City Commission - Regular Meeting

Jeremy, would you mind doing a pledge for us?

Sure. Jeremy. Would you please stand and face the flag?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Who are we having to do the invocation? Wasn't it you? I think we did it last year. Lord, thank you for this day. Lord, thank you for having us all here together to do this budget together and do it for the best wishes of the residents, Lord. Please give us wisdom in all that we do tonight. And please allow us to work well together. And may it all be for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Amen.

That was well done.

Alright, new business. Do we do roll call or no?

We don't need one.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. As staff plan and prepare for fiscal year 27, there are several considerations we'll discuss tonight that shape our financial health. Tonight's budget workshop presentation includes discussion on past actions, the present, and also future actions that are to come. We'll start off with a quick recap of the capital fund, the capital fund closure, and then we'll continue to review the reserves and a summary of our general fund. As you all are aware, through Florida Special Session, a bill was passed for property tax reform. We'll discuss what this means for the city, and lastly, we'll go over the CIP summary and all of the individual requests from our departments for FY27. OK, the 310 capital fund closure. As you may recall, during fiscal year 26 budget workshop, we discussed the capital projects fund in depth. For the fund to sustain, it must have revenues to support the expenses. In this case, there were more expenses than revenues, which created a negative fund balance that totaled around $6.9 million. This is a result of only taking out debt of $3.9 million when it came to the construction of the city hall building. I made the recommendation to close this fund and brought forward resolution 2025-21 last budget cycle, which ultimately closed it. It was addressed during our audit and reflected in financial statements. From the accounting perspective, when you close the fund, the ending balance has to be absorbed, meaning that the general fund reserve balance decreased from $18 million to about $12 million in fiscal year 25. In 2023, the commission adopted Ordinance 1681, and that implemented a budget reserve policy. That policy, it dictates the balance that fiscal year 27 budget is required to dedicate. Those amounts are 19% of the general fund budget to committed emergency reserves and 4% to noncommitted reserves. With the current budget input based off a department's request and estimates in fiscal year 27, the reserve requirements are estimated to be around $10 million. This slide, it illustrates an overview of the general fund. It's a general fund summary. The very last column shows the totals of the 2027 request. Um, as shown based on the current budget input, the reserves are projected to be around 10.5 million meeting the ordinance requirements. That being said, the expenses shown right now are greater than the revenues by almost 800,000 at this time. Also, it doesn't include the golf cart lease. That's currently going through the bid process that will be added. by the second budget workshop. So I just want to bring that to your attention as well. So there are still additional cuts that are needed to balance this budget. Budgets in the past, just for some insight to how budgeting was done in previous years, it seems that consistently we've gone into the reserves to balance the budget. In order to present to you guys the responsible budget, I wanted to show where we have the revenues to support the expenses And we're not going into reserves because at this time our reserves are already at that critical balance where we need to meet the ordinance and we need to make sure that we have funds in place for any emergency situations that could arise in the future. Um, from the original requests that our department directors and staff put in, when we first input those numbers to the budget and we looked at the balance, our reserve balance was down to around 5 million. So we went through several rounds of cuts with our staff internally, with the city manager, with department directors, staff, my finance team as well. And we cut around $5 million in projects, well, between both capital and also operating costs. The departments were tasked with a 10% operating budget cutting exercise. Of course, it depends which department, if they're able to do that, because some of the departments have a very small operating budget. Some of them, it's just a little bit different. So it just varied from one department to the next, but everyone was tasked with that exercise. And again, it seemed like this year was really the first year where the city took a close look at operating budgets and evaluated those further. So with that being said, with the cuts right now to this point in time, we've cut around $5 million. So that's what's gotten us up to the $10.5 million to meet the ordinance requirements in place. But cuts are still needed, and We're hoping to have more cuts based off of commission input tonight and discussion before our second budget workshop.

I had a question. So just to sort of frame that conversation, so $800,000 is a target to get this balanced. And then what was the original golf cart lease? Was it about $600,000? So it would be the $600,000 plus the $800,000 is $600,000.

I believe so. I believe it was around $600,000. We'll see once those bids come in if it's still ballpark around the same or if it's, you know, it'll be based on the vendor that bids.

And real quick, Hannah, as well, I believe it was around $550,000 actually, but that was not including the upgraded GPS technology.

Yeah, that was a different one.

Okay.

So we're redoing the RFP. RFP doesn't include that.

So we're not going to need that.

I will. They're redoing that RFP currently. So once that's complete and the committee makes their decision, I would then get those numbers and be able to input it into this budget. So you'll see that in the budget workshop number two.

In an effort to try to make sure that we're balanced.

It's just something to keep in mind because it's not plugged in there right now.

So that $600,000 is not in here. Correct. On top of the $800,000 deficit. So in the conversations tonight, we have about $1.4 million challenge to balance this budget.

Can I make a statement, too, just based on that capital projects fund that we had had and the whole debacle with the city hall? Previous management, previous accountant, you guys have been great. Just for the residents to know, that capital projects fund was only to be used under the direction of the commission, to be used only for capital projects and with the commission vote. Somehow it got used, and that's how it kind of got us in this position where we shouldn't have been getting into our reserves like this. So I just want to make that known that it wasn't necessarily our fault or because we created that fund that this happened or our current staff.

Okay, property taxes, the hot topic right now in the news. So I'm sure you guys have seen all the news articles, everything that's happening regarding property tax reform. But during special session in Tallahassee, the House and Senate passed the bill which increases homestead exemption. For it to actually go into effect, it has to have 60% voter approval in the November general election. If passed, it will be a negative impact to our general fund reserves. The first year, 2027, the tax roll, it'll increase the exemption to about $150,000, and then $250,000 in 2028. So it will not, just to clarify, impact fiscal year 27's budget, but it may impact fiscal year 28 and onwards. After fiscal year 28, after they increase to $250,000, After that point, it would increase each year by the annual CPI until I believe it reaches a $500,000 cap. The Florida League of Cities, they released some information to us and that provided preliminary data that shows a fiscal impact of around $3.5 million for fiscal year 28 and around $5 million for fiscal year 29. So we're just keeping that in mind, but There's a lot of uncertainty still surrounding the new legislation and if it will or won't pass. But whether the referendum passes or not, it's still vital that we monitor the impact and also keep in mind the impact that was absorbed with the capital fund closure. OK, moving on to the CIP. So this CIP summary, it shows all department requests over the next five years for all funds. The remaining slides that we have prepared, they show in detail each department's capital request. And city directors and staff, they've made these requests through the budget process. We've evaluated them. We've discussed them through the Navline reports that were posted to the agenda. It includes actually all the justification comments that were made by the directors that were making these requests. So I don't know if you guys had an opportunity to go through those Navline reports, but they really put a good level of detail in there to support the necessity of why they're asking for these projects. So the next few slides, we'll go through in detail each project. And as you guys have any questions, the city staff, they're here to answer any of those questions. The projects going forward that have any asterisks next to it, that means that it indicates any grant funding that's Associated with it. It doesn't mean that it's fully grant funded, but it could be a portion of so just so you guys are aware Is any of that revenue built into here like those grant assumptions Yes for anything that has an asterisk that has grant proceeds. There is revenue.

That's also budgeted associated with that expense Williams yeah, my question is We're showing that line item for the CRA is Under special reserve funds?

Yes.

And we've got a 2027, a 2028, and then we just have dashes for 29, 30, and 31. I thought our CRA didn't sunset until a little bit later than what you're showing. 2036.

I just made a different call.

Okay, so that I would and that doesn't because that's CRA money we can't use it for anything else but CRA Just make sure that that doesn't get intermingled in our bottom line and

know and then I would prefer to see in the 29 30 and 31 columns that TBD instead of a dash because you just said it's to be determined the other thing I want to point out on the summary before we move on to the next slide is if you look at the fiscal year 2028 balance a subtotal it shows a

It shows 18 million. So that amount, it has been inflated just to show right now the projects that have been deferred. So when I say that when it came to capital projects, we met with departments and directors and evaluated the necessity of these projects and meant that we couldn't achieve them this year because of our ordinance that's in place, the reserve balance, and those factors that we discussed earlier. However, when you see that spike, in fiscal year 28 and you go through the slides that are to come, it really shows the projects that have been deferred that have been moved out. So I want you guys to bear that in mind as we go through the rest of the presentation. OK. So starting off with IT and the city clerk's office. And as we go through, if you have any questions on the items for the CIP, it's fiscal year 2027 that you guys are voting on that's in place. If there's any questions that you have on any of the requests and you want to call upon a staff member, city director, please do.

I'd just say that the software items you have in 2028 are basically pretty much a must-do, I would think.

It's based off the annual replacement schedule for their equipment. And then city clerk. They have one item for fiscal year 2027 for an ADA software that is statutorily required. It's a new Florida statute.

They run pretty lean.

I noticed this on the line, computers, tablets, and laptops, 38,000 across the board. We're going to see this in a couple other places where later on with crossovers, for example, it's going to be 30,000 a year for each crossover. I expect that to increase each year, just like the $38,000. Hey, it's $38,000 this year, but next year the same computers aren't going to be $38,000.

Sure, the cost will increase over time.

Right. So I don't know if we need to adjust that accordingly each year going forward. It's not going to affect this budget, but...

Ongoing budget, sure.

Five-year plan.

But then there's also... an opportunity to reduce the numbers of computers, tablets, and laptops. Right, because we're going to use our computers less. Maybe have some shared spaces like what we do at the Space Center called hoteling, and you have a computer that multiple people use versus everybody having their own computer, if they're seldom users, if they're not using it all day long.

Each year, it'll have to be an evaluation made by IT when it comes to budgeting. So they'll evaluate pricing and everything else when it comes to every budget cycle, and they make those inputs for that year. Go on to police and comCIP. We have police's request, and for below, you'll see for communications, which was we entered a contractual agreement with the Brevard County for dispatch services. Those are what's listed there for their capital request are what's contractually required for that contract. And of course, if you have any questions, we have Chief here to answer those.

I mean, I've got just some general questions. So are we buying new body cameras every year?

Mayor, Commission, the cost that you're seeing there is to transition from Motorola to LensLock, which is a much cheaper platform. Initially, when we started the body cam program, we wanted to pay for the whole five years in one shot, and we only started with patrolmen. But now the beach rangers have it, and so do the park enforcement. So we've had to buy additional equipment. body-worn camera platforms over the years. The reason why it's paired with the new vehicle is because we're putting the lens lock in-car camera systems in the new vehicles because they're cheaper and they're an easier company to deal with, and we pair it with the lens lock body camera. Next year is when we make the jump, the biggest jump from Motorola to lens lock, and we'll be done with our five-year program or agreement. next year with Motorola.

And I guess it's the same, I guess, to ask for pretty much everything. Radar units, do we just buy the same amount of radar units every year?

We put brand new units in the cars. Every year? Yes.

Okay.

No, not every year. Every time a car goes offline. they put in a new radar, if that's what you're asking. We don't check out the entire radar system in each car every year. Is that what you're asking?

Well, I noticed that we're spending roughly, let's say, an average of $12,000 a year on radar units. So I'm just wondering, are they going bad that often? Or is it we're just keeping them updated?

They have five vehicles budgeted for in fleet for replacement. So I believe the five radar units are associated and aligned with the five replacement PD vehicles that they have. the fleet CIP. That's correct.

And the same with tasers. They kind of need to be $60,000 in Taser of the year?

So the current platform we have is the X26P. And right now, I think we purchased one handle, which is one Taser, for I believe around $1,500. And there's a five-year warranty on that. They are not supporting that Taser in the near future. We don't have a sunset date just yet. But eventually, they're going to, just like body cams, they're going to a subscription service. So when we eventually go to the new Taser platform, we're not so much paying for the actual tangible Taser in our hands. We're paying for the cloud service. This is something that we've pushed down the road, I think, the past maybe three years. And each year, I believe, we're looking at a substantial cost that we hold off on that. OK.

Evidence drying cabinet, is that a replacement? Sir, yes. It is? Yes.

Spend a lot on tasers.

They're very expensive. Each officer has one. Yeah.

Yes. You just use 9 millimeters, they're cheap.

No, sir. We would like to have a less lethal element.

All right. That's all I have. Thank you. Put them in the foot. Appreciate you.

Next, we have FIRE for their five-year CIP. They do not have, well, for fiscal year 27, right now they have a replacement report writing software for 27. The other projects shown are for the outlying years for 28 through 31.

Is there any difference running software through IT or FIRE? It's the same?

Good evening, Commission.

So the software that we're looking to purchase would be a replacement of what's already existing. And it would actually be cheaper. It's just the way we do it in our budget, we take it on the first year, and then IT covers it after. And so it would come out of IT's budget this year, go into ours, and then go back into IT's.

The front line engine. How old is the one that we're currently looking to replace for this one?

We look at trying to replace them on the regular schedule of 10 years. We started getting quotes because it's about a three to plus year build time. So that would replace the, it would be 10 years old at that time, 2019.

And we can legally go to 20 years on frontline engines? 15. 15?

Yeah, we look at it because our environment's so corrosive that we try to start that assessment around year eight, nine, and looking at based on build times.

So on that line item, there's got to be some residual value on that piece of equipment. And between you and Hannah, Is there a way to show a line item of what our projected residual value would be coming back against the 1.29?

Talking about the trade-in value?

Yeah.

Yeah, so what it would be traded in would not be the 2019, because the 2019 would then go into backup. It would be replacing a 2014. So the 2014 would go into retirement or as a trade-in, and the 2019 would go to the reserve engine.

Right. How do we account for the residual value of the piece of equipment that we don't need anymore?

Of course, as we get closer, we work out a deal usually with some sort of trade-in company that's like a brokerage or something like that. And they will provide a trade-in value that will come off of the cost of the truck. But we won't know until that time comes. Does that make sense? Like there's a value.

So you're saying the $1,290,000. If you took the trade-in value, which is unknown at this time, off of that, it should be less than that. Correct, yeah.

And the quotes we're getting are less than 1.29. So is that the year we receive it or is that the year we order it? It's the year we receive it. Okay. So, yeah, we would look to have to go into some sort of agreement here the next year or two. And then with that, we would have someone take a look at the current engine that would be traded in. And that would give a value to that that would be then taken off of the price, which would bring all that forward when we did.

So the 2019 would be the order year, and then you expect to get it three years later is what you're saying? That's the receipt year. That's where we're going.

2019 is the receiving year. Receiving year, yeah.

You pay for it when you receive it. This is structured to have a new engine at year 10 of the old engine, I think is where you're going.

Well, I guess what I'm getting, because when I'm looking ahead to that, I'm thinking ahead is if this is in our plan, and we're needing to order it now, basically, and we don't have it necessarily in the budget to do it, then...

It's in the budget for 2029.

Yeah, I know. I know.

What I'm saying is... We're going to make a decision probably in the next year to write that contract. So I think the decision is do you want to replace the engine at year 10 or go longer?

I think you said also... I'm not saying that we're going to do this, but let's just say we ordered this and for some reason we had to make a cut in the future. No problem. They could resell it to someone else. Do we put a deposit down? I hear these things are true over the years, right?

What it comes down to, Mayor, is these are very specialized orders. These guys are ordering things with, you know, there's probably a there's a plethora it's probably you know 80 to 100 different options you can pick on this truck and we pick things that fit cocoa beach from corrosion resistance from computers that aren't moisture intolerant and all kinds of other things So when you say if you order it and then you don't want it, those requirements might not meet what some other municipality might be looking for. All right.

So... Well, it'll come to commission before we actually make a vote on ordering this thing specifically.

We've been searching out quotes. We'll bring all the quotes. We have a committee. We'll bring everything forward, let you guys take a look, the recommendations, the price, the trade, and all that type of stuff. So it'll all be there to consider. All right.

Yeah, basically, I was just making sure we're not codifying an order today with this budget. Yeah. Okay.

Okay, next we'll start with Public Works and the divisions under Public Works. The first one we have is the 3110 account, the division for roads and streets.

I have a question on that Minuteman. Is that really – my understanding is it's all the stub in the streets right back here for $4 million. I know we did the contract for the design. Is that – Really, $4 million a seawall? Because I think most of those streets all have pretty robust mangroves already.

So for fiscal year 27, that is for construction for the three locations, phase one. And then fiscal year 28, that's design and construction of the phase two areas. And then fiscal year 29, that actually should be in the row underneath for paving. So it will not be the 4.3. Gotcha.

Thank you. So 2.3 total to do all the minute. If we do phase two, phase one is already designed. We need the $715,000 to build it. Gotcha.

You said just that we're getting bids right now, you said?

Oh, we're getting permits from Army Corps, and then we'll go to the bid process. Okay.

So while we're on line item, no, thank you. Second line. Okay. So move the $2,000 down a row. $2 million down the road, not $2,000, $2 million. That brings that up to $9 million. So by 2031, does that include repaving all the city streets? No.

So that $2 million is going to continue?

No. I challenge you to go back, Hannah, to go back to the last time VA paving, pave the entire city and tell us what that cost was.

Sure, I'll look into it.

And it was in 2004 and I think it was $3.1 million. Okay, that's just off the top of my head. And now through 2031 we're going to spend $9 million And we're not going to be able to pave the entire city. It is 25 years later, though. Right.

If we look at the cost across 25 years for so many things.

Well, hang on, too. Yeah, that's right. That's a lot. It's pretty accurate.

If this is half of the streets, that's where you're going. Right. If this is... What is the scope of this $9 million?

Well, the problem is we're deferring it another year anyway.

I agree.

And there's already, anybody in this room that walks or rides bikes, there's already weeds growing up in the cracks in the streets.

Yeah, for this project, this was something when we had an internal discussion with staff, it was the very last project that we deferred, and we really tried to hold off on deferring this project because we saw the necessity of based off of all the meetings that city manager, myself, department directors had with commissioners and discussion that you guys have had in meetings throughout the last few months. But with where our reserve balances were and with the impact that we absorbed in closing the 310 fund and absorbing those costs, we still needed to... get up to meet that requirement. And even with that being done and with all the deferments that we've made, we're still at that point where our revenues are still lower than our expenses. So for that reason is why we had to push it to 2028. Next, I'll go through the building maintenance division of Public Works. The first item in 2027, the replaced ramp road park swing set, that one does have the asterisk, and we're seeking grant revenue for that. So we have revenue budgeted for that $15,000 full amount. And then you'll see there's a few AC units that you can, if you have any questions on.

I didn't see anything in here for building, like painting, like Country Club and Belize. Is that just our internal cost, and we only pay for them in part?

the accounts that were established.

I like the country club with the lime green. Maybe dated, I don't know.

And then again in 2028 you'll see the inflated number at the bottom and that shows some of the projects that were moved out and deferred for the purpose of this year based off of what we're dealing with. Okay. I'll move on to grounds maintenance. That division of public works, there's one capital item here, and that is the State Road 520 medians for $350,000.

That's the piece we did the landscape design for? We already approved it. Yes, sir.

And we're waiting for those. We don't know that those funds are coming in.

for the revenue. I don't know if there's an amount determined yet for the revenue, but Brad will have more information.

Good evening, Commission. We have applied the $350,000 to FDOT. They have preliminary accepted that number. So now we're just finishing up survey on 520 medians. Then we can start the design process.

So is it the plan that if we don't get that, then we won't be doing that project?

I'm confident that we're going to get the money.

OK.

But there's a chance that we don't. I've talked to FDOT, too, when I was on the board, and they were saying that they have no problem helping us with that.

I understand. My question is, what if they don't? Right. We invested the money in the design. We probably should have that in the back pocket in case we have to self-fund this. We don't want to do the design and then shelve it.

Well, once we have a design, how long does that design last, the permitting of it? Is it for three years, five years?

No, it'll be done. Oh, that, I don't know.

Yeah. Okay.

Good point.

I mean, we paid for the design. We got to... I got it. But does it mandate that, hey, okay, we've got the design, we have to do it now? We've got to do it in two years or three years or something like that.

You have to... Do it right away. If the requirements...

Basically, we're in a pinch right now. Just throwing $350,000 out there because we didn't get a grant might not be the best.

Not the full grant is budgeted for in the revenue side. On the revenue side, I believe it's in the $250,000 range. I can go back and verify, but it's $250,000 in revenue, $350,000 in expense with the expectation that if $100,000 isn't recognized or if it's not awarded to us for us to be able to still proceed with the project.

We still have the $100,000 from this last year.

There's $150,000 within this fiscal year, correct? Okay. Moving on to fleet. The next three slides are the CIP request for fleet. And they're all categorized by which department. So you see the request for police for their five vehicles. Parking enforcement, fire doesn't have any within 27, but they do in some of the outlying years.

How old are the police cars that we're replacing?

Jonathan? He will be up here to answer those questions.

What was your question again? How old are the vehicles that we're replacing here for the police four-door SUVs?

They're 2019s. They're 2019s? Yeah, 2019 Dodge Chargers.

Jonathan, can you tell them the miles also on those cars? Yes. Thank you.

What kills the police cars is the idle hours on them. You got to take that into consideration, because every idle hour is equal to 33 miles. So once you add that back to them, the ones that we're replacing, the first one's like 216,000 miles on it. The other ones are 244,000. And they're all that 200,000 or more miles. And these cars, once we replace them, we're not getting rid of these. These go as spares, and then the older ones are sold. So these will all become backups.

And the older ones that we're getting rid of, what years are those?

They're like 2016s. 2016s.

OK. And Skip, you know this, that we went a few years where we deferred. We were deferring those, and it hurt pretty bad.

So this is the way to do it. Do the partial replacement. Absolutely. Put in five every year. Same thing with the radar, tasers, all that stuff. So you're not doing a huge investment. I mean, in our book, it's an eight-year replacement cycle. So we're right on par with what's expected.

The Navline reports, too, that are on the agenda, it shows for every item within fleet, every capital item, exactly what the mileage is and how old that vehicle is, what it is replacing for more detail. Okay, part three of fleet.

Hang on, go back real quick. I'm sorry, I think this driver's driving.

Okay.

So I've noticed on the generators, I know they're granted for Fire Station 1551. I believe we've deferred those a couple years. Are we in a situation where I understand we want the grant money, but is it a critical need now? I mean, at some point we've got to quit burning it. I think these have been deferred probably three or four years now.

It's not that we have been deferring. We did apply for the grant application three years ago, and it's just taken this long for FEMA to get it.

Oh, we've already applied for it. It's just in review. Oh, gotcha, okay.

Three years ago.

Gotcha, okay.

Wow. Okay. You need to doge them. Your stuff, right, Brad?

Some of it, yes.

Okay. So this generator out here, or the one at the fire station, I'm sorry, that's elevated. And I anticipate that we've done the proper preventative maintenance. And the big ones that I have, 750 KWs at work, every month we run them for a certain amount of time. We Cycle all the fuel out of the tanks and fill them up with new fuel and The one I've got it's a cat It's been there since 2014 And there's no plan to replace it just maintain So what why and when we're in we're in kind of the beach environment also, so Why are we replacing? a generator unless it's got problems.

Jonathan? Jonathan's crew maintains this.

With proper maintenance, and I know it costs money to do proper maintenance, but you know.

This generator was put in in 2015 over at the fire station. We've had multiple issues with it. It failed during one of the hurricanes, and we had to bring in a backup generator. We've done a lot of work on it. And since it did fail during a storm, it qualified that we could replace it under the grant program. So with it being able to qualify is the reason why we would like to go ahead and replace it, because we're getting 75% of it paid for by the grant.

OK. Then I'll just say going forward, any kind of generators you got at any of our facilities, including the lift stations and everywhere else? Do the maintenance. Run them every month.

Yeah, we run them.

Run them up to temp every month.

Yeah, they're exercised weekly.

The one that we're pulling out, then, can we use that as a backup somewhere else?

We can. We can actually mount it on a trailer and use it as a portable. Okay.

Maybe not really kind of a budget question, but... Brad, maybe you would know. The generator that we put up here is elevated, but all the electrical circuitry and everything is down below. Should we look at, in the future, paying somebody to actually put that elevated? What good is that generator if everything is flooded down below?

If you jack it and conduit and Seal out your conduit lines properly. You don't get water.

Your switches are OK. Yeah, when we were going through the build on this building, our team did mention that to the contractors. And it didn't get elevated.

Well, I guess what I'm asking is, is that something that we should put in the budget for the future?

In the future, yes, I would definitely.

Okay. So just maybe for the next year after that, we'll maybe think about that.

As an FYI, the PD generator is the same way.

We need to think about it. If all your transfer switches and everything are at chest level and it's underwater, it's not going to work right. You're right.

Okay. Bad design.

OK, our last division of Public Works, 3,170 are capital improvements. We have Fire Station 50 for $5.5 million. There is an asterisk right there. Currently, this project is a project that we sought out state appropriations for. It's made it through the process of session. The governor hasn't signed the bill yet assigning the appropriation, so we're waiting until

July 1st.

July 1st until we know and the state budget is in place if we are awarded those grant funds. But we do have on the revenue side $4 million contingent upon receiving those grant funds along with $1 million for debt proceeds if we were to have to go out to debt for that project. Just so you guys are aware, it's not fully grant funded. The half million that is there is for the purpose of design. There's also down to the ADA Ocean Beach Boulevard Park, currently $1.15 million for that project and funds associated with that project in outlying year, fiscal year 28. And then Sunset Bridge repairs for $10,027. And again, you'll see the projects that have been deferred to fiscal year 28. Yep.

The ADA work, obviously, once we build it, will be consistent maintenance on top of that every year.

If we design it properly, maintenance should be minimal.

We're not allowed to charge for parking for disabled, right? That would be a completely free park, basically.

Correct. Parking isn't charged for any handicapped parking spaces.

So I would suggest we move this out.

I agree. That's almost our 1.2 that we need right there to be.

Why don't we wait till the design comes in and then refine that number. And I'm willing to solution. So once we get the design and we have something to show people, I'm willing to search for grants and It's solicited donations. I know there's some affluent ADA people that have been on me for years that might want to contribute to that.

Do we have any agreements associated with that? That was land that we received, right? We haven't received it yet. Or that we would receive. Are there any agreements in place or translated in it that we might not be able to push that out?

It has to be a park. Yeah. Okay. And we had to fund the design to show full faith that we're going to do it. They haven't signed it off to us yet. I'm very hesitant to defer it or pull any money out of the budget at this point until we get the deed. So we're going to have another budget meeting and another budget meeting. I would prefer to leave it in there for right now.

So pulling on that thread is, so we, we've started the design of this one, right? So in my mind we can potentially accomplish the construction. Whereas the fire station, we haven't even started the design. So I don't, I think that's foolish to put the design and the construction in 27. So, I understand it's got July 1st information tied to it, but food for thought as we get in there.

I got it. One's a nice thing to have. I got it. Public safety for 1.5-ish with a $4 million grant and keep us with our, what's that rating that we're supposed to have? ISO. The ISO rating, which would keep insurance cheaper for a lot of our residents.

But I'm just going from the ability to execute. It's funded this year, and we haven't started the design.

No, we have started the design.

Of the fire station?

No, no. I'm talking about the park. How much was the design for the park?

$199,000.

$199,000. So you can't get real numbers on what it's going to cost to do the construction until you get the design. Right.

What's our time frame on actually getting that property?

Okay, so where we're at right now is we have until the 22nd to respond currently to the federal government with regards to any changes or corrections that we want to make on the quit claim deed. Becky's already looked at that, made those changes, and we're just waiting to send that off here any day now.

What I might suggest is that we put a double asterisk next to each of those. And this is just preliminary. And at our next budget meeting, we can make some decisions because we'll know whether the governor vetoed it or not. And we'll know whether we actually have the property or not. Agreed. So going forward, this is on our radar to look at either we pull the trigger and go for it or we pull back. Great point. I'm not disputing the public safety.

I'm just saying from a timing piece, we literally have budgeted this year, 26, to do the fire station design. We haven't. So I'm just worried it's an artificial pulse over.

Honestly, I mean... No offense to the fire guys that I mean I visited the station and I could live with it myself, but if we're going to get $4 million from the government for it, it makes sense.

I think that's what I heard.

It could if they want. But what I'm saying is if we're going to get this money from the government, we might as well take advantage of renewing the station. If we get it.

The last time a commissioner went to a fire station, which this is a replacement of, to look at, which was the one across the street where the parking garage is, he fell through the floor. I was the city manager.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Commissioner Tumulti, I think that's an excellent idea.

All right. Thank you. Okay.

Next slide. I'm sorry. Go back one. I'm sorry. On the very bottom, Brevard and 28, is that? In the CRA zone, and we're just putting a provision in there in case some of it has to be funded from general fund? Because that could be potentially CRA funded.

The design right now is in the CRA for $500,000. The entirety of that project can't be absorbed by the CRA because we have debt obligations still within that CRA. So we are only able to pay a portion of it from the CRA fund, the rest of it for construction. So that whole project is in general.

At the bottom, second from the bottom, Brevard Avenue. So where I was going with that is what Commissioner Williams said is the dashes, the no costs for CRA, this could be a filler if we don't have any of the projects in the CRA to run that through 2032, some portion of that $3 million.

Now, how much of that fiscal, going back on that, how much is fiscal 28?

line items were pushed out all of them no not all a lot though a lot of them several of them were pushed out say the softball field stadium lights those were pushed out um i believe the skate park do we not get any support from the school district on that we did those lights we actually owe them that per the contract so

We have a contract with them where we have to do all the maintenance on those facilities all ourselves.

Are you negotiating that now?

Well, it's a 10-year.

It's a 10-year contract.

We're discussing it with them soon. Yes.

Dr. Rendell and Mr. Trent might be getting a phone call.

Okay.

Thank you.

The dredging, is that renewing what just finished a couple years ago, the million-dollar dredging every year? That's our portion of it?

Yeah.

Got it.

It's just ongoing dredging. It's not a new initiative. Got it. Okay.

We're bringing back that program.

We get funds from that. We get grants from that.

For the muck capping project, yes, we received grant funds for that.

For that, but not for the dredging?

Well, no, for the dredging program that's out from fiscal year 28 and then outlying years for that program to come back to be able to dredge the canals, I believe.

Well, that's on the, we're voting on that as well.

Yeah, that's on the ballot also, so it may be on us or we have to approach Sorrell for that.

Yeah. Which we will. For the Sunset Bridge repairs and then the Sunset Bridge, what's the difference? I see the value difference in them, but in terms of scope?

So we had a report done by Osborne Engineering, and they did a condition assessment on it. So next year, we have high priorities, which would be addressing some spalling issues. And then the next year is addressing some decking and sidewalk issues.

So it's the same project, just two phases of it?

Yeah.

Minuteman light pole installation. That 150 has been in there for a while. At one point, we were going to outsource the FPL. Are we now bringing that back in to replace those? I noticed those lights actually are working for a while. blinking pretty radically.

Blinking means that they're going out.

No, I got that. And then there was about half of them out for about six months.

Yeah, we were able to find replacement heads for the existing lights out there. So we've been replacing them as they go out now. So that's made a tremendous difference.

So we can kick that out. Because like I said, that's been deferred the last two years, I believe.

And we're not working with FP&O for that?

So FPL will not use the existing conduit that's already in the ground. They would have to bore all new conduit. And with the amount of utilities that are already along Minuteman, I think it would be very unwise for us to do that. Agreed.

One question real quick while you're up there, Brad. The driving range upgrade, the 1.7, is that the off the tees thing that we... Cover the tees. I'm sorry, cover the tees?

Or whoever we decide to go with, yes. That concept. Yes, sir. Yep, that is correct.

And we think 28 is appropriate that we can get that solicited? Because I think we voted on that, I don't know, four months ago to get the... In concept.

And that depends on if there's a rev share option or another option. So there's a couple different ways to go with that, Commissioner. All right.

Okay, moving on to leisure services. We'll start off with Rec Center and Parks. They have just two items for fiscal year 2027. The software platform, which that's a replacement software for a software they currently use that's budgeted over in IT. And then they have a surface ramp road tennis pickleball court for $10,000.

So the software is the same as the initial year will be purchased here, but all the maintenance and out years is already in IT's budget?

Correct. And I believe there is a cost savings associated with that replacement item. OK. For the aquatic center, this slide shows their capital request. Right now, it is just the locker room plumbing for $45,000. And in fiscal year 28, they have updating the pool tile and a locker room resurfacing.

So, Andy, we just replaced the pool liner. Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay. And how long does that usually last?

That one is about 20 years. Okay. 15, 20 years.

Okay. So that's why we're not seeing another liner replacement.

No, we won't see that for some time.

Okay, great.

Yes, this is just the locker room plumbing.

We're going to have to pay the city of Cocoa for all their water.

No, no. You may not be a commissioner by then.

May not. November, I'm done. I'm done. You can run again in two years. I'm out of here. You want me to come back to this crazy budget in two years?

The pump station building? Yeah.

For $350? We've got our pay. Okay.

For the golf? Sure. What's in that building for it to be $350,000?

For the irrigation. Is that what it is?

Okay.

Yeah, it is for the irrigation. Nick can go over it. He works on it with a day-to-day basis. Okay.

Yes, good evening. It's not really the building. The building will remain. It's the guts inside the building. There's VFD drives that power three pumps, 275 horsepower pumps and a jockey pump. Those VFD drives are fried at this point. They work 80% of the time. So I think we have that in for next year is where it's been planned. But now that it's failing on us, we've moved it up. Without that, we cannot use our new irrigation system.

Do we replace the pumps ourselves or work on the pumps ourselves, or do we hire outside schools?

We have a preventative maintenance that come out quarterly. I've only been here nine months, but they've been out a few times in my time.

Nick, how old is that pump?

I believe 18 years. 18 years. Yeah, so it's 15 years, 15 to 20, but... It is obsolete. It's an obsolete system at this point.

It's surprising that wasn't put in when we put the irrigation system in. Yeah.

Brad? Well, it was in the budget. You accelerated it back, right?

Brad?

Hey, you guys all approved the budget.

I got a question for Brad.

That was it. Thank you.

Brad? Brad?

Just so you all are aware, too, Leisure Services is currently going out to bid for that pump house replacement. So you'll see that brought to you soon.

So I did have a question for Brad. And I think that's the right guy. At least he'd know. So speaking of pump replacements, and that's just for the sprinkler system at the golf course. Where in this budget do we show the pumps that pump the reuse water throughout the city?

That's in the water reclamation budget.

Did we already pass all that?

No.

We haven't got there yet? No. Okay. I want to see how much those pumps are.

He's got three slides for water rec for us to go over for those requests. They're coming up.

Okay. If it's $350,000 for three pumps to pump a Sprinkler system. I can't imagine what it would be for the Pumping all that reuse water.

Okay. The next slide is for the CRA fund you'll see the Rec Center design that we have in 2028 we also have mobile road barriers in fiscal year 27 that is for the police department Um for events and then we have a portion of cedar woodland brevard stormwater improvements and The design component of the brevard avenue street project that we discussed earlier Hannah same comment here on the color of money the cedar stormwater improvements

Is that, I notice there's a similar line item in the stormwater fund. Is this just spreading the cost?

Yes, this is for the. Between different funds? This is a shared cost between the stormwater fund and also CRA. CRA is paying for a portion of that same project. Got it, okay. But yes, it is the same project.

Got it.

The rec center is the same one down on Ramp Road? Correct. Just updating it, got it.

Mobile, what are mobile road barriers?

Wait. Chief Hewitt will be up here to answer that.

Yeah, there's signs they put out on the road when you have Friday Fests and all that stuff.

No, these are actually a little bit more complicated than that. Yeah. Yeah, Chris talked about it.

If they are, they should roll out on their own or something.

You can control them from the command center in Rockledge. Right.

Mayor Commission, the mobile barriers are essentially, right now we're kind of a soft target in downtown where we have a lot of events. And we have two major roadways going through the events, Friday Fest, Serving Santa's, the Art Festival. What you'll see usually if you're going southbound or northbound is we have our patrol cars parked on the right of way to illuminate the area. But then there's just wooden barricades, right? So it's not always times that it's intentional. It could be a medical event. It could be intentional. Several other factors of a car going too fast and they lose control. There's a traffic crash and they could go into the crowd. These are hardened barriers. They're extremely heavy, but they're mobile. We can drop them for Friday Fest, link them together. So if a car hits them at a high rate of speed, it'll essentially stop the vehicle within a certain amount of feet, depending on how fast they're traveling. If you all follow our social media this past week or the week before, We put out a video where a gentleman from outside of Cocoa Beach was going 98 miles an hour in a 35. So it does happen, whether it's intentional or not. But this would be a good way to protect the citizenry and tourists alike.

You move these with forklift?

No, there's actually a little jack stand with a couple of wheels where you can move them, but they are so heavy that if we deployed all 15 for an event that it comes with a trailer that a three-quarter ton would have to bring to the event location, and there's a pneumatic on the trailer to drop them.

So then you've got to push them in place?

It's essentially like a pulley system to where you would just, or a dolly system rather, and you would just put them up on their wheels and then move them into place and then drop them.

How often do you plan on using the new barriers? Once a month.

If they are approved, they will be out at these events.

No, and being that they're in the CRA, they can only be used here downtown. We can't move them anywhere else.

Hold on. You say it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to move those barriers that don't have wheels that people trip on, and hopefully these don't have tripping areas. I don't know. I haven't seen pictures of it. But this is something absolutely new that we do not have at this point.

That is correct.

I'm for it 100%.

And I guess extra man hours to have to deploy these compared to the other ones as well.

Extra 20 minutes. Okay.

Yeah, all we're trying to do is just harden these targets downtown because there's not a lot of room for error.

But it's a similar setup and breakout time as the current just standard barricades?

It's not much longer, no. We started thinking about this after the New Orleans incident where they ran into the

Yeah.

Downtown area, that's when we started thinking about this concept.

I'm all for them. I just want to make sure, to your point, we don't need a team of 20 guys out there.

That's not our belief at this time.

We also talked about putting bollards up.

That is correct.

In those places also. If any of you have a question about it or want to see what it looks like, you can stop by the PD. I'll meet with every one of you. Any residents that have questions about it due to the pricing, please stop by. I'll meet with each and every one of you and explain to you and show you a PowerPoint of how it works. The ballers I'm talking about is you just have a pole.

You have a pole in the ground and you have a cover. Yeah, they have those that come up, but those are... I'd probably be at a zero in that.

What about those bollards, though? Is that actually something that would be more cost-effective and easier to use?

If they're fixed and removed only for special occasions, yes. But if they're removed and people are going to drive over the covers that go on them and they're going to still fill up with water, then they're going to crowd okay and you got to put the poles in them they got handles on them you got some you got something i run over a cover on yeah and every day i know but this would be a whole bunch more of them now you can't get the pole in because the cover has marred up all right next all right okay so the next three slides is going to cover the utility system fund request

So this is slide one of three for the utilities fund. And this is what Brad was mentioning earlier.

So all these asterisks with the grants, are they 100% funded? Or do we know the numbers on those?

The $12 million is 100% funded. The rest will be SRF loans.

Okay. SRF loans.

Very low interest rate? Yeah. Negligible?

Correct, yeah. SRF loans, it's a state loan available specifically for water infrastructure improvement projects. And those are low interest loans that are done through the state. They're usually amortized over the year periods. We do currently have SRF loans.

Approximately what rate is that?

Some of the ones we have right now are in the 2%, 2.5% range. It just depends right now where The rates are, but there are buy-down options depending on the scope of the project and what kind of project it is.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Can I ask what the FDOT drainage project for Cape Canaveral is?

This is the bane of my existence.

So FDOT is doing a drainage project in Cape Canaveral next fiscal year, and it is requiring all local utilities to move their utilities out of the way so that they can put their stormwater pipes in the ground. So we currently have the port force main that runs down A1A that's going to be in conflict in about four areas with FDOT storm pipes, and they are requiring us to relocate that pipe so that it doesn't come into conflict.

You think FDOT would give everybody a grant for that? They won't.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you. That may be an item we could... reach out to folks and ask for some help on or influence their impact. It really does seem off that they would come into existing infrastructure and demand changes without any resourcing and just leverage that onto residents and voters of Brevard. It seems like we would have folks that care about that.

Yes, Commissioner Williams.

Oh, did you? You went past this slide. Sorry. Reuse storage tank mural project. There's 100,000 in your 1.4 million. You're short.

What's that? Which one?

Reuse storage tank mural project.

This is an enterprise fund So these funds for enterprise for stormwater for CRA for utilities these do not involve on ad valorem funds or The reserve balance that we spoke about earlier for general fund we can blow money on stuff like this with The reserve balance within the enterprise funds currently are healthy. They're meeting a Everything, they're sustaining itself because they have their own revenues that are generated to support their expenses.

Is anybody going to make a decision on what this mural is going to be? Or are we just going to tell somebody like they do around downtown and just throw up a mural?

We're working on it. It's a project that's being just discussed right now. I had the idea of putting murals on the tanks out there. Every so often we've got to paint them, right? So why not paint them with something that looks, you know, that's attractive rather than a dull beige or lime green or whatever.

How many is this for 100,000? Four tanks?

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's in a project. It'll be coming to an agenda item down the road.

Well, I suppose if you're going to spend. Hopefully after November. Yeah, definitely after November. 50 or 75,000 to paint them.

white what's an extra little bit to have them and just to add on another thought that i had was to put a city of coco beach on top of them so when we get google uh you know aerial pictures of it you can say this is coco beach you know what i'm saying like when you're another helicopter right right when you know that's be your part-time job when you're giving tours of the city of coco beach from the helicopter

What's the reclaimed distribution system rehab, the 400K and then the 700K recurring? Second from the bottom or third from the bottom?

Yes, so last year we did a Tier 1 assessment of our reclaimed distribution system. This will cover Tier 2 based on the recommendations from the Tier 1 report. And this aligns with one of the consent order items that we got with FDEP a couple years ago. So we need to show improvements on our reclaimed system to comply with that consent order.

Does that include pumps?

We don't have any pumps in the reclaimed budget next year.

No, or there's no pumps in this budget We do have a couple small pumps in this budget for the big pumps that pump the whole city They're all great shape.

No problem Yeah, I know I got that last line right there the 45,000 that is to refurbish one of our 250 reuse pumps 45,000 for that Refurbish refurbishing right versus pump that does the sprinkler system for the golf course for 170 000. those are 90 horsepower pumps those are very expensive okay we we just got new pumps for the water wreck like what three years ago or we ordered them or is that am i thinking else our inventory full of spare pumps throughout the past five years and that's on an enterprise fund as well i gotta keep that water moving right

yes yeah it's it's the utilities but we want to be diligent right if we don't need to spend we're all paying it in our water bill yeah i got it most of the focus is on the time on the millage he was asking about pumps but i'm saying our pumps are relatively new right a lot of our pumps are very new yeah okay and i have to say the the amount of water

I don't know if you know this off the top of your head, but the amount of water that we're pushing to irrigate the golf course compared to the amount of money we're pushing in wastewater to residents, what's the ratio there? Is it a... 50-50? Is it 60-40? Do you have any idea?

I don't have that number off the top of my head.

Did I ask that correctly? Do you understand what I'm saying, Ray?

You want to find the ratio of how much we're giving the golf course versus the residents?

Yeah, like gallons per minute. Are we pumping out on the golf course compared to gallons per minute pumping to city residents? I don't want to give you an inaccurate answer I'm just throwing that out there because it may just be the same because from what I understand is we can't just you can't use the water Reclaimed water pumps that we use for the city residents to pump the water on the golf course because it would That they're just not strong enough to handle it would create pressure issues in the right so and then also when there's Stoppages or breaks in the line Brad, right?

Yeah, because currently we're on restrictions.

How far away are these two pumps from each other? The one for the reclaim and the one for the... One's on the golf course and the other one's in the...

They're right across the street from each other.

Across the street, a couple thousand feet.

Would it be wise to have piping where they could be redundant for each other just in case?

There is piping existing under Tom Warner right now that leads to that pump house, but there are no pumps at our facility that are connected to that pipe currently.

So in the future, it would be wise to join those for redundancy where you could use either or just in the case of an emergency or whatever we need to do?

Yeah, Commissioner Tumulty has asked me to look into that. Okay.

Thank you. Just throwing a wild-eyed idea out of here. Is the sprinklers, if they're pumping reclaimed water at the golf course, can we not put them in the utility fund? No. Are they pumping reclaimed water out on the golf course?

It's water. It's just the water. It's not, we're not using. No, it's reclaimed water.

It's reclaimed water. Yeah. My point is if utilities pump in that reclaimed water, this gets it out of the general fund onto the utilities fund? Just an idea. Pumping the same water, whether it goes to your sprinklers or whether it goes to the golf course sprinklers.

What?

The water. The water is already. That's a great point.

So that is a great point. That pump could maybe be purchased through the enterprise fund possibly is what he's trying to say, right?

Yeah. I mean, so.

We're going to use that as a redundant backup. I get the idea.

Well, no, I mean the end user, right? I'm pumping reclaimed water in my yard. We're doing the same thing on the golf course. The golf course is a good asset to have to distribute the reclaim more.

If I'm doing the same thing, why am I not looking at it?

It's not something I think we can answer right now, but something we need to look into. Yeah, we will. It puts a cost on a larger tax base.

Why don't you put the $45,000 on the general fund, put the $350,000 on the general fund.

Don't forget. I do.

We'll evaluate further your suggestions.

Okay, our last slide.

Our last slide for the stormwater fund. You have fiscal year 2027 requests, all the outline years. Again, you'll see. In fiscal year 2028, it's a little bit higher for some of the projects that have been deferred.

So, Mayor, I would like to thank the staff for all being here, answering our questions, the public for being here. And if you wanted to go to public comment or commission comments or... wrap this up and give them another month or so to work on it. Are you done with your presentation?

Yes, sir, I am. Thank you. Thank you all. The next meeting that is associated with budget, it's going to be July 16th, where we set the max millage rate. And that concludes today's budget workshop.

And that will be at a regular commission meeting.

Correct. That is going to be on Thursday.

Anna, great job. Thank you so much. very hopeful that we have a much tighter process and discipline, so thank you for that. Thank you, Wes. Thank you, Hannah.

Thank you, Hannah, and I mean, I've been very pleased with you. You've been amazing since the day you stepped in here, so thank you.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Public comment, if you'd like to come up and ask questions or make a comment.

I don't know your name. KP Finker, Seminole name. A couple of remarks that I saw. Last year, Skip actually made a comment to improve these documents a little bit. When you say we have grant funds, that there would be a number associated with how much grant funds would be coming in, rather than just here's a $5.5 million project and there may be some grant funds. So it will be extremely helpful when you read these documents to see what we hope to get. We may not get it, but at least we hope so. Secondly, as a general comment, clearly this is a budget that kicks a lot of stuff down the road. You have clearly a military in mind, hence they're kicking the can down the road. I would urge you to think about this is the last year you can probably milk the cow. Get the military to the highest number that you can get. The next few years you will be suffering because the ad valorem taxes will go down. Nobody expects that We are fiscally responsible and vote against this tax reduction. That's probably not going to happen. So for the next few years, you'll be chasing money and you'll be begging for grants. This is your last chance to actually pull projects in rather than kicking them out. Just food for thought. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good comments. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Janice Scott, Cocoa Beach. OK, so I made a couple of observations that we went over, and it was great. Thank you. And I hope none of the staff, whatever your department, you don't take any of my comments personally. But as far as the driving range lift station for half a million dollars, there's another expense there, $1.8 million. That's $2.3 million just for the driving range. Following up on some comment. I wasn't quite sure where you were going commissioner to multi about the Gulf Reclaimed water consumption versus the residents, but I just did want to point out that we are we do pay We residents pay every month for I realize that you're a resident and you pay also but This is all going my whole Point of view as you know It's the incredible expense we pay for recreation. There are no stats who is using these facilities. Who's playing golf? Who's using the swimming pool? Who's using the skate park? There's landscaping for the skate park. I could pick out enough of these what I would call frivolous things on here, especially about the landscaping, because you know, We've got over a 20-year obligation to clean the invasive species out of the maritime hammock. There isn't one word in this budget about that. The leisure services, I thought when the USTA took over the tennis, they were going to, pretty basically take on the expenses. I see another. There are some maintenance things done last year. Now we have another $85,000 that we're doing at the tennis, which I thought the USTA was going to take care of those things. That was the big deal about USTA. You let us have a 10-year contract, and we're going to take care of everything. The skate park. As landscaping, I've mentioned that. There's another place, there's some landscaping. My notes are not as organized as they probably could have been if I'd seen the budget ahead of time. But in some communities where the kids get to use the skate park for free, they make them have fundraisers to raise money to do amenities for their skate park if you want to have lights. Here's the other thing about the lights. I don't know if that school contract requires us to pay $10,000 a year for lights. But back in the day when we had a big Donnybrook with the Little League over paying for lights, this is historical here, I think the Elks Club stepped up and paid for the lights. Those are things that your fraternal organizations, the 501s in your community, may help you out with. Why are we obligated as residents to pay for the lights that are never turned off when it's raining? You come over the bridge at 10 o'clock at night, it's pouring down rain, and the lights are on on the ballpark. Let's see. I'm just mean-spirited, I can tell you. Oh, and the ISO rating. Even though the fire station's at the end of my street, I never got any decrease. It's an ISO 2 or something from where I could hop, skip, and jump to the fire station. So I think that's an insurance conversation everybody likes to have. I would not build a new fire station because it's going to do something for the ISO rating for Snug Harbor or for the north side. But it's nice that you're going to get that grant. That would be a very nice thing. If you do intend to rebuild the fire station, absolutely with the grant. If not, maybe defer it like some other things. One last comment. I saw that the pump for the gas station is being replaced. What is the consumption? How much gasoline is being pushed through public works for the police? I know, but we never see the figure.

On all the city vehicles.

Maybe it could be a public figure. Thank you.

Thank you, Janice. Go ahead, Drake.

Rick Anderson, 1800 Minuteman Causeway. I just see a whole bunch of flashing red lights and clanging signals. So it appears that during the past year we withdrew 33% from our reserve fund during a time of relative prosperity just to balance last year's budget. We have to go probably on the assumption that Florida voters are going to vote themselves a tax cut in November. And by the way, thank you all for doing the incredible amount of homework you have to do to go through those numbers page by page and number by number because it's an overwhelming task. And obviously I wasn't able to do it before the meeting, so I'm talking more in general trends. But just looking at all those slides, I saw fiscal year 28 loaded up with this and this and this and this. So in 28, and then there was discussion of, pushing a couple of the 27 items, particularly $5 million for the fire station and for the park on Ocean Park Boulevard, pushing them back into 28. My opinion is that the 27 budget, at the very least, should try to restore the $6 million that we took out of the reserve fund, which shouldn't have been taken out in the first place. And at the very least, it should fund everything in 27 that we want to do without deferring anything to 28. And if it's something we're going to want to defer to 28, you either have to decide, are we going to do it at all? Or if we're going to do it, we need to do it in 27.

Thank you. And you're right. So that's something that Hannah and the staff has done. Like she said, she asked, and I think a city manager asked, to reduce your budget by 10%, which will put us in where we're supposed to be for reserves, back up to the $10 million. But that said, in order for us to be, without digging into our reserves, we wanted to come up with another $800,000 for us to be 100%. neutral. So we will be there. We're going to make that happen. And Hannah's actually done a great job with the financing for that. So even though, yes, that was a $6.7 million I don't even know what you want to call it. It was not correct how it was done.

It paid for this building, didn't it?

It did. But it forced us to be very fiscally conservative this year to, and we still got this billing paid for, but it actually forced us to, to, to be very conservative with the budget. And we actually, I think at the end, we're going to come out ahead of where we would have been if we didn't do it. So I think Hannah's actually, um, doing the right thing. If we can cut back another 800,000, we're going to be, our reserves are going to be right. And we're not going to have that extra 7.8 million, which was a loan that we would have had to take. So.

Rick so exactly why I have never voted for a budget is I've been sounding these alarms as deficit spending is unsustainable so I think we have much better discipline we have much better skill set that we can start accomplishing things but you're exactly right we've kicked the can on the road and we're kicking a lot of more cans down the road I just don't agree that raising taxes is the right way to recover I think the discipline to get us there but that's precisely why I've never voted for a budget because we deficit spend for the last three years that I've been a commissioner so hopefully we won't this year we'll see but Good point.

Thank you. You can go. We've got a few more people. Go ahead.

I can't get back through that door. Greg Lund, Barilla Lane, Cocoa Beach. I think there's a couple ways to look at it. And what I heard tonight at this meeting was how we have to cut this, cut that. We have to delay this project, delay that project. In the end, you either increase revenues or you cut your expenses. And I think that we need to have a paradigm shift in this community about increasing our revenues instead of cutting our expenses. When you defer a project that's going to make a couple million dollars a year in revenues until 2028, and I'm talking about the driving range, it doesn't make sense in my book because it's a revenue generating project. And I think we can look at a lot of underutilized assets in our community and turn them into revenue generating projects. And I also think we need to tap into other sources of income in this community that haven't been thought about. That's really all I have to say. I don't think we're looking at it in the right way. We're talking about cut this, cut that instead of why can't we increase this revenue and generate more income for the city.

Thank you, Greg. Thanks. I think that's extremely well said, and I think it's something that, city manager, you're already looking into, but the cut, cut, cut is where there's waste completely, but the city has a job to do, and I think the city manager is exactly thinking down that path. There's immense amount of wealth that moves through the city, but not to the city, and the opportunities associated with that, we're foolish to not take them.

Any other public comment? Going, going.