City Council Regular Meeting - Special Meeting

All right. Start [Music] to remind us. [Applause]

All right. Good evening everyone and welcome to this special meeting of the city of Fort Long Beach, Florida. Thank you so much for being here tonight. We call this meeting to order and we all stand if you're able and join us for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The first time I ever realized I'm probably blocking that damn flag for almost everybody in here. Oh, I made Mr. Jeter move at the beginning. He's so tall. Oh, I get to see it.

All right. Uh, that moves us to approval of the agenda. Councilman, do we have approval of this agenda? So moved. Second. Motion made by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Browning to approve tonight's agenda. Any additional comments? Second. Council, please vote. Where's my [Applause] Just wait on Mr. Barry, Mr. Walker's vote for the approval of tonight's agenda. Okay.

The agenda does pass unanimously. Moves us to item four, resolutions. Resolution 2025-17. Miss. Thank you, Mayor. This is resolution 202517, a resolution of the city council of the city of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, adopting the tentative millage rate for the fiscal year beginning October 1st, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2026 and providing an effective date. Thank you, ma'am. Uh we got

Let me um read section two then. Uh this city hereby tentatively sets the fiscal year 202526 operating millage rate at 4.3282 mills which is 6.62% more than the rolled fact rate of 4.0596 mills. There is no voted debt service millage. That's just required by statute to read that and cast the presentation. So, while that part works out,

um, so Miss Carol's here. Uh, she was gravely ill, but still came in several days to work on this, and Nicole put in 43 million hours and all the staff. So, super cool for that. And I guess we're ready to go. All right. Try and burn through this quick. I won't spend a lot of time on stuff that we've already gone over. We'll just cast through it. I'll get this guy to work. There we go. Okay. So same as we discussed last time uh the payrolls in under the 3% cap and the operating expenditures decreased 2.35%. The various buckets that we can use for object codes and whatnot. So again kind of boring but it's in there for your edification. Here's our typical budget process. Now, mind you, I normally start in January, but I physically started working here in June. So, it was really a condensed time cycle to get this worked through. So, the last meeting we had wasn't presenting a budget. That was a a status. So, now we're actually presenting the balanced budget. Maybe. [Applause] Okay. Timeline. Same thing we just kind of discussed. just kind of crunched it in some city city statistics. We just hover around 22,000. Seems like it's been like that for many years here. Statistics on age. Just the age. Yeah. Population by age. We kind of hover right in the middle there between the 25 and the 54 group. Kim's helping me out here.

This a little small more. This this this slide will come up a little bit later. So you see the medium home values ballpark 300,000 [Applause] kind of our

got you. So integrity, accountability, teamwork, customer service, continual improvement. That's the vision and values from the city established long before I started just capturing for everybody. So this was the previous strategic plan that that spoke to public safety and vagrancy, recreational service expansion, employee recognition, uh retention, sorry, customer service, downtown plan approval. And as we have worked through our our weekly discussions, we we've transitioned to a different slightly different approach. So, more of a robust infrastructure uh as Daniel just presented on the thriving economy. So, we're trying to chase some of those high-paying jobs and we've been working with economic development council and uh chamber for some of this sort of thing. Community vitality that beautifification that's been pushed a lot. Uh the cleanest city on the emerald uh emerald coast with the environmental stewardship and uh transparent operations. So, we're still navigating what is it? Open Gov.

Mhm. So I I just want to smash that thing because even if you go in and look at the Oh, clear gov. Clear gov. Open gov is the one that we're looking at. Clear gov. That's the one I said anyway. So clear gov even the report that it's automatically generated the graph is correct but the AI portion of it in the documents that you have are horribly incorrect. So now as of about an hour ago they fixed it. So by the time we come next week it'll all jive. But pay attention to the graph. That's that's what's accurate and the numbers for 26 are accurate. It's just that Yeah.

So that 9.65 overall value property increase, that's good stuff, right? We're cautiously preparing for the shift in the economy and we'll talk about that a little bit more in case property values or property tax goes away and whatnot. Uh uncertainty of the economy, flattening, decreasing revenues. So there's a lot of things that we've been tracking. I think Mr. Walker asked what we were doing in case property values went away and at that time it was just not appropriate to report but Ben Anderson has offered to run some sims for us based on our current budget. So we're just waiting on that data and hopefully we'll have it at the next bud presentation. So we'll see exactly what's going to happen to our budget should Tallahassee decide to go that route. Revenue trends I mean again not going to read it all to you but that's kind of been the case. And so for 2026, the discretionary sales service sir tax is just under 2.5 communication service tax one one so on and so forth. That revenue sharing just under 1.2 million as well. Doing it wrong. Everybody knows the millage formula, but we put it in there just to so we can talk about that. uh pressed the $100,000 value is where we kind of ran some of these numbers even though we talked about the 300,000 median home price. Millage rate history a little bit easier to see on the next slide, but you can see it's trended down for the last couple years. I don't know why I keep fighting. So here's a little easier representation. So 181 19 it was at 57 19 20 56 so on and so forth. Then right now from 232 24 to 46 to 2425 to 4.32 is the recommended. This for me is probably the most

valuable slide in terms of the impact that it's had. So 2223 if you did not have a homestead it was basically 2.74 a month or $137 a month with the with the homestead exemption. So that individual with the $100,000 home now just extrapolate that out to $300,000 is multiply by three, right? Pretty easy to easy math at the $100,000 uh that translated to $1.6 million in the general fund. that would have paid for pretty much all the projects that we have minus city hall. Instead, now we're going to pay double for some of the the deferred maintenance that we've had if if not more. So, it's just something to chew on. [Applause] So, there's our current millillage rate. The midpoint is 4.19. If that's what we're going to go with, we got to chop out 260,000 and then 51,000 in the CRA. If you go to the roll back rate of 4.05, we've got to chop out 513. Everybody should have one of these guys. And those are the ones we got to chop. So that's what I would expect council to say. The will of the board is chop this, this, and this. And then we could rerun that uh those numbers for the next meeting. Things that are not in this budget request, city hall, the only thing I know about city hall is where I'm not putting it. Preston Hood Nets about 400,000. Fairy Park upgrades, uh, about 300,000 ballpark. That's just a rough order of magnitude. Gap Creek, you know, after spending some time out there, there's just one particular area that I I feel like it's the right thing to do. Now, there's one individual his uh coal has been crushed and probably not the city's responsibility to repair it, but ultimately when that

water flow comes through and the with the rest of the wershed being not operating the way it should, his property floods to the point where we have to bring in heavy equipment just to evacuate everybody. So again, it's just something to consider. Maybe not our responsibility, but maybe the right thing to do because we are expending a lot of resources just rescuing people if that's the right word. Uh Sino storm water issue, I don't know enough about it, so I didn't even throw a number in there, but it's not captured in here. And I know council has brought that up to work with them. I will be meeting with the Sinko people um next week or the week after. We've started a monthly city manager, all of us getting together and brainstorming. uh lobbyist. We discussed that. So that's not in here. About 150k. Sidewalk around downtown. I'm going to guess ballpark a million because there's it's a heavy labor, but that's again just a complete rough order magnitude there. Giew elevator about 100K. And then I already talked about the scenarios from the tax collectors. So none of this is captured in this current budget presentation. So if you want to swap some of those guys for some of these guys, again, will the board major accomplishments? You know, we we kind of go over this every week, but for the those in the the stands, you can read some of the cool things that we've done. [Applause] DA bond rating and we are distinguished budget presentation award. So, just kind of bragging on the team a little bit for the budget presentation they build out. I have been working with Carol on updating the budget book with our new strategic initiatives. So, still plugging away at that. Yeah, maybe personnel breakdown. You know, we already talked about it kind of that opening slide where we're under the three. What was it 2.8 ballpark? Something like that. I know I'm going quick, but it's all stuff we've gone over before. There's

nothing new here. There's the uh revenue breakdowns. The main sources of revenue are charges for services, sewer, sanitation, solid waste, water operations in Gulf, Adalum taxes of course, and then CRA funds. All right. Revenues by revenue source. Just a different way to to show it. Same thing. Uh expenses. So, we had our revenue. Here's our expenses. Public works is almost 23 million. Public safety 177. The general operations is 9.2. two and the recreation is 72 million. Just a different way to show the same thing. Woohoo. Nothing to it. Questions, thoughts, comments?

Thank you, sir. Questions now at this point for Mr. Davis or Mr. from council before we open the public hearing. Seeing none.

Outstanding. The tenative millage rate for the city of Fort Walton Beach for fiscal year 2025-26 is 4.3282 mills which is 666.62% above the rolled back rate of 4.0596 mills. The rolled back rate is the millage rate that will provide the same advalorum tax revenue as was levied during the prior year. The reason for setting the military at 4.3282 mills is to provide sufficient revenues to balance the general fund budget. We will now open the public hearing and ask for comments from the public on the tenative mill. Would anyone like to comment? [Applause] Mr. Smith at 13 drive. Um my comments, you know, might have the four beach watch group. Uh the citizens made clear last November that they wanted the city to limit to limit the increases in spending and therefore their taxes. So I'm going to ask that um you go to roll back. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. Anyone else from the public wish to comment during this period? Seeing none, we will now close the public hearing and ask city council for a motion and a second for resolution 2025-17 to set the tenative mill rate for the city of Fort Balton Beach at 4.3 2182 mills for the fiscal year beginning October 1st, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2026. Mr. adopt resolution 25-17 to set the tenative mill rate at 4.3282 mills. Second motion by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Browning to set the tenative mill rate for the city of Fort Walton Beach at 4.3282 mills for the fiscal year beginning October 1st, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2026. Additional comments, Mr. Jeter,

this is the first reading. There's obviously some things that we can move in and out or adjust or change, but I think this puts us in a position to where we don't have to be uh where we are with our place management and sewer right now where we have, if you saw that slide, we've gone backwards many, many years in a row. I think three out of the last four years, we've done the roll back rate, roll back rate, roll back rate. And I think eventually we're going to get to a point to where we're going to leave a board up here that's going to have to go to our community and say, "Hey, we've rolled back too long. Now we've got to make a major increase." And that's a lot harder to do than doing this steadily going forward. Thanks. Additional comments, Mr. Brown, Mr. Barry.

Yes, I disagree because I I think we're doing fine if we would stay within our means and um and not splurge on many many things. Do we need a city hall? That's take care of the city hall that you have, you know. Do we need what do we really really need? Do we need to splurge on other things? But what do we really really need? We're not here to to spend a lot of money. We're here to take care of what our basic needs are with a little bit of extra. That's budget. I'm asking us to budget and not spend a lot of money on a on frivolous things. So I will be I I want the roll back. Right.

Thank you, ma'am. Council Wolf. Mr. Mayor, I have a question for the motioner. Okay, Mr. Jeter, how much of a tax increase will that be on taxpayers?

It all depends on when the funds are collected because that changes. So, just because we have a proposed appraisal increase, there's no set fee as to how much we're going to collect, if all of that. That's why it changes every year. So, you're s you're are you saying that there won't it's not a guaranteed c tax increase on taxpayers? Not necessarily because it may not be guaranteed that everybody pays their taxes. I think that changes every year. Okay. There are certain collection fees that are applied and certain things that are changed along the way. Well, thank you for that. And in response to that, um I asked Miss Neighbors and she was kind enough to get me the 5-year actuals budgeted versus actuals and I brought those tonight. over the last 5 years budget is budgeted ad valorum taxes have been exceeded by over a million dollar. It's over $200,000 a year on average. So there's there is a tax increase coming as we know property values tend to go up and with that the millage rate staying the same but under the truth and millillage uh rate uh law um leaving the millage rate the same will actually be notified as a tax increase. So, it is going to be a tax increase. You just don't know how much.

May I say something about what Mr. Walker, let Mr. Walker finish and then move on. Sure. So, um thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so yeah, with the million-doll um budgeted uh versus actual collected being over a million dollars, not only would I be in favor of supporting a the roll back rate, I'd be in favor of supporting the roll back rate deducting the million dollar that's been overpaid by taxpayers and put into the general fund and spent as the city has deemed appropriate. So that would be um my recommendation. I'll I'll be supporting your motion. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Uh, anyone else wish to comment before Mr. Mer?

I just don't want to agree with anybody right now, I think, because I think there was another option. And I look at it from two from up here. We have a job to do. We see all the things that have to get spent. It's easy to go, yeah, let's go to the roll back rate, make everybody happy until there's things that need to be done, until those projects need to be funded. And then you go, how do you fund those? eventually. You want a healthy general fund. I don't know why we couldn't look at splitting the difference. Then we're being responsible. We're having to cut some things. We're having to budget. It's a compromise. We're rolling back just not to the roll back. We're coming back off that a little bit because we got the increase in the property taxes or the property value, sorry. So, obviously, we're split up here. So, I'm going to offer the uh the compromise just with every

Thank you, sir. Anyone else wish to make first comments before we allow any additional? Miss Neighbors, you had a I just wanted a clarification. Um when we budget advorum revenues, we budget at 95%, which I had told Mr. Walker. Um so, I kind of gave an example on an actual when the actuals look like it's over the the advalorum. It's actually not because we only budget at 95 because it would be irresponsible for us to budget at 100% because we're never going to collect 100% um of advalorum. So I just wanted to make a clarification there that we were not we have never pulled in over 100% of advalorum. Thank you ma'am.

M and I agree I I did get the opportunity to read what you had said to Mr. Walker and and I certainly agree it was 95% on you did indicate that we don't do the job 100%. But um in terms of the roll back um as far as you know um my concerns are you know you can roll back and roll back and roll back but at the end of the day you know moving forward you know uh you're going to get some increases. It's going to be some I mean and then and in in terms of you know spending on on wisely of course you want to spend wisely. I do understand that part too but the city city hall I mean we got to start focusing too on infrastructure. This is a beautiful seaside community and we need to focus on making sure that the infrastructure is where it need to be. This is a extremely old old building. It's been here a long long time. And so moving forward, you know, I'm open up minding enough to know that, you know, I want the beautifification of the city, but I also wanted to be able to appropriately align what we're offering in the seaside community. That's my

Thank you, mayor. Anyone not supposed to make another comment? Mr. W first.

I didn't know you made it to second. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, um, yeah. Um, yes, Nicole, we did have that conversation and as I, you know, look at it. When we tell the citizens, this is the budget amount that will make the city operate. We list a number, it's 95% and every year we get in more. That money doesn't go back to the taxpayers. that ends up in the uh general fund which is then spent. But um and and back to my question to the motioner, I believe the answer is in the discussion here. The two the 2025 gross taxable property value for operating purposes is 2.4 billion. An increase of 212 million or 96 9.65%. And someone can challenge me, agree with it or disagree with it, but I believe, and I could be wrong for sure because I just seen it here, it looks like the tax increase that you're proposing is 9.65%. [Applause] Um, that that's that's the the statement there. And um

that that's the increase on the property value, but the taxes are calculated differently. Well, they're taxed. Some of those are homesteaded. You've got commercial. You've got nonhomesteaded property. But there is a 9% 9.65% increase in property value that will be taxed at the old rate, which I'm going to read just a just a real quick u because it kind of clued me in on it. An article out of Pensacola. They just went through the same process themselves and they left the property rate. Um the news article left the property rate described them leaving the property rate as the motioner has made here the same which equates to a $22.4 million tax revenue increase for Pensacola. So when you leave the rate the same and the property values go up, revenue to the city goes up, that revenue comes from the city. So it's a tax increase on taxpayers is the way I'll look at it. So that's all I wanted to say at this time. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, sir. I believe Mr. very what's missed. Uh yes, I still um would like to go back to the roll back rate. You have the budget money. You have you need to you you've done a good job uh Mr. Davis of uh relocating some of the employees here and there to make it better and and what have you. I need I want it more. I want more. Uh, I want them to work and I want them to be paid correctly. I don't like the life insurance is doubled. Is Is that correct? Did No. No. No. 3.5%.

3.5. Yeah. Can Did we not uh get uh um um um some other cost? Last I heard it was uh we were paying a lot of money. It was going to go up almost 11%. Yeah. Derek, can we bring it back down? You know, because I again, it's already it's already

it's already, you know, but you know, but there's a lot of things that we could do. I mean, um, uh, we we found out that we have a lot of expenses that we could cut back on, such as the the the daycare, and I appreciate you for sharing that because I've been trying to get that information for that daycare. And isn't there an ordinance or or something that says that we're not supposed to be in competition with a a uh city businesses and there's a a daycare just 100 yards from us and yet we have a daycare in our in in the recreation center. Is there something like that that you know of? I don't know if one was very

No, not that I'm aware of. I'll take a look for you. Yeah, because we have that the network b day daycare just near uh Robinwood, you know. So, that that's something to look at. You know, there's a lot I think there's a lot of ways that we can still cut expenses and still uh uh be be um fireable and I want you to work harder and bring down the expenses. pull up.

Yes, I'm done. Just one motion. Um, Mr. Jeter.

Yeah. Uh, all very good discussion. We've sat up here for the last two or three years and had the same type of discussion. I think one year I I made the the same motion that council member Merrill did to where we were going to maybe meet in the middle and I even added a, as Mr. Davis likes to say, a new uh flavor to the ice cream. And I said, "Let's meet in the middle and and the revenue is going to increase by 300,000 and let's take that $300,000 and everybody come up with a project and let's put it out there to the voters and let them pick on it's their money. What project do they want to do?" That year, unfortunately, we still went back to the roll back rate. So, every year that I've been up here, we've rolled back, rolled back, rolled back. And that's why I sit here and look now, everybody says city hall, city hall, city hall. Okay, we've gone from 53 to 43 mills, which is very a little over 20% of the whole millillage. We'd be a lot closer to being able to fund the city hall this year than we would have been three or four years ago had we just met in the middle some of those years or had we have stayed with the rate and not done the roll back rate. So I think eventually just like the analogy we used earlier with the increase in pipe cost and now we're having to we didn't do an increase last year so now we've got to do a bigger increase in the next 5 years. I think even meeting in the middle at this point just puts us further and further behind. And again, if you look at all the municipalities around us that Shallomar has gone up, Niceville has gone up, Valp has gone up, every other municipality and all of our neighbors have stayed the same. I sure would have liked for many, many of those years in the past to receive an overwhelming thank you for all the years we did do the roll back rate. Unfortunately, you're in a position up here to where whatever you do, um, it's going to get microscoped. So, you eventually just have to do what you know is best for the city in the long run, whether it goes towards a city hall or something else. And and this reminds me of of another story that that I go back to a lot up here. No, no one likes to be in the position that we're in, whether someone's at the podium or whether we're talking about other people's money. But Mr. Larry Patrick said years ago when he was up here and came with us, one of the one of the hardest things that he did

when he was on council years ago was he voted to do the landing downtown. And at the time he remembered it being a 4-3 vote or a tight vote and it was publicly scrutinized and how bad it was. But then you look 20 or 30 years later, it's one of the nicest things in our community now is the landing. So I don't think tonight it's just the first reading. So whatever military goes, it doesn't have the same impact as the landing per se, but certain decisions we do up here are it can't just be about one bill in one year. It's got to be about the community as a whole and where that's going to take us 20 or 30 years from now. And it takes money to get anything done. Yeah.

Just a clarification to city hall is not even in the budget. We pulled it out completely. Uh, I did watch poor Daniel take a a tongue lashing as to why we kept investing money in this busted building where our IT dude has to sit and it it rains on him. He wears a raincoat. Uh, so the life cycle, you know, the the cost life cycle of an asset, we're way beyond. It's it's irresponsible to put more money into this building, but we're going to hold until I can even figure out where we're going to put it and we can take from reserves to patch the roof for the 83rd time and those sorts of things. Not something we want to do, but that's where we're at in life. This is why this is moldy all the time. We just had it cleaned again. So, we're going to keep throwing resources at it, you know, whether it's staff time, contractual labor to fix the the spalling, it is what it is right now. I just don't even know where I'm going to put it. I just want to be clear that we're it's not even in the budget.

All right. Uh, everybody had a second chance to speak on this and I know you all Mr. Merrell second chance.

I do agree with you, Mr. Jeter. I I get in the mindset from sitting up here at different position to want to do just about every project. I I see that from that side. I see it from the other side. like there's a part of me as a private citizen that says I hope Go or Governor DeSantis gets rid of property taxes and it puts a bigger burden you know from that side of it but I from the emails from the people showing up from the people that have said it's hard for me in my newness here not to really try to still represent that I've sat from the other side and had had this board agree with me and disagree with me and I've been up with the county and when it just it's hard when you just feel like were not listening as hard as this job is. And so I still I would lean towards adopting this more than I would to the roll back rate, but I'm still going to dig in and try to push for that compromise if it can be done. I got to try.

You're less than 10 seconds.

Well, I got a couple questions for Mr. Merrell. Thank you for that. And you know it's something I've been paying attention to from Governor DeSantis and you know hit one of his concepts theories that caught me. I was like huh I never thought of it like that. So when we are taxing citizens on a home value that increases it is taxing them on unrealized gains and that's the unfairness of it. So that's why I'm opposed to it. But my two questions are for Nicole. Uh Nicole, that new the new system, the gov that everybody has access to that you can click down and drop and look at everything. It still doesn't work exactly the way I want it, but it's working a lot better. And I just water transfers out

transfers out. That's for our cost allocation plan. So all of the funds that so you have your general fund and then you have your special revenue funds um and then you have your enterprise funds. And so we I don't know if it's by statute, but I know that we have to do it in the budget. So basically, let's say Daniel's utilities fund. Um he uses general fund it. He uses general fund finance. He uses general fund X Y andZ expenditures. So what they do is they pay the general fund to be using the the employees and things of the general fund and every every fund does that. And so you'll see a cost allocation plan and we get that updated like every 3 years and they do a whole analysis on how much that should be. Um and they tell us and that's what

Thank And I think my question really comes down to and it we're here at the millage rate discussion about the budget. And so when I looked at transfers out previously in the previous budget we all we budgeted 1.147 million and we spent 3.479 to date which is 303% of budget. And then one the one that really caught my eye on it on the first one was the CIP. Um, we last budgeted for $85,000 and uh expenditure to date is $3.4 million, which is a 4,049% over budget. So, when we're up here talking about what we need, I know that's off of the the reporting. So, I go and look at that and then we're up here talking about, you know, how much do we need to raise it to support? And then I go, what are we doing with a 4,000% increase on a or do we suck at budgeting that bad? No, I think you're pulling it wrong, but you

I didn't pull it wrong. It's just it's total budgeted was 85 spent year to date was 3442. So that's 4,000% over budget. So I'm like, what what's going on here? Include like carry over without looking at it. I mean, without Right. Okay. Well, thank you for that. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second and plenty of discussion and questions. Council, please vote. I don't know what he's looking for.

And the motion does tie 3 to three. I believe I am a tiebreaking vote and I vote yes. That moves us on to the next item. Resolution 2025-18, a resolution to adopt the fiscal year 2025 2026 tenative budget. Miss C.

Thank you, Mayor. Resolution 202518, a resolution of the city council of the city of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, adopting the tentative budget for certain expenditures, expenses, capital improvements, and certain indebtedness for the city of Fort Walton Beach, Florida for the year beginning October 1st, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2026, and providing an effective date. Is that it? Mr. Davis, it's kind of a formality. He's already provided the budget as a whole budget, but it's just two separate resolutions. Sure. Correct.

So, I guess we can uh then just take some questions from the council to Mr. Deos or Miss Neighbors on this before we open a public hearing. Sure. Mr. And I don't know who's got access to a computer over there, but um those two transfers out of a 300% increase over budget and then the 4,000% over budget. I'd definitely like to, you know, considering that we're here at the budget, see how that happened. Can you can I sure look at I just don't know what yet. All funds um CIP [Applause] which fund is

it's all funds. It's listed in the all funds expenses object CIP. And then what was this CIP thing that or what was the what did do you provide us this up here? Do we know how this got on our Yes, that's this year. Okay. Um I'm not sure exactly where you told us because we've never on the public side,000 weend more than

Thank you, [Applause] Mr. Mr. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just, you know, I know we're here to do this. I I vote in I voted in opposition to the millillage because of the reasons stated. I'll be voting in opposition uh to this budget and uh I don't have confidence in the numbers that are provided even on to the public at this time. Got questions uh on this budget for Miss Neighbors or May um Mr. Walker, were you looking at 25 or 26? I'm going to have Carol go pull the all funds. That was 25 is checked. 25. Okay. this checkpoint. Thank you.

All right. See no more questions from council. Uh we welcome a public hearing where I must read this for tenative budget for the city of Forball Beach for fiscal year 202526 is 65,247,932 which is 4 thou or I'm sorry 4,689,66 or 7.74% more than the adopted fiscal year 2024-202. 25 budget. We will now open the public hearing and ask for comments on the tenative budget from the public. Anyone wish to speak? Mr. Leewoods. Welcome. Greetings, Mr. Mayor. Uh, ladies and gentlemen of the council, James Lewis, Canterbury Circle. First, this is uh the correct meeting where the the the fees and so forth for for fields and so forth are to be determined for next year, correct? Or accepted, correct?

I don't know. Yes or no? I I love I love this council. You guys are awesome. You two just had a disagreement and yet you both cited the people at one time. You said it was our money and then you you tried to reference from speaking from this side of the podium. This is and when I watch from the camera up there, which is why I watch most of the meetings, I like this council. You guys are awesome. Whether I agree or disagree with your vote, I know that you guys are voting from the citizens perspective or at least trying to. So, this is an awesome council. And Mr. Leewood, if I can just real quickly because I know you're what you're going to bring up as well, and you're certainly welcome to. Uh, we did just at the previous meeting, I heard,

have a discussion and say that we were going to bring it back to the September 23rd meeting, um, with field fees, etc., and try to get something worked out. But please continue.

I I do appreciate that. And I I just have two two questions. Um, first, thank you and thank you. We are going to try and pursue the route you suggested. We don't know how but we're going to go that route or try to go that route. But I do have two two just two questions on the topic. Um first question is the uh is there any bulk rate calculated in the city the fields? Example is 15 bucks an hour. If we wanted to buy say a 100 hours to be spread out over, is there a bulk rate? And if not, could there be? And the second question was u there are fields that our city can rent that are dedicated for soccer and others that are dedicated for baseball. Are there any dedicated for football? And if not, how difficult would it be to either add or convert one? Just that's all I have. I'll sit and listen.

Thank you, sir. I we did bring up both those points earlier during that meeting and we definitely will include that in the discussion on the 23rd and I will hope that you're in town and available to be here for that kids for that cuz I know you can you can offer a lot and with some kids here maybe in some football jerseys. I'm sure that will help sway the discussion as well. Um but would anyone else like to speak um during this open public hearing on the tenative budget? Mr. Smith,

Rob Smith. Um, it's my it's my understanding that that with the city is seeking an opinion from the attorney general on the days that the enactment of the um charter. So my concern is here is what what are you going to do if the if the um attorney general comes back and says we have to go back to the um previous year's dates and we're limited to 3%. And we need to be looking you know we can't give raises and give go spend money if the attorney general is going to come back and say that we're we're stuck with the old um we're doing 3%. Thanks.

Thank you sir. Anyone else from the public wish to speak during this open hearing for the tenative budget? [Music] Seeing none, we will now close the public hearing and we will ask for a motion and a second for resolution 2025-18 to adopt the tenative budget for the city of Fort Walton Beach for the fiscal year beginning October 1st, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2026. Mr. Mayor, so move to adopt resolution 25-18 to adopt the tenative budget for the city of Coral Beach for the fiscal year being October 1st, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2026 with the tenative military at 4.3282 mills. Second. I have a motion by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Browning to adopt the tenative budget for the city of Fort Balton Beach for the fiscal year beginning October 1st, 202526 and ending September 30th, 2026. Any additional discussion?

No, sir. No, Mr. Walker.

Yeah. In all my years, this is my third year up here doing it. U I remember it was because you guys laughed at it so much, but I came up here with the printed budget about that thick and I had I think I counted 116 little sticky notes on it because that's how I thought it would be done cuz we were at the budget meeting and then I learned that I should have been meeting with staff back there and I've still declined to do that because I feel that not only we as council members are cheated of your questions to staff but so is the public when you have questions about the budget. So, that being the case and not wanting to hear from staff about it, I would love to hear from each member up here, if there are any that had some really good questions regarding with staff regarding any budget concerns specifically related to the charter amendment, which I'm still not really clear 100% on how we how we are meeting it, how we're not meeting it. So, I'd just love to hear I'm assuming all of you guys met with staff about budget questions. So, I'd love to hear your questions and let's air them out in the public and see what kind of concerns you had.

Yes. I meet with staff regularly. Yeah. And and I would say just to council, if you if you want to answer that or share that, you're certainly welcome to during your time. Just as Mr. I love to learn in the collegial body. Yeah. And I was just as I was saying as Mr. Walker is certainly his right during his time as a representative of the people to ask that you you share those discussions or questions with the public. If you'd like to, you certainly can. If you do not like to, you do not have to. Um, very well said. Thank you, sir, um, I I didn't mean to cut you off.

No, just Yeah. Anybody want to fill me in, educate me on your discussions with staff and your cons, any concerns you had regarding the budget and the charter amendments or any other spending or I pointed I noticed a couple of what I think are, you know, extremely high increases over budget, but did you guys notice anything like that in your discussions or concern to point out any of those? I would just say yes. I meet with staff regularly and if anybody watching right now, please reach out to staff if you have any questions. Their questions don't all have to be asked through us. I think they're allowed to email Yeah. staff as well and ask whatever questions they may have. Yep. Anyone else want to comment on the motion that was made?

Seeing none, please. The motion does carry 4 to two. The tenative budget for the city of Port Walton Beach for fiscal year 2025-26 is 65,247,932 with a tenative millage rate of 4.3282 mills which is 6.62% above the rolled back rate of 4.0596 mills. The proposed budget is subject to a second and final public hearing that will be held here at the city of Fort Walden Beach Council chambers, excuse me, on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. or directly after the city council regular meeting at 400 p.m. whichever is later. All right. And that brings us to a journment.

Well, we don't have any. Oh, you don't? Okay, on that CRA meeting brings us to adjournment of this meeting and now we have a CRA meeting that Mr. Browning and I will