP general city request is 6.588 million spread across three different accounts, 302, 303, and 412. 22 total projects, that's down from the 50 that we did see with the surtax dollars funding 50 projects a year on average, and we will not be seeing that particular funding going in the future. that did result in us, when we do review these projects being requested throughout the year, that we had to defer some out to next year, the year after, the year after. So we are seeing, if you did look ahead into the budget, higher amounts than the $6.588 million projected over the next four years and possibly into the future. And that concludes the presentation.

Anyone have any questions?

I have a question. You say that it was new?

I am new, yes.

How new are you?

My seventh week.

You got in under the freeze.

Well, what's that? That's right, you got in right before the freeze. I made it under the freeze, got it.

Thank God for that.

I'm glad to be here, thank you.

Okay. Good. Thank you.

All right, thank you very much.

Does anybody want to hear anything else before we move on?

I don't want to hear anything else. Excuse me. What are we doing with the fire station three?

Fire Station 3, we used the $20 increase from the fire assessment last year to fund both the fire rescue substation at Intercoastal and Fire Station 3. He's asking for an update where we are on that.

So right now, I believe the design is complete 30% drawings, I believe, and that project has been on the shelf pending the fire merger at this point. So depending on what happens here, if the fire merger moves forward or what happens with that, then we'll pick it back up and look at that project. Got it.

Yeah, and if I could just add, so some of that additional money was also used per our agreement towards the Phoenix Station Alerting System, which was the $800,000 purchase. So some of that money was used for that, and about $350,000 was used as indicated by senior staff to prepare for those. Okay?

Thank you. Super quick, Mayor. On that same point, Hugh, don't go far. Um... Thank you, Commissioner McCray, for bringing up Fire Station 3. So I know a lot is up in the air and sitting on a shelf, but I just want to make sure that we are having conversations now at the state and federal level to start talking about funding sources. Public safety typically takes the forefront when it comes to appropriations and grants at the federal and state level, so I would like to... look into that now without, you know, obviously not spending time, lots of time and resources, but at least look at what our options are funding-wise should we have to, you know, should the merger not happen, we have to go down that road, that we're not then starting that up in, you know, several months down the line when we have some answers. On the other thing that we're, you know, we're not starting from square one on, you know, on looking at funding opportunities.

Yeah, absolutely. And we had looked into funding sources prior to the choice or the decision to try to raise the fire assessment to cover the debt service, which was really the only other option at that point because, unfortunately, the city and the financial position that we're in right now through the assistance to firefighters grants would not allow us to receive these grants. So the only, that's the AFG portion. The state appropriations, which we put in for multiple times, unfortunately, we just found out again that the promise we were made that we were gonna get this year, we just found out we weren't successful on that as well. So just thinking outside the box, the raise in the $20 was actually to cover the debt service. and your CFO had actually secured funding for us for a low-interest loan to do both the Station 6 and the Station 3 rebuild. But with the pending merger, obviously, everything is just still in limbo. But if that were not to go through, we would immediately move back to our promise to you, which was to utilize those funds to rebuild three.

Okay. Okay? Thank you.

Anybody else?

Yeah, with the Marine unit, so that's on pause for the build-out, but we're still keeping the vessel at Harvey Oyer, right? Is the police vessel over there already?

It is, if I may. The lifts are done. The lifts are completed and both boats are there. The fire boat actually went into service last week officially. All the training has been done. And I just want to reiterate that the boat was purchased with ARPA funds. The training, by the way, which was in this year's budget, was all covered, my assistant chief of training was actually able to cover about 95% of all the fire boat training, the marine firefighting courses, the command and control courses, through grant opportunities. So we saved that amount of money. We will be having a launching ceremony when we'll invite all of you and we'll do kind of a low-key launching ceremony soon. But what we do need to do on the PD side right now, we have to go back and do a little bit of dredging. And we knew when we got into the project that with all the shifting sands and the way things happen from the inlet, that on that PD side, it's getting a little shallow draft. So we're looking into right now utilizing a maintenance permit to go ahead and just, we have to dredge under both boats. But right now, they're both fully operational.

They're going to let you guys, so what you're looking for is just do a maintenance dredge just under those vessels instead of like the whole canal. Is that easier to get accomplished versus, I mean, when we dredged Harvey, that took forever.

Yeah. So what they typically do is a maintenance permit with that. And so if we can get that covered and that maintenance is something that they can just allow us to do where we don't have to apply for it. That's what we're hoping.

Can we do, like, a maintenance, too, just around in front of the boat ramp also? Yeah, we'll do as much as we can.

We can get with you, see what we can do. Yeah, because I know. We're going to have people out there.

I mean, because that was just dredged, and you're saying it's already, you know, which is expected. I mean, no one thought we were going to dredge, and it was going to be fine for 10 years, right? Yeah.

It's going to be a... And two, I think that project was the county was leading it. They had their priorities. That area was done later and they had already had their permit. Yeah. So it just didn't get included.

With the maintenance, can we try to incorporate just to do a little bit of mitigation there?

uh in front while we have it yeah if you show me we'll get together offline and we can add that awesome thank you and just so just so that you're aware as well for your edification i actually spoke to the vendor who put the lifts in who would be a potential viable source if we want to have them come back and do the dredging one day They can come in and out in one day. That's if they're just dredging under the two public safety vessels. If we incorporate any other areas that are to the east of there, it may be another day or two. I'll work together with Deputy City Manager Mack, and we'll get that done. That would be great. During the week, probably. Yeah, another weekend. Yeah, for sure. Thank you. You're welcome.

What PD boat is there? Because I was at the marina, and the PD boat was at the marina.

It's at Marina Village.

It's at Marina Village. That's a contender. It's a contender.

We moved it to Marina Village, back to the Marina Village dock.

Temporarily?

Yes, because we can't use it at low tide at all. That's correct.

Okay. Okay. I just wanted for clarification because it sounded like it was there, but it's not.

It's there, and then just recently we decided that from operational reliability to put it back at Marina Village because of the low tide, we won't be able to launch. So that's where it's at for now, temporarily until we work through this.

And then, so... Well, I'm just curious because the, so did we not terminate that lease with Marino Village? I mean, thankfully we didn't. We own the slip. We own the slip. Oh, okay. Good to know. Good to know. Okay. So we own the slip. All right. Oh, good. Good. I was always under the impression that we were leasing that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Probably good to retain that in case something like this happens again. Okay. That was it. Thanks.

Well, and something also that the police chief actually offered me was that second lift over there is a float on. So once we get that, the police boat dredged, we're going to go ahead and move our rigid hull inflatable there. So we'll have a secondary vessel that'll be there.

At the Marina Village? Correct. Oh, awesome.

Yeah. How to use what you got, sir. Pretty good?

Yes, thank you. Okay. Next, we have item 5A. Is there a presentation from staff?

No, there's no presentation. We do have the Excel spreadsheet that, yeah, we can present if you like.

Perfect.

Can we pull up the military Excel sheet, please?

keeping the millage rate the same, or do we have a little bit of a flaw from there?

Because I know your go-to is... That is entirely based on whether or not there's going to be increases in other fees. If there's not increases in other fees, then I highly suggest you do not touch the millage rate.

So could we decrease it if we are increasing the other fees?

There's definitely room to do that, yes. Which fees are you talking about?

Utility-related fees. Yeah, so definitely...

Because you're going to have commiserate utility franchise fees. You're going to have a utility tax rate that's going to increase as you move monies over to the general fund. So there's going to be an appetite to lower that in addition to your servicing outside residents outside the city. So there could be some definitely some room to move that millage rate down.

I like that.

Yeah.

Anybody have any other questions for staff or discuss anything?

I guess what's like the preferred, I guess? motion and mechanism so that if we do decide after this you know for example with the utilities you know because the utilities increases then we should lower the military yeah so i just want to make sure we're not locking in and that people listening know we're not locking them in sure so today you're voting on a preliminary rate which is what gets sent out to residents as the maximum that the city could impose you then have your budget hearings in september at which point in time you'll have public hearings again you have the option to lower that rate but the rate that is approved today is the maximum rate that this commission can impose next year perfect in that um notice can we add language that says like it's max but also no okay all right so i and and what uh what do you mean they're locked in

The property appraiser sends out those bills.

Okay, the property appraiser, got it.

I thought you said the city was.

I'll just give you guys, for every mill you're looking at about $10.1, $10.2 million. So for every tenth of a mill you're looking at about $1 million. That's essentially the funding from the general fund or from Avalorum that we bring in is what would be looked at as us rebalancing the budget whenever we look at doing something commiserate. but that millage rate decrease is gonna directly correlate with the savings of our residents.

Okay. Yep. Go ahead.

Okay.

So, I mean, historically, we've been working on reducing the millage rate, and I think we've done it many, many times here on this dais, and because of the volatility and the potential for significant changes with regard to the homestead exemption that could pass or fail in November. And again, we don't know the future. We should be very conservative right now to just be mindful of, you know, because if we go down a road of, you know, of changing the mills, which again, I've been a proponent of and we've done several times in the past. My concern is that right now we're looking at a $16 million deficit potentially for next year, right?

No, that's in two years. In two years? October 2028.

Okay, so for next year it's like 12.

We're looking at 9.5 million next year.

So 9.5 million next year, potentially 16 million the year after that. If we are considering, I guess we might want to talk about that ultimately, but if we're considering maintaining the CBAs as they are and or looking at some sort of an increase for staff, even if it's a conservative one. maybe reducing it would be challenging in the longer term if this thing in November were to pass. So it's just something that we should think about. And we also have to think about the rate in itself. It's gonna be contingent upon what happens in November, but if we reduce it, the numbers that we're looking at right now of 9.5 million next year and 16 million the year after that, provide raises or staff salary increases, then that deficit's gonna increase, right? Because that will be a new baseline. So just something to think about.

Any other comments or questions? Okay.

yeah motion to approve second yeah motion to approve 5a with the stated millage rate of 7.75 with no increase okay

We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. Moving on to 5B. Staff. Anyone? Bueller.

So so we're not looking to increase the fire assessment for you this year I think I pretty much laid the groundwork for a possible Scenario shift as we move forward in subsequent years based on on what we see from the tax legislation but At this point, to keep where we are, keep the budget flat, we're asking to maintain the fire assessment fee at 145. Okay, any questions? Thank you, thank you.

Do we, moving on to 5C, is there a presentation? Motion to approve. We need a motion. Yeah, there's a motion.

Second.

We have a motion, we have a second.

No, no, we don't have a motion. Yes, I said. Oh, Amy, I'm sorry, I thought it was.

Yes, okay. Thought it was. We're good. We have a motion, and you gave the second, right, Commissioner Cruz? Yes. Yes, okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. Any other final comments for today?

Before we do the fire, I just want to say one thing. In the event that we do do these increases, whether or not the property tax legislation passes or it doesn't pass, I do want to kind of set a goal for next budget year of doing some substantial, maybe setting a goal of doing a rollback for property taxes. In the event we are able to navigate some of these, that way they are... there is going to be a light for our residents. If they do see some mild increases in either utility bills or things of that nature.

Yeah, I would say more than a rollback, especially if you look at almost a 4X increase of a fire assessment next year is what's being proposed.

Wait, I'm sorry.

No, no, no.

I don't want to make assumptions about anything happening next year. We're only speaking about the current budget. I think what the city manager was saying is that, you know, if there were any changes, we would look to lower property taxes, lower the millage rate, and give a break to the residents. Right.

Yeah, that's where I was going until you interrupted me. So anyways, because I think it's important, no different than with the millage rate this year, if utilities increases, we need to offset that cost.

Moving on to 5C. Okay, moving on to 5C.

Good afternoon again, Poonam Kalkat, Utilities Director. We are not, the canal, I don't have any presentation for the canal assessment. It's just the cost of doing the business. So what we do is we just look at how many households there are for what's the cost of cleaning up those canals and then charging the residents back, that's it. Okay.

Do we do an assessment of how effective this is?

We do not, but I can tell you that being I live on that specific canal and I'm assessed those monies, I just sent our deputy city manager a picture of my canal. And I, as a resident, I made a complaint, so...

And we had the vendor out there today, but I agree. In summer months, there's not too many things you can do with the canals getting algae and growth.

Well, I know the underlying issue is the culver, allegedly.

Most of the problem we had where it was floating weeds coming in, that seemed to have slowed down a lot. So we have not gotten a lot of the complaints that we have in the past. So it seems to be working, whatever we're doing. I know there's some isolated areas that, like what Dan's talking about. Those are the areas where we're going to have to have them come back and touch up.

Is the... Yeah, so maybe it's a matter of just getting the vendor out there more.

Is that what I'm understanding? So one of the extra things that we're looking at, too, is just doing a little bit more with traveling that area because we don't have a boat that's generally out there all the time. So we do rely on the customers, but we're going to take a little bit more proactive approach to go out and do some more inspections.

Yeah, I mean, we brought this up a while ago about having, you know, some type of vessel to look at the waterways as far as trash, debris, you know, looking at the mangroves, looking at the stuff like this. And so I'm just, we haven't gotten that. And I, you know, obviously we have to be mindful of everything that happens, but from an enterprise fund, you know, I think there's an opportunity there.

I know that, uh, admin and I were actually looking at, uh, something that may come available. So we are working on that for actual boat.

Like as far as the Culver's concerned, I rep that set on a daily basis and I walk that turf every single day. And I can tell you over the past couple of years with the assessment, the culvert and the grass buildup that we've seen in the past has not been an issue at all. It's, it's, it's been flowing a whole lot smoother, a whole lot better. I haven't seen how skinny the water gets under the mission Hill bridge either. That's improved drastically. And I haven't filled a lot of complaints. I think the last complaint I got from was a guy named bill shortly, who was seawall collapse for someone else was repairing theirs and encroached on his. So I haven't, personally received any complaints about that specific canal right there right away we have the vendor out there today thank you let's say did you receive your own complaint but no apparently Andrew got it customer service was superior

Okay. Yeah. Does anybody want to make a motion? Motion to move.

Second. We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Any final comments for today?

No, that was very smooth. Thank you, everyone.

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

Second.

I have a motion to adjourn. I have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Thank you, staff. Thank you. Motion passes, and the meeting's adjourned at 1.34 p.m. Thanks for sticking in.