City Commission - workshop

Good morning, everybody. Oh, thank you. That's so nice. Welcome to our 2027 proposed budget workshop here on August 13th. We're going to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. This meeting is being conducted live with a physical quorum present. The material for today's meeting is available online at www.coconutcreek.gov, and the meeting is broadcast live. I would like to say welcome back, everybody. Welcome back. Hopefully everybody had a nice summer, right? All right, hopefully we didn't perspire too much as we usually do here, but we're now gonna begin the discussion item regarding the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget. City Clerk, can you please remind commissioners and staff some things? And we'll call the roll after that.

As we begin, we kindly ask that all mobile devices be silenced to ensure the best possible sound quality. Please speak clearly and directly into the microphone, and remember to mute your microphone when you're not speaking. Should anyone experience difficulty hearing at any time, please raise your hand and a hearing device will be provided to you. Thank you for your cooperation. And now we will do the roll call. Commissioner Rydell.

Here.

Commissioner Welch.

Here.

Commissioner Raley.

Here.

Vice Mayor Brody. Here. Mayor Wasserman. Here. City Manager Rose.

Here. Here.

All right, we're going to kick it over to City Manager Rose to open our discussion for this workshop. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Commission. Good morning. It's so nice to see you all this morning. I'd like the opportunity to present to you the draft budget for 2027. It's important to understand that this budget reflects the beginning of our three-phase plan that we discussed at our workshop in March. specifically to deal with the potential property tax reform that may be considered in November. Additionally, we framed this budget with an understanding that significant hardships are being experienced in our communities. Families in our communities are experiencing inflation, and you all made it very clear to us that our mission was to draft a lean budget, which we've done. Phase one of our strategic cost containment strategy, as discussed in February, included reducing positions wherever possible and limiting training and travel, which we have done over the course of this year. Within the budget, you'll see a reduction of a total of six full-time equivalent positions. At your direction, we have also scrubbed approximately $2.7 million from the budget. That's principally by deferring capital improvement projects and extending replacements of vehicles and computers and other equipment that we think we can extend the life of a few examples of those include removing for instance the traffic calming from our current budget additional outdoor park amenities existing greenway enhancements and delaying lighting at existing city facilities It's equally important to note that we've stayed focused on the priorities, those priorities that we identified of funding the fire, fire administration building, the police department remodel, and making sure we meet our obligations associated with the development in the Main Street, the infrastructure of the park and those types of facilities. i really want to send a great big thank you before we start to the budget team and to all the department directors they heard you very clearly this was to be a lean year there were no new programs proposed by the departments and you will not see any new programs proposed for inclusion in the budget and at their at your direction they trimmed wherever possible so i really want to thank them and particularly the budget team, has just done a tremendous job. The level of detail is exemplary. So I really want to thank them, Peter Gay, Veronica, and Karen specifically. And with that, I'd like to turn it to Peter Gay, who's going to start the presentation.

all right mayor vice mayor commissioners good morning everyone good morning um so today we're going to go through a brief overview of the budget process we're also going to look at the financial overview and touch on property tax reform briefly we're also going to walk through fund overview of our major operating funds and then we'll end where we'll walk through the proposed budget including all the department budgets as well as any capital improvement programs So I'm going to turn it over to Veronica, our budget and grants manager, who's going to talk a little bit more about the budget process. And she's also going to discuss some of the accomplishments that we've had for this fiscal year.

Thank you, Peter Gay. Before we get into the numbers, I want to take a moment to walk through how we arrived at the proposed budget. We begin by giving departments target amounts to work within. This provides departments with a financial framework and encourages them to prioritize their requests based on available resources. From there, we bring the city together through our strategic planning workshop. This is an important step because it allows us to connect the city's financial resources to our broader strategic priorities with the direction of the city commission. departments then develop their operating and capital improvement requests with those priorities in mind. So we're not simply asking departments what they would like to have in their budgets. We're asking them to identify what is needed to accomplish their objectives and advance the city's strategic direction. Once those requests are submitted, finance takes a comprehensive look at the proposed budgets. We review the request from both the financial and organizational perspective, looking at available resources, historical spending, funding requirements, capital needs, and the overall sustainability of the requests. then commission requests and resident input are incorporated where applicable this is an important part of making sure the budget reflects not only departmental needs but also the priorities and expectations of the community we then move into meetings with the city manager and departments this gives us an opportunity to have more detailed conversations about priorities requests and trade-offs and to make adjustments where necessary all of those pieces ultimately come together in the proposed budget that is being presented to you today Before we look forward, let's recognize what we've already accomplished thus far. We developed a balanced fiscal year 2027 budget while maintaining high quality services. This is particularly important because balancing the budget isn't simply about making the numbers work. It's about making thoughtful decisions about where we invest, where we can find efficiencies, and what we can realistically sustain. We maintain the city's millage rates. We preserve strong reserves and financial flexibility. We also took a proactive approach to the potential for property tax reform. With all the uncertainty surrounding what future legislative changes could mean for municipalities, we've been very intentional about preparing for that possibility rather than waiting until the changes are enacted. One of those examples is controlling expenditure growth. As part of that effort, we eliminated six positions. These were vacant positions, so this allowed us to reduce our ongoing personnel costs without disrupting existing employees or current service delivery. And of course, we continue to pursue grants and other external funding whenever we can. The city's capital improvement program represents approximately $51.8 million in planned investment, and that investment touches virtually every area of the city, from public safety and utilities to transportation, technology, parks, and facilities. Public safety remains one of our highest priorities, and we've continued advancing the planning and development of Fire Station 113 and Fire Administration, while also continuing to plan for improvements to the police department. We've also continued making progress in Main Street, including the Cullum Road infrastructure improvements. We're also continuing the Village Green and Lakeside Plaza initiatives, which are part of the city's larger efforts to create vibrant, connected spaces within the community. We've advanced the redundant fiber optic ring, which strengthens the city's technology infrastructure and resiliency. We've also continued the modernization of our advanced metering infrastructure, or AMI, which will improve the efficiency and timeliness of utility meter data and ultimately provide better information for both the city and our utility customers. And we haven't lost sight of quality of life investments. We've continued progress on parks and recreation improvements, including Lakeside Park and Oak Trails Park, along with broader improvements to our facilities and park system. Another area where we've seen significant progress this year is in public safety, technology, and innovation. We are using technology not simply to modernize the city, but to make our community safer, improve response times, strengthen resiliency, and prepare the city for the future. We've implemented the police drone program, giving our police department another tool to enhance situational awareness and support public safety operations. We've also implemented the school zone safety program strengthening our focus on protecting children and improving safety in and around our schools. We've continued the community paramedic program, which allows us to take a more proactive approach to connecting residents with appropriate services and resources. We've expanded Opticom traffic preemption and emergency response technology, helping emergency vehicles move through intersections more efficiently. and we've continued our police and fire accreditation and performance initiatives. The same focus on preparedness and performance extends into the city's technology infrastructure. We've continued strengthening our cybersecurity and disaster recovery capabilities. We've also extended our use of Microsoft 365, Copilot, AI, and automation. We're looking at how these tools can help employees work more efficiently, reduce repetitive tasks, and ultimately improve how we deliver services. At the same time, we're being very intentional about how we use artificial intelligence by utilizing our partnership with Nova Southeastern University, which is helping us assess opportunities for AI across the organization and develop a thoughtful roadmap for implementation. And we've continued advancing the redundant fiber optic ring, which is another important investment in the city's technology, resiliency, and connectivity. Our accomplishments this year also reflect a broader commitment to the long-term vitality and quality of life of Coconut Creek. That means creating an environment where businesses can grow, where residents have access to housing opportunities, and where our parks and public spaces continue to be places our community is fond of. We continued implementation of the Main Street development, which remains a significant component of the city's long-term vision for economic development and community identity. We expanded our business outreach, retention, and redevelopment efforts, and we've also advanced the Platinum Permit Concierge Program, which is designed to provide a higher level of service and assistance to businesses navigating the city's development and permitting processes. We've also supported commercial redevelopment and diversification of the tax base, as well as advancing affordable and workforce housing initiatives, including home buyer assistance and multifamily rental initiatives. And finally, quality of life remains at the heart of what we do, We've continued implementation of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan while advancing improvements at Lakeside Park and Oak Trails Park. The final area I want to highlight is regional leadership and resiliency. Many of the issues that affect Coconut Creek don't stop at our municipal boundaries. Over the past year, the city has continued to be an active voice on those issues and has worked to make sure Coconut Creek's priorities are represented. We've continued our advocacy related to the Florida Turnpike expansion, recognizing the potential long-term impact that regional transportation decisions can have on our community. We've also advanced our maps for tax transportation projects and regional mobility of initiatives. These investments help improve connectivity and mobility while leveraging transportation funding available through the county. We've also coordinated with Broward County on PFAS and future water and wastewater infrastructure needs. This is an area where planning ahead is critical with regulatory requirements, treatment standards, infrastructure needs, and associated costs that can have significant long-term financial implications for our utility system and our residents. We've also been preparing for the implementation of recycling services beginning in fiscal year 2027 while continuing our leadership in regional solid waste and recycling initiatives. We continue to strengthen resiliency planning, and we've leveraged partnerships with Broward County, state agencies, and federal agencies to advance city priorities and bring additional resources, expertise, and advocacy to the table. Now, Peter Gay will share on the financial overview of the city.

Thank you, Veronica. So overall, the city remains financially strong. As we approach build out, we have potential legislative changes, existing contract changes, inflation, and other economic uncertainty. We're ongoing different challenges that we have to face. So some of these include reviewing department requests and capital projects. um working in inflation and increases in contracts and prices in the budget working on competing priorities you know from different departments putting in different requests making sure we evaluate all of those and move those items forward that are essential and also any legislative changes So I wanted to touch really quickly on some of the legislative mandates for this year that we're facing. First of all, we had changes to the Live Local Act and affordable housing where the state is continuing to expand the state preemption over local zoning and land use decisions for affordable housing. We also have the building permit and inspection fee reform with new requirements and how we need to calculate those building permit fees and timelines for review. We also have Florida DOES requirements and oversight where now we're required to do a second budget starting next year that shows a 10% reduction. It also requires us to post certain costs on our website moving forward. We also have the emergency related building fee restrictions where if there is an emergency, we're restricted in what revenues we can increase in terms of building permit fees. And lastly, we have property tax reform. which is pretty much a constitutional amendment, Amendment 3, that's going to be placed on the ballot for a vote from the residents in November. So this slide right here, I just wanted to touch on really quick and provide an overview of Amendment 3. So essentially what this amendment does, it increases the homestead exemption for those properties that are homesteaded by $100,000, and it will be effective if approved January 1st of 27, which would affect our revenues in fiscal year 28. And then in fiscal year 29, they would add an additional 100,000 homestead exemption, making the total to 250,000 homestead exemptions by that second year, which will directly affect the city's revenues. And then thereafter, the state would get the authority to continue to increase the homestead exemption until it's fully eliminated over time. I do know that there was a lawsuit with the language on the ballot that was filed and they had to revise the language I think within 10 days and that 10 days will be up tomorrow. So we're waiting and watching to see what happens from that perspective. So just to recap the big picture related to property tax reform. as well as we'll go into our phased approach of how we're going to deal with these changes. This slide is important. I just wanted to point out it shows residential homesteaded properties, the taxable values. So we start with the market value. That's the first large column. That's basically the value of the home on the market. It's normally adjusted down by maybe 10 to 15% from the property appraiser. And then we have the assessed values, and those differences will be any caps that the state has placed on how we can increase the market value and taxable values. So that includes Saver Homes. It also includes the cap of 10% on non-homestead exemptions. After that, you have all the exemptions, homestead, senior exemption, military exemptions, and you arrive at the taxable value. Now, this amendment would affect the exemptions for homesteaded properties, and it would be reducing that line item there, and it would also be capping the increase for non-homestead exemptions. Right now, it's 10%, and it would reduce that to 5%, where that amount can't grow more than 5% per year. so i just i wanted to point out that the percentage of homestead properties in terms of taxable value is approximately 36.1 so that's the percentage we'd be looking to to lose over the course of several years if this was approved And this is just another slide that shows that information in a different context. You can see that we are a heavy residential community in terms of taxable value. Residential property accounts for approximately 78% of our taxable value. what I did want to point out here is from a residential perspective we do have about 20,000 units that are on the tax roll and about 13,000 of those are homesteaded properties so that's about 65% of total residential units that are actually homesteaded when you compare that to taxable value they're at about 46% and that's because they have the benefit of the saver home increases as well as the current homestead exemption. So this slide right here basically just shows the impact of that reform on our property tax revenue. And you can see we start out with where we are right now in fiscal year 27. And in 28, we're looking at a 15% reduction. In 29, it's going to be a cumulative 26%. And then beyond, it's going to get as high as 35%. So in terms of dollar values for fiscal year 28, we would be looking at a $6.9 million reduction. In 29, the cumulative effect would be 11.4, and then beyond it would be approximately $16 million in lost revenues if this was approved. So some of the options, like Sheila mentioned, we're taking a gradual approach to preparing for the impacts if this is approved, and we're gonna do that over a three-year term. So the first phase, phase one, we've already started in fiscal year 26, which is implementing a soft hiring freeze, and then we have strategically delayed fill-in vacant positions also. We have restricted travel, any discretionary travel and expenditures. We've been looking at a little bit more and we've also eliminated six vacant full-time positions as Sheila mentioned earlier. We do estimate through all these efforts through vacancies, reducing spending and reducing the FTEs that we would have approximately $2 million set aside by the end of this fiscal year. that we will utilize in order to help bridge that revenue gap if the amendment is actually approved. The next phase, which we will start in fiscal year 27, will be limiting any new initiatives and expansion of programs. I do want to say that this is the first year in several years we've had no program modifications, no requests from the departments for any new programs or expansion of programs and so forth. We've also extended useful life for our capital replacement items like our vehicles and our computer equipments. And we've also only advanced those essential capital projects. Sheila mentioned that at your direction we did find ways to defer spending. So we have about $6.7 million at capital that we have deferred into future years in preparation. We have also established a wish list of funded items that are currently in the fiscal year 27 budget that we're gonna place on hold. So basically they're already funded, but we're just accumulating that list as we work through the overall process of coming up with a game plan. if amendment three is approved and and the items on the wish list are basically just things that we're already evaluating that we would hold on until we know the outcome of the vote in november before we spend any of those fundings um we're also going to continue to tighten our annual spending we're going to review and renegotiate contracts where appropriate we're going to prioritize any discretionary initiatives and and strategically eliminate or cut back where appropriate And then we're also going to create a revenue enhancement team. That name is still subject to change, but we're going to get together a group of representatives from the different departments to look at revenue capabilities, like what type of revenues can municipalities legally charge, what are we currently charging, what are we not charging, when was the last time we updated those revenues, and see what the outcome will be for enhancing some of those revenue streams. And then the third phase of this gradual adjustment would be to implement some of those revenue enhancements that we identified in fiscal year twenty seven. So some of the areas that we are looking at are EMS revenues. Right now in our policy we do have a clause where we We are able to write off the charges for residents through EMS. Right now our process is we will pursue payment through insurance carriers and we will send them notification letters to get payments through insurance carriers, but the balance is written off if there's no insurance or that information is not received. So a lot of other municipalities in the county, they do not have that requirement, so we're evaluating that right now to see if that is an option for us moving forward. We're also looking at credit and debit card convenience fees. We pay about 300,000 in credit and debit card fees. That amount has increased over the years with all these reward cards right now individuals are using to accumulate points. So we're looking to implement a convenience fee where we can recoup those charges. We're also evaluating the potential of an alarm registration process through the police department. That's in the early stages of research right now. We're gonna be looking at our parks and recreation fees, We're currently calculating full cost recovery for those fees. That's the first phase of our plan and then we will continue to evaluate that and bring that back to the commission later in the year or closer to December for evaluation. And then we're also looking at potential opportunities with cell towers or we do have some vacant land also. So we're looking at possibilities for public-private partnerships or use of that land to help in the future. We're gonna be implementing other operational changes and adjustment we identify. We're gonna align staffing levels with available resources through attrition. We're also gonna look at contingencies and reserves to see how much we can realistically pull down from that to get us through the next three years. We're gonna continue to tighten annual spend. We're also gonna look at our sponsorship policy to see where we can make adjustments there as well as if there's any opportunities to outsource any services or partner with any other government agencies. We're gonna look at lease versus purchase options and also look at any pay for performance or adjustments in terms of compensation and benefits as a package if we have to make those adjustments. So I'm not gonna go through this list in detail, but basically what this is, these are just some areas that we identified that could help bridge that budgetary gap if that amendment is approved. So it's just some of the items that are one-time items we provide per year or recurring items that we could reduce those costs. For example, we're looking at streamlining the Butterfly Festival to see what options we have in terms of rides. Also Creek Cuisine at the Butterfly Festival to see if that's something we can adjust. we've already started to extend the useful life of fleet and computers we're not looking to make too drastic of the changes where it's going to affect the safety and response times of our police officers with you know our fire personnel with these vehicles but we are going to be looking at that to see how we can streamline that we also have to look at the butterfly express right now for the shuttle service we do get reimbursed reimbursed from the county through surtax dollars but we fund the Butterfly Express through city funds so we're gonna be looking at that to see where we move forward from there and we're gonna continue to look at training and travel amongst other things that are on this list. So before I get into the financial highlights of the budget, I wanted just to pause a little bit just to see if there are any questions or if we just wanted to move forward.

Is there anybody,

has anything to say at this point or you want her to keep moving and grooving moving and grooving all right perfect all right so um total proposed fiscal year 27 budget for all city funds is approximately 268 million dollars of that includes 52 million in capital improvement projects throughout the city so uh several years ago i believe in fiscal year 25 we identified three major capital priorities for the city which was fire station 113 the police department improvements and main street so we have been planning for that financially since fiscal year 25 and now we're at the point where we have to budget the actual capital for fire station 113 um and that's included in that capital improvement program to the tune of 26 million dollars now we are going to be issuing debt to cover that cost so it's not cash that is coming straight out of the city's pockets but because of how we have to to budget because of budget and accounting requirements we have to put the full 26 million dollars in the capital budget and then we have an offset in revenue for debt proceeds to cover that We also have $6.4 million in surtax projects, including the Column Road expansion for the Main Street area. So essentially the developer is gonna be completing that work, but we have to budget on the expense side to be able to reimburse them. So we would reimburse them and then we would get reimbursed through the county through surtax dollars for that project. Staffing is proposed to remain the same. And this is, of course, after we've already reduced FTEs by six. And we have some capital projects, capital outlays of about 600,000 included in the budget. These are essential new or replacement items that we believe are needed to continue operations. And again, no new program modification requests. So in terms of payroll adjustments, we do create the compensation package for our staff. We develop that based on the premise of promoting equitable and competitive market wages for our employees. Our employees do work hard. They help us bring our programs to life and we wanna make sure that they're paid competitively. So the adjustments normally are determined annually based on the consumer price index, comparison with surrounding cities, and any budgetary impacts that the changes would have for the city. So for general employees, based on that information, we're recommending a 3.5% COLA. In accordance with the collective bargaining agreements, there's a 3.5% increase for police lieutenants, sergeants, and officers. The police school resource officers that are contracted, part-time officers, and elected officials by code goes up by the consumer price index, which is 3.8%, and we're still going through fire negotiations, so those increases will be determined later. In terms of health insurance, we're looking at a 6.9% increase in premiums across all plans, and that was negotiated down from 12%, so thank you, HR, for that. And it is based on industry increases as well as our experience rate. For general employees, essentially for employees, we also increase our contribution rate to 85% for those on the high deductible plan to help offset some of that increase. And we're going to have the same dollar value applied to those on the buyout plan. And for the third year in a row, we are continuing the $1,000 contribution to the HSA account for those employees on the high deductible plan. And we also had several adjustments to the FRS contribution rates, which is determined by the state. We had to incorporate into the budget. So with that, I'm gonna go really high level through the fund reviews. We basically have four major operating funds, the general fund, street construction and maintenance fund, wastewater, water and wastewater fund, and the stormwater fund. So the general fund is the largest operating fund that accounts for approximately 50% of the city's total budget. This fund provides funding that services for our residents, including police and fire rescue and emergency response services. It also provides parks and recreation amenities for our residents. facility maintenance and upkeep of all our facilities and parks for planned community development for information technology capabilities and also for administrative support This is just a summary of the general fund revenues. It shows our adopted budget from last year compared to our proposed budget, and it shows an increase of $7 million, and I just wanted to walk through that a little bit with you. So the first revenue item is property taxes, and that is by far the largest single revenue source for the city, and it funds our public safety services that we provide, amongst other services, but a lot of it is used for public safety. And that is going up by $2.4 million, and that's just the increase in valuation for this year. The millage rate remains the same. We have some changes in franchise and utility fees from electric services, and that just changes when electric fees changes and uses increase. We also have charges for services is going up by $2 million. A large part of that is our fire assessment as well as for our solid waste assessment and also EMS transport revenues is going up by about 400,000. And lastly, I talked about the $2 million that we're setting aside this year to be used for future years. That's the last large increase in appropriated fund balance. It's just how we have to account for it to move it forward into the next fiscal year. The next slide is the summary of the general fund expenses and you can see how that's broken out. We have a total of $3 million or a 4% increase in personal services and that includes increases for all departments funded out of the general fund. That includes police department, fire department, all the internal admin departments. And that is limited to the 4% because of the changes we did make during this fiscal year with eliminating positions and restricting growth. The next largest item is the transfer out to the debt service fund. So that is for the debt service for Fire Station 113. So we had increased the millage rate three years ago in preparation for this. And now we're at the point where we're going to be starting that capital project. So we're just on the accounting side moving those funds around to be able to make those debt service payments once we issue that debt. And then the last item is resources available. And again, that's the savings from phase one that we've accumulated to move forward with. So this slide is just the new capital outlay requests in the general fund. We're not gonna go into details. A lot of it is just new items or replacement for items that need to be replaced. We will discuss that in more details as we go through the budget and walk through each department pages. So the proposed rates for the upcoming year, the property tax millage rate, we propose to remain the same at 6.8988. The annual fire assessment is proposed to increase by 10%. It's part of our long-term plan just to cover any annual increases and then prepare for any upcoming changes in terms of fire services. The solid waste collection and disposal rate is going to increase to $493.24 per year, and that is to cover the weekly recycling efforts that are going to start on October 1st. And these rates were the same rates that are going to be included on the trim notices, which the property appraiser started to mail those out yesterday, and they will continue to mail those out through August 24th. this summary um just shows what um you know based on a average taxable value which this is our the true taxable average taxable value for coconut creek of 292 000 the impact that all these rates are going to have on our residents so in terms of ad valorem taxes if you're homesteaded your taxes your taxable value cannot increase more than 2.7 percent So keeping the rate the same, you're going to see between all three of those revenue sources an annual increase of $254 or $21 per month. So in terms of property tax valuation, we experienced a 6.41% increase in taxable values. 5.56% of that was due to reassessment whenever properties turn over and they're reassessed. And 0.85% was due to new construction. That generated about an additional $360,000 for the city. So that's where you'll see the fruits of all our economic development efforts with new developments. That increase was from Mazda expansion and Lincoln, Sprouts, Extra Space Storage, and Cali Coffee all made up that increase based on new construction. And then, of course, the Save Our Homes increase was 2.7% this year by state law. That is capped at 3%, and it is based on the CPI, which was 2.7%. And this is just a history of our millage rate, just showing where we've come for the past 18 years and the changes there. If you just wanted to point out that anywhere you see increases, there's an explanation in fiscal year 11. That was when we had recession and tax reform, so the rate was increased then. We also increased it again in fiscal year 18 when we transitioned to the county dispatch services, and then we increased it in fiscal year 25 to fund those three major capital priorities that we identified. And this chart just shows how we compare to the millage rate for other municipalities in Broad County. We have operating and in-debt millage rate, and then the total rates, and we still remain within the top two-thirds countywide.

Can you just share about the city debt column, what that represents?

Sure. So there are different ways to fund capital projects. And one of them is to issue a general obligation bond. And basically, that is backed by the tax authority and the tax base of the municipality. So it would have to go to the voters for approval. So some cities go that option. and basically whatever capital needs they have, they will go to the voters, they'll vote on it, and then they will calculate what that millage rate needs to be to make that repayment of that debt. You're welcome. All right, in terms of the fire assessments, this chart just shows how we compare last year and this year with some of the surrounding cities, and you can see that we're still within the ballpark with the surrounding cities in terms of the fire assessment fees that we have. And then solid waste also, which is a comparison of fiscal year 26 adopted rates with the proposed rates. And the increase here is really the addition of recycling services for the transport for recycling as well as the processing fees for us to bring recycling services back. And we also added fees for the tax collector that we have to cover. there and and and this is just our efforts with recycling to really implement it again and we have some options to help make it work we're going to be doing a very robust outreach program for the community these recycling vehicles will also come with technology that will help identify any contaminated items so this will help us with that process as we move forward The next major fund is the Street Construction Maintenance Fund. And as you can see, there were no major changes here in the fund summaries for this fund. So this fund basically, the revenues come from fuel taxes as well as shared revenues from the state of Florida. And we also get transportation surtax funded from the county for the community bus program. And the expenses include increases for any personal costs for the salary and adjustments we spoke about earlier, and then other minor increases in this fund. So no major variances here. The next major fund is the Water and Wastewater Fund, which is primarily supported by water and wastewater fees. It's pretty much a self-supporting fund where those fees are set just to recoup the cost to actually run that operation. So as you can see here, there was actually a reduction in the budget here because we were able to spread the capital cost over some more, and we also got some grant funding for us for one of our major projects, which is the northeast utility expansion for about $550,000. um the major increase here is from the operating expenses of about 400 000 and that's all due to the pass-through fees that we do get from broad county because we really don't have our own water plan and do our own sewer treatment so that is done through a contract with the county and that's just passing along those contractual increases So in terms of revenues, like I mentioned, it's funded through water and wastewater rates, which are scheduled to increase by ordinance by either 2.5% CPI or the increase from Barrett County, and that is effective on June 1st of each year. We continue to work with the county on incorporating any rate increases in anticipation of any PFAS requirements. I do know that they are working now to work on a design and get their bids together for the improvements they have to make to their facility in order to meet those PFAS requirements. They're gonna be issuing debt and they're gonna have debt service and we're gonna have a portion of that debt service that we're going to have to pay. So we're continuing to work with them to see how we can incorporate those into our fees and how we can plan for that whenever that debt is issued and need to be repaid. On the expense side, we had increases in personal services costs, as well as the increases with Broad County. From a capital improvement perspective, we have recurrent infrastructure maintenance costs of about 4.8 million. The Northeast Utility Expansion Project, which is to put a fourth main in that area, I believe it's around 74th Street and 36th. That's about a million dollars, but we got grant funding for 550,000, and then we had some water storage tank rehabilitation planned for that fund. And the last operating fund is the stormwater management fund, and that is funded primarily by stormwater fees, and there were no major increases there. We actually have a decrease in our capital program as well as our capital outlay. The stormwater fee for a single family home is approximately 524 per month, and that's gonna increase by CPI to 542. And we do have some upcoming capital improvement programs coming out of this fund for stormwater drainage improvement and concrete carbon, and that's just our normal recurring purchases. And this is a summary of the other funds that are not the major operating funds. I'm just gonna go over this really quickly. I won't go one by one, but the first one is the surtax, transportation surtax funds, and you can see that the requested amount for 27 is 6.8 million, and all of that would be paid from county funds. We also have the Community Improvement Fund as well as the Seminole Mitigation Fund that has some balances there. Now those are funds we get from our agreements with the Seminole Tribe of Florida and that can be used for capital projects as well as any costs related to the Main Street area. And those are the funds we have been earmarking and setting aside to also help with our three major capital projects. are part of the debt proceeds are going to come from those funds. So we've just been accumulating that over time to plan for those expenses. We also have the debt service fund increased significantly, but again, that is because we're planning to issue debt and repay those debt. And then we also have a new capital projects fund and you see that that is $26.5 million and that is for the fire station. We have to budget the full capital this year and then budget the loan proceeds from that. And then the last one is the grant fund that I wanted to highlight because we are trying to leverage grant dollars wherever we can and in this year's budget we have about $2.6 million that we're gonna be pursuing to help offset the cost of some of the capital projects.

Can you speak on the affordable housing fund increase?

All right. So the affordable housing increase. So we do budget for any linkage fee payments that are going to come in from any of the developers. So the increase there would just be from any revenues that they're collecting through that linkage fee, as well as any interest that is earned and the proceeds in that fund. Now, that balance that we have right here, we are going to set aside about $1.1 million of that. It's going to be used to help fund the homebuyer purchase program we have in the Main Street area. And then the remaining, the workforce housing for the rental piece is going to be used through another revenue stream to fund those. Those are all included in the budget.

And just share for the record where the funds for that comes from?

for the workforce housing, the rental?

Yeah, no, for the affordable housing fund. How does it get funded?

All right, so for the affordable housing, that one is the linkage fee that the developers have to pay whenever they come in and they're gonna have an impact on the city for that new development, and they have to pay into that fee, and that's where that comes from.

I'm sure it'll be talked about later, but there is no property taxes that go to this fund, is that correct?

No, their property taxes do not go to the affordable housing fund. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Any other questions?

Okay.

All right. So I think that's it before we review the proposed budget. So I think we're doing good on time. Anybody wants to pause?

Any questions? I think what we should do is I'm pretty sure everybody on the dais has gone through the budget and looked at different items and have different questions about different things for the departments. I think rather than going through each department you know because we just listened and i think it's you know i think more i think we need to become more engaged in the conversation um that if somebody wanted to talk about some things that they a department they wanted to call up i think we should kind of do it that way i have no problem jumping ahead but if somebody here wants to uh you know if uh vice mayor or commissioner welch if you or whoever wants to jump in if you have a department that you want to speak to first something that you want to talk about let's roll with it let's just do it is there anybody who'd like to yeah i'd like to hear from all the departments okay i i agree i think then if we don't have any comments we can just move on to the next but it's it's the will of the and commissioner rydell

Yeah, I'd like to move through chronologically as we normally do. All right.

Let's roll with the first one.

All right, okay. So as we walk through the budget, we're going to highlight a few of the fiscal year 27 objectives, but the complete list is included in your budget book that you can refer back to. I did want to pause and thank the departments for all their hard work. There's a lot of back and forth and efforts that go into preparing a balanced budget, and they've been very helpful and patient with us, so I wanted to thank each and every one of them for making this budget a success. So we'll first start off with the city commission's budget, and if you want to walk through with your proposed budget as we go through, then that's fine also. So some of the objectives as we know, it's just to establish local laws through adoption of ordinances and resolutions. Also adopt the annual budget, which is what we're looking at right now, and provide fiscal oversight to ensure that we're spending public funds in the best manner possible. and also represent interest of the community on a whole. So there were no new requests in the city commission's budget, there were no major variations or variances in the operating expenses, and the donations remained, the dollar amount remained the same as the previous year. So I'd like to pause if anyone has any questions or comments for the city commission budget.

I do. So specifically, Sheila, you cut as phase one of potential tax cuts, you ended, and just correct me if I'm right here, you ended non-discretionary travel but for certifications. So there's no more traveling for a lot of things except if it's certification travel. Is that correct?

That's correct. For their required or desired certifications, we're allowing travel.

Yep. So in light of what I've seen in some neighboring cities, we have a pretty significant budget for potential travel. I don't think we need that as a commission. And I think we need to lead by example, that if we're going to ask employees of the city to take cuts and not be able to do certain beneficial things, then we should lead by example as a city commission. I know you sent around numbers. this commission has traveled at this point the same amount of money as we did for the entire year last year so i i think it would be appropriate i'm not talking about tickets and events that we have to obviously represent the city i'm talking about travel um and i i'm supportive of getting rid of any commission travel for fiscal year 27.

Thank you. I'm glad you brought that up. And I know it looks like in 25 we did spend about the same amount that was budgeted last year. I believe it came in at about half of what was budgeted. So I don't think that it didn't appear when the actuals came in overall for the commission that we had been excessive in it. But I agree that if it's the same for our employees, unless it's certification, that it would be a good model to set. I'm not sure that Florida League of Cities might apply with that, but that's not really a certification. But it is important.

Well, there is ethics training offered there that we need. So it is kind of certification in a sense.

I think our city attorney gives us certification for all the ethics required in our own chambers. So listen, if it's not the will of the commission, I'm not talking about tickets. If we go to an event, a police event, we go to a League of City event, a Florida League of City event, I'm not encompassing the registration cost. I'm encompassing mileage, hotel rooms, meals, per diems. I think it's inappropriate.

Okay, so if an event has... If an event has a registration fee, we keep that in. But anything with miles or travel, that is funded by the commissioner by themself. Is that what you're saying?

Yes.

That would include Broward days. I'm sorry.

Well, that very likely would include Broward days as well.

Correct. That's what I was going to ask. Let's get to the Vice Mayor.

Because that's part of our job to go up and to speak to the state on certain issues to make sure that we can get ARMA and our funding from the state. So I feel that the Broward days or going up to Tallahassee is part of what we're elected to go do and represent our residents at a state level. So I don't know if that's an appropriate one to take off the table, especially if you were talking, we didn't do any more than we did last year. If we go cut it back to whatever we did this year, that's the limit, that's the ceiling, I'm okay with that. But to cut out some of the stuff that we do that's very necessary to get our funding and to be able to get into these doors and tell these guys we need funding and grants and things like that, I think that the Tallahassee trip is kind of one that's important to us and one that we're kind of expected to do as representatives of our city. So I think that's We're talking to the $14,000 that we saw in the actuals. I'm okay with staying making $15,000 our ceiling on that as a budget line item and kind of taking off that top $10,000 or whatever it was on that budget line. Yeah.

It looked like we came in actual to budget about half last year and this year.

Yeah, I'm all for cutting our budget, but there are some essential needs that we do represent the residents and that we should keep. I think we're budgeted at, what, $25,000? I think if $26,000, if we cut that in half, and once we hit that max, then we're cut off. I'd rather see us give up our 3.8% rates.

That's only 1,100.

I see both sides. I think it's important to lead by example. But I do know registration fees and things matter. So what would be the amount that you would set

So I'm not telling anybody on this day is they can't go to Broward Days or they can't do anything. But driving yourself up and staying in a hotel room on your own dime is kind of what we get a salary for as well as part of this job. So that's just my position. It's my position. But then if you're going to cut the amount down and say there's a cap of $10,000, that becomes a debate amongst us. Who does what, when they do what, and who goes on what trip, you know? So I get it. That's just my position. If it's not the will of this commission, it's not the will of this commission.

So your position is $0 in that line item?

No, my position is registration fees, ticket fees. That was included in what we received this week. Okay. Those stick. So I would say... six seven thousand dollars is that as a cap which i think encompasses everything of any ticket that anyone wants to go to that would be my that would be my position okay or whatever the cumulative amount of the ticket costs are i don't have that print out in front of me pda but whatever that is and i think that's a defined number i think it was in the range when you looked at the registration freeze for legal cities when you looked at broward league of cities events when you looked at a banquet celebratory dinner for our police officers and our firefighters i think that likened to like five six thousand dollars so i would say six thousand dollars for

our registration fees but regarding hotel rooms and travel i i don't i don't know now what happens if the uh for the money that isn't used in that line item it just gets returned back to the general yes that is correct okay So I would want a cushion in that, Commissioner. I think $10,000 is appropriate. But as long as we are all on the same page, that it's just for registrations, it's just for dues, whatever that might be, Correct. Correct. But the commissioner would have to fund their own hotel and millage or if that's, you know, that's I'm not millage mileage. I don't know why I said that. But, yeah, it is scary times. You know, I do see what's going on across the across the border. And it's like it's kind of intense. And we do get paid a salary that I think can help supply supplant supplement. those things so i kind of see where you're going i do agree with commissioner welch and leading you know and leading by example and setting the model so i would be supportive of of lowering it to 10 000 and whatever you know but only for the registrations the this the that and then whatever's left over can be returned um so i would be okay with i would be okay with 10 000. uh vice mayor so the counterpoint to that is that doesn't give us much cushion in case something comes up to go to tallahassee or anything else that we have to do and as an elected official

We know the actual numbers year after year are roughly between 12,000 and 14,000. So kind of where we put our cushion would be that at a, say, whatever we did this year, which was about 14,000 and some change, which would be covering anything that we did last year without going over that 26,000, which cuts about nearly half of it. But so understand that some of us are retired, and we're going to make trips up there. An $800 pop out of my pocket to go represent the city is kind of a lot to ask for a $600 a month siphon. It gets out of that range. And I don't mind paying the mileage. I'll pay the mileage all day on tolls. I don't care about that. The hotel cost does get an extravagant cost to an individual, considering we're going up there to do business. Now, any company that you work for, they're going to pay for at least your hotel. So I'm thinking that we're going into this a little bit too cautious. I understand cutting the budget, and I'm one of the guys that normally sits here and bangs budgets, and I'm okay with cutting it in half. But I think we've just got to be careful not to put ourselves in a position where we've got to go begging for money to go do something later on in the year that we just could have covered right now. So I'm more in the eyes of a $15,000 budget. cap on it we already get approvals before we do anything nobody gets goes on these things for free without a consensus so we still have control up here on the dais of who goes and does what so i think that it would be up to us to restrain ourselves not to spend that budget so i'm okay with that too because we already have to get approval from five people up on this data so i think if we go to 15 and we still keep with the same mindset that we have to get a consensus i think that's how we control that budget line item

All right, we're going to look for a consensus. I'm going to meet it in the, what you got?

There's two different things being talked about. I think Vice Mayor Brody's discussing having, as it is with a $15,000 cap, and I'm speaking of you can have whatever cap you want in terms of tickets. I'm talking about not using city funds to pay for travel expenses that's what i'm talking about that's the consensus i'm looking for that that line item is for tickets registrations events that line item is not for hotel rooms mileage per diems that's what i'm looking for consensus up today i'll give consensus to that commissioner

I just wanted to point out that in the itemizations that we received from the finance department of the past couple of fiscal years, actuals included training that came out of our budget, and that was to the tune of almost $4,000. We didn't, we didn't, that was not training, that was training, that was not travel. So, I mean, I just, when we're talking about actuals from one year to the next, A good piece of that was not travel. So I'm just saying we probably needed it. I don't mean that. But it wasn't something that we set the amount for. So it wasn't like we knew what that was going to be. We were asked if we would consider having that training, but we did not set the amount that it ended up being allocated. I JUST WANT TO PUT THAT OUT THERE, THAT IT WASN'T ALL FOR TRAVEL IN OUR ACTUAL BUDGETS IN THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS.

IS THERE ANYBODY ELSE CONSENSUS ON THAT, ON WHAT COMMISSIONER RIDAL HAS SAID? OKAY. NO CONSENSUS ON THAT. IS THERE ANY DISCUSSION ON THE AMOUNT OF THE LINE ITEM? COMMISSIONER RAYLEE.

Yeah. I do have to commend the commission that we do not take advantage and we are not excessive in our travel and our expenses. I think, though, networking, I think the training that we get from Broward Days and Florida League of Cities and just the interactions only helps us do our job. I would love to see a limit $25,000. We've never hit that number. We cut that budget in half. I would be fine with that.

You're $12,500? It's $13,000. $13,000. Yeah, I would have consensus with that number. Likewise. Likewise. All right, so there was consensus on lowering the line item to $13,000. There was no consensus on limiting it to just registrations and not eliminating travel expenses.

All right, perfect. So just to confirm, we're going to update that budget line item from 26,000 to 13,000. The difference we're going to put in contingency to use in the future to offset any deficits that we may encounter.

Awesome. I have something from the city commission line as well for promotional activities. Can we go in, can I get a little snippet of what

promotional activities is and is that the pins we give out is that the coins we give out what is that item all right so we're getting that information thank you all that's being pulled up i would also have consensus that i think i heard commissioner welch say it but i think we shouldn't be getting any more than anybody other city employee it's a marginal negotiable amount but i would move the city commission's cola should be the exact same as the rest of city employees That's my other consensus for this one.

All right, so 2,500 of that, I'm sorry.

Okay, sorry, Mayor.

All right, 2,500 of that is for the teacher appreciation week that we implemented a couple years ago, and then the balance is just for any other community programs that we participate in.

So for promotional materials, like I said, like the pins and the coins, for example, where does that come out of? Is that a part of this budget? I mean, this fund, this department? Oh, it comes out of yours?

I believe that's in the city manager's budget.

Oh.

The promotional.

So the pins come out of promotional.

Out of this, out of right here? This account also. And the coins, the challenge coins?

Yes.

That comes also out of here? Yes. Okay. And I had a conversation about the coins and the pins with Sheila recently, with our city manager, about, you know, I mean, each coin, I mean, each pin is $1.40. $1.80. And then each coin is $9 approximately. Okay. So when I came here, the pins and the coins were like a really special thing. And I think as time has gone, it's kind of lost that sentiment because they're so everywhere now. People are getting coins for walking down the street. People are getting pins just for this. I would like to bring that special... back to the coins and say let's say like 10 coins per commissioner for the year I mean I think that's appropriate I mean I mean, I just... I've only given out like six coins in my whole tenure here because it's a special moment. It's a special thing. So I would be okay doing 10. That's like 90 bucks a commissioner. It's like $450 compared to... It was over 1,000 from my mistake. We just did an order recently. So I would support that. Pins, I don't know. I mean... It's just we have to cut back on these things. It makes our city special. It's really cool. But we have to cut back on some of these giveaway things. We have to at least show concerted effort. So I would propose 10 coins as commissioner. So that's like $450 for the year. And then maybe like a bag of pins or something. I don't know. I would defer to the city manager on that because she knows the exact. But I asked how many pins and coins we've gone through. I don't know how many each commissioner gets. There's no count. There's no database. But I would be in support of that. I mean, $9 a coin, that's a heavy price to pay. So is there any sentiment of what I'm saying? All right, Commissioner Raley, Commissioner Rydell. So I'll make a consensus to do 10 coins per commissioner. And then let's say, you know, 50 pins. I don't know what's a good number for pins. You guys tell me.

I don't know.

How much inventory do we have?

Maureen?

I think we did just order the pins.

Divide them. Inventory.

Yeah, the more you order, the cheaper they'll be, right?

I think we do need to start rationing them out. And work from inventory. For the purpose of the budget, maybe we just, we hear your direction, maybe we just reduce the promotional items by another $1,000 or something just to,

okay so i'll say let's so i'll say consensus to the promotional activities um to 40 whatever line that is to 5500 um fifty five hundred dollars which would be two thousand less than what's proposed and eight hundred less than what we had last year um so i would say five thousand for that line item is there yes sir just want to want to jump in on this it's also like

A little semantical, but I think everyone should be allotted an amount. And I only say that because right now we have them in a jar. We take what we want out of a jar and we give them to people. But there's also events. Like we do the right thing, right? Do the right thing is a pretty cool thing. When you go to a school and a school accomplishes something, these kids remember it. I got an intern here and he's wearing it right now. Like that was a big deal when he got that. So I say it because, but I agree with you for like the allotment, but that should also go for like Fred you know or sheila or mike to also have inclusion in that because it's kind of a branding thing as well so i'm all for limiting it if you want to issue us a package in january one of these things i i would support that but i also support reducing promotional costs okay so is there consensus on the five thousand i'll give my consensus yes all right thank you that's all i have from this one is there anybody else have anything for this um

I wanted to talk about Commissioner Rydell's COLA. And can we, the cost differential between a 3.5 and 3.8 compensation increase was $1,030. Is that in total for all five of us? Yes, that is correct. I mean, I understand. So it's the principal, not the actual monetary.

That I will agree.

So I'll give consensus. The consensus was to go from 3.8 to 3.5? Yeah, that's a given for me. Commissioner Raley, you said yes? Yes. Commissioner Rydell?

Yes.

Okay, consensus given. Anybody else on the city commission stuff? We're good? Oh, Commissioner Rydell?

No, I have some hats in the car that were not paid for with city dollars that I'm happy to give out to all the department heads if anyone wants a hat after the budget workshop.

I made some hat, but you all sweated on them.

All right. So you guys have direction about this? We're good?

Yes, we're good. Thank you.

Awesome. All right. Let's move along now.

So we'll make those adjustments between the proposed and before we bring it back in September for a final approval.

So to recap, we've lowered training and travel down to, what was it, 13,000. Promotional activities down to 5,500.

I think 5,000.

Oh, it was 5,000. 5,000, sorry. And then the COLA to 3.5.

Correct.

Thank you. And now to the next department.

All right. So we'll move on now to the city attorney department. So city attorney continued to provide legal advice, review of contracts and policies, and assist departments with updates. They continue to monitor and provide advice on development of the Main Street area. They're also very active in any legal proceedings, including the proposed Florida Turnpike expansion. And they continue to review case law and legislative changes and provide legal and ethical advice for the commission and the departments. from a budget perspective there were no new requests in the city attorney's budget on their operating expenses they did have a reduction which basically was due to the removal of the one-time additional costs related to legal services for the solid waste and turnpike lawsuit that was added last year any questions for city attorney i have one thing and it's because what are you laughing at

Why are you laughing?

I'm just glad to be here. All right, good.

Well, I bring it up now because it affects really every department. And I figured since we're seeing it on here, I'd want to touch up on it. It's the vehicle allowance. So I saw this recently at my first meeting about three weeks ago. And I saw the vehicle allowance line item on every department. And then I asked city manager of a report of everybody using a vehicle allowance. And I did all the numbers on it. And it's $178,800 that is being put in our budget for vehicle allowance for department leaders, directors, there's managers, all these kind of, and I started thinking, I'm like, well, we have such a small city and our people don't drive that far that much. So when I see somebody getting $7,200 a year for a vehicle allowance, when we really have like a tiny city, I don't know where, you know, I'm not here to monitor mileage and things, but I'm not going to sit up here and try and make any cuts to what our residents, to our resident services. I believe in looking in-house and seeing what we can do. So as I was reviewing this, it was kind of, it was a little shocking to me that we have people that live within the city that have a $4,800, $6,000 vehicle allowance. And I know it's like a touchy subject, you know, That's kind of, I mean, my proposal, and, you know, when you have private businesses and you give a vehicle allowance, you have people driving, like, from district to district to city to city all around, and they're getting, you know, a vehicle allowance. To me, some of these vehicle allowances, like, they don't meet the price that they're being, that they're having. And... That's kind of where I'm at. I'm proposing cutting it in half from $178,800 to $89,400. That would cut the vehicle allowance in half for all the people listed on here. Our goal is to every expense is being reviewed and we have we're coming into some really crazy times where everything is being looked at and to me if we were driving if people were driving from timbuktu to katmandu it's a different scenario but know when taxpayers they trust us with their money and there shouldn't be any category in the budget that we consider untouchable and um i was just looking at this and i wanted to see the the pulse of the commission on something like this um it's nothing personal absolutely not it's just trying to do smart government and showing that we are taking this seriously and making a concerted effort and i think the vice mayor was uh wanted to touch up on this first yeah i i think

So the staff's all sitting in the audience. I think you guys understand you just saw us go through our own budget very heartedly. And not all of us like it. Not all of us are loving it. It is what it is, today's theme. And this is not a personal attack at any of the staff members that are getting this. But we've got to understand that we're looking under everything because we don't know what's going to happen. And so I think being a little bit more conservative about how we look at this is important. And understanding that it's not personal. I know it dings your pocketbook a little bit. But the honesty is we have a responsibility. the taxpayers to make sure we're doing this and if we cut our own budget everything's on the table and i agree with the mayor that we got to look at these things as kind of a tough call to make um so i'm okay for this year looking at it differently um and then we can always circle back next year on the subject matter and see where we're at and and the heartaches that it caused or if it caused any issues uh but certainly we need we need everybody to understand in our in our city that we're looking at every line item and that's all i have to say uh commissioner welch

Thank you. No, not on this meeting.

No, today, well, it was talked about before the meeting a little bit, you know, but there's no, today is a kind of an open forum. Just raise your hand because the system's brand new. We want to, you know, work through the kinks.

I appreciate it. And I like your way of looking at the budget in the Doge manner. By the way, I like the name that was given to our own internal, I call it our internal doge that you're planning, our tactical group. That's off topic, but nonetheless. So here's the thing. I'm going to take it back to our city commission budget that we just addressed. And the vehicle allowance that we're talking about here that is that line item, on each and every department, I kind of liken it to our stipend because it equals about the same dollar amount. We live in the city. We're getting a stipend to take care of vehicle allowance, cell phones, et cetera, so that our folks in the finance department are having to do that calculations of receipts and all that. I think if we're going to go down that route for vehicle allowances for staff, we will have to take another look at our allowance as well. So that's just my thought on it, and I hope we can have a healthy conversation in that regard. I'll just put that out there.

Can I say something real quick on this, Sandy? I think when we talk about this, we're actually going to events that are outside of our city. We're also up and down in our own vehicles, go up and down the city almost on a daily. How many times we go to schools, how many times we do that. What we're really talking about is the people that don't necessarily get out as much. They're sitting in their offices that are not moving as much as we are. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm not charging anything going this weekend. I've never turned a toll in or parking anything for any of these events. I've just eaten it because I'm getting that money to eat it. Uh, I don't think it's fair to turn in 10 miles of mileage. So I eat that. Uh, I think we pretty much most of us do. So I don't know if ours is the same as everybody else, because we are on a road more. We do go to events all throughout the county. And, and so, yeah, the wear and tear on my vehicles are, you know, obviously it's a little bit different than say somebody who's, you know, sitting in an office for 30 of the 40 hours.

If I might just add, just two things to consider in this issue. One is that the vehicle allowance in part is intended to cover the required insurance so that individuals can use their car for city business. From a risk management perspective, that's important. The other perspective is it is part of the overall benefits package, so I just want you to consider that as the total package that employees get and we use as part of the recruitment package.

but we certainly you know i think we're all here at the table to work on these issues well okay um commissioner right now i agree with uh commissioner welsh that if if we're gonna do this and then we gotta go back and we gotta if there's a half cut there's a half cut whatever you want to do it's i i believe it should be global personally Um, but I will say this, I think we have to do the vehicle allowance department by department. And you chose to start it during the city attorney with this discussion, right? I didn't, I didn't see this coming. So I'm kind of like, I don't want to say see it coming. I just, uh, marinating on it now. Like, I don't know, when I'm looking at Terrell's vehicle allowance, who that's for. I didn't ask that question for her. I don't know who in her department's getting it. I'd like to have that. I mean, she should be prepared to talk about it. I hope they all are. Or somebody's going to be able to. I'm sure. But I also differentiate departments. give you an example of that i know our city attorney sits on task forces statewide i know our city attorney goes throughout the county to meetings on issues i know she's a preemptive expert on sober homes and sits on task force and so to me that is something that may be the outlier now i don't know if other people in her department i mean let's talk about it are getting that if that's the case then maybe they shouldn't be getting it but i understand it's a benefit package so There's a lot of kind of live discussion on some of this, but I think we would have to, in fairness to every single employee, go department by department to have this discussion, because I think Vice Mayor Brody brings up a very salient point in terms of what we do. We go everywhere. We go to meetings. We go to other cities. We go to other counties. We go everywhere, right? But I am fully supportive that if this commission, and I'll say this crystal clear, if we're going to cut that expense, then I will support cutting our own expenses. So I think it's a little more department by department. I'd like to hear from everybody. And then I'd like to hear from Terrell in terms of break it down for me. Thank you.

Commission O'Reilly.

Thank you. First off, I want to say we have a balanced budget in front of us. We have three years to adjust if this bill goes through, if this tax cut goes through. I don't think. that we should be slaughtering this budget and causing mayhem when we're balanced and we're moving forward, and we have three years to make adjustments. It's normal operating procedure for employees, especially department heads and assistant department heads, to have their vehicle expenses We don't know where our employees go, where our staff goes. We don't want to restrict them, or have them think twice about where they're going, or where they have to go, or every time they get into their vehicle, because we're cutting their expenses, their vehicle expenses. I think, right now, we're going to have to do something. It could be a conversation for the future, but I think right now we need to keep our employees happy. I think what happens if we start cutting our employees' benefits, it might end up costing us more in the long run. So we have to look at the big picture right now.

Those are my feelings.

Yeah, I think you brought up, I agree, Commissioner Raley, you brought up some very good, some good points. It's about priorities sometimes, not always about the people. And that's kind of like where my head is at with this. I do think Commissioner right upwards of a great point or whoever brought it up different departments Have different needs right and different uses of their vehicles than certain other than some other departments. I think that's a fair assessment So if we wanted to go Department by department on vehicle allowance, I suppose But I do think and it's kind of includes our department as well right because we're doing we're driving different right then let's say somebody you know in their department a different department so every department kind of has its different dialogue I don't know how we want to move forward with this I don't know if there's if there is there a pulse to to look at these throughout the meeting um if not we'll just continue through I mean Commissioner Rayleigh has said that I'm under her impression that she doesn't want to move forward with any discussion on this Commissioner Welch

I agree. I think it could be a placeholder for next... Excuse me. I had a 10-hour flight last night.

No problem, no. We're happy you're here.

If my words stumble, you'll know why. Jet lag. So I think it's a placeholder for our next fiscal year budget, and... I love the idea that we should keep intact the awesome employees that we have at all levels this year. There's enough uncertainty around all of us in many respects when this referendum vote comes through. So yes, I would like to have a placeholder for next year.

And the vice mayor?

So I'm not easily swayed, but I think Commissioner Raley put up kind of a good argument, and so did the city manager about benefits and keeping our employees happy. So I'm on board with making it a placeholder and moving on to next year, and we do discuss it on the next one around when we actually know what's going on, because I think kind of we're in a balance of happiness with the employees and doing the right thing with cutting budgets, and I think this is one of those items that – I don't know if I have the flavor for it after listening to Commissioner Raley.

I'm kind of in agreement with what she's saying Okay, so it's consensus not to move forward on that discussion of looking at the vehicle allowances what I would ask is what I would ask if the city manager can specifically meet with their department heads and like look at the list that they're getting and have a concerted conversation like is this person like you know are they it does the does the amount meet the need for them I mean I could see a few on here that I don't think we're I don't know where they're driving and I don't know I just my opinion okay I know we spoke privately, city manager, so if maybe you can just at least look into it. I mean, maybe no decision, but at least have a concerted effort. That's my take, but we're not moving forward with the conversation anyway, so let's just move along. But we can always talk more about that. But all right, anybody else for city attorney stuff? All right, let's move along.

All right. Thank you. So next we'll move on to the city manager's department. So some of the objectives for the upcoming year includes continuing to monitor the Florida Turnpike expansion process, um, supporting a regional longterm solid waste system in Broward County, bringing back in curbside recycling, starting October 1st, um, advancing, um, priority transportation projects through the MPO, overseeing Main Street development, managing the successful construction of Fire Station 113, as well as the design of the police department, continuing to maximize grant and appropriation opportunities, enhancing community engagement, and then also overseeing the implementation of the city's artificial intelligence strategy and any other opportunities to increase efficiencies. There were no new requests for the city manager's department, and there were no major variances in operating expenses.

Anything? Yes, Commissioner.

I may be beating a dead horse because I didn't have consensus for it last time, but I think it would be appropriate as our fearless leader and day-to-day operator of the city that You too trim your travel budget on non-necessary items, and the city taxpayers shouldn't be paying for your hotel rooms and your airfare, but would happily pay for whatever registration or whatever things you want to do if it's not training or certification. I don't know if there's going to be consensus to that because there wasn't. To put it in line with the commission consensus, then I would ask for consensus to chop it in half if there's a pallet to that, but that's my position.

Just one quick thing. I think the city manager stepped up during her negotiations with her raises and didn't take a bonus, which shows me that she understands it. So I don't know about cutting into the budget, because if you're going to make her pay for hotels, we just took her bonus away to cover that. So I kind of don't agree with that in that standpoint, that she's already cut her own self-interest budget line item. And so I'm kind of OK with just kind of moving on.

i will um i mean listen if we're doing it across the board i mean consistency is really important so i would i would support cutting it in half i i mean i don't know um i mean because you were in 25 it was 10 500 last year was 20 000 um and then this proposal was for 1924. what happened is there i mean if you're okay with with cutting in half i'll let you speak to it um but i would support cutting in half just like we've seen you know across the board

I don't have any objection to cutting the budget. The training and travel that we do is to maintain required certifications with the ICMA, Scott, with the AICP, and I think maybe economic development and ICMA. So we can certainly juggle it or pay out of our pockets.

And it was, yeah, because if it's for certifications and it's for things that, you know, then it's different. And that's the impression I'm under.

I said that. The carve-out is for trainings and certifications. Obviously, we have people that have various acronyms next to their names in this city, and those acronyms are important to keep. I'm an attorney. I have mandated things I've got to do every year to stay certified. So that is not what I'm addressing here.

Okay. Commissioner Raley.

What was the actual expense so far to date?

For FY26, it's $4,800. $4,800. Okay.

So she's agreed to cut it in half, but obviously with certifications and things, that takes priority. Anything with the community relations thing? Because now it's funny. I'm going to now go on the opposite side of the ping pong table with my vehicle allowance because I see here $7,200 for the vehicle allowance, but there's two people in the department who are constantly driving around the city filming and doing things, and that's Jason and Amy.

They're in city vehicles?

All right. I will ping pong it back to the other side. Anybody have anything here? OK.

Perfect. So just to confirm, we're going to reduce the city manager's training and travel budget from 19,240 to 9,620, with the offset being in contingencies for future years.

I would make it, if it's amicable, 10,000.

Is there a consensus for 10,000? Yes. Yes.

Okay, we'll update it to 10,000. All right, next department, city clerk's department. Oops, sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry, I skipped over community relations. I'm sorry, Yvonne. All right, so the objectives for the upcoming year include taking a leadership role in public communications and community education efforts related to the solid waste authority and recycling efforts. creating and launching an innovative Florida City Week campaign, resuming the I Love Coconut Creek campaign, managing the ADA Title II web accessibility compliance requirements that has a deadline of April of 2027, expanding community outreach initiatives, and managing and evaluating the effectiveness of social media metrics. And there were no new requests for community relations and no major operating expenses or variances. So we move on to city clerk department. The upcoming objectives for fiscal year 27 include expanding record management system deployment to improve indexing and onboarding more departments to enhance public access to city records, managing all aspects of public records and requests, making sure that they're fulfilled timely, conducting training and reviewing policies and procedures for compliance. Implementing the November 2026 referendum election and coordinating with the supervisor of elections accordingly. Continuing for a strategic inventory of records to improve preservation and efficiency and continuing to advance the city's artificial intelligent committee and efforts. There were no new requests for City Clerk Department. There were minor variances, but they did have some increases in operating expenses, and it's because of software enhancements to increase efficiency, as well as the cost of the election that was added to fiscal year 27's budget. Any questions on City Clerk before we move forward?

The Vice Mayor? All right, Mr. Cavanaugh. All right, line item 4675. Can you explain the $34,000 increase that's in that line item? 4675 on page 191.

So that line item is for any IT, not subscriptions, but IT contracts that we have. It does include electronic sign-in software, DocuSign, and that's why it increased from the previous year. It also includes Legistar and Laserfish that we're currently working on rolling out to increase efficiency of our record management process.

I just find it fun to ask Kavanaugh a question.

Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry.

I just miss hearing your voice.

Oh, scrap what I just said. Joe can answer. Sorry.

Peter Gay did a wonderful job explaining that. I would also throw in the Just Foyer Records Request software. All this stuff is to invest in technology to gain efficiencies on the back end to realize cost savings over the next 3, 5, 10, 20 years.

All right, so that auto signature thing that we're talking about, that's a secure signature protocol that we're going to be using?

Yes, so DocuSign was reviewed through the technology governance process. We're on the process of deploying it now citywide with the goal of becoming a DocuSign city long term. And I don't have the metrics in front of me, but they use some equation of how much savings per signature for routing it through using a hard copy versus a digital. But the rollout goes as expected. The savings will be in the six figures per year over time, and that is the goal.

All right. So that cuts back on paper waste and things like that. That is correct. And time putting it back and forth. So, okay. That's all I got. Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, I just want to remind everybody that these numbers that are in this budget doesn't mean it's dollars spent. So any money that is allocated and not spent goes right back into our surplus fund for operating expenses. So with this, these numbers that are here are not designated to be spent already, all right? So just know that if we're budgeting for 20,000 and only 10,000 is spent, That means we have 10,000 surplus that'll go towards the next year's budget.

Right?

Did I say that properly? Thank you very much.

All right, so we'll move on to the next department, which is finance and administrative services. So the upcoming objectives includes monitoring property tax reform and proactively developing strategies to preserve the city's long-term financial stability. We're going to continue to actively monitor and evaluate the financial aspects of the Main Street development project. We're also going to initiate the process to secure debt issuance for the construction of Fire Station 113 and the PD improvements. We're also going to oversee various rate studies, including a fire assessment and possibly a water and wastewater rate study. We're going to continue to move forward with the advanced metering infrastructure rollout and project. And we're also going to continue to work collaboratively with Broad County regarding the financial impacts of PFAS and the effects on our rates. So there were no new requests for the finance department. There were some variances in the operating expenses due mainly to the addition of fees from the tax collector's office. Previously, those fees weren't charged, With the new tax collector office, they're charging up to 2% of the collections for the non-advalarm fees. So that we had to budget for this year. And we also have increased software fees for the automatic metering infrastructure system that we're going to be deploying.

Vice Mayor, then Commissioner Rydell. All right. So I have two questions for you. The first one is on page 201, 3412. Can you explain the cost increase from $148,000 to $368,000, what that represents?

Yes. So that increase is for the fee that we have to pay to the tax collector. So now we have to, they're charging us up to 2% for collecting the revenues for the special assessments, the fire assessment and the solid waste assessment.

So this came out of the tax, this is something that was dictated to us from the county level that we need to start paying. So it's not anything we can control. It's definitely a county.

That is correct. Before, everything was processed through the county when the tax collector was under the county umbrella. And now that it's a separate office, they have decided moving forward, they're going to start charging all the municipalities fees for their efforts in collecting those revenues for special assessments.

Who voted for that lady? Anyways, one more question. 4,400, rental and leases. So it looks like we went from a 45,025 to a 73,000 this year, and then we want a 76,000. Can you tell me what the jump was on that line item to make it almost double?

All right so in 2025 and before we had the copiers budgeted an individual line items for all the departments and then we move them centrally under all of finance so that was why the actual versus the budget is significantly off so it includes the rental fees for copiers for water machines and for coffee machines in that line item. The city wide services.

Commissioner. We could stay on that same page. I was in the same vein as Brody. Let's go down on that same page. Training and travel, doubled, plus. Walk me through it.

So we did have some vacancies, so we didn't have the opportunity for all our professional level staff to attend training and do their certifications. We have a lot of professional positions within the finance department. They have certifications, whether it's through CPA license or through procurement and so forth that they have to attend certain sessions to keep their CPEs and keep their licenses. So it looks like it's a jump, but it's only because we did have some vacancies in 2025 that led to that.

Understood. And then the only thing that was a little that jumped out to me as well was the postage. So in this day and age, I know we're still like, I mean, we e-deliver a majority of water bills, and A, that would be in a different budget item. So I'm just curious. I manage a stamps account, so I'm like very attuned to that. So I'm just curious. It's a pretty big postage jump where you would think we're in a day and age where postage would be going down because you're allowed to e-deliver and e-service and things of that nature. Does that just help me here?

right so the the 40 000 we're budgeted but um won't necessarily spend all of that we just keep that funding in there just in case there are increases we want to make sure we have enough funding but we do have a lot of letters we have to send certified mail and and so forth so we keep we keep that fund in there and if we don't use it then it just falls out and i'm just curious how many of our residents if you know are still getting actual hard paper water bills if any um i know are we up to like 55 e-bills um uh some of some of them actually get water uh paper bills and e-bills um but i would say about maybe about half of them have transitioned to electronic bills this could be helpful to try to maybe make that push for electronic i will just say is danny here

Danny's here. Whatever we call it, like, we get an e-bill at the house, it's, like, impossible to find. It doesn't say, like, Coconut Creek water bill. Like, it should say that somewhere because then you could find it. It doesn't. It's, like, a very hard bill to find. I'm just saying. I don't get a text.

I get a text that it's ready.

Yeah, we get the email and the email is just a very, you know, maybe we should call it something better. So just food for thought with that. That's just an easy low hanging fruit to save. If we were able to through like a Vaughn push out, hey, save a tree, e-bill, e-bill. I mean, shave a couple $10,000 off a postage. That's obviously not in this line item. I'm sure it's in.

Right. It's a utility bill.

Right. I got it. Okay. That's all. Thank you. All right.

Thank you. Commissioner Welch.

Thank you. It's not about the expense. This is about possible revenue. Is that a good time to talk about that? Yes. OK, because you mentioned the credit fees, $300,000. Right. That could possibly be some of it recouped in the form of a convenience fee. Now, I know that just a minute. I guess I'm curious, because I was the one that voted in favor for us to take American Express, because that's where I retired. But nonetheless, I know their fee is one of the highest. That's why we probably didn't do it for the longest time. Forgive me for saying for this American Express, but if that's one of the biggest offenders, I'm OK with us not taking American Express at this time. How much of it is American Express, or do you know?

I think it's a small percentage. Most of it is MasterCard and Visa.

OK, it's those darn MasterCard and Visas that are doing it. But I love the idea of the convenience fee, because that is really forward thinking. And I know even the doctor's offices

other areas are doing the very very same thing so um anyway all right and that is one of the areas we're exploring we might be able to implement it um even a little bit earlier but we will keep you posted but it's about 300 000 that we do spend in credit and debit card fees so so that would really help if we're able to do that i mean i don't think that should be like we're exploring it

candidly i think it should be we're going to change our platform there is going to be a disclaimer that if you pay with a credit card you're subjected to the convenience fee and you're paying like i don't i don't forget the explorer i'd like sheila left okay scott scott i'm directing you i'm directing you because sheila has abandoned ship make it if there's consensus of the commission that's a i don't think that's exploring i think let's put that into place is there consensus for that what's the consensus that we're not eating credit card fees when people are paying their water bill with a credit card.

Oh, absolutely. When we pay our HOA and our stuff, we get charged $395 for using our debit card even.

You can hop up here. We lost Sheila, so it's totally up to you, Scott. But I think there's consensus. John, are you okay with that? So there would be consensus to not make it exploratory. Let's get this changed. All right, so we'll work on implementing it.

Thank you. Also, with the... We gave Scott direction.

Don't worry.

With... All right. But I want to revisit the training and travel, because we already talked about that. Are we looking into cutting half of that? OK. What were you going to say?

And not only that, but I think if we're going to explore this on each one of the departments, I think it would behoove us to ask also at the same time the actuals for each of the departments, because what is budgeted probably wasn't used most of the time.

Right. Except for, sorry. right so how we handled it for this year the budget is there and they're just not using it so it will fall out so we could have a look at that also in preparation for for fiscal year 28 um keep the budget the way it is but then really evaluate and look at travel to see what adjustments need to be done i know i'm going to be finance's least favorite person with this question do you have the ability of separating out training and travel

I'm just curious. If the answer to that is like, no, we can give you a detail about it, I'm happy for it, but as a budget item.

Moving forward, we can separate it and budget it separately, but going back and trying to decipher how much was training and travel.

I'm not asking that. I'm saying going forward, because I think there's a really big distinction between the two. While they are interconnected, if you're going to a seminar that's going to be a training seminar that travels included in it, but I think for certain departments, not yours, that delineation could be a little warranted.

Okay. All right. We'll work on that.

All right, we're going to do IT.

Oh, sorry.

No, I do want to say as well that we do have to take into consideration how large the department is and how many employees are there when we're balancing out.

Sure. So let's go, that's what we're going to do, just kind of give everybody an update on agenda. We're going to go through IT, then we're going to take a little 10-minute break, and then we're going to come back in. All right? Yeah. 10 minutes? You need more than 10 minutes? We'll do 10. That'll eventually leak into... It'll leak to 15. All right, 15. Fine. Okay, okay, okay. 15 it'll be. Let's do it.

All right, so information technology. Upcoming objectives include continuing to strengthen cybersecurity and technology resilience by replacing end-of-life system, maintaining vendor-supported platforms, and implementing best practices. They're going to modernize the city's technology infrastructure through enterprise network, telecommunications, server upgrades. They're also gonna look at evaluating the city's ERP system to a fully supported platform, including any enhancements or transitions and configurations that's needed there. They're going to enhance technology readiness for city facilities by planning scalable IT infrastructure for new buildings or renovation projects. And they're going to oversee the construction of the resilient fiber optic infrastructure ring contingent upon approval to enhance redundancy and ensure we have uninterrupted service. From the IT department, there were no new requests. They had some minor increases in software costs, which was attributed to implementing Office 365. Their budget also includes an allocation for technology enhancements citywide. So we do have an internal process where we evaluate new upgrades and new systems, new software innovation. through a governance process, and all of that is included in IT's budget so that if we do need to do any kind of upgrades or enhancements, we have the funding to do so.

Danny, can you come on up? Welcome to the hot seat. Oh, I like the hot seat better. Nervous? Okay, let's make you nervous. All right, so on page 215, 5430, a 5430 line item, went from 42,000 to 170,000 to 229,000. Can you explain the number increases and what that represents? Sure, yes, sir.

So that big increase is due to our implementation of Office 365. So there is a substantial licensing cost that comes with that. And that's the reason for the big jump. So in fiscal 26 was our initial deployment. And then going into fiscal 27, there's another jump because we're working hard on a PD tenant separation. So we're separating the PD into their own 365 tenant for CJIS compliance reasons. And that's the other big jump that's happening.

OK. So the other, you have a question on that one? Okay. Then the next line item is right below that where we went, which is 6414, the computer equipment. Now, I know we've had this discussion about having spare computers because of the police department working 24-hour shifts in fire departments and they need their laptops. Is that what that $200,000 represents, is us being able to have computers enough to give laptops out in an emergency situation? What does that $200,000 represent?

No, sir. So that is the technology governance fund that Peter Gay was talking about just now. So that's a citywide account that is governed by IT. But any project that a department wants to move forward with for operational efficiency or security reasons goes through the technology board. It's assessed. It is voted on to see if it will have funding in the future. That account is strictly to fund it for the first year outside of a budget cycle. And then if it's deemed that it's worthy to move forward, it goes ahead and we use that account.

So do we know how much of that $200,000 we used this year so far?

This year, there hasn't been much used. In the past, historically, we used 97 last fiscal year and 115 in fiscal 25.

So then the rest of it just rolls over after next month, I guess?

Yes, sir. This year, we have slated. So the aforementioned PD tenant separation is actually going to come through governance.

OK.

Do we warehouse all phones for you? The whole phones for the whole city. You're warehousing that with you, correct?

In terms of the desk phones? Yes, sir.

That was my only question. I had to ask something because it's your first time. I'll give you an easy one.

Yes, Commissioner Raley.

Thank you. And Danny, I know we have this subscription cost for IT, but now our Well, I guess, Peter, maybe this is for you. Do we bill our other departments for the software upgrades? Does that reflect in the separate departments?

So you're referencing the subscription line item, correct? Yes. No, if a department oversees that system, it's normally budgeted directly in their department. So the ones that stay in IT are the citywide items that affect all departments. For example, in City Clerk, they budget for DocuSign and Legistar and those type of services.

Thank you.

Anything else? no other questions do what do you are you responsible for all the wires like geez louise anything that plugs into the wall all right yeah and thank you for getting this set up because this is amazing up here it's i i have to say a big thank you to my team we've been doing a lot uh this past year and it's all thanks to them no it's super great and uh we will now adjourn for a 15 minute break

No.

Okay, everybody's happy? All right, good. Everybody's hattie. There you go, Josh. You're spreading the good cheer today. Also, yeah, don't forget to get a limited edition Brody backpack, I guess. Is this a new thing out there?

Yeah. Not paid for by taxpayer. Paid for by the John Brody Institute for Loving Me.

Well, you said it. That's good. All right. So let's get back in. We're now going to move on to human resources.

All right. So just to go over the objectives for the upcoming year, HR is going to look to enhance workforce recruitment and retention by implementing targeted strategies for critical positions while still supporting employee development, career growth, and succession planning. They're also going to strengthen leadership development by implementing a structured training program that equips new and future supervisors with the skills, tools, and resources that they need to be effective leaders. They're also going to modernize the HR policies and practices through a proactive policy review process, leveraging technology and AI where appropriate to improve efficiency, consistency, and compliance. And they're all going to promote employee wellness and engagement through a collaborative team-based initiative that encourages healthy lifestyles, strengthens the organizational culture.

Is the director of HR here?

Yes.

The seat's empty.

Oh.

I didn't mean to interrupt.

Commissioner, commissioner. She hasn't come up until, nobody's just been walking up. Let her get through and then we'll invite her up.

All right. So there were no new requests from HR. Actually, their operating costs actually overall went down for fiscal year 27, so thank you for that. On the risk side, the insurance costs did go up by approximately $300,000, but that's just due to experience and industry standards for workers' comp, liability, and auto insurance.

All right, you invited her up. What you got? I think procedurally, if there's a... Well, no, we haven't done that from the beginning of this.

No, we did, but the first three categories was our city manager, our city attorney, our city clerk, and then the first person where it was empty.

Well, you invited them up because we had questions. We should only invite them up if they have questions. Does anybody have questions for Ms. Kershaw? Do we need HR?

Brody's least favorite department. Yes.

Any questions? Commissioner Railey, yes.

I just want to say thank you for lowering your annual budget.

Absolutely, we did our best.

What about the training and travel line item? All right, but seeing how we've talked about it across the board. That has gone up 7,000 since 25. Is there something to explain on that?

I don't believe it's gone up, actually.

From 2025. It went from 11,000 to 1885. Oh, and from 2025, sorry.

No, it's okay. Yes, the reason we increased it then is because even though I have a relatively small department, only nine in total, we have Eight of those are salaried professional employees who do have certifications that are required for their positions. So it's really to help cover the cost of any training they're required in order to keep their certifications. Also, for our department, I do have a lot of employees who don't get an auto allowance. I hate to even bring that up. But their mileage comes out of there, too, for going to all of the different locations in the city to do interviews for all of the different departments and all of the different things they have to travel throughout the city for. So it's not even just training related. It's just mileage for any employees who don't get out of a house.

I know we spoke about that briefly, about people doing mileage.

So one request would be that if we look at training and travel that you asked, that we look at it citywide. Um, because we have policies that we try to implement consistently. I don't think we have any objection to separating training and travel in future budget years. Um, but we do want to stay away from, if at all possible, um, reimbursement for mileage, for individuals driving their own personal cars. So just those two points concern me when we start weaving them together.

Does a, um, a human resource manager, they travel throughout the city? Yes. Okay.

Commissioner Rydell. I know this has been a long-standing program, the tuition reimbursement. I know you warehouse that. I've asked this in previous budget years. You warehouse it for people in other departments that ultimately are seeking it. I'm just curious, how robust is that? How many people are coming to you for that?

Oh, I don't have the exact number offhand, but I'm approving a tuition reimbursement form from different employees, and Peter Gay approves them as well. Probably three a week we're approving for every single department in the city. I would be guessing to tell you the exact number, though. If you're interested, I can get it for you, though.

Yeah, I just want to be clear. That's something I support, right? I support professionals that are working for us, seeking higher education, seeking additional degrees. That's something I fully support, and I wouldn't be comfortable at any point in future budget years, I guess, telling Sheila as a matter of policy, getting rid of a program like that. So that's something that, to me, I think is extraordinarily important for our employee base.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, that's why I had you come up.

I know you mentioned, do the managers of HR go to any events or promotions? And I have seen them at numerous events, job fairs, and not only that, but exposing all the different levels of positions that are available in the city with and without degree or certification. So they do that, and they do it very well. I just want to say thank you for that.

Thank you, Commissioner.

I did want to just jump in and point out that the fiscal year 25 column are actual it's not the budgeted amount. So we do plan for savings that are going to fall out at the end of the year so we don't spend down every line items I just wanted to make that note that so she in 25 she spent 11,000 and whatever is not spent falls out to the bottom and it can be used in a future year so.

Commissioner Rayleigh.

Thank you. My question is under risk management. And it's line item 4510. It seems that we're down almost $80,000.

Property damage?

From property damage and SIR, yeah.

Sorry, you said 4510?

4510, yes.

That line item is not our actual premiums. That line item is the money we have to spend for any claims where we don't reach the deductible or just to pay the deductible. Right. So that isn't tied directly to the amount of premiums, because premiums do go up every year. Right. Right. There's a different line item for premiums. That's just looking back historically on how many claims we had that were below the deductible or the number of claims.

Right. So that's down, which is either a good thing or a bad thing. That means we either, you know, had to go through the premiums and the insurance, so they were higher claims. I'm just asking the reason for the deductible.

Do you have any additional insights, Angie? Do you mind if I pull up our risk manager? Not at all. Okay, thank you.

Bring them up.

Want to share a seat with me? You can go there.

afternoon everyone um it changes we evaluate it constantly um also it you cannot necessarily look at it as a t account where um whatever we get back from insurance it does not go back into that account it's very separate so that account is just used for us to pay for any damages that have happened When we get reimbursements from the insurance carriers, whether they are a carrier or a third-party carrier, it goes to the general fund. So we are trying to look at it on an annual basis, see how hard we're getting hit on some items, where some items are falling off, and so we'll constantly sort of manage that account.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

So this is a question across the board on future budgets that we receive. Is it possible, and I know in other budgets that I have worked with in the past, we see actual to date prefacing of the previous fiscal year prefacing the proposed for the following fiscal year. And I think it would eliminate some of the questions that some of us have about how we are standing in the current fiscal year, while talking about the budgeted for the next fiscal year. So can I also ask for a placeholder, if everyone would like that, for the future fiscal year budgets that we receive? That we receive actuals, like with the current year that we're in what we've already expended let's say it so can I ask for clarification that we have at least a date so I think the issue is it's a moving target until it is so if maybe we do okay so I won yes we can pick a quarter because July 1 would have to be the latest that we could receive before we're actually looking at

We don't have a hard close every month. The only thing I would say, it could be misleading because there are timing differences there. So their credit card transactions, it might not hit until a month later. So it's not necessarily showing you the right amount at the end of that quarter. But we can print those reports and provide them. I'd prefer not to put them in the budget book itself, but we can provide those reports.

I'm just saying when we're having ours, it would... To me, it would be helpful because then at least we know how to date it has been this current fiscal year to see what we're proposing for the following fiscal year.

So are you referring to when we meet for the budget review or?

Yeah, I do. I mean, when it's printed and goes to press for mass distribution, I understand that We may not want it there, but I'm just saying it's very helpful in looking. And then I think we don't have all of the questions that we're asking like today of what the actual, for this current fiscal year is as to what we're proposing for the next fiscal year.

All right. There are guidelines for the budget award and what's included and the type of information that should be included. So we'd have to check that also just to make sure that we have the right information there and adding that won't be an issue. But, yes, we could definitely work something out where you could see year-to-date numbers with the budget.

Okay. At some point, some quarter, at least the latest preceding quarter. Yeah. Because that's, I think, what I remember in the past in working. Okay.

Thank you. It might be helpful to us if we get a report at the end of the second quarter of year to date as opposed to what's budgeted for 20. Say, let's use 2026, for instance. So we get, after the second quarter, we get expenses, actual expenses, and then what was budgeted.

the year right right just for us if we get a report is there a consensus I'm just trying to understand so we basically are trying to get so of what that we've spent so far in the year that's what you're asking for an itemized list mean i have no problem supporting it i mean more information is the better i believe you know operating expenses operating expenses okay sure anybody else all right thank you all right well right now why don't you just invite up the next uh department chair director

All right, so for resilient design and development they have a lot of upcoming objectives for the year They're going to be looking at their comprehensive plan and making updates To account for any long-term growth and redevelopment within the city they're also going to enhance the development review process by streamlining coordination between staff the different boards and uh... and stakeholders to ensure greater transparency and consistency they're going to actively monitored design and implementation of main street improvements and the column roads for tax project they're also going to work on continue to work on the main street project by coordinating timely review and approvals of building permits they're gonna enhance their customer experience with the building permit concierge program and expand electronic services with permitting, business tax receipts, and inspections. They're going to advance their resiliency efforts by conducting a citywide tree canopy study in the upcoming year. And then when they have the results of that study, they will be able to use that to actively pursue grant funding. They're going to improve transportation safety and mobility efforts with the safe streets and roads for all action plan. They're going to continue to strengthen building services and regulatory compliance by improving permit tracking and oversight of private provider inspections. They're going to increase compliance with lean resolution through proactive outreach and they're also going to maximize external funding opportunities by strengthening their grant coordination, making sure they pursue federal, state, and local funding options for capital projects and community initiatives. There were no new requests from RDD, and there were no major variances in their operating expenses.

Vice Mayor.

All righty, how you doing Justin? All right, so I've got a question for you. On page 238, line item 3190, so professional service fee went from 50,000 to 215 to 223. Can you explain what the jump was, such an extravagant jump, and what that represents to the city?

Yes, so the $50,000 was an actual spent in 25, and that represents the supplementing of existing staff capacity and reviewing development review committee plans and development project review, mainly involving landscaping areas in our city. The jump in the next year relates to a couple of things. One, we lost an urban forester. She retired, so we needed to supplement that position amongst the large-scale review of Main Street, going not only through our DRC process, but now into the building permitting process, and also other large development projects, such as Gray Star, such as North Broward Prep, and a few other Mazda and car dealerships as well. all of that development activity has been going through our process now it's all now leaving DRC and it's moving into building permitting and inspection phase tree mitigation and all of those studies that need to get reviewed we've also been short a landscape inspector as well which we are currently hiring for that position so it's a combination of those things and that's why we've increased the professional service dollars.

So let me ask you this. With Main Street being what it is, it's going to be three or four years, five years, six years of development. So is that a $200,000 plus cost every single year that we're looking at for that?

No, I don't think so. I think right now we're at what's looked at as a bubble through our- Bell curve. Yeah. And so I think that will eventually go down, A, as we fully staff ourselves in those areas, and B, as that development activity resides specifically related to these professional areas. Development activity will still be high, but not necessarily related to the professional service dollars that we're spending.

So let me ask you this. Do you think it's cost effective to have people as staff or as a consultant?

I think it's cost effective to have them as a consultant because long term we will not need that higher staffing level. So right now it's showing a higher staffing level, I mean the dollar amount spent, but long term we won't need as much. We'll get back to normal, you know, activity.

All right. Are you ready to address the next one, which is transportation?

Can I piggyback on John real quick, just to stay in the vein? It's the same, I guess, philosophical discussion regarding some of the open positions now versus potentially outsourcing, because I know there's a lot of companies in industry that do some of the things that we do in-house, right? So I obviously mark great Forrester, but I know there's companies that are doing that, you know. I'm just curious, has there been a cost-benefit thought by you in regarding potential outsource possibilities versus in-house salaries? Because if we're in-housing somebody, we're eating it all, right? I don't mean it like that, but we're eating retirement, we're eating benefits. I mean, the salary doesn't do justice to the line item number that an employee comes with. So I say that from a potential outsource perspective specifically to your department.

Yeah, I think, for example, for the landscape inspector type of position, it's For a longer term, we didn't do a long-term study, but immediately the rates for per hour rates are probably higher right now than it is to have in-house landscape inspectors, and especially for an urban forester as well. I think longer term, it's probably best to have in-house and maintain our traditional staffing rates, levels that we've had in landscaping.

Thank you. I didn't want to interrupt the Vice Mayor. I just wanted to piggyback on the thought on that as well, because I think this department, probably more than most, is attuned to the concept of outsourced. I'm not suggesting, but when you're looking at these budgetary constraints, I think your department probably is the most ripe for other private industry people that work in the field to something under your umbrella.

Thank you. Right. And I don't have any problem with it, because I know Weston is a complete outsourced city. So I know this is pretty typical of a lot of cities to do it. But my question was, how long are we going to be able to sustain the $200,000 plus? That's where I was going with this. So we were talking a couple of years. um because we don't feel that the growth is going to be there to sustain those employees i think that is that that consulting way is the better way to go too so i just want to make sure that's what we were looking at long term but um anybody else anybody else um oh oh yeah all right uh commissioner rydell so i just i'm just curious and this is more for shield this is the first time we're going to address it publicly what's with the whole rebranding

You're now the resilient design and development director, right? Yes. I get it, but someone walk me through it.

It's very clearly an effort to address the comments raised by Doge and the Florida legislature and remove any sensitive...

Sustainable development was sensitive?

Extremely.

Really?

And their word is resilient.

I would think the opposite.

I would too, but that's not the case. Sustainable is an absolute buzzword that gets a focus on our activities.

Oh, yeah? Mr. Resiliency now. Okay, that was that. The other thing I had, you know, just, it's a very small line item, but it was just my question, and it parlays into obviously the next portion as well. When we talk about the Arbor Day program, is that the free tree giveaway? Yes. And what, I thought we, very small amount, but I thought that was cost recovery. I thought everything was donated. Are we talking about overtime for staff? What do you, what's, it's a small budget item. I'm just curious what the cost outlay is.

T-shirts? Well, we do, we, the money for the trees comes out of the tree trust fund. Correct. And then, yes, there are, you know, paraphernalia, you know, so you're warehousing that cost for that yes, and okay, you know and there's probably some overtime in there as well from Yeah, obviously it's an event that defines the city.

I'm not suggesting doing anything with it I was just I wanted to make sure that you're warehousing that and it's not like in a Vaughn issue for example because it's Technically a community issue, but you're warehousing. Yes, free tree giveaways totally warehouse to you.

That's right.

Okay.

Thank you Commissioner really

Okay, I want to go the other way about training and traveling. Is that a realistic number since you did spend 5562 in 2025 and you're keeping it at 6000? for the year, is that a sustainable number, or would you need more?

No, I think that's a sustainable number. Just so you know on that, because when this topic came up, I started looking at all our line items. I wanted to make sure I studied up on it. But before all of this, our staff went through an entire exercise department-wide on training maintenance or requirements, separating requirements versus extra. Honestly, there's just not a lot of extra training and travel that we do. A lot of what we do is requirements to maintain licenses and certifications. As you know, our department has a lot of professionals, and they have licensing and certification requirements. So we feel very good about all of our numbers on training and travel. Okay, great. Thank you.

Commissioner Walsh, you didn't have anything? All right. Anybody else have anything for, so I guess you want to move over to, we did planning and zoning.

Any questions? All right. The next, he has transportation.

I understand. I'm just going through the lines. All right. Anybody wants to talk about transportation? Vice Mayor?

All right. So line item 3190, which is also, once again, A number that went from $14,000 to $40,000. Can you explain what that service provides that we're paying for on that particular line item?

Yes. The intent behind that is not to suspend this entirely every single year, just so you know, but the point of that budget item is for our transportation planning manager manages the traffic committee and participates in a lot of other transportation reviews citywide. And occasionally those involve needed studies for maybe traffic calming or for other areas where we need to look at circulation and accidents or things like that. So it involves that. It also involves the transportation review of development projects as well. This individual mostly reviews that in-house. But on occasion, For example, Main Street, when you have a larger project, it does require a more comprehensive review. And in those situations, just any other large development project that has a traffic impact study, we need to also have a traffic engineer or a traffic planning professional assist us in reviewing it. So that's what that's there for as well. So it's a combination of multiple things.

I'm sorry, Vice Mayor, but with that, so it was $40,000 this past year. We're maintaining, we're keeping it $40,000. Yes. Of the $40,000, how much have you used so far this year?

I know we have not exceeded $40,000. Oh, she knows? Yeah.

There are encumbered funds of roughly $23,000 at the moment.

OK. Thank you.

And Justin, can I ask, is any of that cost recovery?

Yes. When we review development, that's a good point. Thank you. When we review development projects, so of that, whatever is a development project review, we fully recover that cost from the applicant.

Anybody else in the dais? Commissioner?

Just going to kind of make the point for like vehicle allowance here, like this individual, like I know who it is, we all know who it is, drives like all over the place. Constantly observing things, constantly involved in regional planning things. So I say it because this is one of those things if we were going through it, I don't want to go back to the vehicle allowance thing, but this is somebody that I think needs that for the purposes of everything that they do globally, you know, for the city. So that's all I have. Yeah.

Yes, I've seen them at, I mean, they're at the MPO meetings or at the Safe Summit. There isn't anywhere at the nighttime neighborhood meetings. The list goes on and on. Even though it may be locally, it's a lot.

Or sometimes it happens multiple times per day. Yeah, yeah.

How he only spent $283 in FY25 for memberships and dues with all the stuff he does. Why do you make a face? no no faces in 2025 was when we established the breakout of this oh is that where you broke it out so it's an independent standalone okay anything else all right thank you sir thank you oh community enhancement that's me too i'll jump in code that's that's something so this is one of those i think there's a there's a philosophical discussion to have here um that i'd be remiss if i didn't bring up not in regarding staffing justin justin regarding candidly the community enhancement grant um we earmark a large chunk of money to the the community enhancement grant i want to bring it up for discussion um i so i do support continuing it But it does, if we're going to be fiscally sound, we have a large fund that we essentially go 50-50 with neighborhoods on. I mean, I would say half our meetings, we have some sort of grant in. I know, and this is more of a policy issue, I'm curious to see the commission's palette on, A, keeping it, keeping it at current funding levels, and then kind of the only other carve-out I had, and I brought this up to our city manager, is when we started the community enhancement grant, and again, more for discussion, when we started the community enhancement grant, there wasn't this security prong. And then we kind of shifted to have a security prong to it. And now a lot of what we're seeing is just more security than community enhancement. I know we have a big one coming up later this afternoon as well on the community enhancement grant side. I don't know. Maybe we want to take the security portion out only because I just want to have a discussion about it because it's a chunk of money that could be cut right but i think it keeps our community great i think it keeps associations you know thinking creatively outside the box and i'm just curious the commission's palette on what's the what do you mean the security piece can you elaborate uh originally when we started this grant i'll give and again i don't mean to be historical but i think i don't want to speak for sandy originally when we set this up it was for landscape project and correct me and i scott you started it uh i don't mean to I digress, but historically going back, it was meant for associations, a new monument sign, new tree plans, new bush plans, rocks, whatever it was that we were in for. Then we kind of shifted, I think two or three years ago, Madam Rose, and we added security. So now a neighborhood, an association, can apply for cameras. And that now qualifies under the umbrella, that if they were to put a camera system in their neighborhood, That becomes, it is an enhancement. It's security. You know, it becomes a community enhancement. We've expanded it a little bit. So I had this conversation with Sheila. I'm just bringing it up to all of you, maybe thinking to bring it back to more landscaping so it's more tangible, because I think if we want to keep security in there, because all what we've been seeing is more security-based as opposed to aesthetic landscaping.

Right, but if you, okay, so there's two trains of thoughts here, right? Just for discussion, I'm bringing this up, Mayor. I got it. There's no price on security and being safe in your home and your neighborhood. So if we're already at a level of providing this opportunity for this type of grant for security, I'm not comfortable taking that out of the picture, personally. That's just my take on it. I understand landscaping is very important, but feeling safe in your home and in your neighborhood is more important, in my mind. Commissioner Railey, then Vice Mayor.

OK. How do we fund this? Where did the funds come from for this enhancement?

Neighborhood enhancement grant? Yeah.

But where was it originated? How did it originate?

So it's budgeted in the general fund, so it's just general fund dollars.

So it is taxpayer dollars. So we're giving back to the taxpayer, so to speak. And we've always had a surplus. We've never reached our max. So I don't see why we should separate it then, because we are seeing both security and... And beautification. So I don't see why it really should be broken up at this time.

I wasn't suggesting doing that. I was suggesting if we're looking at discretionary funds creatively, this is one of those funds that should be discussed. That's all. Because it's taxpayer money that we're giving to private communities.

giving you association well no it's going going to it's going to the residence that's that's a twist you just threw i don't want to get rid of it i want to keep it i just wanted to discuss it as an item okay that's it vice mayor had any thoughts so so i don't mind having it separated out so we know where it's going so we get it we can get a report saying okay we spent so much on security so much on landscaping so much on water fountains My biggest thing was we had a school come up to us and ask for us to help them fund a digital screen, which I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't really feel that was, enhances our neighborhoods. That enhances a school which has already had their own budgets and have their own Things I didn't really particularly like it how that went I'm absolutely okay with getting security cameras and landscaping and fountains things that are gonna make our neighborhoods The problem I have with the school board is they're so messed up that we're going to continue to see these things from a school Board because they can't fund their own things and now that they're coming to us for it Especially when I know the school is less than 50% coconut Creek residents I have a little bit of problem there because I don't really feel that really fits the criteria as far as the schools are concerned But it is certainly giving back to our neighbors makes sense, but you know and our residents that makes sense But I'm not I'm not wasn't happy about giving $10,000 to the school for their sign that the school board who gets more taxpayer money than we do and Can't manage it and they're not even paying for the only things for their schools That's where I'm drawing a line at where I think that should be and I might be the only one on that and Commissioner Welch and then I would like to touch base on what he just said I

Oh, OK, thank you very much. I know we increased the budget to 195, what, a couple of years ago, a couple of fiscal years ago, because at that time, there was a need. were more requests than we were getting close to our our budgeted amount given that we're not even nearing that now maybe veronica can give us the actual because i was actually going to suggest that we not divvy it out but that we actually decrease the budgeted amount because it just we see historically that it may be mostly for security but for whatever it is being used, they're not taking advantage of the full budgeted amount. So why not just put it at a more realistic dollar amount, like all of our other departments have done in their regards? That would be my suggestion, to keep the criteria the same, but just decrease the budget.

So this year to date, there's about $100,000 spent.

I know, but how much has been utilized this year? Of the 195.

That is 100,000 of the 195.

Oh, 100,000. I'm sorry.

OK. Gosh. And I can add to that.

I'm still in Paris. Because later on today and in the next few meetings, we have about five more applications going forward.

So the good news this year, in terms of- We're coming up to the maximum?

Well, we're getting close. We're getting as close as we've ever been to the maximum. OK. Yeah. So there's a couple of applications coming forward in the next few meetings.

OK, well, I stand corrected then.

I tend to align with the vice mayor slightly on this because, you know, the school board does have, you know, I don't know. Is there a way in the language, and maybe today's not the conversation for it, I would assume it's not, but just for food for thought to, like, to improve, I mean, not to fix the wording of the requirements or qualifications. I'm not like against the schools doing it, but it brings up a good point, right? When you do have people who don't go to the school, mean who go to the school don't live in our in our city i find that to be interesting because i'd rather the funding go to directly to our residents who live within the city limits um so it's an interesting thought maybe if you can you know if we you know guidelines so the you all actually um review and approve the guidelines and years ago we added the security when it was was an ongoing concern see we certainly can bring the guidelines back for consideration yeah just just email them over just so you know

right i understand but you could still email over for homework oh sure sure yeah i'd go a little further and i'd actually ask sheila to to bring it back so we can modify the guidelines and i'll tell you why because i i fully agree with john and i'll tell you i'll tell you why i fully agree with the vice mayor is an association that we're going to have later on the agenda all right our agenda doesn't have the ability of fundraising An association doesn't have the benefit of a PTA or PTSA and organizations for sponsorship. I mean, some of these schools, they specifically have all these banners out front of them because these are fund, you know, an association and, you know, sub association, Winston park or Coquina or somebody to, or wind more doesn't have the ability of saying, Hey, let's go sell candy bars to, you know, fund the new, the new board. It's the same thing with, you know, lights at Monarch, frankly. So I would like it to be brought back, because I'd like us to be a little more specific with regarding that. Listen, I'm happy to help the school, but I agree with the comments that have been made on that.

So it's interesting, because the first time we got an application for a school for the electronic sign, I said to Sheila, we don't have those in our city. So you see where I'm going with this. It's kind of like, it's not allowed, but we're helping fund. So just another food for thought in our revision.

I mean, everyone on board with having it come up on one of the next upcoming agendas? Right.

I think that's what we were getting to, but we just want it sent in advance for homework so we can look at it before we get to the meeting.

Do we want to just have residential?

Well, that'll be the conversation for that day. That'll be for the conversation for that night.

Residential qualification.

All right. Anything else? justin can you please visit our resident in the back she had a question for you no problem she's gonna she's gonna he's gonna come over um next yes uh all right bring them up the police chief

This is coming up, I'll go ahead and get started. So their objectives for next year includes enhancing community safety by implementing a crime prevention through environmental design program that promotes proactive crime prevention and collaboration. They're gonna expand the use of technology by moving forward with their drone program They're also going to go for their third reaccreditation to show that they have continued compliance with professional standards and best practices. They're going to strengthen public safety through proactive policing by maintaining visible law enforcement presence and community engagement. And they're going to support the future of public safety facilities by advancing the police station improvements project. Just wanted to note that police did not have any new requests. Their budget is actually, they have two less FTEs that was authorized in fiscal year 26, so they have already, three? No, two.

And our real-time crime center, two TFOs.

Okay, I think it's two or three, but I think it's two. But they have made reductions in FTEs in their department, which has led to significant savings for the city. In their operating budget, I did want to point out one major increase that they had. And it was an allocation for the school zone safety enforcement program for about 400,000. So that is a program that we implemented and it's funded through revenues. But there are accounting requirements where we have to have the revenue on one side and then we have to have the expense on one side. That increase is just on the expense side that we have to pay the consultant for the program that's running it for us, but it is being covered by the revenues that we are charging. And with that, if you have any questions.

How you doing, Chief? Good. Got one question for you, and it's a 16-part. Oh. So I have one question. Obviously, we know what's going on with Main Street being developed. We also know that that same zone that that falls into is already stretched thin. Now, my question to you is, how are you planning with this budget restraint? How are you planning to put those in? Because my worst fear is developing Main Street and then having a bunch of rookie officers running through there. How are you developing your staff to be able to cover basically a new zone?

So that's not a big problem, as you would think. We currently run six zones with three cover cars. Those are basically floaters. So as the years go by and until we do need to increase staffing, which we don't right now, and probably won't for a little while until that's almost built out, we could shift the floaters to that area to help cover that.

In long term, are you looking, in your management of the police department, are you looking at trying to bring in a few rookies, a few seasoned, and a few? How is your mindset about how to develop that team?

I understand. So on all of the teams, the rookies don't get to decide where they go. Seniority has a play, but departmental need and the demographics of the city plays part in where we allocate staffing based on their tenure. So we would have to take a look at that zone in that area, and we usually put the more senior officers in that area. And we spread them across the four teams.

One last thing, I want to say great job on promoting Officer Dingus. Jim is a great guy, and that was a brilliant move. He's going to do so much for you guys. I thought that was awesome, so thank you for doing that. You're definitely an asset to PD. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Anybody else?

Wow. Well, you'll be here the rest of the time, though, right? Yeah. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. And let's bring up our new fire chief.

So as he's coming up, I'll get started. So their objectives for the upcoming year is to enhance emergency response performance by improving dispatch operations, response time, and resource deployment through the use of technology. They're pursuing their nationally recognized accreditation and performance standards with CFAI and preparing for the CAS reaccreditation as well as maintaining the city's ISO class one rating. They're going to advance their fire rescue strategic plan by implementing community driven initiatives. They're also going to strengthen emergency preparedness and resilience through updating their comprehensive emergency management plan. They're going to improve emergency response capabilities by expanding the traffic signal preemption technology. And they're going to continue to invest in their firefighter leadership and professional development through various training methods. They were some new capital requests for the fire department that we will go through next. In terms of their operating expenses, they did have some minor increases. One of them was for we have a contract with Digitech for billing for emergency medical transport on our behalf. So the good news is the collection rates are up on EMS transport. The downside to that is the expenses are also going to be up that we have to pay the consultant that does the billing for us. but the net result is an increase. So it's just, again, how we have to budget it. The revenue on one side and then the expense on the other side. And they also had to budget for promotional exams in the upcoming year. So I don't know if you want to pause here for questions or do you want to go through the capital outlay?

Any questions right now? Commissioner?

So we are going to go forward with collecting the uncollectible EMS transports.

For the residents, it would have to be a policy change. So we would have to look into that to see if it requires an ordinance and then if we need to bring it back to you for approval.

Can I ask how the rest of the commission?

That would be a great idea to get a consensus to move that forward.

I spoke about it in enough meetings. Yes, I give consensus to it.

Well, it's $800,000. Yeah.

Yes.

Love it.

Yes. Thank you. All right, so for capital outlay, they do have two Opticom traffic preemption systems. Sorry for the typo. And those are items just to help with security response so the ambulance, they can control the signals. And we also have two lift-back sets. Basically, they're used to respond to emergencies. If there's debris or a vehicle that needs to be lifted, this is very helpful in those instances.

I fully support the requests.

Yes. Yes. Is there anything for the Chief?

Briefly. I was just, if you could just explain to me some of the professional services increases and just define that a little bit for me in terms of break down the cost if you could, Chief.

Yeah, absolutely. As Peter Gay mentioned, there are only two for lack of a better term, culprits for the increase of $64,000 in 3910, one of which is the true-up adjustment to our Digitech EMS billing required by contract, paid 4.5% fees to all the money that's brought in.

So we're warehousing that there. Got it. That's what I just wanted to clarify.

It's not really an expense to the fire department. I get it completely. It's a contingency fee. The other one is due to the product of starting a fire department in an odd number year, three of our four operational ranks are required by collective bargaining to have a promotional exam. Those promotional exams are not only required every two years, but they're also identified to be done by a third-party vendor per collective bargaining. They range anywhere from $9,000 to $15,000 an exam based on the number of applicants who are sitting for those promotions, as opposed to the even number of years where we just have a battalion chief rank Plan to try to balance. This is to work with the union We're starting our internal conversations to work with the union on it Maybe an MOU to extend one of those ranks into an even year. So now it's two two per fiscal year right now we're just caught in a Cycle of three exams having to be given an odd number year which takes the line item up to bring it which makes it more your rollercoaster II correct fiscally

So that really is a direction to our wonderful HR director, who's going to be sitting at a collective bargaining table. So that's all I have. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you. And congrats on your first budget workshop.

OK. I do have a question about salaries, overtime, benefits. We know we're in a bargaining situation with FIRE. So these numbers are going to be changed. I'm assuming. These aren't hard numbers.

I would say that we are thrilled to suggest that yesterday was the final collective bargaining meeting. And we've come to, although not formalized on paper, an agreement. And those numbers are reflected here.

Thank you very much.

Good job, Pam.

Now, you never had a vehicle allowance, but now this year there is one on here.

Fire command staff have take-home vehicles that are response capable. The criteria is that if any major event happens after hours or weekends, we respond in, from multi-alarm fires to school shootings. Right.

I'm just wondering why it was never there in the first place, why it's there now. It wasn't there the past two years.

I'm just...

Because the past chief had a take-home vehicle. Okay. It actually paid.

He uses a personal vehicle.

He used, he had a take-home vehicle and he actually had to pay a stipend to the city because he exceeded the mileage that was allowed for the take-home vehicle.

Okay. So, so you have a take-home vehicle? No, so you have a fire, you have a Coconut Creek fire vehicle at your house? to and from so then why so that is like the same as what you were just so did Brian have a his own a coconut creek fire vehicle too yes and I might have misunderstood the question Brian had a take had a so they're both they both have they're both having a city but now he there's a 7200 vehicle allowance here that's my question

Let me look it up, because finance does do the payroll side of that budget.

That's all I ask, because I know you said you had a Coconut Creek vehicle, okay? People who have a Coconut Creek vehicle shouldn't be getting the vehicle allowance, from my understanding. That's correct. And that's what I see here. I see a vehicle allowance for FY27 for the fire rescue department.

I don't get it.

Okay. Right, right. I understand. I understand. There's obviously an error.

It's probably just a budgetary error and we'll fix it. It's not that it would get paid out or anything like that. It would just fall out if it's not used.

Okay. Yeah, no, I just, that was, thank you.

Is there anyone else that gets an allowance in the department?

Is there anyone in the fire department that gets a vehicle allowance?

Chief said no.

No. Our command staff all have Coconut Creek fire rescue response vehicles that they take home.

Commissioner Rydell, you have a question?

That's a pretty important answer to get. Well, the answer is that it's a pretty important answer to get because are there other, on the civil side, Chief? The answer in this meeting right now is they're saying nobody in the fire department is getting a vehicle allowance.

going on record right now that is correct the 7200 that was budgeted was for the at the time we had the vacancy and an assistant chief position i believe and and we just budgeted it pending how we were going to fill that and move forward um so no one's getting that right now that amount will just fall out it won't be spent because they're using city vehicles

Right. All right. So now the budget isn't balanced because now you just gained $7,200. I'm just kidding. All right. Anything else for the chief? Thank you, sir. Parks and Rec.

Mayor. Mayor.

Oh, yeah. What's up?

Just to digress a minute. Sure. So we changed the budgeted amount on some other areas. Should that budgeted amount now go to back down to zero rather than keep it at 7,200?

They said, yeah, she said it was an error and they're going to remove it, right?

That we were going to keep it and have it just fall out to fund balance. But if you want to reduce it, we can do that also.

I would like it to show zero. Okay. I mean, I don't know. Does everybody else agree with that? Yes. Yeah, it's not, yeah.

we're changing other items that are going to be reflective of different numbers correct yeah all right so we'll make a note to reduce that thank you thank you commissioner welch so we move on to parks and recreation um so their objectives are to advance park improvement by expanding recreational amenities and improving visitor experience at lakeside park they're going to develop programming for the building at oak trails park They're also going to continue to strengthen departmental operations with standardized policies and procedures and best practices. They're going to evaluate and enhance Creek Sports through community engagement and strategic planning. And they're going to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of parks and rec programs by assessing community needs, participation, cost, and revenues to develop a financially sustainable and data-driven plan for the future. There were no new capital requests for Parks and Recreation. They also had a reduction this year in the count, their FTE counts. They actually reduced their count by three FTEs, or three full-time positions, which also helped with the budget. And they did not have any major variances in their operating expenses. Oh, I'm sorry. And they do have, they do have new requests, new capital requests. I apologize. So we will go over those and then we'll open up for questions.

I didn't see your, I was going to call the vice mayor, but then I saw your hand, your hand was dangling. So I'll, I'll respect your, your hand dangling.

up before the vice mayors the whole day but that's okay i'll i'll sit down okay um i wanted to kind of get in front of this i don't know i'm just just to start the conversation obviously we all sunshine for instance from talking to each other but she'll send around the most commonly asked questions and some policy things um one of which is uh obviously a large budget item which is you know butterfly festival special events I don't support changing that as is. I think that's a definition marquee event in the city. I know there may be debate about it, but I kind of wanted to get out in front of that first, but I'm going to ask just the two other questions to Janet and really Peter Gay. Going down to the summer recreation program, I'm assuming that's summer camp. We're talking about 5250, right? Right. Okay. So my question is large expenditure, but I was kind of led to believe at least a little bit in some of the open discussions we have, that it's cost recovered. Is it not? Are we operating at a huge deficiency there? And if we are, I'd really like to course correct that. Because I'm just going to tell you, my daughter had a great experience. She was at CIT at camp this summer. And what you guys are doing for the kids and the community is an amazing thing. But my question is, large budget item, and I would like the answer of if I'm looking at an expenditure, what I don't see is what's the revenue? So I'd like you to address that with me. I don't know if it's a Janet question or a Peter Gay question, and I want to know if it's cost recovery, and if it's not cost recovery, it should be.

So I think we reviewed that recently, and it was very close to cost recovery. We're in the process now of looking at all the charges and the fees and updating them. So if that does come back where there's a need to increase the fee for full cost recovery, we will make that recommendation when we come back to you in December. I believe we collect about 300 and something thousand in revenues for the summer camp. I know the line item you're looking at is just the operating budget, but the other part to that is the personnel cost for the summer camp employees that offsets that.

Okay, so you're guesstimating. Again, I'm not holding you to it, but we talked about it at a past meeting.

And I would clarify that I do not believe it's full cost recovery when it comes to the salary, the employee time. So it is one item that we will need to be looking at for full cost recovery.

Okay. So it kind of dovetails because we kind of kicked the can down the road with some of the parks, the rates and the fees and some of the other issues, but I think it's worth just a discussion to see. Where are the disparities? Very reasonably priced camp, very good experience for every single person in it. I know there's a wait list every year, so I commend you and your staff from really knocking it out of the park, especially all I've learned through my daughter's experience, which was an amazing experience. You got a free laborer, 40 hours a week.

It was great.

Yeah, it was great for me too. A 14-year-old girl learns a real work ethic.

I just have to say our satisfaction rate from our surveys is about 99%.

That doesn't surprise me. As a participant when my kids were earlier and then as now a father of somebody that wants to be a counselor there, that doesn't shock me. That was my one thing, and then I'll kind of kick it back to the rest of the commission. On the Butterfly Festival thing, because I don't know if somebody –

Well, I want to piggyback and say that I saw that in the report as well. And the question, I guess, was I'm totally against ever doing anything to change the Butterfly Festival to take away from our residents. I'm not on board with that. So I don't know if there's a sentiment for that on the dais, but that is something that I would be totally opposed to.

I think that would be an additional topic when we have our parks and recreation discussion, robust discussion in December. I would like to see that be, I mean, then if the sentiments have changed one way or the other that we address it then, but I think it fully fits into the full picture scope of realignment and repurposing and refunding the Parks and Recreation.

The butterfly festival is a part of the but it falls under parks and recreation That's gonna be a part of the fee schedule conversation.

I was asking if it could be if there's any sentiment to change it I Didn't bring it up as having changed it. I think when we redid the admission for residents and non-residents it kind of alleviated much of the security and issues in regard to those that were taking over the rides if you will and then was also it was also a rain it was also like the stormiest day right so like we had a really light day that year because you know because of the storm um but i didn't know we were talking about the butterfly festival at the meeting in december i thought that was just about the fees and things i didn't know where those sentiments come from when we got the answers to questions from all of our all of the commission in our meetings with peter gay and uh our city manager It wasn't tabbed as to which commissioner asked those questions. I didn't ask that question. I don't know. Maybe somebody else did. So I don't know how it came about. I would think it was somebody on the dais who asked about it. It did not come from me.

Oh, okay.

I'll admit, through staff discussions, I brought it up. It's a $115,000 expenditure, and we thought it was worth a conversation. For the rides.

Made you a little red herring there.

A little bit.

Glad you came clean.

I always come clean.

All right. Appreciate that. was yeah yeah i was looking around at who who's talking about it and at first the way sandy was talking about i was leaning it might be sandy she's trying to throw me off i i guess here's what i'm saying i am i would like to get consensus that we do we don't aside from creative solutions and maybe new products and things that we do not change the essence of butterfly festival i'm not trying to change the essence of butterfly festival i don't know if my colleagues have a comment or thought on that commissioner then the vice mayor thank you i think

All of us want to keep the essence of Butterfly Festival. It's a great time. Our residents love it. But that's the key word, our residents. We have to make sure our residents are taking full advantage. And if we're looking to pick up the slack as far as cost, I think that's where the guests and non-residents have to actually pay their weight. And just like this property tax thing is targeting and giving homesteaders the benefit, so to speak, that's how they're presenting it, the non-homesteaders of Coconut Creek should be paying to get into the rights. I'm not saying to to charge to get into Butterfly Festival. But if they want to take advantage of the rides, that's where, like we did the last time, is charge the non-residents entry into the ride section.

That's great. I'm glad Sheila came clean. Yeah, but who's doing it?

I can't believe you thought it was me. I was on Parks and Recreation Advisory Board for about 10 years.

All right, Vice Mayor, what you got?

All right, off the subject of the festival, because I think we're all in agreement. I do have a question on the glass partition. I'm going to explain why I don't like these. I ran a fitness center that had way more crazier people than you can imagine. We never once put a partition up. We went through COVID, did not put a partition up. So I'm asking you, in 2026, what is the need to have a glass partition? Because I don't think it's good customer service when people are interacting. Not only that, if you bring something with you, paper, the way those partitions are set, there's nowhere to put that. So the whole concept of this is I'm not in agreement with it because I don't think our residents want to be behind a glass screen where you're talking through a small hole. Now, I understand in City Hall there's a little bit of different danger involved because it's a target. But I'm going to tell you, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know why... a rec center or a community center would be considered a target that you would have to put any kind of glass up for protection. And if it comes to a need that's sitting on a desk, don't put crap on the desk that people can reach. I mean, we did that as a business. spending ten thousand dollars to isolate our resident and i don't really like that concept of that you're not spending it though you're not you said uh you're not that's my tax money right right so my money yeah which is that taxpayer and a resident that's going to let her let her address uh why so right now we still have the partitions up from covet they've never come down the staff feel more comfortable with them up for not only

illness reasons because that was ingrained in our minds but also from safety reasons and we do have a large homeless a larger homeless population down south the rec complex is scheduled to get it so we currently are already have that barrier up this is just making it more permanent public works has it city you know there's in and I have to say you and I are our experience together it's probably like 67 years in the business I've seen people take off their spinning sneaker and throw it at a staff person because they couldn't get in a class. So it does happen.

Well, it does happen. My thing is this, it's so infrequent that you go, you're isolating your resident to have some kind of connection with our people. And I'm going to be honest, I ran a business. I would never, even during COVID, we didn't put these up. Why? Because it isolates. And I think when a resident comes in there to talk to you, they want to be able to talk to you and not talk through a hole. And and I think and I've been around other cities I was just up in you know Cape Canaveral looking at their rec centers because they were showing everything up none of them had it I don't if they're if you got police reports or you got emails or something to show me that there's a history historical Value to doing this I'd be all willing to look at it, but just from a standpoint of running a business I'm not in agreement with that Commissioner really then Commissioner Rydell

Thank you. I understand what you're saying, John, but Commissioner Brony, all it takes is one incident. And in today's environment, we never know what's going to trigger anyone. And I am in full support of protecting our staff. Live with this every day. And you never know when someone is going to just have a meltdown and find the nearest target to just take their anger out on someone. And now with the laws changing and open carry everywhere, I think it's very important. that we do this for our staff. Anything that we can do to make them feel more secure and safer is warranted.

Is it bulletproof?

No, I don't believe so.

Okay. Commissioner Rydell, then Commissioner Welch.

I'm just going to, I guess, I'll chime in with this. I own a building in downtown Fort Lauderdale, and sometimes in that building there's only one employee. And when the receptionist is there by herself, you know what I tell her? Keep the front door locked.

That's it.

Keep the front door locked. You know why? Because it makes her feel safer. Right? If the answer is simple and you said it, the employees feel safer. End of discussion for me. I support this. If the employees feel safer, end of discussion. So I support it.

And then Commissioner Welch.

Yes, thank you very much. I've been in that center when coming either upstairs or downstairs from the fitness center, and I've seen situations that came in to the building before police arrived, and not a healthy situation. I would not want to be that employee there. Like, I would either go on upstairs, but I knew that staff was... They could just see what was coming and were calling for help to get some. So I fully support them. It's very flimsy. It looks like you could touch it and it would fall over. I don't check in down there now anymore. If I check in upstairs... So, and given that they're going to be the only facility in our city that is not, that's customer facing like that, that does not have that partition, a more sturdy partition than what they currently have. So, I mean, we had conversations already about retaining our staff and, you know, keeping them intact with their benefits that they have. I think in their customer-facing positions that they have at the rec centers is a part of that. That's definitely a piece to have their peace of mind. It's not in their paycheck, but it's something that they can feel more comfortable about.

Yeah, I would... I find it's an interesting point the vice mayor brings up. But at the end of the day, you know, there's no really price on safety and feeling secure in your workplace. And if there's talks of... in the north to be getting it in their redesign, then I'm 100% on board with this for the south end. That's a given. And I just clarified that to see if they were getting it or if they had something on the north side. So... Yeah, I'm okay with it. I do. But, you know, we still want to have that customer service friendly environment. Sometimes the layer in between does kind of hurt that, I would say. But I'm okay with it. But it's not going to the ceiling, though. It doesn't go to the ceiling, from my understanding. No, it does not. Okay. And what, it gets screwed into the desk?

I'm not sure. Deck installation on it.

Okay. Yeah. You're not on. You're not on. Now you're on.

So it's not bulletproof and it doesn't go to the ceiling. So basically it's just an isolation between a resident and a staff member. Is this going to be a built-in sliding door? Because I'm going to tell you right now, for me, talking through that hole at the North Rec Center and between the partitions, it's a complete pain in the ass and it's horrible interaction because I can't hear them. All right, you have to shout. Now everybody hears my conversation with the staff. I just don't feel that it's conductive to customer service. And that's my feeling. It's a $10,000 waste, in my opinion.

All right.

I'm not done talking to you yet. I'm done.

I got one more question. You did say a bad word, though.

What did I say?

You said the A word.

Is anybody offended? I'm sorry.

All right. Any other topics? Commissioner Raley?

I would just like to know the difference in cost between ballistic glass and regular.

Maybe we could ask Harry if he could respond to that.

There is a significant cost increase. With the ballistic glass in the top, You'd also need ballistic panels at the bottom. Just to give you a frame of reference, Wall City Hall was a lot bigger and a more complex build. That was well over $300,000 for that project to be completed.

But comparatively speaking, when saying footage, say 10 feet as opposed to 30 feet.

That also needs to be designed somewhere around $7,500,000. Probably just ballpark it off the cuff.

All right, thank you. And is there anything that we can do? Will this be plexiglass or will this be glass?

I don't know the answer to what they got there. Yeah, I would have to go back and look at the quote.

Okay.

That's an important note to have to know.

Most likely some sort of safety glass.

Right, right.

Also, the question asked, too, is there going to be a hole or a sliding door?

that's a question too because it was the whole it's the worst scenario you could possibly oh like the sliding thing like where you put like a card in and you push it over the doctor's office when you walk up to their door they they have the glass that they slide open oh yeah yeah we could take a look at the quote and we can and we can work with the company to make sure that'd be great proper voice box yeah i do agree with the whole i do agree the whole is a little less you know yeah all right uh um commissioner did you have anything else and i know the vice mayor has one more thing okay to the vice mayor

All right. The turbo utility vehicle. And I always ask this when we start talking about vehicles and things like this. Toro, not turbo. Is it a want or a need?

It is a need because when we don't have the vehicle in service, the vehicles are getting older and they're not always in service. So when we don't have that vehicle, we have to carry stuff where we would normally transport it. And it just makes it a little more difficult to get supplies where they need to be and in different locations.

So my question is then, how often is it down to necessitate what we call a need?

I do not.

So if it's breaking down every other day or once a week or once a month, we've got a conversation. If it's every once in a while, that's not a conversation, especially when we're cutting budgets and things like that. So I just need to know, is it a want or a need based on the maintenance of that vehicle that we have presently working? So if you've got one that's going down all the time and it's a replacement because that vehicle is out of warranty and no longer being able to be serviceable for a year, that's a different conversation. But as far as I know, all our vehicles have been working. I haven't heard otherwise.

Yeah, no, we've had several that have been going down, so that is the reason for the replacement. I can get you more details on that.

I kind of, I understand what the Vice Mayor is saying. You know, we are in times where, like, you know, should we be spending $24,000 on a new Toro vehicle, and we currently have, right? How many do we have currently in the department?

I believe there's two, Danielle.

Good afternoon. In reference to the utility vehicles, we have had an issue with them this past year. We have a fleet of about, I think, four at Sable. And we actually had three of them down at the Butterfly Festival this year, which put a lot of strain on our staff that particular day. But they have been going in and out of fleet. And they have actually requested for us to try and... purchase a new one because the parts for the older vehicles are just harder to get. So they actually requested for us to try and put in for a new vehicle. Fleet.

Who specifically can speak to it at a fleet?

uh... fleets commonly referred to uh... it's our contract service provider that maintains the vehicles uh... at the company called vector and uh... so as these type of vehicles come in especially as they age trying to source parts at that age they're just taking they take a long time to get if you can get them so if any depending on the type of breakdown it could be weeks before we're our for instance our backhoe has been down for two to three weeks right now waiting on parts it's uh since covid the parts supply has gone downhill tremendously for all vehicles okay anything else from the dais yes uh commissioner welch and then commissioner rayleigh

Thank you. Okay. How old are these vehicles and how long will the length of the service of this new vehicle? What do we anticipate? 10 years? 15 years? 10 years? Okay, great. And how old are the existing vehicles?

I don't have that information.

Okay. All right. No worries. they service all our parks the vehicles that we have at sable are basically at sable at sable and this new one will go to sable and the existing ones that we have will we repurpose them i'm not sure just get re get rid of it it would just be junk okay good

hi so i don't know who's answering this question but when we got the the list of answers to all of our commissioners questions and our city managers okay so under the toro utility cart vehicle it said while we cannot predict when it will break down for good the cart is 29 years old and not in good condition if the life of them is 10 years now i just came where there's a major heat wave in france we have major heat waves here in south florida if we have four carts and three of them were down in butterfly festival i can't imagine the labor intensiveness this must put on our staff if they're relying on vehicles that are not reliable. Now, we've just given consensus for that butterfly festival to continue as is. And I frankly, for one, can't suggest that we're gonna put that staff in conditions that can't give them the capability to haul and transport things that they need. give us that flagship butterfly festival so i just i fully support this one of them being replaced if that's what the request is before us today my next question on this though would be if they're all aging at some point we're going to be seeing this again on a budget line for replace each and every one of them correct most likely

OK, so is the concept here that we're going to start replacing one a year? So this will be a line item we see every year? Because you've got to come up with a maintenance plan. If you're telling me that we've got three that went down and they're all old and parts, I would assume that there's at some point a vision of replacing all of these items. And what is the ideology behind how we're going to do that?

So as we've done with our fitness equipment, I think we are working towards a an annual equipment replacement for the entire department so that we have a scheduled layout of what we're going to need to replace.

And I appreciate it. This is actually why I was asking these questions, to get this information so people understand that we're replacing this. And I'm OK with that. And just like we spoke about with the police and the fire, replacing one at a time is how we go about this. So if you're telling me that, hey, this is going to be a line item we're going to see on every budget every year until they're all fully replaced, I think at the age of these things, I'm going to be okay with that, but we need to make sure that we've got to have a plan that was obviously ran through the city manager to make sure that there's some kind of plan to replace these, and we're not going to be surprised every year seeing this. It's something that we have put into a plan. That's all I'm going to say.

Okay.

Oh, Commissioner Rydell? I give consensus on all the new capital outlay requests.

Agree. Yes. Yes.

agreed for parks and rec for this department thank you i want to address i mean i know staff's not recommending there's the other good job janet there's this the second trailer i mean do you want to just i understand it's a not recommendation but it's a request you want to just cover it i know i'm just i'm just curious we're talking about it so there's a second trailer for special events is it a part of this budget It's not because it's not recommended, but I'd like to hear. I mean, I'm not suggesting we're doing this, but we've approved things that the department wants, but they're not recommending in the past. So I'm just curious because it's an item here. Somebody walk me through what's going on with the second trailer.

Sure, no problem. As you're well aware, sometimes on the weekends, we'll have multiple special events. On a Friday night, we might have a movie in the park, and then the following Saturday morning, very early, we'll have the farmer's market. So we do have an enclosed trailer right now that really has proven to be beneficial to our department because we can load it up, the tents, tables, and chairs, and we don't have to worry about inclement weather as we're storing it. So if we're going from one event to the next, it's ideal to be able to stage them within each trailer for each event. So it has proven to be very beneficial to our department, so we thought we could possibly get another one.

What's the cost on something like that? What did you say? $9,500?

You're saying that it would improve efficiency? for our special events.

It is something that could prove to be efficient in the future if we're continuing with having multiple events back to back, yes.

And I would just say from the administration's perspective, anything that was a capital outlay that we may find we are rolling back on special events, it allowed us, it was an opportunity for us to balance the budget. We certainly know they have needs, but that was the rationale.

the um is there like a i mean listen 9 500 is not like a lot for this in my mind an opinion um is there like a photo a picture or um i mean if we if i mean if we wanted to if the commission wanted to add it on i mean with that i mean is there i mean is there a taste for that

i would say we'd hold off on it for now in until the vote because if we have to cut back some of our events then we won't need another trailer that's a good point commissioner idel

I mean, from my perspective, there would be a pallet to entertaining it this year because let's just say things go a different way regardless of event. I mean, we're still going to have events. That's not ever going away. We're not getting rid of events. There's still going to be community-based events. There's still going to be a need for things. I would actually support doing this now as opposed to another year where we're definitely not doing it maybe.

so we've able to shave some money this budget's pretty significantly I think from costs and anticipated costs agreed this is something that I would support and and you bring up a point because we have we have really eliminated a lot of things that I think even adding this 9500 we've still made a very good um effort as a commission on you know bringing down some certain items commissioner Welch you had something to say no I thought you did

I do. I think I tend to agree with Commissioner Raley. When we have the conversations in December, the vote will have been taken. And I think we would have the capability to add a deferred item back in if the case So we know that we wouldn't have to have the conversations about scaling back some events, so there might not be as many competing, closely timed events that we're having right now. I just feel like it should be a part of that discussion rather than then. It could be on the wait list, part of the wait list.

Vice Mayor?

So I'm in... I know it's going to sound weird, but I'm in agreement with putting it as a line item now. But we don't have to spend that money right away. We don't have to go buy it in October. We could put it on a line item, and then if things don't go the way it needs to be, we could just drop it, just not buy it. But at least it's there if it goes our way in November. then we have something that's a line item it's already approved on a budget that we can now spend the money on it and just have it as a fall off in november 3rd or 4th but at least we're budgeted for it at least we have it at least we know there's a need for it and so i i think that's kind of the safer route to go so is there a consensus for the second trailer for special events rydell said yes commissioner vice mayor brody i said um okay all right well wow brody you really you got the two women who were in and out but now they're on look at that

they are but you persuaded them very good yeah of course all right so we'll add it well so there's consensus to add the second trailer for special events um to this year's budget um anything else for parks and rec

all right we'll see you in december no i'm just kidding one other one oh sorry it's just a a description of 5263 it's listed as rec activity south um it doubled um and i'm not sure if it doubled as just adopted and we anticipated staying the same and we're just over budgeting it or it's an actual cost item as well i'll tell you my eyes are not as good as they used to yeah 5263. No, no, no. The question is, in FY25, we were at 89. We're now budgeting. I didn't know if we're over-budgeting for the item. I'm curious what it is. So if we budgeted in 25, 20,000, then it's a non-issue. Correct. And obviously, to Sandy's point, we don't know the cost, too. So I'm just curious what that is. Because if it's an activity cost, that would seem to be a much more fixed cost.

So what we have included there is for culture and arts activities, and then just broad recreational activities. So if it's not used, then it will fall out.