City Commission - Regular Meeting

Good

afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the workshop at the Delray Beach City Commission. This is Tuesday, April 7. If the clerk, please call the roll.

Deputy vice mayor Markert? Present. Commissioner Malika?

Here.

Commissioner Cassell? Here. Vice mayor Burns? Here. Mayor Carney?

Here. Thank you very much. We have a quorum. The first part of our agenda are public comments. So if there are any members of the public wishing to speak about items that are on our agenda today, please come to the lecturer and give your name and address. You will each have three minutes to speak.

On the agenda or not?

On the agenda. The way with workshop items are restricted to workshop comments are restricted to items that are on the workshop agenda.

Okay. I'm Christina Morrison. 33483. So, we don't know where Rob is, but we've been working with Rob and, your your assistant city manager through the chamber for months. We picked some, categories of employers that we'd like to see come to the city, a lot of them tech involved.

Thank you, mister Marcart, commissioner Marcart. We haven't had much luck yet, but there's a lot of hope and and there's a lot of, opportunity. There's a lot of vacant space. I sent Rob a whole list of all the properties that were available in the city. There were 15 pages of spaces available, all different sizes from 25,000 feet at Atlanta Crossing down to a thousand feet, in the Dockery Building. So there's lots of opportunity, and we wanna get it done. So anything we can do to help. Here. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else? Seeing none, public comment is closed. We now go to agenda item WS two, the organizational operational structure for economic synergy mister Moore

thank you mister mayor and good evening or good afternoon ladies and gentlemen this brings us forward based on direction and commitments we've offered during the 12/01/2025 city commission shop meeting on the subject as well as a subsequent discussion that took place February 3 regarding economic development synergy culminating in a follow-up 03/09/2026 in which we've offered some commitment and direction relative to external consultancy services to help us get to the absolute best place possible I've had an opportunity along with other members of the team to visit with each of you individually to discuss what our ultimate recommendations are with respect to specific types of consultancy services to help us move forward with respect to economic development synergy in addition to external consultancy services of which we'll be representing we'll be introducing representatives who'll be involved in that effort beginning this afternoon we hosted a meeting my office did Thursday March 19 to include representatives from the community redevelopment agency the Derry Beach chamber of commerce as well as the Derry Beach downtown development authority which will offer their involvement and participation including as Christina Morrison discussed via public comment opportunities to identify a connection with respect to abilities to move forward in this regard so in essence we're contemplating a planning approach as well as a marketing execution approach and I've asked assistant city manager Jeff Forrest be here this afternoon to briefly introduce representatives from each of the companies we hope to commission as a result of today's workshop meeting so one of which is grip who is actually visiting with us virtually followed by mister Kevin and his team.

So miss Doris, if you can briefly talk a little bit about who they are and why, and they will have an opportunity to briefly introduce themselves and offer a productive environment for us to get to the best place possible. Mr. Horace.

Good afternoon. Jeff Horace, assistant city manager. I'm going keep my part pretty brief here so we can move on. We have both consultants with us, Craig Agrunoff from Gript, who is the marketing side of this, as well as Kevin. I I completely forgot drew a blank on Kevin's name. Kevin Crowder, who, by the way, I've known for, like, twenty years, so that's kinda funny. Thought I went blank

on his That's why you should forget these. I understand why you could forget that.

Mr. Crowder's company business flare will be doing the economic development plan side of this. Both of these consultants have been put into a room together. They have not worked together before, but they have hit it off quite well. And I suppose we're going to hear a lot about their collaborations in the future. But I'm going to ask you to take this a little out of order. Mr. Agronoff is with us virtually. He is traveling today. If we could just have him what I'm asking him to do is just explain a little bit about his scope, which you have as a hard copy as the attachment to the agenda.

And I'd like you to hear from him, and, of course, he's available for questions. Greg, if you wanna tell the commission a little about yourself and about your scope. Oh, we have no sound.

You're on mute.

Can you hear me now?

Now we can hear you. Hear you. Thank you. Yep.

So my name is Craig Agrunoff. We're from Grip LLC. And although a lot of what I'm saying would make better sense coming, after business, Blair, I'll definitely still stay around after Kevin speaks. This way, I can answer any questions that might seem out of all

Speak slowly.

Correct? Speak speak slowly and Sure. More and and and with more volume. That's loud.

Okay. So first, thank you, mister mayor and and commissioners and and city leaders for having us. I'm from GRIP LLC, and it will make much better sense what I'm talking about after Kevin goes as well. So I will stick around so that you can hear from him too. And then this way, I can answer any questions that you might have after hearing from him as well.

But what we're proposing is a is a very focused economic development marketing effort designed to bring the right business to the city of Delray Beach based directly on the findings from BusinessFlare's analysis and report. So BusinessFlare is gonna be identifying which industries and companies and opportunities make the most sense for Delray, and then our role is gonna be to take those insights execute the and execute on them. This means we are not guessing. We're not marketing broadly. We're going to be following a very data driven road map and targeting the exact businesses that have already been identified as the best fit for the city.

From there, we usually will ensure that the city is positioned to compete for those opportunities, and that starts with aligning everyone around what the right fit business is gonna look like so the time is not spent pursuing opportunities that do not match Delray's long term vision. It also means making sure that when a company shows interest, the city is ready with clear and credible information about available space and development opportunities. Opportunities. We'll then build a strong, consistent, why message tailored specifically to decision makers. This is not general branding or tourism messaging.

This is about clearly communicating to executives and investors why Delray is the right place for their business, their employees, and the future, of their own growth. Next, we will turn that strategy into real world tools. So that will include pitch materials, presentations, and supporting assets that can be used by staff, brokers, and partners when engaging with those prospects. The goal here is to make sure that every interaction with a potential business is clear, professional, and compelling. Afterwards, we'll focus on precision marketing and outreach.

We'll identify where those specific decision makers are paying attention and ensure that Delray Beach is visible in those exact channels. This this approach will avoid wasted spending and keeps all efforts aligned with the opportunities identified by BusinessFlare. We'll also focus heavily heavily on conversion. Generating interest is only part of the equation. We will help guide the process from the initial inquiry to site visits to final decisions, ensuring that opportunities do not stall or fall through due to lack of coordination or information.

I mean, the Delray is built out is a built out city. We all recognize that, and it requires a more strategic and targeted approach than traditional economic development efforts. And where appropriate appropriate, we will introduce innovative methods to reach and influence decision makers, always grounded in data and aligned with the results. And finally, everything we do is measured and transparent. The city managers will be able to see what is working, what is not, and where adjustments should be made. This ensures that efforts remain efficient, accountable, and focused on outcomes. So at its core, this is about taking the opportunities identified by BusinessFlare and turning them into real businesses, real jobs, and long term economic growth for the city of Delray Beach.

Thank you very much, mister Agronov. Miss mister Ors.

If Kevin? Kevin Crowder?

You're gonna be standing by for questions. Correct, mister Agronov?

I I will be.

Thank you.

Kevin Crowder, Business Flare. Business Flare has been around for a while. I'm gonna let you Kevin tell you a bit about his business and and some of his background.

Great. Thank you. Kevin Crider, yes, Business Flare is the firm that I founded. So my background is I moved to Florida in 1994, started in economic development in Miami Beach with business improvement districts, and then from there, spent fifteen years as the director of economic development in Miami Beach during we call it sort of the Cinderella years of South Beach's revitalization. I left at the 2012. So one thing I realized, I I encountered a lot of cities during my work there, and I realized that every city, no matter how big or small around Florida that I met, they had constituents who had the same expectations as our constituents and our businesses in Miami Beach, but they didn't necessarily have the resources or the assets or the visibility that they had. But we

had developed a way to

look at at our approach in Miami Beach and and sort of reverse engineer that into an approach that we thought could work in any place. And it's one that so I left in 2012 to start consulting more for smaller cities and and help them kinda realize their goals when it came to economic development. So we've now worked on this approach in in between seventy and eighty cities around around the state since then. It's very much an approach that's focused on we call it a respectful reality check, understanding the reality that you're operating in from city hall, the things that you do and don't have influence over, understanding kind of, you know, what your options are and the policy ramifications of that, and then very focused on implementation. We're not big on strategic planning and and coming up with a lot of different initiatives.

We're focused on what are the three things you can do in the next ninety days? What are the three things you can do in the next hundred and eighty days to move forward? You know, to me, an economic development plan is the three most meaningful things you can do in your city's budget next year that are gonna be visible and and help you move the needle. In terms of our team, we have what if if you're familiar with GrowFL, it's the the state arm focused on entrepreneurship. They described us as an awesome collaborative enterprise focused on economic growth.

And so we have a team that we have all disciplines. We're almost like a mini city hall. In house, I have an architect, an AICP, a finance person, and then we have our frequent collaborators. Fune is here from DDEC, one of our collaborators that we work with a lot based here, Roots, and and and they are located here in Delray Beach, so a lot of local knowledge there. Actually, we have some an awesome economic developer, Ruth Buchanan, who's come from both been involved with Florida makes on the manufacturing side statewide as well as GrowFL around the state.

Recently, we do a lot of CRE work. We do a lot of economic development work. I think one thing that's really relevant here is we've been engaged for about five years with Martin County as their sort of out I wouldn't say outsourced, but on on call economic developer. We spent a year managing their business attraction program for the BDB up in Martin County, and we recently, in December, after about a year and a half of work, culminated with approval by the BCC of their fully new economic toolkit, which is custom designed specifically for their reality, their focus, the firms that have been identified that are appropriate for them, that match their talent, their talent makeup. And so, again, we're very focused on what you're gonna be able to do, the the tools, the the different levers that you have to choose from to to realize that vision, and then what are the things that are gonna move the needle that you can implement.

In terms of our approach, we're gonna look we're gonna do we're gonna look at your assets. We're gonna look at your amenities. We're gonna look at your capacity. You're to a certain extent supply constrained. Right. You're not demand constrained. You know, the the the the bigger challenge is sort of execution and identifying the friction points in people being able to execute to to make those investments. We'll do some, we call it competitive intelligence. We're gonna look at the areas around you, but, you know, this isn't about how you compete with VOCA. This isn't about how you compete with West Palm.

This is about what is your competitive advantage no matter who you're competing with and what differentiates you compared to anyone else. And and and you're gonna have ideas on what those are. We're gonna have ideas on what those are, but then we're gonna come in and we're gonna uncover a lot of things that none of us know exist here, but that are gonna end up being mean meaningful to the story you tell. I can tell you that almost everywhere we've worked, the most meaningful thing for economic development to come out of that is something that we uncovered that was already there in that city that no one knew was there. But once it was exposed and it and it it got that visibility, it was meaningful.

We're gonna do we do a lot of data. We do data really good, but we we have an approach. We call it the gut sandwich because intuition and instinct is gonna be really important there, especially as we evaluate how location decisions are made and who's gonna wanna be here and who's not gonna wanna be here, who you're not right for. And then we're gonna look at all of this, and this is probably one of the most important things. We spend a lot of time thinking about the future, especially lately, and where where local economies are going, where industries are going.

I'm a musician, and I've been through five different recording formats in my life, and I've been through seven listening formats in my life. I spend a lot of time with Gen Z musicians who have only known one format of each, who can record an album on their iPhone, and who, you know, who didn't go through eight tracks and cassettes and all that. That streaming is that only thing. So we try to stay up and understand how those how those industries and technologies are evolving so that our cities are always able to build for what's gonna come next and and be ahead of where the vast majority of cities are gonna be. And so with that, as we look at the industries and we identify your potential targets, the thread that's gonna run through this is generational talent.

That's the thing that's that's really gonna answer a lot of the questions on what you're gonna be able to do when it comes to your the business attraction program that Craig is gonna be implementing. And then, you know and we'll come culminate this in in a very concise and targeted implementation strategy for

you. Thank

you very much. Other members of the commission, would you like to be recognized to commissioner Gasson? Oh, sure.

Thank you very much. Thank you for the presentation. This is exciting, especially when you started talking about how you can do things quickly, even talking to us about what can be done in thirty, sixty, ninety days. I love that because we're looking to move. One of the things you talked about in Martin was the BDB business development board.

We don't have one here but what we do have is an amazing chamber of commerce we have a DDA we have our CRA and we have economic development within our city a department I just want to make sure as you're working through one of the things that concerns me is we got the list of what's available and you're right we have lot a of people wanting to come here but we don't have a lot of space to offer out and that's going present particular challenges but what's most important to me as you move forward is that you're working closely with the chamber the DDA, and our CRA who will all help you and also benefit from your experience.

Absolutely. And we have a lot of experience working with that. I've worked for the Miami DDA before. We work in and I know Renee. We've we've done work with Renee before. We CRAs is really our sweet spot.

Right.

We came up through I came up through the Miami Beach CRA, and and and we worked, you know, we work well with Chambers. We work with all of those different organizations very well.

Right.

We work also a lot with other organizations that are critical to this. We spend a lot of time even more than we don't spend a lot of time in our own industry. Right. We don't spend a lot of time in economic development councils and and those associations. We spend time with the realtors and with the commercial realtors and with the developers and with with the entrepreneurs.

So so like GrowFL and and and other organizations where we're gonna be able to engage with the people that we need to implement things in our cities, not not where we're sort of in an echo chamber talking to ourselves about things that we already know. Right. So that's a place we spend, and that's relevant to the discussion on space and what space that you do have available. It's one of and it's it's one of the reasons it's it's important that we have an architect over urban planner in house at Business Blair doing who understands economic development better than most economic developers even Right. Because and I learned this from dealing with a lot of brokers, especially especially in Miami Beach and some other cities.

We need to see where the mismatch is between the space that's available and the needs of your prospects. Right. You may have people knocking on your door, and you may have space available. It doesn't mean that they're gonna end up being appropriate for each other. So we can give you guidance on how to overcome that.

Great. And we're also looking to develop West Atlantic.

Yes.

And it'll be substantial development. So I'm very excited about moving forward with this. Thank you for your presentation.

And we're very familiar with

You know, was very you finished?

Yes. Thank you.

What was very interesting what you said and I actually did a do I do these things because my office does we do due diligence. You did a great job in Miami Beach. What you said interestingly to to me, which resonates, is that we are not in competition with Boca Raton. We are not in competition with Pa. We are not in with Boynton Beach.

I think we all collectively know just how special Delray Beach is. We may not know how to articulate it, which is what you kind of do, but we have such we we we we we are we have so many things that are so inviting to people to come into the city to to operate. And I mean, I talk about family offices. I talk about things which need smaller space. But we have so many things that we can do, which is what you did actually in Miami Beach, which is what I found out, which I thought was like,

very interesting. And one thing that we realized in Miami Beach, and you still see it happening today when you see now the new wave of office development happening in Miami Beach. You see the new office tenants that are coming in in this latest wave that goes back to 1998 when we did our first round of class a office space. But one thing that we recognized in Miami Beach at one point was that our tourists become our residents, and that by having a visitor economy, we have a very different approach to quality of life as an economic driver that other cities have because we're paying attention to things that matter. And that's how we got so many people.

I mean, Tony Goldman discovered Ocean Drive on vacation. Yeah. And and and I'll tell you one thing that in in looking at Delray Beach already, you're very and when you talk about wealth management, you talk about custom boutique law firms and different things, you have your one of your biggest categories, you have 708 professional services firms that employ about 3,900 people. We're talking about low small footprint, five to 15 employees. Small footprint, which is good considering your supply constraints, but high touch.

And what that means is you're a place the founder wants to be, and you're a place their clients want to visit. And that's something you have different. You have an active downtown. Boca and even West Palm don't West Palm doesn't have that nightlife that you're able to offer. Boca doesn't have the downtown, and after the election, they're not gonna have one anytime soon.

That's gonna be one of your differentiators, especially in this part of Palm Of Palm Beach. Craig sent me a a text yesterday to an article in Refresh Miami, which is very focused on it's one of the biggest tech blogs out there to read, and it's about the emerging innovation ecosystem in Palm Beach County. Now it's probably a little boosterism. It's probably makes it more visible than than it is deep, but it opens with an interview talking to a guy who's an entrepreneur who relocated relocated from from New New York York to to Delray. Delray.

The point that's in there the rest of the article doesn't really talk about Delray. It talks about other things in Palm Beach County, which is the reason you've got to tell your story and differentiate. The story about him that's Delray is this is where he bought his house. But translating that into the rest of that entrepreneurial vision and investment that they make becomes that's gonna be your one of your biggest differentiators, and it's already one of your biggest strengths.

Well, know, I I was I actually had a I'm gonna let pass this on, but I've I've I met with somebody who has a started a family office here, you know, not too long ago. And he was talking the other morning about, you know, they hired this one person for a couple 100,000, the other person for a couple 100,000. All their kids are gonna go to schools here. And it's exactly what you said. They they these these people are coming in. They're actually moving here, living here. And, you know, I'm not gonna translate into what it does for public schools. But, you know, when you get these kinds of people that are living here that are making demands on what they want for the education for their children Yes. Everything gets, everything gets, you know, the, the rising tide, you know, raises kind of all boats. So anyway Can

I just ask one more question? What is the cost, mister Moore, for both of these?

Can we can can I get can I get all the comments done first? Would you are there any are there any other people who would like to be recognized on on on on the presentations?

Just wanna thank you both, and And I look forward to what's uncovered, particularly any bottlenecks that we might have that is preventing more economic development. So thank you very much for both your good work. Look forward to it. And can I ask how much this has cost? That was for you, Julie.

Okay. Well

Thank you.

Do you does anybody have anybody else have any comments before we get to what the cost is? I

just wanna say thank you for the for your presentation as well, both of you. This is the most encouraging conversation that we've had about economic development since I've been on this commission, and it's it's very promising. I I like that term respectful reality check because we needed one and finding out what's best for Delray. So thank you very much for the presentation. I'm looking forward to

Yes. Just a quick comment. I've been following with interest the in Palm Beach County, the huge data farms that are are being built that have created massive dissatisfaction with a lot of the residents. We're never going to be of that scale or mindset. But it does say that we got to be careful with our residents in terms of what we're picking so that the businesses fit. And I guess just one of the questions I had, you know, without having you delve into it too much. What are the hot categories that are out there right now that, off the top of your head, are interesting to to look at a location like Delray Beach to bring their headquarters here?

So I think the hottest thing, and it's it's very broad. Again, each of these, you've you've gotta really narrow down and figure out what is your category gonna be. And to a certain extent, you're not gonna decide that. Yeah. The market's gonna decide decide that. And really now, it's the talent that's gonna decide that. I can tell you we have, in the last six months gone ahead and into the into the creator economy. The creator economy is not influencers in their parents' basement anymore. McKinsey just built a division around it recruiting people that that lead the biggest channels on YouTube and and Facebook into it. We have in six months in six months, we have built the most subscribed economic development channel on YouTube, and in six weeks, we've built the second most subscribed.

And so we've been digging into this. It was $250,000,000 industry billion dollar industry two years ago. Next year, it'll pass 500,000,000,000. Yep. It's a space that cities have not figured out how to operate in at all.

There is nobody operating in economic development in this space in a meaningful way. And so understanding that, that is one of the places, and it's where it's where your connection to the future comes. And so the other piece of that, I'm I'm Gen X, and my generation in general is now in charge. We, in general, were the founders, were the politicians, gen z. They're gonna create more wealth than millennials, us, and boomers combined, and so understanding how how that economic evolution is happening is is is sort of the new thing that's out there that we really don't have a full handle on.

And and so we're trying to figure that out, and a lot of that is gonna be driven by the talent and where they decide they want to be based on, again, that most important driver of economic development now, which is quality of life, which which, again, you're very well positioned

Just one other one other quick quick comment. I I think one of the advantages that we have is we have great universities surrounding us. So our talent of young people down there, we never talk about it, but it's it's wonderful. I mean, when you look at the universities that we have for for companies that are, you know, looking to bring on some entry level people and, you know, we we got a good pool of talent down here.

We spend a lot of time in cities trying to figure out how they get their talent to come back home from college or to stay there. And it's usually two things that drive it. It's things to do and it's cost. Bingo.

I I would say that I'm a baby boomer and we still have things to offer too. But mister Eckernob You

do it in fact.

You're you're you're such There there there's others in this room They're they're they're being quiet, but you're quiet.

And that's and that's why we say generals

He's not quite he's not quite that we are, but

And that's why we say generals are equal talent. Because we wanna understand each of those as a I

I do understand where where the new wealth is coming from and that's just that's a if you read the Wall Street Journal every day, you see that they're not people my age creating these Absolutely. This this vast

So what you've built here is very important, and we when we look at this, we really look at it as bookended by boomers and Gen z because you've built a place that is great, that's already positioned and built for attracting the affluent boomers retirees, which gets you very far down the path towards that that the other generations we're talking about. Right.

I appreciate that. Mister Akronov, are you gonna do you wanna contribute contribute to before we we have this I mean, you're part of this mix?

Yeah. Thank you, mayor. I I just kinda wanted to expand on commissioner Merkert's question. So, you know, we did our own type of initial look to see what what what companies were moving down here. Who, you know, who are the prominent type of verticals that we should be looking at just in general so that we can start tailoring marketing plan in advance.

And, I mean, the obvious ones are private equity. And the article I had sent, Kevin, was due to the fact that a private equity a venture capitalist had moved down from New York here, now he started investing companies down here. It would be nice if Delray gave him in that feeder ecosystem to invest into these companies because that's how you truly build these multimillion dollar companies within your city. Delray is very well positioned for this type of company to move here, and I do think it offers a much more of a or much better experience than a larger and more congested markets for what these guys are looking for when they move down here. The second obvious ones would be professional services such as, like, accounting, consulting, advisory firms, as he also had mentioned.

And I think that we are positioned for that as well because they tend to look for more high quality, environments and desirable locations, and we certainly have the desirable location. The others that you're gonna see are going back to his data center point is, yes, we might not have data centers moving into the area into our area, but we will have the executives from those companies looking to move probably into Delray Beach because they're not gonna wanna most likely live out in the areas where they're putting in these big data centers. So you'll see kind of a growth in family offices and boutique investment firms that are, you know, that that are adjacent companies to these that will service those companies. Those are the type of companies that prioritize quality of life over the ease of doing business. But the one that I'm starting to notice in in the research is the remote first companies.

Remote What company? What Remote Remote Remote first companies. Okay. They're they're firms. They're not tied to traditional traditional headquarters. So it's like some of these AI companies or some of these technology companies. And they will be much more open to cities like Delray Beach due to the fact that we do offer that strong lifestyle and we do have that unique identity. So just to kinda give a little bit of color to what I think commissioner market was asking for, I kinda just wanted to elaborate on that.

Great. Thank you very much. Now the question was asked by two two two of my colleagues. Let let's talk about the cost of trying I mean, I think this is look. I think there's a great value added here. So but what what is our what is our bottom line in trying to get this initiative underway?

So two contracts, obviously. One with BusinessFlare, which will be just shy of $60,000 and the other for the marketing side with grip at about $64,000 both agreements to be 100% financed and supported via the city's economic development fund

so we have those monies already in the fund is what you're saying?

Yes. So one of this evening's actions by the city commission, I'm not asking the city commission to authorize the contracts. I have the authority as city manager to do that, of which I intend to do so in the next day or so. Budget adjustment from the economic development fund to translate into applicable expenditures for this purpose, you will take action this evening.

Okay. Thank you. Does that answer your question?

Yes. Thank you.

Okay. Look. I I've kind of revealed what I think. I think the value added, all you need is one real company to come in. Mr.

Aggarnoff mentioned family offices. I told you I had a meeting the other day with a family office. I think as the living in the larger cities up north get more complicated tax wise, we're going to have more and more family offices type moving down here, as well as some of these smaller companies that you're talking about that are looking for what I think we can offer that don't need vast amounts of space and can kind of fit into the kind of narrower space that we have available. But that's just my view. So do do you need direction here? What do what or do is this just a presentation? We're gonna vote on it later? Is that This is

a presentation. Again, the city commission's only action via regular meeting is to translate the dollars necessary for both contracts to be expenditure eligible so that I can get work on executing the contracts for services with both companies beginning tomorrow.

Okay. So that approval process is actually later on in the meeting as we got is there any more are there any more just

generalized question if don't mind. I did. I said

I said I said it. You raised your hand.

Yes. I did. You're You're

good at this.

Thank you. So are you. Solicitation. It feels like and I'm thrilled with both of these companies. No questions whatsoever. But are we it feels like we're not going out and soliciting the way that municipalities typically do. And I'm just wondering how that process you you're picking a firm and you're bringing them to us and they're presenting, but we're not out

Actually, did, ma'am.

Okay.

If I may?

Yes because that wasn't in any of the backup.

No no again it's administrative and my interest was to get to work as soon as I possibly could given our discussions back in December February then March 9. Miss Doris if you can please enlighten the commission relative to the

process and the

senate office. Separate and aside. I just wanna make sure. Sometimes we see things coming in front of us and moving quickly. Just

Miss the mayor.

Feel

like What what my my view is look. Know I know there were solicitations on look. I I we have the we have it in our budget. We've been talking about doing economic development. We've got

Oh, no. I'm on a move. No.

You're we're fine with move. I'm not saying

we shouldn't. I'm just asking about the process.

Mister mayor, given that it came up in the setting

Go ahead.

It takes thirty seconds to clarify that we're out of process. Mr.

Orris, you

would please.

Orris, take the thirty While not required,

we wanted to make sure that we stayed as close as possible to procurement rules. Right. We reached out to I believe it was somewhere in the the neighborhood of about 10 firms that could handle each one of these. We've got three responses on the marketing, two responses on the plan. Okay. Everybody else either didn't respond to us or told us they weren't interested in. So we did reach out to a number of different firms. We wanted to make sure that we were getting a good deal for the city as well as getting the right people.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you all very much. I thank you, mister Lawrence. Thank you very much. As I said, I researched you in Miami Beach. I you did a you did a great job at Miami Beach.

Thank you. We look forward to working with all of you, getting over this.

Mister mayor, if I may also just decide, one the reasons I say no, mister mister Crowder, is because I followed him in Miami Beach. Those were some big shoes to fill. So when when he expressed interest in this, I wanted to hear from him because I know what he's capable and what he's done in the past.

Thank you very much. Is everybody any more comments from anyone in the commission on this item? Then great. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Mr. Aguirnoff. Thank you for your presentation. I'm still I'm still the the old generation, but that's okay. What are we called? Oh, yeah. Baby boomers. Yeah. We're baby boomers. I don't know these Gen X, Gen Z. I I I truly don't know what they all are. I thought millennials was the new thing, but I guess millennials aren't even the new thing. Right? They're old now. Right? They you don't have to get up. You don't have to get up. Sit down. Old. I I wanna

tell you one thing that's a little different is millennials became the color flavor of the month and and cities everywhere started building for

them. Right.

But they're not the ones to build for anymore. Right.

They're all the wealth is in the others. Thank you all very much. We are now on we are now on agenda item w s three, the policy alignment evaluation to support a fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven proposed zero based budgeting considerations.

So mister mayor, I'd like to briefly introduce this topic.

Thank you all. Thank you all, by the way. Thank you all

thank you so we've had an opportunity to speak about this aggregately I've spoken to each one of you individually including miss Moloka recently in terms of what the potential steps look like relative to zero based budgeting. And to help clarify a couple misnomers in this regard, this is not so much applicable to the smaller operations, smaller offices of the city of Delray Beach. The principal focus pertains to your larger departments that are highly general fund dependent. And frankly, as we engage fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven proposed budget process, we have different categories that address the subjects relative to level of service, what opportunities are being made available. So this is nothing more than an update in terms of what categories and steps must be executed as we prepare for departmental departmental presentations which are to be facilitated at workshop meetings in the month of May so we have workshop meetings scheduled for 05/05/2026 and 05/19/2026 followed by some ancillary discussions to take place in June to help the office of the city manager and all else involved to finalize a balanced budget recommendation to be presented in July per the budget calendar having been recently provided to the city commission and likewise the public.

However, I like to also highlight that this is not the first recent brush with respect to zero based budgeting. We've had very productive experiences for the current fiscal year as it relates to the Delray Beach Fire Rescue Department last year and that it was highly essential to do that because of the obligation to transition from twenty four forty eight shift to the twenty four seventy two shift structure, and the associated cost with making that transition necessitated that we do as much as we possibly can to identify efficiencies in operations, and quite frankly, it was a successful process and endeavor. Likewise, we have the ability to do a bit more, which we are obligated to do because, of course, continued cost experiences with city operations, not to mention some other opportunities that are presently being considered across the board. So in addition to my working closely with chief financial officer Henry Dakowitz he and I we've compared notes based on zero based budgeting leadership and guidance we've offered in respect of previous experiences I like to highlight miss Savory Sabra Avery who's been the budget manager since about July 2025, so little less than a year, about nine months, but quite frankly, as I've jokingly shared with you a couple times, this feels like a lot longer than just nine months, miss Avery.

And in her capacity as budget manager, she's brought a lot to the table in terms of analysis metrics and other considerations to help a smooth process ensue. This include working closely with department directors to help get them squared away in terms of specific opportunities that can in fact become possible and therefore today's workshop meeting engagement to give commission a sense as to what is anticipated as we continue the process to take effect beginning next month so mr. Dacoulas miss Avery mister Dacoulas I believe you have Saved Avery being the principal in this regard in terms of this afternoon's presentation miss Avery if you would please

can you hear me okay yep kind of short so the microphone doesn't want to go down too far anyway good afternoon mayor city commissioners and city manager we're basically here to give you an overview of the zero based budgeting exercise we're rolling out.

We're having trouble hearing you. Do you

have any mic on? Yeah.

There's not she's

not talking anymore. It

just goes too high. There

you go. Red is on? Okay. Sorry. Okay. Anyway, sorry. Any good afternoon, mayor, city commission members, city manager, and staff. So this is basically just an overview of the zero based budgeting exercise we're rolling out for fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven. We have basically developed an approach which breaks down the city by division or decision unit, also called program service or functional area. We created templates to collect data from our department heads and division leaders about how each program ranks and aligns within the city's strategic goals.

These templates were prepopulated with current fiscal year twenty twenty five twenty six FTE or full time equivalent staff and budget data, and we requested information on how each program would look if performing at a minimum level or an improved level as well as an alternate level, and you'll see more detail on the coming slides. Our tagline was basically to be a hero and come up with efficiencies. Since our department heads are the subject matter experts for their areas, we ask them for their expertise. As you know, we were tasked with this, you know, initiative, and were trying to do this to determine the appropriate levels of service needed to adequately support our citizens. In the past, we were using incremental budgeting, which starts with the current budget year and then adjusts up or down based on priorities and needs for the upcoming year.

The zero base is basically built from scratch or zero and requires explanation of expenditures, and it this is helping us to verify that all budgetary components are aligned with the city's core mission and priorities. As I said, we, you know, I had a meeting with the executive leadership team, and we rolled out this zero based budgeting process. And really, the goal was to allow them to have some input on driving our efficiencies since there are subject matter experts, determining the value of the services they provide, and helping to decide how our funds are allocated. This is just asking them to take a closer look at their expenditure budgets from a program service or functional perspective with a specific focus on general fund, although we rolled this out across the entire city, and we're collecting data from the other funds as well. The result is supposed to be a more collaborative innovative budget development process to help drive spending strategies from the bottom up.

We also shared our current strategic business plan priorities, which I'm sure you're familiar with. And then these are the templates that we rolled out. So there are basically two pages, and the first one is more of the explanation of what the program entails, how it operates, and what the outcome or output is for each level of service. So at the top, we have department and then division underneath. That would be the minimum that these had to be completed at.

If they have programs within the divisions, they were more than welcome to go down to a deeper level and input that information. But we pre populated a lot of this information in here, specifically the blue sections. We also asked for them to do a rank and a goal, and the rank, has three sections that the program is federal, state, or local mandated or an essential program. Then there's a desirable rank and a deferrable rank. And then the goals are aligned with the goals that we just looked at on the previous page.

The current program basically explains what each division is doing, how they operate, and then again, as I said, the the color coding here will translate also into the next slide. And we ask them to do a minimum as well as an improved level of service, and then an alternate if they really had some option to think completely outside the box. Any questions so far? No. Okay.

I have a question.

Sure. Yes.

Thank you. When I initially had talked about and this goes back to the beginning of Mr. Moore's tenure here and before, my understanding is you typically try and take a large department. And when Mr. Martin came in, Chief Martin, and we met, I said this is a great opportunity for you in the city. And he did it. And I think he saved $8,000,000. It was an a very large amount of money. So the process works. But when Mr.

Moore and I were speaking, and Mr. Dackowitz as well, you typically do your larger departments. Our secretary, our administrative assistant, is doing this. And we really have very few expenses in our department. You have salaries.

And then some of your many costs are not flexible. And so really, what you're looking at is beyond that. But I wanted this exercise for so long, and I'm thrilled that we're doing it. But I'm a little concerned about how cumbersome is this on our employees and your department as well. But most important because other cities do two large departments at a time, and they rotate over the course of years. They'll do two this year. They do two next year. It's a lot of work. But I will say, if we are doing this and this is to the department heads and Mr. Moore I want fully accurate and transparent information.

Because oftentimes, I think the departments are working within a number, and they're making that work. We deserve to know. The sky's the limit limit in terms of information. We deserve to know what the department heads really think would be wonderful. And we also deserve to know what we're going to be missing.

And that information has not I mean we didn't pave areas of the city that were expected to be paved because we didn't have money and we didn't really know that. I mean one person stood up and said this is going to be problematic for you if you cut and he wasn't appreciated. But I want to say, I want full and accurate information even if you think it's what we don't want to hear. We do.

If I could just one of the and I agree with everything that was said. We have not done a zero based budget here in a long time, and what we're trying to do is create a kind of a baseline here because I do agree that, you know, after this baseline is we do this baseline, then, you know, as we go forward, you take one or two departments, depending on how they moved within the baseline as to whether or not they need to be monitored or not. And I agree with that. I think that we do want to make sure I mean, zero based budgeting is a lot of people are scared of it. I'm actually not scared of it.

In my past, I've been involved in two zero based budgeting things. One ended up with you know, personnel, not know, some personnel was was reallocated. And the other, actually, there were more people hired. So, you know, to find out what, where duplications are and everything. But I do, I think we do need to understand exactly, this, this is supposed to give us a true picture of where we are in terms of all of all of the expenditures.

And, I mean, I'm do hoping we create a good baseline here because I I've envisioned long before long after I'm gone here, there's going to be we're going have to be looking back and to see, you know, this is what it was in 2026. And you're here in 2028. Why is it why are we here in 2028? To measure it against where we were in 2026. And we haven't done that we haven't done zero based budgeting in almost like fifteen years here.

Minus last year's experience with the fire rescue department.

Yes. Well, they did a great job. And they saved a ton of money. And I'm just saying, you want to look at that and you say, we can do this everywhere. I'm not sure we can do that everywhere. Some of the departments have been running pretty lean to start with, and others have been less lean. So this is what we're hoping to understand better. I mean, that's the reality.

Yes, sir. Before I give Mr. Douglas and Ms. Avery an opportunity to continue during my introductory remarks I talked about the workshop meeting presentations in May that essentially takes into consideration the points you've raised in this regard so we're introducing the format template so that you can be prepared and anticipate what is to be offered by the department directors as they're involved in that process that aligns with those expectations and so we're working with all concerned accordingly so during the month of May the couple workshop meetings with the scheduled department director as part of the budget calendar addresses that, and we look forward to a productive engagement and an eye opening experience.

Look. I'm and I'm the first to say that I you always hear refer to wish lists. You know, sometimes these wish lists are actually things you should try to do. And so I'm not adverse to fulfilling those wish lists. I mean, just because I think their wish lists, maybe they're actually the value added is greater

than the wish list amount. And the formatter takes that into

That's consideration as why I love zero based budgeting, because hopefully that's all taken into account. Because this is the numbers we're anyway, continue. I'm sorry, Mr. Duckowitz.

I think you raised very valid points. I think the essential issue here is that we're going down below a level of what we've had in the past. We're going into programs and functions. And just in my experience, I've seen that in the federal government, there are like 23 different departments that have small business activities. And you wonder, why are there 23?

Why are they fragmented? Well, it's about power and control and how many people do I have in my department. So at our level, we're looking at connecting the dots that says if we see functions that are duplicative or related to one another, maybe they should be reorganized for a savings. At the department level, we're just questioning the sacred cows and the assumptions that we've been living with for many years. There are three people who are assigned to this task and they do done it forever and every year they get 3% to 5% raises.

And the question is, are they doing it well? Can we do more with new technology? Can we do it in a less manual way, more automated, more effective, fewer errors? The problem is 60% to 70% of our expenses are people. So the real issue is if we own the business and we had problems and we had too many people, we would decrease the headcount and especially in government where the benefits are a tremendous percentage on top of the base salary, that's how you get savings.

I've gone through exercises like this government and unless the duplicative human potential resources are reallocated productively, you don't get real savings. That's a real challenge.

No, I mean, listen, mean, I I see in our city that we have, you know, various departments have little portions that are done with economic development. We have other portions that are always that are involved with education spending. I mean, it would be very nice to kinda see how those are all meshed together to see whether they can more efficiently be spent to achieve what we all want up here.

Yeah. Well, recognize that in the regular budget process, we go through each department. We sit with the managers and their deputies and to understand what they're spending on and what those results are for. And we try to make sure we understand the priorities. We're aligning it with our overall organization priorities.

And my pitch to the department heads is if you can persuade me, this is valuable, I'll be your biggest advocate. But if you're hiding and covering up just trying to protect your budget, we'll be your biggest adversary. We're here to do what's best for the city, for the taxpayers to get the most efficiencies, for the limited resources we have. So within each department, as Sabra pointed out, they are the subject matter experts. And I've had many department heads say, You don't want to cut that.

Here's what happens when you do that, but here's an area where we have a little bit of room. So that's at that level. And then I think Mr. Moore, Sabre and I will get together at the overall level. They're looking at each individual department and we could say, well, when we look at it collectively, do we see possibilities that when we combine all of these expenditures that there are opportunities for savings redirection to get more efficiency. As you said, it's a first time in a long time. It's a baseline. It's different behavior. It's different behavior for the department heads, different behavior for the budget department and it's different behavior for all of you. So we're all going to learn at this process and next year will be even better than this year.

But we're going to try to get you that baseline with good information, accurate, so that we have a better understanding, at least one layer deeper of what are we really spending on and are there hidden expenses that we weren't aware of. Right. That's what we're trying to do.

I'm sorry. Continue not with your present are you finished with no, you're not finished.

Okay. No, sir. Sorry.

You're only on page slide four, so I know

It's not my presentation. We'll be finished.

No, not to. You've got some. You've got some.

So this is the second page of the zero based budgeting template. So the top of it pulls over from the first page with the department division rank and goal sections. And then the section toward the middle is for the salaries and benefits related to all of the full time equivalents and part time staff, any overtime special pay, and the section at the bottom is broken out by general ledger account number and all of the different types of non salary expenditures that are expensed in each division. Again, these are color coded to try to help everybody understand what's going on. The blue is based on this current amended budget for this year.

The pink would be if they are able to operate at a lower or minimum level. The green, again, is for an improved or desired level of service. Yellow is an alternate level of service and optional. And the section over to the right with the orange, that's where we're requesting explanations of what's in each line item of the budget so that they're, you know, explaining to us what their needs are. And basically, we went through that exercise, and this is just an example of, you know, something that we drafted to kind of explain how it should work and how they should fill these out. I don't know that we need to really go through that.

Small writing. It takes me a while to go through it.

Yeah. I know. So it was really kind of a ridiculous financial explanation just to poke fun at the situation, and people get stressed when they talk about money and budget, so I was trying to be silly, but I don't think too many people understood my sense of humor, but anyway, so this is our current budget calendar, which mister Moore was referring to earlier. We've actually already received most of the templates back, and we're in the process of scrubbing them to make sure the, calculations are correct and the data is not corrupted and looking at them for correctness and getting everything summarized so that we can analyze it and present it and and look at how to move forward. So

Could we get copies of those, mister Moore? Would forward that

on What to

what you're asking to me?

Would could we get copies of those? We don't typically get that first

space document. You're gonna send us all you're gonna send us the whole matrix that you provided. Yes.

I think that's an entire commission, of course. We can accomplish that tomorrow morning.

Sure. Thank you. Problem.

I think I'm I mean, you've you've got a lot of good questions here, and I and I think that I would love to see Mhmm. You know, responses because there's Right. Mhmm. As I said, there's there's wish list items that think we ought to be helping them fulfill. I agree. And because, I mean, we're all the level of service, which we all hear about, everybody up here always hears about some, depending on the day, some complaint about somebody about some level of service not being provided. And if there's ways we can provide them and keep within our, you know, our budgetary constraints, you know, we we we we to focus on that.

Mhmm. And that's kind of what this, you know, presentation and template was designed to do.

No. I understand. I understand. You mean redirect resources the questions to the miss yes, sir. I'm gonna ask Henry. I love the way, you know just raising the hand is gonna be good. You know? I'm gonna give us little stuff. So, I'm gonna

ask Henry I know my thing broke, but I'm I'm gonna ask the $64,000 question. What kind of guidance are you gonna give to staff about inflation and the situation situation that that we're we're in in where fuel prices are very, very high. It's affecting transportation prices. It's affecting food. It's affecting everything we do. What and I know I'm asking an impossible question, but what do you think the guidance will be that you'll give to the folks working on their budgets about what we're what we want to see in the budget?

Well, again, they're the subject matter experts. They have relationships with long term relationships. Sometimes we have long term contracts. It might be for heating oil or whatever. So they are closer to it.

And usually when the budget numbers come in I've only been here last year's budget and now They say, look, the numbers are coming in. We've talked And to I have a cynical view of government statistics. So when the Fed targets 2% inflation and they are off by 50% and comes in at 3%, but if they calculated inflation the way they did forty years ago in the '70s, it would be 6% to 8%. That's historical. And now we're looking at the oil shock. Just think and given expense of

the war

and the inflation with the increasing deficits of the federal budget, I just believe they're going to be printing money which creates even more inflation. So my feeling is, if we've been working, let's say, with a 4% to 5% inflation rate, I could see certain budget line items coming in at 10% or 12%, very specific, directly tied to what we're seeing now. That looks like it will persist. That's all we can do. And again, I want to set expectations because I've heard from our vocal department heads, the very able department heads.

Because in zero based budgeting, what we're trying to do, as Sabra has introduced it, is sort of a minimum. What's the minimum we need to provide service? What are we sort of currently at? And if we continue that current level of service? And then it's if we could do even more, increase higher level of service.

And the fourth is alternate. My comparison is instead of getting a faster horse, we have a car. Instead of more manual people, we have an automated system. Those are the four buckets. What has been indicated to me by numerous department heads is with our history of ten years of cutting the millage rate every year plus the rollback, our current expenses in some areas are not sufficient to get the minimum.

They're still fighting to get back to what they feel is the minimum. The conflicts are in certain departments where they are legislated and mandated to respond within ten days, within thirty days. I just don't have the people. I know I'm personally involved in five new computer systems, including the full ERP of our accounting. So we are working on automation.

Everyone's working with the right people and cutting down turnover, you have experienced people who are better at what they do, being smarter about these workflows. But there's a limit to what we're doing. So I just want to set those expectations of I think Chief Martin in the fire department last year did an amazing job, very unique. And he was new. He came in.

He could break some eggs to make the omelet. I think as we look at citywide now, the first time we do this, let's keep our expectations where we are. We can question, we can challenge, but we may not get those substantial savings that we're looking for first go round. And I'm going to add to what the mayor clarified. It's like Willie Sutton. Where do you go? Where the money is. Police and fire are the two biggest budgets. You then look at Parks and Rec and Public Works. And then as you get down, when you have a department of three people and a budget of $1,200,000 you're talking rounding errors.

Our general fund budget was 200,000,000 Our total all funds budget, $650,000,000. So with so much in personnel, I'll say it again, what Chief Martin did was he was able to reorganize, restructure who's working on different tasks. So 10,101 equals five. And he was able to get more value without having to add all the people that at first blush he would need to go from 2,448 to 2,472. I'm not sure all the other departments have that opportunity.

We will advise them, coach them, guide them. And I'm sure Mr. Moore will push appropriately. And you will as well. And hopefully at the end, we will have much better information and we will save wherever we can or have computer systems are multi year programs.

Okay? It's hell going through it where you have the old system and you're trying to test the new system and you run out of people to do everything. But once it's done and it's done well, you start to get these amazing efficiencies. I work with Jay Stasey, head of IT, on what are the new technologies out there that we might be able to introduce, whether it's artificial intelligence or whatever. So we're exploring all of these avenues. This is just one building block step.

Thank you. Are you hearing Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions up here?

I don't have any questions. I just wanted to make a comment. Always want to thank you for the work that you've done, and thank you for the presentation. And I agree with the mayor. My experience with First Federal Delray I did thirteen years in banking.

First Federal Delray, Carteret Savings and Great Western. I was I I was all of experience with zero based budgeting does bring a true picture, so I am happy that we're going this way. And whatever steps we have to do it in, I think it's going to be accurate information and, you know, giving us what we need to know. So thank you.

You're welcome. You've had questions? Anybody anything out there?

No. Thank you very much for the presentation. I was lucky enough to get a high level overview at my introduction to your department in your absence. So I thank you very much.

Thank you both very much. Mr. Borey, any other comments?

So the next step, of course, we'll provide this information in the next day or so per the request of commissioner Julie Casal and you'll all will be getting that otherwise the next steps May should that be the adopted calendar and I think it will need to be for the reasons we stated as it relates to land use considerations and so forth, but we will proceed in the month of May involving the departments, and we look forward to a very productive experience as a result of what's outlined. So we'll adopt

the calendar for May, but I'm not sure we've finished our

We haven't. I I

haven't Okay. We're done. Fine. Are there any other comments up here? Then this workshop is adjourned.

Thank you very much.