City Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. I'd like to call to order a special city commission budget workshop. Today is June 10th. The time is now 2.30 p.m. Sorry for the delay in beginning. Could we have a roll call, please, Madam Clerk?

Mayor Cooper. Present. Vice Mayor Lazaro. Yep. Commissioner Adams. Yes. Commissioner Butler. Yes. Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Before we rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, I'd like to induct a moment of silent prayer. We still continue to pray for peace in the Middle East and the uncertainty... Sorry, my apologies. Unknown... The more in the Middle East and the uncertainty there, as well as the uncertainty in Ukraine, we pray for peace and hopefully we call to mind all our armed forces in harm's way, protecting those in harm's way. We also call to mind all our first responders here in our city, county, state, and nation that watch over us on a day-to-day basis. A moment of silent prayer, please. Thank you. Vice Mayor, would you like to lead us in the pledge today?

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.

Great. City Clerk, you'll manage the queue for our colleague, Commissioner Butler, please, before I turn it over to the City Manager. Wow. Just when you think things were going to go smoothly, right? But no, joking aside. I know, you know, there's a lot of angst among citizens, the commission, staff, universally about what is going to happen with property taxes. I know that we have been very fiscally prudent and we're at least stable at this point. We finally have some targets to look at which we didn't necessarily have before but we need to really hone in and I think some of the responses that we've gotten even online is to look at this like will it pass if it does pass but right now to really work on this year's budget with that moving forward. So I know recently, as recently as yesterday, the city attorney announced that Jamie Cole, who in 2008, those individuals that have not been on the dais since 2008, had challenges the homestead exemption before due to language. The language in the amendment obviously is so arbitrary in some points. and really not as transparent as it should be, the arguments are. It's also a political statement. But with that said, and it was so true, I was just at the U.S. Conference of Mayors and they actually had a presentation, I don't know if it was Pritzker, one of the governors had talked, well, you know, as a governor, you know everything rolls downstream. So my mantra has been, the state government has done this. They're sitting on a $14 billion surplus. They don't collect property taxes, and they can do this because they can. Now with that said, residents want relief, but I think it behooves us to make sure that we have as much robust dialogue about what we do, what our services are provided, and what this will mean if it does pass. But with that said, I'm proud of our city and the work that the city manager has done in our budget staff on this commission has continued to be a civil commission. We don't agree on every issue. We, you know, we might all want to get to the same direction, but we all may take a different turn once in a while, but I'm very, very proud of our collegial body and we're going to get to work. So thank you very much, Dr. I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. And good afternoon, honorable mayor, vice mayor, commissioners. Before Natasha comes and gives you her most important presentation of her entire career, no pressure.

Oh, my God. No pressure at all.

I want to take a few moments, if you would indulge me, to talk about where we are today, where we've been, and where we're basically going to be heading over the next year or two years. I did this because, as you can imagine, I've had many sleepless nights over what's happening, what's occurring throughout the state, but especially where we in Hallandale need to be. In essence, this budget season feels very different. Even though we've had difficult budget seasons before, this one feels very different. Over the past six years, we have worked together through challenges that at times seem overwhelming. We faced financial instability and insolvency. We have faced that down. We faced declining reserves. We faced aging infrastructure, flooding concerns, stormwater challenges, broken pipes, illegal dumping, deferred maintenance, staffing shortages, and the uncertainty that followed the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of those challenges dominated conversations in this chamber for years. Today, many of those same issues are no longer the defining issues facing our city. Not because they disappeared, not because they fixed themselves, but because this commission and this organization made the difficult decisions necessary to address them. Together, we chose long-term solutions over short-term fixes. We chose fiscal discipline over easy answers. We chose to invest in infrastructure, stabilize our finances, rebuild reserves, diversify our revenues, improve operations, strengthen public safety, and position this city for the future, all within an unseemly impossible six years. We've literally done all of this within six years. Very few governments in this entire country can say that they have been able to do what we have been able to do in such a short period of time. That is a fact, and this commission should be proud of that. Those decisions were not always easy. The mayor alluded to that. At times, they required difficult conversations, difficult votes, and difficult choices. But they were the right choices. Our stability today is a factual testament to that. Today, Hallandale Beach enters this budget cycle from a position of stability because of those decisions that we made over the past six years, especially in the early part from 2020 on. That does not mean we do not face challenges. Today, we do. In fact, we are entering a period of uncertainty unlike anything that local governments in Florida have experienced before. We are facing rising pension costs. We are facing rising insurance costs. We are facing inflationary pressures. We are facing increasing public safety costs. We are facing the potential impacts of property tax reform and other legislative changes that could fundamentally alter how local governments throughout Florida operate. And those challenges are very, very real. And ignoring them would be irresponsible. But so would forgetting everything that we have accomplished over the last six years. The reason that I remain confident today, and I am confident, is because we prepared for uncertainty before the uncertainty we are facing now arrived. We rebuilt reserves, we balanced our budgets, we reduced our dependence on one-time revenues, we diversified revenue sources, we planned years ahead instead of months ahead, and that is what is making the difference in our standing today. Other cities are now gonna try and scramble over the next year to do a fraction of what we've been able to do over the past six years. We made investments that many communities postponed, and we continued to move Hallandale Beach forward. The budget before you today reflects those same principles. It is a budget that maintains essential services, it continues investments in infrastructure, supports our residents, it protects our financial stability, and it recognizes that while we cannot control every challenge that comes our way, we can control how we prepare for it. Commissioners, I want to thank you for your leadership, your partnership, and your willingness to make difficult decisions when they were necessary. And we remember some of those difficult decisions that you had to make that have paid off very well today in terms of our civility. I also want to thank our employees. This organization has accomplished an extraordinary amount with limited resources, staffing challenges, and increasing demands. The work being done across this city every single day, it matters. The improvements the residents see today are the result of years of planning, dedication, and hard work by people throughout this organization. And no matter what challenges lie ahead, I am confident in the team that we have built over the past six years. I am confident in this commission and I'm confident in the future of Hallandale Beach because we did not wait for a crisis to prepare. We did the work. And because we did the work, we are ready for whatever comes next. Thank you. Natasha.

I'm going to follow that.

Madam Mayor, if I may, before we proceed to the first presentation, I just want to state on the record there are no one signed up for public participation.

That's not the correct presentation that's on the screen. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Natasha Massey, program and budget and program monitoring director. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioner, city manager, members of the public. Today is our second budget workshop of the season. It is going to be focused on the 27 city manager recommended budget, major cost drivers affecting the general fund, proposed millage rates, recommended five-year stabilization plan, and the property tax reform proposal. We're on slide two. We have a little bit of an agenda here, eight sections of our presentation. I'm going to jump right into it. Budget timeline, we started this budget process back in January with budget planning. Department's requests were submitted in February. City Manager's Office review occurred in April. We held a workshop in May. We are now in June with our second workshop. We will have another workshop on June 22nd. two more workshops in August, August 5th and 19th, and then we have our first and second reading in September to set the budget and millage, and then implementation of the adopted budget on October 1st. So that is our timeline for this budget process. Just a little bit of a summary on the 27 budget city manager stated just a little bit ago. This recommended budget is balanced. It maintains current service levels, preserves reserves, and keeps the operating millage unchanged. However, the city is facing rising operating costs, major capital obligations, and potential property tax reform. This means that the budget is stable for FY27, but long-term financial planning and continued fiscal discipline is necessary to manage future years. Slide five. The 27 budget is being developed during a period of increased financial uncertainty. While this budget is balanced, there are several pressures outside of the city's direct control. These include the property tax reform proposal, BSO contract increases, Shaves Lake Project, potential loss of federal funding, inflationary cost pressures, pension cost increases, and union negotiations. These pressures reinforce the need to be cautious with reoccurring expenditures and proactive in identifying stabilization strategies. I'm going to go into general fund ad valorem revenues. This section focuses on the general fund and ad valorem revenues. Property taxes remain the city's largest and most flexible reoccurring revenue source. Because of that, any change to property tax collections, exemptions, or allowable uses directly affects the city's ability to fund services, capital improvements, and long-term obligations. Let me mention something. As you can see here on slide seven, there are other sources of revenue that the city does receive, but ad valorem revenue is the largest. We have sales tax revenues, communication tax revenues, pile off, fire assessment, franchise fees. All of those do not make up the ad valorem revenues, which is about 52%, total of $69 million in revenue. Property values increased at 2.25% based on the preliminary June 1st, 2026 taxable value from the property appraiser. That is less than what we anticipated last year at this time. Last year at this time, we projected 6% on our property, on our taxable values. When we received the values from the property appraiser on June 1st, they came back at 2.25%.

I don't know how everybody wants to do this, but since we have sections, we might as well... I think we all realize that this isn't our first budget, and we knew it was going to be 2.5, and I hadn't had a chance to go back to see what the projection, in my mind it was five. So we understand that. The one observation, and I think moving forward, and you know this is not critical in any way, shape, or form, but people kind of need to know the dollar amounts. I mean, we have the spreadsheet now in front of us, so we know these dollar amounts. So, you know, there's a difference between what we charge and what's discounted. I mean, the discount's what, $3.1 million? So those types of kind of just plugged in numbers are critically important. Because, for example, and I'm sorry, like, the wrath of, like, Channel 10 is, like, shadowing this. But, you know, people have commented online, well, we get all this other money. You know, what are those dollar amounts? You know, and we've always done the dollar. But say on this sheet, it would be good to know. We know now general fund is 52%. and what the dollar amount is. However, that's less whatever the discount is, plus all these other service taxes, those types of things, they are all controlled by state legislators, so we're glad we have them now, but even some of those have changed. Like if I recall, some are capped now, I believe. Some they just did a straight up cap or trade off. So maybe a list, including on our next presentation, of really what that amount of revenue stream is. and who controls it by state statute. So people, as we've seen the legislators do, they keep eroding local control. So I think the more information people have in relation to this, I think it's really critically important. So that was some of my initial observations. So I don't know if anybody else has questions, because we're doing segments, right, and you're gonna jump from this segment into the next one. Does anybody else have any questions about those revenue streams and what they look like and maybe making it a little bit more, I mean, if people dig for it, they'll find it, but make it a little bit more transparent.

To know how we were coming up with 6%.

Go ahead.

That was based on trend analysis from the prior years. I mean, we've had some pretty banner years over the time. I mean, I think one of our property increases was 17.88%, and it went to 10%, and I think we solidified on... Yeah, so we were at 18%.

We went to 17%. Last year, we were at 10%. you were trending down over the last few years. So there's no way that we were gonna say, oh, we're gonna be 10% again. So we chose a conservative enough 6% but we dropped to 2%.

Got it. And the difference between the 6% and the 2% was? In revenue?

Yeah. 3.3 million?

3.3 million. So that's what happened. And that number kind of jumped out, I'm sure, to all of us. And I know maybe there's lag time in what was reported or what was billed out or what went on the ad valorem rolls at all. Did we have any lag time with any of the developments? Have we followed up on that with the COs? Because I know that's a report out from our city to the property appraiser in Broward County, correct?

When we do that or no? You understand what I'm saying? I understand the question. I don't believe that there was a lag. For example, going into next year, we only have a few projects that are going to be coming online. So our revenues, so we cannot depend on the development that we might have had in previous years to actually come online. And that's what we found. Even as we projected, we actually, every number that you see includes those things. We've tried to project out. We know that 28, sorry, 29 will be a bit better than 20, I think 29 will be different than 27 where we only have a couple. 28 will be a little bit better, but 27 coming up, not much, not so much.

Not with this economy, I know.

Yeah, and that's our other concern is that projecting forward, we are now gonna project at the 2%. Because with everything shifting and things happening, 2% is our new floor for our calculations moving forward.

Right. Because that's the other sound bite. We doubled all these revenues. But that ties into, yes, but we use them for not kicking things down the road. That is correct.

We use it to show up our renewal and replacement. We use it for sidewalks, pavement, etc.

Everything people ask for. What do you want us to cut, right? You know, parks. Commissioner Tom, you're recognized.

Thank you, Mayor. I actually have a slew of questions. I have a list, but I think I will just wait to see, based on our conversation last week. So I'll wait. Is this presentation what Dr. Earle emailed to us at 5 in the morning today? I was just going to say.

I was going to mention that. No, what was emailed was the different scenarios that were requested. That mic.

That was this, like the spreadsheets. We kind of asked for the same thing. We asked for reserve recaps of what's designated and undesignated. Not using the same terms that staff always uses, but also the spreadsheets of we're looking at this. What are we looking at? And that's why I prefaced it. This year's budget is this year's budget.

This section is on the 27 city manager recommended budget. This section.

Fine. Perfect. Okay. And then when the time is right, I will shoot off my questions. Okay? All right.

This is just a vote from the City Manager 2017 recommended budget because when we come back on June 22nd, we'll be setting the millage and non-invalorum assessments. in 12 days. So this part's focused on that. Thank you.

And just one more note. So the drop from the six, so again, last year we were at 10%. That's what we were last year. This year we're at two. So that's why when I sent you all the email to say we have a deficit, that's the deficit I had to close because even our conservative 6%, that gap from six to two, I had to find a way to close that gap because in six years, I have never given you guys an unbalanced budget or a budget that uses reserves. So I made significant cuts. projects, programs to make sure that we were able to address that gap between our conservative 6% and our 2% in terms of what our actual values were.

And that's a great point, because once we get into CEP.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but we got a lot to cover, so let's not get hung up on my one question.

Well, I had some, but I'm kind of done.

No, no, no, just that one question.

All right, thanks. Go ahead. Okay. But what you cut needs to be highlighted as well.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I'm just worried. I'm worried we're not going to, because we have so much to do. I want to make sure that we cover everything today. I'm sorry.

We're gonna take as long as we take so we all this is our first bite at the Apple I'm not in a rush to go anywhere This is priority now This is the dollar where do your general fund dollars go as you can see for every dollar is

Police is $0.25, fire is $0.19, human service is $0.02, and so forth. We want to highlight that. For every dollar, public safety is about $0.45 or $0.44 of every dollar. So public safety does take quite a bit of the general fund revenues and expenses. Okay, now we're on the slide 10, general fund highlights. The General Fund has a combined increase in revenues and expenditures of approximately $17.8 million compared to the 26th adopted budget. The largest driver is the Shaves Lake project. The Shaves Lake project has $6 million as a contribution from the CRA and $4.5 million from General Fund reserves. General Fund reserves are projected at approximately $41.8 million. at the beginning of 26, which is above the city's minimum reserve requirement of 16%.

I'm sorry, repeat that last sentence.

The city's minimum fund balance reserve requirement is 16%.

And what are we at now?

We will be at 35.6%. Okay, thank you.

That's what I wanted to know. GFOA recommends 16 point something.

It's actually 16.2 or something percent for operating.

As mentioned before, property values increased 2.25% based on the June 1st preliminary taxable values. There is an increase of $905,000 resulting from the TIF payment to CRA because of higher property values within the CRA, 4.55%. Okay, slide 12. Operating debt, Golden Isles and Three Islands millage. The recommended operating millage remains at 7.3848 and debt service millage is .3445. The average taxable value for a single family home in the city of Holland Hill Beach is $455,000, which is an increase of almost $24,000 from prior year. Golden Isles millage is 1.0934 and remains the same as prior year. Their values increase 3.76%. Three Islands millage remain the same at .4584. The values in Three Islands district decreased 3.88% from last year. That decrease in taxable value is largely driven by softening in the condominium market.

Okay, we're on slide 12.

The 27 budget maintains current service levels for residents, public safety, and essential operations, continues infrastructure, roadway, drainage, and sidewalk improvements, supports parks, senior, and youth and community programs. This budget also advances renewal and replacement needs as we need to shore up our replacement schedules for IT, HVAC systems, playground equipment, and parks. This budget also deals with major cost drivers such as insurance, contracts, pensions, negotiated increases. It preserves reserves and avoids deficit spending. The HBCRA transition related support is paid for by the CRA. This budget also funds traffic related items such as continued traffic timing studies and other initiatives supported by resident priorities. Any questions on slide 12?

City Attorney, I know this is putting you on the spot, but it's something we talked about last week. I think you had emailed us. Can you speak briefly about the potential changes if this thing passes in November to what we could fund? I'm not saying every little thing, but some of the things we've mentioned on this slide, are things that we would no longer be able to fund.

Exactly.

As an example.

Yeah, so the proposed amendment contains a provision that limits expenditures, and that provision kicks in on January 1st of 2027. So whereas we might not start seeing an immediate fiscal impact to the budget because of the way property taxes are kind of a delayed thing, the expenditure provisions will limit us almost immediately. The way they're worded is a little difficult to know which way the courts were will interpret them Last minute an amendment was added that said that it permitted any expenditure authorized by the Commission however the initial language says that the property taxes can only be used for expenditures for core services and then it lists a number of core services, and the last one, the one that was added, says anything approved by commission. So that can be viewed as a catch-all. It's also extremely possible that a court will view that as being limited by the term core services, right? So then we are left with a situation where a lot of expenditures can be debated. It's gonna cause a legal mess, but it also means that now every expenditure that we do, every contract we sign, every PO we issued has to be compared to that provision to ensure that it matches what's gonna end up being a constitutional restriction on our authority to expend. So it's impossible to know exactly how much it's gonna limit us. because I don't know how courts were interpreted, but I can tell you that it will immediately result in a lot more work and a lot more justification required for each expenditure.

May I just ask a question? Because I wasn't on the call. But it's interesting because the language actually says core public needs. Yes. Not services. So needs, not wants.

What is the difference between what she said and that?

Well, she's just saying it's restricted. It's very restrictive.

She's saying that the needs thing is...

It's not defining what service is.

Well, I was going to say, you know, it's interesting because core services could mean

And that's the point. It can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, and it's going to come down to how the court interprets those provisions. I would happily argue that the way it's written means that it's going to be up to the commission to determine what is a core need, and that the court should defer to that. However... It could be read as more restrictive depending on how its intention is read. So it's going to cause a lot of problems, but immediately we're going to have to start trying to figure out how much risk we want to take in reading it. And it does provide for members of the public to sue to enforce.

I mean, I'm just saying like all the capital and CIP projects that are mostly out of the 150 infrastructure. I mean, do you want water or don't you?

Well, that's a core service.

No, I understand.

So I'm saying like.

So is senior youth and community programs.

Exactly. A core service. Exactly. Well.

But this is kind of the thing that we have to think about.

It's a Memorial Day event, a core service.

It's a Memorial Day event, exactly.

Is any city event a core need?

If you were going to be a purist, it was like, no, none of that stuff's covered.

There are 117 cities that they have to uphold. Good luck. I'm just saying. And over 180 under 10,000 population. Yeah, I'm not worried. I'm so sorry.

No, I mean, really, if you want to be a purist, you know, parks, it's infrastructure, but park programs is an infrastructure. So if you want to be a purist and be pragmatic about it is we've had, ironically, the governor in Texas and our governor are having the same food fight of getting rid of property taxes, which is quite interesting. So there was a big debate. Is economic development a core function of a city? period whether it's a community redevelopment agent or it's economic development business promotion what you know what is that what is that is that a lot of the idiots that voted on this up there are going to be out of office too so it'll have to be all the other idiots that are coming in that make that decision to sue yeah idiots so really you know that is what needs to be discussed in public you know what is that course and also the city's hundred year is that a core thing No, I was gonna bring that up too.

I mean, Debbie Downer is like, yeah, nothing is core.

People wanna have a party, the organization, we can throw our own party if we want. Okay, moving on. I'm being cynical, sorry. She's looking at me like I'm crazy.

Go ahead. On slide 13. Major general fund cost drivers are FY27. Capital projects, I stated before, Shaves Lake project is one of the major drivers for the increase in the budget for 27. We are also shoring up our renewal and replacement. We went back. I believe we brought the city commission last year in ordinance to establish an R&R fund. in which we were funding $1 million per year. We've gone back. We've smoothed out that fund. We have identified parks and IT and facilities items that we need to include in our R&R fund, and we've shored that up and increased that contribution. Health insurance, the BSO contract, This is the second year of the contract where it's at an 8% increase. Every year after will be a 5% increase. Thank God. As mentioned before, the TIF payment to the CRA is up by $905,000. That's due to the increased values in the CRA. And fire and police pension is up as well, 8%, which was our projection from prior year. Okay, now we're on the section. Property tax reform proposal. Since prior discussion, we have received updated information on what advanced out of the House and Senate committees. Property tax proposal includes a November 2026 ballot question that will require 60% voter approval. It includes a phased homestead exemption expansion with the first $150,000 exemption beginning in 2027, which is our fiscal year 28. The first $250,000 exemption will begin in 2028, which is our fiscal year, 29, and future changes to be set by general law. We do not know when the $500,000 exemption would take effect because there was a general schedule that would need to be developed by the House and Senate.

Or it was interpreted that we can decide if we want to do it ourselves. Oh.

Correct.

If I read the presentations right, it's very ambiguous.

Yes.

So.

I agree with all of the points made in that presentation.

Thank you. So it's ambiguous. It's not, they're not, I'm sorry. I'm just jumping, yeah. I've been like.

The mayor's referencing, just because I don't think everybody understands that there is litigation that's going to be filed challenging the proposed ballot language as ambiguous and vague and misleading. We don't obviously know how that will end up, but that is a challenge that is being prepared.

But the way the language stands, it's not clear if the legislators have to come up with that list or mandated or if it's interpreted that if we decide we want to do it, we can do it independently. It doesn't give us the right to reduce it, but we could increase it if we wanted to. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I interrupted you.

Oh, there is a residency requirement of five years for Florida residents and reducing the non-homestead assessment cap from 5%, from 10% to 5%. That is also in the bill.

And that was one of my big questions because I know when we had the first presentation, I wasn't sure what was all cooked in that. So I have two questions. Do we know how many or can we get the information of how many property owners Our average single home is $450,000, but at what point do we know how many properties will not be paying taxes in our city based on the $250,000 exemption? thought of that or pulled that concept, I think I'd like to see that figure because there's gonna be how many actual homeowners will pay zero property tax.

I thought that would have been in here. Good question.

I'm sorry, I told you I'm gonna methodically go through this. I'm working on that. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

think there's eight or there's 8261 homesteading properties, right? Right. So those condos would be included and not 8261. That is correct.

But once it's once it passes, I don't know how many of those will not be paying.

So there'd be 200, there'd be 250,000 or less.

Well, up to 250, if my apartment is 230, I'm not paying taxes. Zero taxes. Well, you are going to be paying school board taxes. Well, I'm sorry. I apologize. Yes, we let them fall.

We're not biggest thieves of all time.

No, I'm not worried about them. They're in trouble on their own.

You are going to be paying school board taxes and any assessments.

What happened to the 700 million they voted on for their bond? Where'd that go?

I'm going to say it again. If I live in a condo and it's $230,000 value, I will not be paying any county tax, nor will I be paying a municipal tax. Zero. Right. Zero. I understand. I like that number.

I think it's critically important. If there are 400 buildings or condo buildings in the city, so, like, we can expect, I mean, we can... project on that right northeast 14th most of those condos in the northeast section is going to be zero southeast section like southeast third is going to be zero um on the beach northwest there's not that many there but okay northwest I mean homesteaded I'm talking about condos so I think we could how many I'd like to see those numbers how many homes have a $250,000 taxable value of I think it's fairly easy to... Yeah, we can pull that.

I mean, we can ask the property appraiser to pull it. Yeah, we'll ask them to pull it for us.

I didn't get a chance to ask it. That's why I asked it.

So I don't worry about the beach area for the most part. I don't know any, even if the, even the co-op ones are going to be more than 250. So the beach area, I'm not worried about. So it's northeast, southeast. I don't think there's that many condo buildings in the northwest. Another question.

I think it's a reasonable question for people to understand what it means. Because then who else is going to make up the slack?

Go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead. Just to recap, new Florida residents will have to wait up to five years for the full exemption. So if you're already in Florida, you're already at home and you live here and you move to Pembroke Pines, you would qualify for the exemption. If you're coming from Alabama, another state, you would not qualify for the exemption until you've maintained a five-year residency.

Oh, and the same for commercial, I think. I started to ask that number. Is that number cooked in to your projections already? Yes. The 5%? What was that value amount?

A million. A million? One million. That was a reduction. Yes, that's a reduction.

Thank you.

That's based on information I received last week.

Thank you. Sorry.

Okay, and why does this property tax reform proposal matter to local government? If approved, the proposal would reduce the city's most flexible revenue source and restrict how remaining ad valorem revenues may be used. Remaining property taxes could be used only for core needs, I almost said services, but it's core needs, such as public safety, infrastructure, stormwater and flood control, debt service, retirement obligations, and government operations. While government operations is still a broad category, certain expenditures could still be questioned if there is not a clear legal explanation to the operations administration. This creates both a revenue challenge and a spending restriction challenge. The proposal could also create pressures on fees, assessments, capital projects, renewal replacement, and community programs.

So the ballot language states, ensuring funding for core services. That's what they're claiming on the ballot. Who's not going to vote for that? They're ensuring it.

Right, whatever.

I'm just saying about the name that the title of it is so obscene. That save our homes from excessive property taxes. Okay. That's all. I'm sorry, I'm still breathing. Go ahead. Okay. I'm not writing emails at five in the morning, but I'm breathing.

So now on the five-year plan, purpose of the five-year plan provides a forward-looking view of the general fund beyond 2027. It's not a final budget for future years. It's a planning tool that helps identify future gaps, pressures, and strategies needed to maintain services and avoid over-reliance on reserves. The goal is to preserve core services, maintain reserves, and align future spending with long-term revenue capacity. So we're gonna spend some time on this slide. Oh, my favorite slide in the world. We are going to spend some time on this slide. So the top of the slide, this is our five-year plan with property tax reform baked in. The top of the slide in yellow, that is our millage rate. We're keeping our millage steady and the same all the way through, 7.3848.

Actually, before we go any further. Talk about that. So none of the ones that you had this morning commissioner. I think just the one that the extra presentation that was before you. Do you all have a copy of the page 19. What happened on page 19.

OK.

There's not a page number on the bottom of it. Sorry, you couldn't fit.

So just real quick, I want to talk about this before Natasha goes into it. So we've given you a five-year plan ever since 2020, 2021, I believe, or was it 2021? Maybe 2021?

2021.

Maybe. It was very early on. So we've had a five-year plan. Our five-year plan has... Although we've been extremely fiscally conservative with our five-year plan, our numbers have pretty much been on point. And so I'll say it this way. There were times when we had a budget of, let's just say, $216 million, and the swing from the plan before you to the actuals was maybe 30 or $40,000, right? Just to let you know that we don't play around with these numbers. We try and have these numbers be as honest, as conservative as possible. And so even as we're doing this, that's why you see the out years grayed out. The out years are grayed out because of the level of uncertainty that we have because of what's before us. So before last year, these numbers were not grayed out, right? So last year we started graying out these numbers because we didn't know what was going to occur because of the property tax issue. So now they're still kind of grayed out because we'll, you know, Maybe there's a sliver of hope that Commissioner Lazaro is able, or Vice Mayor Lazaro is able to get folks to not vote for the actual amendment, right?

No, I was hoping that the lawsuit will stay.

The lawsuit will stop it or at least change the title. Not that I can't get them. So there's a sliver. So because of that sliver, that's why this is not all white going all the way through. So it's still going to be grayed out because of that sliver of uncertainty that we have. But to the best of our abilities, this is what we would be facing. To the best of our abilities, and again, every single year, what we give you is pretty much on point. So Natasha, go ahead.

Okay. Thank you, Sam. So the top of the slide, we have in yellow the millage rate. directly controls how much ad valorem revenue we receive. We've got actuals for FY25. Those are audited numbers. So our fund balance at the end of FY25 is $41.8 million. That's way at the bottom there. That is above the minimum fund balance reserve of 16%, 35%. FY26 is adopted. So there is no shortfall. There is no deficit. There is no surplus because we provide a balanced budget year over year. FY27 is a balanced budget. As you can see, there's no shortfall, there's no surplus. At the top, though, I do wanna point out that we did, we do have the TIF payment. That was a request that we show the TIF payment to the CRA at the top there in, at the top, 18.1 million. That is the TIF payment to the CRA in FY27. That request was made.

And all of our numbers after that reflect the sunset of the CRA. So that number... that's no longer there is baked into the numbers that you see in every single year moving forward. So the fact that there is no CRA.

How did it go down? So the CRA sun setting in FY27, so the 18 million basically goes away. We don't pay that anymore. Then in FY28, we are bringing an economic development department of about $6 million cost.

So basically the lion's share of all of the CRA's dollars is baked into this budget. What we've reserved is the amount that this commission said we should work on for this new department. I'm just giving an overall.

I know, no I get it, but I guess I went back and that's why I wanted to look at the, I've been back and forth with you on emails because I had the old presentation and new presentation and my bad, I didn't want to bring home dead trees with me from the plane so I threw everything out. 2025, the $10 million deficit, that is cooked in because of Shaves Lake or is that a projection? That's what's throwing me. Let me finish. That's what threw me off. And I'm like, are you cooking this all in now? Where did that number come from this year?

That is before all strategies. So that is if we did nothing, if we did not increase the fire assessment a few years ago, if we did not have a parking program, if we did not have the New Certificate of Use program, that is before all strategies.

Well, that's what threw me off. I mean, right now, that's if we didn't do anything, but we have done anything. So to show that line item is, to me, I really don't agree with showing that $10 million deficit. I think it's actually teeing something up to say we're operating in a $10 million deficit this year, which we're not. We're not in a $10 million deficit, if I'm reading and hearing you correctly, correct? That is correct. Actually, in 25, we have a surplus of $8.4 million. We are not in deficit spending this year. So this 10,000, I mean, I was on the plane, I was like, oh my God. And I know it was a mess trying to get everybody in here, but to start showing that 10 million in deficit, we're not in the deficit. And this year, we're not in the deficit at 17, period. So why are we showing these red line items? I think it is not transparent, it is not accurate. I know we're giving credit due to what we've done and the hard work we've all done, all of us collectively, Dr. Earl, the leadership in the commission, everybody. But that, to show that deficit on 25 and 26, yeah. So what portion of 37 million is cooked into the deficit? Like on 27, we're saying- Not because that is a balanced budget.

I don't know.

I need an explanation on that one, please. Because it is, you know, I know, but anybody looking at this- Would think that we have a deficit. Is gonna think we're operating on a deficit, period. And it's not transparent, it's not open. And yeah, we did a great job. And if we didn't do a great job in the past five years, yeah, we'd be in the hole. But we're not. So how you see- We have to look at this budget, that is this year. Next year's budget, we have to look at next year. If we wanna do an other line item to cook in, if that happens with the 150 and then the 250 and the 5%, that would be wonderful. That is open and transparent as far as I'm concerned. I don't know how my colleagues feel about it, but that's why I was like, where are these numbers from?

If you go to the bottom of the slide though, where it says budget projections after strategies, that section, you will see that we are not in deficit spending. Actually, in FY25, we contributed $8.4 million of fund balance. 26 is adopted, and there is no deficit in 25, 26, and 27.

Flip the coin. It should be flipped. I mean, so. I understand. All right. Does anybody else have that concern?

I do, and I had some concerns last week when I met with the director, so I appreciate you bringing this forward, but okay, you've said enough. I completely concur. I still have a slew of questions, but I'll wait.

So can I ask a question? Sure. If we were to get rid of that red line where it says just X that out and you went down, would that be accurate? In other words, wouldn't that show everything that the mayor is saying without putting in that deficit?

I could get rid of that whole top line, yes. So why is it even there? It's to show what would happen, where we would be if we did not implement those strategies.

But why do we need to do that? If we already did implement, then why do we need to put in... Dr. Earl, why do we have these items?

We can take it off, but I wouldn't say it's not transparent. What it is, is this. It's basically saying that if this commission had not made these decisions over the past six years, we would have been in the red. That's really all that top section is showing. Right, so in other words, that top section is, I hate to say it this way, that top section is in a sense giving props to the commission for the fact that they would have been so far in the hole.

Now I understand.

Yeah, that's why that top section is there. So it's actually very transparent.

I didn't use the right word. It doesn't seem like that.

That would be nice at the bottom of the slide, maybe. We can flip it. No, no, no. Flip the coin.

No, no, so she agreed with me. Flip the coin. No, so we agree with you, so we can flip it. Flip the coin. Flip the coin. Yeah, it's very, yeah, and it's not, listen, if we can, if we want to take it out now, that's fine.

Most people are going to go, okay, I'm leading the top line, and if they can understand a spreadsheet or municipal finance or spreadsheets and accounting, great. And I kind of get it, but I was like, what is that?

There is no contribution to fund balance until we have the audited financials.

FY27, we are presenting a balanced budget FY27.

And full disclosure, I haven't had a chance to even talk to anybody, so I apologize. Full disclosure, I'm being upfront and asking any question I would if I was sitting down at the city manager's office. No reflection on anybody. It's fine. I was in college, I was a late night crammer. Yeah.

I appreciate the feedback. This is what this is for, this workshop. You know what I mean? This is the point of the workshop is to kind of hash some of these things out and so that when we're presenting up here to the public, we do it in a way that they can understand. Okay.

FY28.

One minute. Go ahead. I have, I guess. Commissioner Butler.

Thank you for, because I wasn't looking at the queue. Commissioner Butler, I'm recognizing you for some questions. On slide, whatever number this is, because I know it's 19. Commissioner, you're recognized.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Pretty much a little bit louder.

Hold on. Let me see if I can turn up.

Perfect. Perfect. That's great.

Yeah, okay. So I just, could you, I have a couple of questions. First of all, could you walk me through again the CRA sunset impact to the fiscal year 27 and 28 numbers? It's hard to see exactly where that impact occurs.

I understand. So at the top of the slide, the CRA is sunsetting September 30th, 2027. So in 27, we make our last TIF payment at the CRA. That TIF payment is $18.17 million.

Okay, and then the money that we previously... I'm sorry, can you hear me okay?

Yeah, I can, I can.

Okay, so the money that previously we had, I get the TIF payment that's going to the CRA. Where does the money from the CRA that now comes into the general, that flows back into the general fund, where is that? Where are those dollars?

I understand. It's baked in. And what we can do is we can show it as a line item.

But it's baked in with the deficit of the new property tax reform.

Property tax.

That's what's missing. Yes. I don't know if that helps.

No, no, no. I'm not looking at the property tax. I'm looking at the... I'm looking at the five-year plan without any property tax changes. Oh, I don't, okay, hold on. So I'm looking at the revenue from fiscal year 27. Hold on, Commissioner Butler, hold on one second.

Are you on a different spreadsheet? Are you on the revenue spreadsheet that was distributed?

I'm looking at the five-year with no property tax reform.

Without?

With no property tax reform.

Okay, that's not in the presentation, so let me get that, hold on.

Well, if you want me to, we can look at the presentation. I printed out my own. You can show it to me in the presentation if you'd rather. I got it, thank you. I can't read the slide on Zoom. It's jumbled up, so I'm looking at what I downloaded. I can't read this.

Okay, Commissioner Butler, we're on the presentation, but you're on a sheet that you received this morning?

I'm looking at Exhibit 2A. Okay.

Oh, okay. We're in a different slide. We're on the actual presentation. We're not looking at exhibits from the email.

So just explain to me what happens to the funds. I'm seeing a decline in revenues. So I don't understand why there's a decline in general fund revenues after the CRA sunsets.

Because of the property tax reform.

Yeah, I want to look at without property tax reform. Why is there a decline even without the property tax reform?

A decline in the revenues, is that your question?

Yes.

Yeah, there's a decline in revenues without property tax reform.

I think early... Hold on a second, Commissioner.

Wasn't it early you had referenced it? Because we had lost money on the presumption of 6%, which has dropped the sound to 2.5%. So that is a reduction. And then the rest of the line items will be set at... the new rate of 2%. So that's why the numbers are gonna change. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to jump in. I'll let staff answer.

I think because of the times we're in, we need to be sensitive of how it's presented.

Because if we're asking those questions.

Dr. O, can you turn on your microphone, please? I can't hear you when you're not speaking into the microphone.

Commissioner Butler?

I can't see which one you're saying.

Yes? Okay, so the reason why the revenue is decreasing is because in 27, we're receiving a contribution from the CRA for Shaves Lake for $6 million. That's in 27. It will not be in FY28. That's one of it.

So when we sunset the CRA, those funds that now go to the CRA for future will always come into the general fund, right?

That is correct.

How many dollars is that that's coming into the general fund from the CRA after it sunsets?

$18.2 million.

So the general fund will have $18.1 million more every year after the CRA sunsets?

That is correct.

Right.

So from fiscal year 28, we will see $18 million more than what we have today in the general fund.

That is correct, Commissioner.

So I still see a decline in the revenue. I don't see where that $18 million is.

He's saying from the 16 to the 99. Correct?

I'll let you guys answer.

The 99 is because of property projections.

Maybe it's not a very clear, we haven't outlined very clearly, because the CRA sunset should occur about the same time should property tax reform go into effect.

It's not 18 million every year. It's 18 million the first year, and then all you're getting is the increases every year. So it's a one-time 18 million. But as the property values go up, you're going to benefit from that increase. It's not a straight $18 million. It'll be more than 18?

All right.

Commissioner? Yeah, so let me ask you. The total property value that the general fund – Garner's income will increase when the CRA sunset by the value of the CRA.

That is correct. In 20, in 28, our first, I guess, year.

Yeah. And how many dollars is that in 28?

Hold on. I guess the presumption is the first line item on revenue should jump to 18 in revenue, understanding that the TIF would shift all the way into the property value revenue.

Well, I think there's something that it's difficult to understand how we have a $6 million economic development department that seems to be a shortfall when the CRA sunset should more than cover the cost of the economic development department. And it seems like that economic development department actually does cause a significant negative impact at $6 million a year every year. and that's another issue we can talk about, but I don't see the offset. I don't see where the CRA sunset increases the general fund revenues to offset the economic development department.

What happened to the 12 million and why isn't it baked into the 99? Why isn't the 12 baked into the 99?

It just doesn't seem the revenues look like the CRA is sunsetting.

so commissioner so in the revenue number the cra is already including the revenue number what goes down is your expense so on the expense side is where we pay the tiff payment the expense size where you pay the tiff payment so what you're going to see is a decrease in expense you're going to see an increase in revenue well why why is there a the revenue

Go from 100 to 115 and then back down to 105 in fiscal year. Hold on, I'm in the wrong.

So 100 to 116, then back down to 99 because we're bringing in $6 million from the CRA for Shaves Lake, 4.5 million from fund balance from the general fund. That's 10.

So you're accounting for the $4.5 million from, where did that come from?

From fund balance. That is revenue from fund balance for Shades Lake. That's one time.

It's weird because it's a fund balance, but it's an expense. It's a balance sheet.

But it's revenue.

Okay. So the $100 million to the $115 million, you're saying that $10 million increases Shades Lake?

Yes, $10 million of that is Shades Lake. $6 million from the CRA, $4.5 million from the general fund fund balance.

Okay. So part of the struggle that I have, and let me set this up. So in June of last year and in September of last year, our forecast, our five-year forecast, showed projected reserves exceeding $52 million. The June of this year forecast that we received showed now that it's going to be $32 million, even without property taxes. So there's a $20 million decline from September of... Commissioner, I'm not seeing 32 million.

Which slide are you on?

He might be leaving... I actually have it. I printed it out because I saved all the documents. He might be looking at last year's spreadsheet that was distributed and...

Okay, you're looking at 2031. No, yeah.

Okay. In September of 26, in 30 and in 31, if you look at the five-year projection in September of last year, in September of last year, the five-year projection shows that we'd be at 52 million in fiscal year 30.

Okay.

All right. So in the projection that we received before we had this meeting, so last week, it showed a $20 million drop, right? So without property tax reform, it showed a $20 million drop. So my question is, the 2.2%, the 2.25%, is that the assumption that you're using for all future?

That is correct, Commissioner.

Last year it was 6%. So let me just stop here for a second because that's a $20 million swing. We went from maybe 6% was optimistic. I still don't think it is, and I think we all agree that $6 million is a conservative number. But now you're projecting 2.25% for the next five years in property tax growth. Is that correct?

That is correct.

See, and that assumption, that number, you don't provide that information anywhere in these plans, so it's very difficult to understand how you went, how we lost $20 million in projected reserves.

The assumptions are on page 20.

So we know that the 2.25% is one year. I don't know that it's going out for every year. I'm sorry if I've missed it. So I don't think that 2.25% is the right number for us to assume is going to be our growth in property tax value going into the future. I think 6%, frankly, is still a fairly conservative number. No way. Ew, it's not happening out there.

What does he say? Okay. Maybe 3%.

So, Commissioner, you're saying that 6% going out the other years, 2% for 28.

If I could just finish. He's saying instead of assuming it's 2.5% going forward, that he's going to go, it's going to go back to, we should be assuming 6%.

I agree with the mayor that maybe 6% isn't the right number, but I don't believe that 2.25% is the right number. We have a significant amount of development that's going on in the city now. And to assume 2.25%, I don't know that the fundamentals have changed in terms of our year-over-year growth. because we had one year, which was impacted, according to what I understood, because of the condo devaluation, right? Is that what I understood?

That we had a condo devaluation?

There's only some. I'm so sorry to interrupt.

It's only some, actually. The $1 million and above condos are flying off the shelves. The ones that are stagnant are like the older ones in the 55, an older community, The $250,000, $300,000 condos with a $1 million and up condos are flying off the shelves.

I agree with you, Commissioner Limitop. I agree with you. I'm not debating. What I'm trying to say is that that devaluation was a one-time impact. I don't think that we're going to see a devaluation in subsequent years that is equally bad. Maybe there will be. the additional declines, but I just think from a projection standpoint, to take two and a quarter percent and project it out five years is overly pessimistic. Maybe 6% was too optimistic. I would debate that. The mayor says 3%.

I don't know what the number was. I concur with you, Commissioner Butler.

Years past, it used to be a flat five. We never went, we never dipped down to two, but I'm saying everybody, actually you could say zero. But we know 3% is gonna be on every, well, we can't say that now, but 3% used to be baked into automatically the homestead increase of revenue because you knew all the values were artificially assessed, not at market value. So what is that sweet spot? Do you wanna do zero? and do zero-sum budgeting for every year, or do you wanna be realistic? Is it five, is it three, is it, you know, what it'll be, you know? So I was kinda shocked at the 2.5. I didn't get a chance to ask, but I didn't even look back if it was ever that low. I don't think we've ever seen it at 2.5.

Well, my only point, and I'll finish with, if I could, I'm sorry, Dr. Earle. My apologies. All I would say is that, honestly, thanks to Dr. Earl, thanks to the staff, thanks to the things that the city commission has done, we're in a much more financially healthy than, I think, as Dr. Earl said in his opening comments, than a lot of people realize. And I think that the CRA sunset timing should the property tax reform pass works to our advantage. So all I'm saying is that this, and Dr. Earle, you said very clearly this was the most conservative five-year projections that you could. So I get you've put in very conservative projections. numbers for what you believe the growth in property tax. I think it'll be a little bit higher. I just wanted to point out to my colleagues that what we're seeing here is probably bleaker than what we should expect will actually occur in the future. And so I'm glad that we got that straightened out because I really struggled to understand that we were changing our assumptions from the 6% or 5% that we've always talked about to 2.25% going out all five years. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate it. And I apologize to all of you. I'm in Connecticut for work and couldn't make it back in time for the meeting tonight.

Yeah, that's the last time we're going to let you speak today. Yeah, no apology needed.

That's why we're all here working together. So please do not apologize.

I do want to point out that included in the projection, we did bake in the future major development. That is baked into these revenue numbers. I did want to point that out. It's on slide 20 in our assumptions. So I did want to point that out.

Wait, what?

Wait. Future major development.

Yeah.

We included those assumptions in this five-year plan. Where? That's part of it. It's in the background. It's in the revenue. What we'll have to do is we'll have to break out these revenues so that you could clearly see which ones are future. On these spreadsheets? On these spreadsheets, yes.

There are a thousand spreadsheets that go into.

Oh, my God.

The $1 billion in market value translates to a different number when it comes to ad valorem revenue.

Right, so those are factored in already? Those are factored in already.

Through 2031? Through 2031, yes.

Okay, and where?

You don't have that document, Commissioner Lima-Tobb.

Okay, so I have the gloom and doom, but I don't have the non-gloom and doom, right?

No, everything gets built. You just don't have the projected build-out number. That's the only thing that you don't have. So to create any one of these things, it takes an extraordinary amount of information, research, and spreadsheets. So for us to give the commission you know, 500 pages that gets us to this would be very difficult. I would add, just in terms of the property tax, that there was a point in time about three years ago when we were, that when we were, we were at 4%, right, Nick? And the 4% was a number that we had because we do trends. So our trends were showing, right, our trends were showing for a period of time, 4% increase. That's what our trends were showing. Then the commission said, well, we want you to be higher because around that time we were 18%, 17%, 10%. And so remember, just a drop from 10% last year, just one year to two has completely shaken us, right? Because it's not like you dropped from 10 to eight. or from 10 to even our conservative six, you drop from 10% to two. So that means that there's a correction of some kind. What we don't wanna do is we don't want to bake in high numbers because that's exactly what got the city into trouble in the first place. Previous administrations would say, we're gonna have all of this stuff happening. And because of what they, and I'm not, no names, because of what occurred in the past, we were running deficits because we were telling the commission that our revenues were going to be higher because we were baking in these very high property values. What I have made, right, so what we've made sure is that we do it based on the actual trends that we have, right? So in other words, we go back, I remember Nick and I did the calculation, And we're like, what was the last three years? And we used that number. And then we said, okay, we're going to be 6% just to be conservative. It was still within the range, but we didn't want to give the commission a number that was so inflated that it was out of the realm of us being able to control. So that's why we said, now we're at 2%. I don't know if we're going to be at 6% next year. I don't know. If we are, it only makes our numbers better and we'll deal with that next year. It only helps us next year. But from a projection perspective, we want to be conservative because that is what has enabled us to do the things that we've been able to do to be stable. So anyway, Natasha.

Go ahead. Wait. Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Tom? Thank you. So there's a number of – so one thing is I want to make sure that when we are looking at projected expenses that we're not ignoring future income. But then also I have a question for you. Just because we have $1 billion in development, that's not automatically – taxable value it might be 700 million not a billion dollars correct that is correct so when you said there is another spreadsheet somewhere it's through the city manager we could provide that spreadsheet okay but can i just ask why it's like why is it not

listed? Yes. Because I mean, that means the spreadsheet would be four pages. I could definitely put it on here. It's not a problem. It's definitely not a problem. We can actually add it. It's just the spreadsheet would just get bigger and bigger.

I mean, I just think for me, I would need to see this is the projected. Okay. expenses this is a projected income and then however you all okay that's kind of this yeah but i don't need all of that i'm sure we can have a summary of that something yeah i let commissioner butler go through all that oh this is mine i go through it too oh my goodness no i'm just laughing i know i'm glad he does so he understands it much better than i do i just need clear-cut clear-cut numbers so and also don't I understand that $1 billion is not actually going to be $1 billion in taxable income. So what's the projection? Do we have like a number? Because some are residential, some are office buildings, some is commercial, some is mixed use. So do we have a breakdown of what that will look like? We do, and we can provide that. Thank you. And then also, if we can get the number of, so there's 8,261 homestead. But because I can tell you that there are multiple owners, multiple property owners in the city who either have investment properties or investment income properties, or it's their second or third home. There's snowbirds living here, so... Northeast section, a lot of them are homestead owners. But if you go on the condos, southwest section, people are buying in Golden Isles. There's a lot of people that are moving in where it's their vacation home. They're paying $10 million for their vacation home. So I'd like to see the numbers, please. Thank you.

So the question I have is out of the 8,000 homesteaded, are we now going to receive a number on how many of those are 250,000 or less? That was the request. Okay, so that's what we're going to ask. Okay, so when do you think we'll get that number? I'm going to send them an email today. By today.

That comes from the property appraiser. So we will reach out to Marty and ask him if he can provide that.

Okay. The other question I have is, and maybe it's, I don't want to say dumb because there's no dumb questions. Nope.

Right? Not at all.

Not at all. Why are we calling our parking program stabilization strategy? That is just a program. Why are we considering that a stabilization? In addition to the remote school zone enforcement, why is that going up $100,000 every year in an assumption?

Because in the trend analysis that we worked with the police department, that revenue could potentially increase up to $800,000.

I don't understand that. Why does it jump from $400,000 to $800,000? Because I would assume the opposite is true. I would assume that people who got ticketed now are not driving like that, and tickets are going down. But maybe I don't understand that.

Because it's the first year of the program, Vice Mayor, so because it's the first year of the program, we're always conservative in the first year of our program, whether it was even the CE.

No, I'm saying that 400 would, I just, I don't know, I would think we would do, I don't know.

The higher number at the beginning and the lower number at the end.

No, I just think it's a lot of an assumption to go up $100,000 every year on a new program, but that would be for a PD to answer, I guess. I don't know how they come up with that.

So PD's number was actually higher. Yes. And it's not to say that PD was anything wrong, but their number was actually much higher. For a first year program, we cut that number down to a more realistic first year number.

But why? That makes a difference.

Well, because, again, it's an inflated number. I cannot say that you're going to receive all of this amazing revenue in year one.

What was the difference between what they asked for and what we're cutting it down to?

I believe they asked for $800. They asked for $800 as a first-year program immediately. We're just setting this program up.

That's a big difference between $800. That's half of what they are projecting.

And I will give you an example. When we had our BTR and CU program, We made projections on that program that we were so close to what that projection is in the first year, because there are startup things. And you have to take those things into account. So again, I don't want to, and I haven't in six years, given you a number that I believe is overly inflated, especially for a first year program. I'd rather be conservative. because I have a track record with the other programs that we've done under the stabilization strategy. And by the way, to answer your other question, Vice Mayor, it's what we've called it for six years. That's the only reason that these were the stabilization programs that stabilize us.

Okay, I just don't understand why they're not just included in the revenue as opposed to...

Okay, we can take it. No, we can make a change.

No, I just, I mean, something like a one-time stabilization, which is the Federal American Rescue, and you can see that that is not in the rest of the five-year plan. And the new ones that are not yet, we don't have an idea or a base, like you said, for an assumption, that I can understand. But, you know, things like the parking in lieu and the parking program, new certificate of use, isn't that certificate of use already been... in place for two years or more? I don't know, what's it been, three years?

Yeah, so what we're showing you is ongoing revenue that comes in.

Yeah, I would just, to me, it just makes more sense to include it in your revenues, because that's just an extra thing you have to try to figure out.

Okay.

So really... The revenues that we're talking about now, we would include the ones that we really have some historical assumptions for.

What might help, I think, is the major revenue drivers that include those programs. In other words, break out those revenues, like parking citations, parking meter revenue. It's like $2 million, and we're projecting that as like $1.9 million. So some of them are continued revenue streams. I don't see any new major revenue streams. Are we cooking any new ones in? So I guess that's your point. I mean, these are revenues, these are maybe the largest portions of these spreadsheets that show the revenues. And there's pages of them.

Kind of like how we do it on the major expenditure cost drivers, you'd like to see a major revenue.

Right, and it goes back to like what Commissioner Taub's question is like, these are the revenues, these are the expenses.

instead of calling stabilization at this point what happens for me is that i'm like thinking it's temporary because we're just using it to stabilize our but it's not it's permanent and it's cooked in you know to our so i just would think it's easier in the future to just add those that are already they're not really stabilization they're really part of our revenue okay

We can make that change.

Yep, makes sense. And I would be very curious, so I'm going to watch those numbers now for the remote school zone enforcement. Not because I'm trying to play gotcha, but because I'm trying to play gotcha. No, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yes, hopefully Deputy Chief Tuez will get his $800,000 in year one. And we can only wish for that.

And so then if they do, the $400,000 goes into general fund.

And our deficit, it affects, right.

It's a big jump. Okay. All right, where are we? Any other questions? We're good?

Okay. So we're going to make some amendments to those sheets and how we present them.

Okay, so we kind of went through slide 20, which was key assumptions in the general fund forecast. We mentioned the 2% in annual ad valorem growth, future major development included, other revenues based on recent trends.

So this slide is actually very, very important because even if we were to change the 2.2%, you still have all of your other expenditure assumptions, which are going up every single year. So health insurance, 10%. We have... Non-police bargaining, 5.5. Police bargaining, 8. Police and fire pensions, 5%. And some of the other numbers that you see. So even some of these numbers that you see just in terms of this portion of this slide, those are affecting us as we get into years 28, 29 especially. And those are in the millions of dollars in terms of those particular numbers. Those are in the millions of dollars. I give you an example. Just this year, we had an 8% increase, which was baked into our contract for fire.

Freaked out.

That was the question. It was $1.7 million. Next year, we have another 8%, and then we go to a flat 5%, which is what we negotiated, that we wanted a flat 5% after that. But we have another 8%, and of course, that's compounded. upon this year's 8%. So again, our numbers in terms of our expenses are going to be going up over the next few years.

No, but maybe that's again, that ties into this whole dialogue of what we do have to pay for and mandated to pay for that. These aren't, Wishes or once these are cooked in costs that are gonna go up that means if we're capped These are not new we've always had these expectations and budgets this isn't something that just came up no, but I mean I I meant just to allow that transparency so people, like Dr. Earle said, this is critical because we don't start with zero obligations. We don't say, oh, we're just starting over because we already have cooked in costs that we know are going to go up and escalate by reason of having contractual obligations for employees and services is basically what it comes down to.

And I'll give you one more example.

Get that disconnect. Well, we can just cut them, or we can just do X, Y, Z, and that is not a reality. Correct, Madam Mayor. Like, in other words, we can maybe cut some fat, but this isn't fat. This is bone. This is operational. This is, you know, either insolvency or, and I would hate to go through. We did that one year, too. We went through.

I'll give you an example.

I was going to say, at the union negotiations where you ended up going through.

Yeah, we have some major costs. So I'll give you an example on just the health insurance. The health insurance commissioners, we projected, I believe, how much did we project for this year was 10%. So we projected 10%. The numbers that we first got back from Aetna this year were 18.

18?

Yes, they were 18%. So we had to work very hard to turn that 18% to go down to what our projection is. In fact, Aetna wanted fundamental changes to our health plan, even at the 18%. So we were able to go back, negotiate with them to keep it at the 10.2, but just to show you that these costs are increasing.

on slide 21. As we continue the budget process, I'm sorry, I'm trying to. Nope, I did something. Okay slide 21 closing considerations. As we continue through the budget process the key priorities are to communicate clearly with residents and the commission, identify financial strategies, evaluate operational impacts, protect core needs, and continue monitoring the legislative updates. The immediate focus over the summer will be to refine the stabilization plan, identify additional strategies, review expenditures and revenues and evaluate how to close future gaps without relying on general fund reserves. Slide 22, next steps. The next major step is the June 22nd budget workshop and the setting of the tentative millage. We will then continue budget review during the August 5th and August 19th workshops. The first and second readings for our adoption of the millage and budget are scheduled on September 14th and 28th. And the 27th budget will be implemented on October 1st, 2026. We will, as always, continue to update the commission and the public as additional information becomes available. Our goal is to stay ahead of the issue, protect core needs, maintain reserves, and bring to this body clear options before these impacts become structural.

And any questions?

Yes.

You're asking already? Good for you.

I did ask, and I know we don't know. We don't have a crystal ball, and we need to understand that we do have to plan. I asked, and I will continue to ask, why we have reserves. I did ask for the report out for our reserves. We have not balanced a budget with reserves at all. thank god however at what point do we match we have a floor what's our ceiling how much money or what percentage of our reserves is the ceiling nobody's listening okay so um you know and i'm going to be frank when i'm away i do work i meet with mayors that are strong mayors some that are council manager form of governments and throw out, what is that threshold? How much, like this is taxpayer dollars, right? And we do wanna have a rainy day fund, but if we continue to just keep this fund at what is it now, unencumbered is what, 41 million? at this point in general fund, not all in, and I would never with all the infrastructure that we have to do, everything that we're looking at, whether it's stormwater, I'm not even talking about utilities, I'm talking about general fund. At what point, and really to me, the sweet spot, and I've asked, is about 30%, and we're well over that. so when we look at needs of maybe what you know um lighting or some of and we didn't go over the citizen survey but i guess it's a good way to tee it up are we addressing those residents needs and if we're not at what point do we actually look at them one to either use one-time expenditures to adjust major needs like lighting beautification on our you know, corridors. What other major projects do we do to go out and leverage P3s at a certain point to do lighting? P3s to actually leverage stormwater? Those types of programs we need to start looking at. But if we're sitting in $4 million of reserves and we still have unanswered concerns from our residents, that has to be more of a global discussion. But from my independent perspective, and knowing what the GFOA, it's not really even 16, it's 16.3, I believe, is really the sweet spot of what is recommended for South Florida. I'm sorry, through the city manager. But that dialogue, yeah, we're here, but now we have double, over double of what's recommended. And I'm not saying we sweep anything, but at a certain point, we need to realize this money is resonant money. And if needs aren't being addressed or certain projects aren't being addressed, we have to be realistic about how much money we sit on. And I know there are uncertain times, but we've been through tremendous uncertain times. So not my money. I mean, I like all my money locked up in a savings account, but. Just want to throw it out there. Do you want to respond? Sure. I have Commissioner Taub in queue, but I want to have that. Go ahead.

If I may, Madam Mayor, I think that the times that we're in are a little bit different because of the things that we cannot control. And I think if I was to speak realistically, I think that this commission will be using its reserves every single year from 28 on. And I think that even if property tax did not pass, I think because of the increases in the other expenses that we have, if you look at that chart, you're still in the red. And I want our residents to understand that the 41 million, the 42 million that we have now, will absolutely not be there two years from now. And it will absolutely not be there three years from now. And it absolutely will not be there four years from now. And I think in year four, our reserves, in other words, we have the 42 million now, even conservatively, even if property taxes did not pass, we will have to go into our reserves to balance our budget in 28, 29, probably 20, conservatively 29, 30, and 31, even if property taxes did not pass. So in other words, the 42 that we have now, we will be using. Like, we're not gonna have 42. If the amendment did not pass in November and we were just status quo, no hurricanes, no nothing, we would be using our $42 million.

That could be true, but it could... Because our other expenses are also going up.

No, well, that's a different...

Correct, correct, Madam Mayor. If this could... No, I was addressing what the mayor was saying. No, I understand. It's not my business.

And that's what I said. It's not something, but it is a dialogue that needs to be had. It needs to be had. And we can do projections. We could have another 2008, or we could have a robust year where all our property across the street gets developed over how many acres have developed and advertilorum increases. So it's one thing to say you're gonna sit on it But at one point you need to have some type of policy the other thing and I forgot to bring it up and not a people are not talking about it is Senate bill on What's the number it was passed actually and operationally that we are now if we want to increase over 110 percent We need a rollback. So I just want to have the dialogue. I'm going to tee it up, but I'm like, so how much money do we really need? And if you want to be realistic, we could have a great robust year. We could be able to lower revenue because it always comes up, well, are we going to lower the millage rate? After this, and if it, well, it doesn't even matter if it passes, I don't think, because it's a separate bill. It's not a ballot question. It is an operational fundamental shift in our ability to vote for increases in ad valorem taxes. I'm going to say it again. 1.10%, if we go over rollback, we need a supermajority And even to go now, 1.10, we need a super majority. If we want to go over, we need a unanimous vote to pass our budget. Nobody's talking about it.

Where are you getting that from?

It passed. It's a bill. She's shaking her head. I'll pull it out. I'm saying nobody realizes how they really, you know, like they're doing this on one side and it might not pass, but we are really handcuffed. Really handcuffed. um bill number it is oh that's the old list wait where's the june list 1.1 of what millage yep wait a minute senate bill 4f it revises uh two two two zero zero point zero six five florida statute a higher To provide a maximum millage rate, county, municipality, and municipal service taxing unit, dependent special district or dependent special district may level its rollback rate. A higher rate may still be adopted if approved by the required vote threshold. A rate of not more than 110% of the rollback rate may be adopted by two-thirds vote. Anything over that has to have a unanimous vote to pass the budget. So just putting it on the radar.

Yep. What is your point in that?

Well, I'm still saying, and going back to what Dr. Earl was saying, I always have this concern that when we sit on money that is taxpayer money, and sure, we have to project in the future, and we have to project costs, but even going back, contracts are negotiable, and contracts, nothing's always permanent. We look at this year, and we can project. We can project doom and gloom, or we can optimistically say it'll be great. but i just wanted to put it out there that if there's any consideration of changing the millage rate and this get this next year we'll not we won't be able unless we four of us support an increase in the millage rate pass an increase if we want to even go over to address those costs we have to have a unanimous budget that's a problem so we thought we had a lot of fun now

And that is passed. That was adopted.

I don't know if it was signed into law, though. I don't know. Too much to worry about. I got no control over it.

I'm looking online right now, and it looks like it was enrolled last week. Huh? It looks like it was enrolled last week.

Okay. To be continued. It was what? I'm sorry?

Enrolled. So that means that the Senate approved it, and they sent it to the governor's desk.

Okay.

Sorry, go ahead. Okay, so according... Wait, 1.1% or 1.1 mils? It's 110%. 110%. What's 110%?

Like 10% increase? 110% above the rollback rate. You would need a supermajority? Is it supermajority?

For 110, it is either we're at rollback. If we want to increase rollback, and I don't know how they're implemented, that's our rollback. Rollback's rollback. That's what we're going to get. That's what we're going to get. If we need to increase it for any reason up to 100%, 110%.

10%, which is what kind of a number is that? Let's just say this year, what would 110% look like for millage? Because I'm not, math is not my thing for me, ever.

I think it's 7.4.

Okay, so that would be super majority. And then what happens if you need the three four out of five was for what you need to do what to increase it over 110%?

Well, what do you need unanimous for?

one is a four person vote and one is a five person vote so if you go to 110 what i read based on oh you're saying if you go to that if you go to that if you raise it if you raise it okay and if you go above it that you need unanimous vote okay and so 110 would be 7.4 no i think it's 8.1 What's 8.1?

Mills.

Mills.

Right now we're at 7.3. That would be 110% of the rollback rate. I'm sorry, 110% of the rollback rate. Our rollback rate is 7.3501. I'm sorry. Thank you, attorney. Hold on a second.

Well, I don't see us jumping up to 8% right away.

I'm just saying, it's going to be rollback either way. And if we even want to do anything above that to the 110. Where did I see that? I can't remember where I saw that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to poopoo. No, no, no.

It's okay because what you're saying is if we do that right now, it's already been enrolled. So we'd have to get four out of five right now just to raise it.

No, I'm just saying we couldn't consider, if we consider reducing our millage rate this year and we need to increase it in future years, we are stuck.

Right?

Was that a technical word you just used?

Even if we choose to increase it anyway, we're going to be stuck.

Just putting it on the radar because nobody has been really talking about it. It's good that you did that. So our local governments not have just been, as Dr. Earle used, an eloquent world. I'd like to say we've been now totally handcuffed by our state legislators to do anything.

Not in a good way.

I'll leave it at that. I think we can move on to capital improvements. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Vice Mayor.

Commissioner Lazaro. No, no, no. Go ahead. Commissioner Tom and then Commissioner Lazaro.

Okay. So according to Mr. Kerr, We have 800, sorry, 8,150 homestead properties, and as of today, 17,199 non-homestead. Non-homestead. Okay. So my question is, with the development coming into the city, right, the $1 billion, how many of those, wait, I have notes. Now let me go back to my... So what I would like through the mayor, Dr. Earl is total residential units in Hallandale Beach total taxable parcels citywide. now have the total taxable okay total taxable value of homestead versus non-homestead property but then i'd also like projection on the different development because there'll be different uses right some will be office some will be mixed use some will be residential so uh the projection of those the ones that will be residential versus non-residential, because the non-residential will be the non-homestead exempt. Of course, a lot of the residential will probably be second homes for people, but I think... That will give us a clearer picture, but I would just like so that's the development side But for right now as it stands what is our total residential units in Hallandale Beach? total taxable parcels citywide total taxable value of homestead versus non-homestead property and then What is our tax base on commercial property, multifamily, hotels. What? I'm sorry.

What? Just so you know, and I didn't bring it or copy it because I think this is last year's because I've asked for it last year. It's the real estate use code summary of Hallandale Beach, but it needs to be tweaked. I think this is last year's because I did some surveys. I need to update it. Thank you. It might be online now. Huh?

It might be online now this year's.

yeah because i think i asked i asked a couple months ago if we had it that's last year's breakdown so thank you thank you i'm sorry no no it's okay that's fine but it doesn't tell you on relation to the 25 it doesn't break down the value of each unit i think this

Thank you.

If they have what you need, but it doesn't break down the 250 breakout.

No, just if I could please have what I asked for, I would appreciate it. And I'll just summarize as I'm not one that, like, I don't see everything in life as gloom and doom. I think there's, like, you know, yes, this is definitely not ideal, but I'm really happy at all of the work collectively that we've all done together and Dr. Earl and his entire team and the city because people did have confidence to come and invest a lot of money and which means that we're going to get more revenue into the city. So I would just like to have a more clear picture and make sure that we are when we're considering projected expenditures expenses, we're not ignoring future income. That's it. Thank you. Amen. Vice Mayor.

Actually, I'm going to defer to Commissioner Butler. He's in queue.

Okay, cool.

Thanks.

Commissioner Butler, you're recognized, Madam Clerk. You got him on?

Thanks, Mayor. Can you hear me okay?

Yes, sir.

Okay, so I just wanted to say a couple questions. I wanted to clarify. So the first is 110%. Can you tell me what the this year's value of one mil is in dollar value in taxable value?

Just you have to give us one minute. Okay. It'll take us one minute to calculate that.

And I'm just trying to answer. I think Vice Mayor Lazzaro had the question about what the 110%. So if our current millage rate is 7.3848, then that would be 8.1233. Which is .73.

7.3 versus 8.1 would be 110. He's asking for the dollar value, which is a smarter question. One mil, Commissioner Butler, that was the question?

One mil. 9.4.

9.4 million? Mm-hmm, million. So the .73848 would be what? About seven million? In increased revenue, if we increase the maximum, we would increase our revenues by about $7 million.

If we raise the millage to the 110%, is that the question?

Yes, ma'am.

Second.

I was just trying to get the numbers, because I think it'll make more sense for the city commission to understand that.

I mean, yeah. While they're doing the calculations, because we're at 7-2, a lot of cities have been sitting at 3.

Yes, Commissioner Butler.

So they're going to have fun. Hold on a second.

They're going to have a lot of fun. 8.1. So Commissioner Butler, if we went from 7.3848 to 8.0851 mils.

Hello? Commissioner Butler? Yeah, okay.

Okay, that out of alarm revenue is 7.3 million.

7.3.

Not including discounts.

Not including what? Discounts.

Discounts.

Discounts, yeah. Well, okay. So 7.3 million. I'm just trying just the numbers so that the 110% would, if we had to go up, it would generate an additional 7 million in revenue, not including discounts.

Okay.

And then the other thing, I do think it is important for us to consider the rollback rate and the reason is because, frankly, that our increase in property taxes are so small this year. The decrease means that it's actually a smaller rollback rate than it would be in years that were significantly larger. But that's another story. I did want to address, you know, if we are or if we believe that there is a very high probability that we will not have revenues, I'm sorry, that we will not have reserves in one, two, or three years. And I'm not sure if I misheard that, but it sounded to me like we will not have reserves in three years. Did I miss that, or is that accurate? It depends on the scenario.

It depends on the scenario. Are we talking about with property tax reform or without? I'm not sure.

I don't know. What I heard is that we cannot count on having the reserves that we have today in three years. That in order for us to balance our budget over the next one, two, and three years, we will have to use reserves and that we cannot count on having the reserves that we have today in one, two, or three years. And I'm bringing that up that if that's the case, I think that we need to start looking at some of the nice-to-haves versus the have-to-haves from a budget standpoint and determine what we can start to cut. Because I agree with the mayor. I think that when we get over 36%, 35% for a beachfront community, We are sitting on a lot of the residents' money. Below 16% I don't think is really acceptable for one hurricane, could really wreck our financial, but for us to be responsible financially, If we are anticipating, because of increased costs, significant increased costs, that we're going to significantly deplete our reserves and get those to a point that I think wouldn't be financially prudent, then we do need to start talking about cutting. It sounds a terrible thing to say, but there are a lot of areas where we would have to look at. And certainly, some of the departments that we have, the Department of Sustainable Development, I certainly think that we should keep that. But if we have to, then that's part of the areas where we have to look to cut. I know we're setting aside money for Chaves Lake. We've gotta look at what the minimum is that we can do in order to ensure that we can still deliver what we need to deliver without without eating into, frankly, what is financially prudent for the city. There's a lot of other areas, and I think that's a discussion that maybe we need to talk in our next workshop, is to have a discussion that if we are anticipating eliminating our financial reserves, what's the action plan that we're gonna implement in order to ensure that that doesn't happen?

Thank you, Mayor. You're welcome. Because quite frankly, if it wasn't for that caveat and that changed the bill, I probably would have recommended pulling some reserves or at least still discussing allocating some reserves to special projects. So thank you.

anybody else yeah so when you're asking then are we done with this question about using reserves at all considering where our ordinance says 16 and we're at 35 are you asking if you want to use any of that this budget cycle or just leave it for when we need it and i was confused by your question about your statement it's kind of a loaded question it's going to be

to some of my questions that I have for CIP, but I don't know what we cut or what we didn't cut from projects in Prairie Way Gap Me Yet, and that wasn't highlighted. Wait, you don't know what we cut or didn't cut from projects what? From Dr. Roll said he went and looked and cut certain projects and certain, so it's tied to... community, you know, the CIP. I think there was one project, I have to pull up my notes, it was like $1.3 million, and I'm thinking, why are we doing this?

But I think once we start getting into the nuts and bolts of our strategic capital... Well, I think once we get into nuts and bolts of, like, I'll just give you an example, $1.8 million for the wayfinding... I don't know why it jumped from... Let's do CIP. Okay, is that what we're going to do now? I think that's next. I have questions about stuff like that.

Yeah, no. We're good? I think we're done for the budget portion. It's all part of the budget.

If I may. So the five-year projections are a projection. There are... There are other things that can be done in the future years. It's just to give the commission kind of a window. So over a period of five years, we can do cuts. We can do this. We can cut projects. We can raise taxes. I mean, let's just talk about realistically whether the commission does it or not. There are a lot of different things in our toolkit that we can do. utilize over the next few years to offset any increases that we have. Those are things that we'd have to workshop. Those are things that we would have to talk about. Some of the numbers that we'd have to overcome though, even on a very minimum level, you may have to overcome an $18 million deficit. That will take different cuts. In terms of the way finding, the way finding is primarily being paid for by the CRA. The city's only paying $180,000 of that. CRA is paying the lion's share of that as well.

So we'll get to that because I had questions about the commissioner's agenda or commissioner's plan because that's where that was listed.

We're going in.

All right, okay.

Ready? All right. Commissioner Butler, we're good to move on to CIP? Yes. All right, thank you, sir. Dr. Rowe?

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. I believe our DPW team is going to be taking this one. Thank you, Natasha and budget team. Thank you all very much.

Thank you. Thank you, by the way. That was a lot, but thank you. You did a great job. Thank you, staff, because I know it wasn't just budget.

Thank you, Dr. Ruff. You're welcome.

JT wore his suit today.

It's not very often I wear a suit anymore. And you do it well.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the city commission, city manager, assistant city managers, city attorney, city clerk. I'm here to help present the capital improvement program, the five-year program for fiscal year 27 through 31. This program was reviewed and in addition, in consulting, consultation with all of the various master plans that the city has. developed over time. And part of the program that we started off was, you know, we go through what is a CIP all the way through the definitional program. We changed it a little bit this year. I used to have a lower threshold, but then we include all these small, minor projects that, you know, we have permission under the city manager's threshold in order to go out and procure or do the projects themselves. So we increased that, and I'll go over that in a minute. We talk about the approach in organization. what the five-year plan is itself, some of the non-utility projects, the utility projects that are funded by revenue bonds and utility funds, and then any type of unfunded projects, because we do have some needs that we have not identified available funding in order to complete those projects. So what is a CIP? A CIP is a multi-year plan. It's a five-year plan. It identifies capital projects, which is different from the operational aspects of our city's functions that you just talked about. This is all items that are infrastructure assets, roads, stormwater pipes, sewer pipes, water pipes, that type of thing. It's an important tool for planning and decision-making because everything that is in the CIP serves the residents of the city. However you look at it, whether you drive on a road or whether you get water or whether your wastewater goes to the City of Hollywood, everything that comes in through the CIP program is a direct impact on all of our residents and businesses within the city. It includes funding amounts anticipated to be expended each year. Now, they may not actually be expended in that year, but the CIP shows what year the design will start or what year the construction may start. It provides financial options to implement the plan. We have several in the city. Most of them are either utility fund revenues, whether it's the water rate or the sewer rate or the stormwater assessment that pay for them, or it might be revenue bonds where we go out long term and issue debt for 20 or 30 years, or it might be general fund contribution. It might be a CRA contribution. There are several different ways in which we fund. Even the long-term debt obligations, we look at state revolving loan funds, which are a cheaper percentage for interest expense when you have to pay it back. We actually had a meeting today with folks from the SRF program to start talking about some of the water projects that are coming up. And we do revenue bonds as well. The key component of a good CIP is that it meets the long-range capital investments with the city's strategic goals to provide safe streets, to provide adequate drinking water that serves all the public, to take care of the waste, to do mobility plans, parks master plans, and the like. The term capital asset is anything that is used in operations and that has initially useful life beyond a single year. It includes city facilities, infrastructure, equipment, and networks that enable the city to deliver services to the residents and businesses. The city currently has a minimum qualification for capital improvement programming of $100,000. MINIMUM OF FIVE YEARS EXPECTED USEFUL LIFE, THE ASSET THAT WE PUT IN THE GROUND OR THAT WE PURCHASE OR THAT WE ACQUIRE HAS TO LAST MORE THAN FIVE YEARS OR OTHERWISE YOU'LL SEE IT IN THE OPERATING FUND AND IT MAY RESULT IN THE CREATION OF A CAPITAL ASSET. This picture shows you the storm that we had. We're all familiar with heavy rainfalls in this community. This is the June 2024 storm. No, the 2023 that came into the DPW compound itself. This is just as we were starting to, we hadn't even put the skirting on the new modular office yet, and I'm glad we didn't. But there's a dip here in this photograph where the pavement goes, but it looks like a straight sheet of ice, if you will, across. That tells you how much water was in our program. And one of our capital projects is going to address that drainage issue. The infrastructure funding priority is always try to get grants first. TRY TO TAKE OPPORTUNITIES OF STATE APPROPRIATIONS, FEDERAL, STATE GRANTS. USE THE STATE REVOLVING FUND NEXT, WHICH IS THE LOWEST REPAYMENT TERMS FOR THE CITY. USE ANY RESERVES THAT WE MAY HAVE OR FUNDS THAT WE MAY HAVE ACCUMULATED OVER TIME FROM THE UTILITY RATES IN ORDER TO PAY DOWN THE DEBT. AND THEN LAST, WE WOULD GO TO LONG-TERM DEBT FOR UTILITY REVENUE BONDS, WHICH IS TYPICALLY ABOUT 2.5% TO 3.5% HIGHER THAN THE STATE REVOLVING LOAN FUND interest rate so that's uh our last choice of funding a capital project uh we started in descent well we started we started last year really uh and we really had a kickoff meeting with all the city departments uh in december uh 2025 all the requests were due to the department uh the budget department uh in february 17th um we started uh we sent our projects to the cra in march uh and then we started looking uh at every uh individual uh, CIP worksheet. Every project has its own identified sheet that gives you, um, a rough scenario of, uh, an overview of each individual project that we're submitting as part of this five-year plan. Um, then we did some project prioritization as a team that's made up of all the departments that have capital projects, uh, in the CIP. so that we would rank them, if you will, in order to put the highest need at the top of the list and things that we could either push to a future year or if we didn't have funding, we wouldn't actually go forward with. Then we met with the city manager between March 25th and April 2nd. And we continue to talk about these things as the budget is impacted through the property tax reform that might take place. And then we were going to have the meeting last week, but here we are tonight. And then June 22nd, we'll set the tentative millage and budget. And the September 14th and 28th, we'll adopt the budget itself. Our approach and design and organization for this is we go through a stage where we plan projects, projects that come out at the CM City Manager wants us to move forward with based on city commissions. Direction. Direction, thank you. We then go into formal design and then our third phase is actual construction and putting pipes in the ground or pavement on roads, that type of thing. Our prioritization criteria are made up of nine different items. Public health and safety, number one. Infrastructure investment and protection, making sure that we keep up our infrastructure in good working order. We've heard kick the can many times here I'VE BEEN HERE A LITTLE OVER THREE YEARS, AND THE CITY MANAGER HAS BEEN HERE. WE'RE NOT KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD EVERY MORNING. YOU'LL SEE THAT IN OUR PRESENTATION TONIGHT. ANY TYPE OF REGULATORY REQUIREMENT, FOR INSTANCE, IF WE HAVE THE PFAS PFOS FOR THE WATER TREATMENT PLANT PROCESS, THAT IS A HIGH-RANKING ITEM. IF WE HAVE TO MEET A FEDERAL REGULATION FOR CLEAN DRINKING WATER, THAT MOVES UP THE PROJECT TO THE TOP OF THE LIST. your strategic plan focus areas at the City Commission, project coordination, meaning if we have a water pipe in the ground that we're looking whether or not there's a road paving, where it sits on the road paving, and do we need a stormwater pipe in that same street all at the same time so that we don't put a water pipe in, pave the road, and then three years later we have a stormwater pipe that has to go in the same road. Then we look at future economic development. What will support future development? Whether or not, you'll see several in here. One of them is looking for future water supply sources. You'll see Florida wells, which is also a water supply. And you'll see larger storm drains, which also support new economic development of keeping flood waters at a minimum and helping to speed the process of the flood water receding, which helps economic development as well. Future operating budget impacts, we always look at that. Will putting in better variable frequency drives, lower the cost of our operations in the long run. So we look at all that when we're designing and constructing a project. Quality of life for the residents and anything that's shovel ready. shovel radius designed there's a clear scope of work we have a opinion probable cause we've gone through public input resolutions at the city commission and the procurement process is identified this is a large cip probably the largest one we've had in a long long time I'm going to describe a couple of major impacts that increase this this year in a moment But we have 321 million dollars worth of total projected costs over 48 different projects using city funds Nine there's nine projects that use city funds. There's three that remain unfunded 32 are utility revenue bond related or SRF loans and depending on how we do that, and four also are funded by grants or other types of sources.

I'm sorry, let me just ask a question. Is this including that $280 million, what was the name of the study they did, and they said we had a $280 million deficit in projects that we needed? Oh, my God, really?

Master plan?

Master plan.

Right, the BODR. That's the one, basis of design report. Thank you. Sorry.

Okay. Thank God she's here. Is this including that or you didn't look at that at all? I'm just curious.

No, this, so most of the BODR report items are things that we are addressing. Okay. Yeah.

That's good. Okay. No, I interrupted. Sorry about that. Basis of design. If I don't ask, I'll forget. Basis of design. So I'll start with the non-utility projects, which are funded by the city.

We're talking about building a mausoleum. Cemetery space is becoming scarce. We're down to really the last quadrant.

Sorry, JT, just to clarify. it may not include every item in the BODR report because that BODR report, if I remember correctly, was done in 2014, 15, around that time. These items that we're discussing here are the critical items that kept breaking in terms of the 321, all the priority items. And so it reflects all of the cost increases and everything else that has to do with that.

Listen, that B-O-D-R is old. I mean, we don't even know who did it and why they did it. Those years are long gone.

All right.

Wait, I'm sorry. Yeah, it was everything. Okay.

The budget, hi.

Sorry, Jake. I love the way you tilt your head and smile. Is there something going on? It's just Joy and I. Okay, go ahead.

The Shaves Lake Park, the budget director talked about that earlier. You have two contributions there, $4.5 million and a future $5.5 million. City sidewalks, CIP. We are going to address every known deficiency in sidewalks. in the city, all sidewalks. We did a full inventory of any sidewalk that has cracks, breaks, curb issues, and we plan on addressing those and fixing those all within the next three years. Of course, if funding is available to do so, which it is planned on in this budget. Bridge repairs, we had a bridge assessment done recently, and it identified a number of...

Maybe sidewalks.

Sure.

Do we have a breakdown between CRA and city general fund?

These are all general fund, which I'm referring to here.

No, but I mean the evaluation of where the sidewalks are going to be and the miles. I don't know, you do sidewalks like streets and miles or linear feet?

So the CRA has already done all the sidewalks that were approved by the commission. So all the CRA sidewalks were completed last year as a part of all the CRA work that was being done. Everything left is on the city site.

All of it, so we have sidewalks, there's no cracks, there's nothing that needs to be done within the CRA boundaries for sidewalks.

So CRA dollars are not to be used for maintenance, that's the city responsibility, so everything that we are doing now pertains to the maintenance, the repair, the replacement of those sidewalks. What the CRA did was put in a lot of new sidewalk in all the areas of the CRA that did not have sidewalks before.

This is a new project though, correct? It's a new project that we're designing now. And it's citywide.

This is a new citywide. The city manager said, asked us to go and evaluate all existing sidewalks to make sure that all the sidewalks are in good working order.

So it's not new. We've been doing sidewalks since the commission started funding it back in 2020, 2021. We've started funding it to the tune of $100,000 per year. This is to make sure that we can get all of those things done as quickly as possible. So it's basically we're trying to reduce the time it takes for us to actually fix all these issues.

So this isn't to implement any new sidewalks anywhere in the city? Correct. Just repair work? Correct.

We did a bridge assessment recently, was done by a vendor, and it came to our- Can I interrupt about the sidewalks?

Sure. Because I just asked the city attorney something. When we evaluate those, are we evaluating the ones that are potential lawsuits? Because I'm under the understanding that that is common in a lot of cities, including ours. So I just want to make sure that we are really actively looking for those.

That's especially what we are looking for. In fact, because of the – so sidewalks had been eliminated from the budget before 2020-21. I asked the commission to put it back into the budget because we had lawsuits. And actually, we can see where our lawsuits began to drop because the commission actually funded sidewalk repair and replacement.

Okay. Well, yeah, I just didn't want to go out and fix that one that we got the lawsuit over. That's all I'm saying. Okay. What? Did you have something? Oh. Leave me out of it. Okay, go ahead.

So in the bridge report itself, we've identified various projects that we're gonna take to fix concrete, some rebar, any type of issues that are known where work needs to be done in order to get those into proper rehabilitation so that it's in good working order, passes inspection, and we take care of all of those issues. That's gonna be a multi-year program on that.

May I, we need to, excuse me, I'm sorry, through Dr. Rall, we need to look at the penny tax fund for that. I think there's some set asides within Broward County for repair work on bridges. They have, in addition to our supplement that we get, a grant opportunity. So I would definitely, I'll be calling in to MPO because I have a speaking engagement, I think it's tomorrow. But I'd reach out. And I know Gretchen Cassini retired. There's a new gentleman actually doing everything with the penny tax. She has a predecessor. But we might be able to apply for a grant, especially if they're, you know, I don't know if they, what do you use to grade like A, B, C, and D? Like I don't know how they're looking at them here. But to apply that, there are urgent needs. And it's all bridges, like including Golden Isles Bridge.

What about the main?

at our responsibility or the f dot okay and half's in hollywood but these are like the small side road bridges as we've come to learn yeah half of it's in hollywood that is so weird it's very strange but no um that might be a pot of money that they have grant opportunities directly for that doesn't necessarily have to be cued in on a list per se great and i'll try to shepherd that if I can. Go ahead.

And then there's other programs such as the Wayfinding Sign, citywide bus shelter improvements, and Shaves Lake, as we talked about, and Northwest Third Complete Street Program that we're going to work on for the general fund. These are non-utility fund projects. That's just a summary of all of them that we just talked about. I'm sorry, I'm gonna do this.

I know we talked at nauseam about bus shelters already, but I know we have some that the county's giving us. Other bus shelters, we are going to have to replace.

There is, yeah.

And this goes back to my earlier comments. There are public-private partnerships that we need to pursue to see how we can get our responsibilities funded sooner, not later. I think in light of our citizen survey and what we've heard about our corridors, and there's no reflection about, you know, everybody, you know, what we have to do. But being that as one of the third, what I see as priorities to fix that up, that needs to happen sooner, not later. And if we keep kicking it down, we're never going to have unified the goal that we discussed of having unified shelters eventually done. So maybe that is an opportunity since we discussed getting rid of a lot of the mini, the small bus shelters or whatever contractor we're using, really looking at it robustly globally and tie in advertising for the right-of-ways. I mean, we just have to start doing it. There's multiple companies that are doing it. They'll even do a design.

I just think it looks so bad. I mean, I understand it looks really bad. No, it's a priority for you. For all of us. Well, it's not a priority for me. It's a $1.3 million shortfall, right? Am I reading this right on the CIP? Am I jumping ahead? Sorry. It says citywide bus shelter improvements, the total was 3.1 million. And the surtax funds will allow 26 lowest bid total 4.4. Right. And then the cost of the remaining shelters is 1.3. Right, that one any of that for a grant? Can we get any of that for grants? Is that automatic? Does that have to come out of only the general fund for CIP? Or can it come out of anywhere else?

So typically we do look at other funding sources as well. We will continue to do that for this one as well, but this is directly related to the cost increases for the contract that we currently have with Broward County, which is current. So I'm not sure, Vice Mayor, if we'll be able to do that because this is literally based on the current contract that we have and the overages that we had on that contract as well.

in other words we are going to try and we will try to do for grants and yeah because i appreciate the mayor's position but i just i don't want to go to the trouble of updating and doing everything new and making everything nice and then putting on cheap

advertisements sorry i'm going to differ with you on that but no okay all right but there has again we need to not we're not replacing every bus shelter and if we're going to have some that are done and some that aren't i believe that we need to look at a unified approach of addressing what those bus shelters It's fine.

I'm just stating my position.

Well, I even said there's different kiosks, there's different other new technologies that if we partner properly, we'll be clean, neat, rid ourselves of all those little bus benches and have a unified approach. But one way to do it is to leverage a P3, just like we've done in the past for organizations to actually come in, do our bus shelters, Because the county already gave us a grant. We already did STIRTOX dollars. So the question is, how do we make it unified? And if we don't start focusing on it now, we're going to have new bus shelters and we're still going to end up having the hodgepodge that we have now. And that's only my point. I think it would be good for us to possibly do some research, request for interest. to see what that would look like and what we can do. As far as advertising, there's different opportunities for standing kiosks, not necessarily a whole shelter that's more LED and modern, and a lot of cities are doing it. And that's what I have to say about that.

Okay.

The next section of the CIP has to deal with utility fund projects, and we have... Our main utility funds are stormwater, water, and sewer. We get funding from a number of different places, including grants, as you were indicating, city commissioners. And the biggest portion of this... Getting old, I can't read that up there. So the CIP using local funds, meaning utility funds or rate fees, if you will, for water and sewer rate fees are well seven rehabilitation. We're going to rehabilitate the pumps, that type of thing, in order to make sure that that remains as a backup well for us. i'm not going to go through each project unless people have questions about that but the stormwater uh local contribution is going to be some design work for the northeast 14th avenue canal rehab and in 27 and also our portion of the cdbg 52nd year and then grants northwest third street complete street 2.9 million um the grant portion of the 52nd year CDBG. And then we are getting a contribution both from FDOT of 400,000 and then the remaining portion of the I-95 stormwater permanent fix. As you recall, you authorized us to do some emergency repairs when that went out of service last year. It is functioning. We're gonna rebuild that station. FDOT's guaranteed 400,000 and Pembroke Park and the City of Hollandale Beach will split the difference of the remaining. So that's the local portion towards some of these projects. The next piece of this is?

The 1.8 million that says future appropriations, that's just not paid for. We're not applying for appropriations and we're not presuming that we'll have community development block grant funding, Dr. Earle, for the drainage improvements. 14 in the middle.

That is, so this is divided, if you don't mind, Dr. Earl, may I? So the first column is fiscal year 27. Future appropriations are 28 through 31, just to make this chart simplified. So that's 150 for years 28, 29, 30, and 31.

And that's based on the presumption that we're getting community development block grant, or that's just what we would be looking for? Yes.

Yes, that's the typical amount that we've been receiving. And if it doesn't continue, then we'll have to fund it locally through the stormwater funded side.

And I know, and I'll put it out there, we had reference with some of the changes general fund and what we could spend on core services a lot of some of this fund goes towards our heparin Center I don't know what percentage but I'm wondering at a certain point if community we keep fighting to preserve community development block friends every year they threaten it but it usually keeps coming back to really start considering whether or not we utilize CVDG for stormwater and drainage in light of doing our stormwater master plan and possibly looking at longer-term solutions for stormwater that might be an allocation to preserve funding for our social services over at the heparin center just putting it out there that was kind of one of my thoughts i had reading through that i just wanted to be clear what if that was allocation that if something does happen and we're bound not to be able to do it from general fund we might be able to shift that around in future years. Thank you.

Thanks.

So again, this slide is divided into showing you what the 27 requests out of the five-year program and then future appropriations is 28 through 31. So we have $750,000 worth of stormwater capital projects, $200,000 worth of water distribution, $3,490,000 in utility grants, and then you'll have the tranches For tranche three starting, we issued tranche one, the first bonds for 60 million in 2024, December 2024. You authorized 72 million in tranche two, the second phase of the bond projects made up of various water, sewer, stormwater projects. We have not issued that debt yet. We will be planning on issuing that debt sometime late this year, early 2027. And now this is the third round of debt that we're already into the planning process and capital expenditures. So you'll see here by utility, I mean water and sewer fund. And we broke out storm water so you could see that separately. Water and sewer in the same enterprise fund, if you will. So all the revenues for water rents, water usage, and all the sewer usage all go into what we call the utility fund. So you'll see in our capital program, For tranche three, which is going to be any capital project that falls in fiscal year 27, 28, and 29, will all be in tranche three. And beyond 29, you'll see those in what we're calling the future utility bond appropriations, which is technically tranche four, which should be our last major tranche to get our infrastructure, all known infrastructure, up to great working order. I guess that's the easiest way to put it. You'll see how much we're investing in stormwater appropriations, almost $91 million in the next five years. The city manager has asked DPW to look at every option to try to create capacity and to try to reduce the time it takes for heavy volume of water, you know, massive, heavy, fast rainstorms with large accumulations of water to reduce how quickly the water stays we may not be able to reduce it completely because when it comes down like that there's no way and we try to tell people that but if you've noticed in the city by operationally we've done a lot and capital we've done a lot and we're going to do even more in the next five years we're putting a great deal of effort into utility we're going to be I'll take a minute to talk about all the stormwater projects because everyone we talk to wants to know what we're doing about stormwater. So we are going to be, in a nutshell, dredging ponds in the city that we have ownership rights to. There's four in the southwest section. We're going to do work to the west in the Anson Boulevard area for drainage there because that is heavy volume of water that It doesn't go away too much. We're going to be creating capacity in Shaves Lake by removing the small island that was contributed to over the year by lime sludge. We are going to be installing new 48-inch pipes, maybe a 96-inch pipe as well. We are going to be also rehabbing the Northeast 14th Canal so that water doesn't get trapped or stuck there and it flows freely. We're going to be doing a lot of work in the Northeast section with deep injection wells and pump station, more pump stations being added there. We're going to connect pipes that aren't already connected to create greater flow to the pump stations. We are going to install... small area projects of pipe, maybe a 24 inch, 46 inch pipe under roads that don't connect anywhere yet, but do some temporary storage for quick storms, not prolonged storms. I'm thinking of an area behind Big Easy Casino, for instance, that big parking lot where they have the mobile home park right there. That floods almost every storm. And we're working on behind the ball fields over here on the corner of 4th and 5th. We're going to be connecting pipes there, for instance, in order to create better flow. Some just create underground storage but don't go anywhere. We're going to try to do more connecting of major pipes. Did I hit all the major categories, Sam? I think so. What's that? So there's a lot that's happening. Everybody wonders when construction's going to stop in the city. It's not for a while. We're going to have MOTs in many areas. We're doing our best to get MOT plans through transportation and mobility out to the public so that people will know when those projects are starting. And we have a lot of water main pipes that are coming up. We have ones on Federal Highway US 1. We have Pallandale Beach Boulevard. We have... Holiday Drive, which we're working on now. There's just so many projects for water mains that are coming up that have to be done. They have to be replaced. They've reached their estimated useful life, if not longer. Some pipes were living on borrowed time. And there are some pipes that were identified in the master plan that are pre-1960. that we had not had in the cip that's why the biggest jump in this project in this program is some of those pipes um southwest section um clay pipes we still have in the city and it's interesting you've seen a lot of the water main breaks that we've had through some of the projects where we're just you know compacting the ground where we're replacing in some of the pipes that are Lateral pipes are breaking because they're so brittle and so old. So there's a lot of water and sewer pipes. We have almost every single lift station now. I think we have two left to get under construction, but we have most of our lift stations now that are under construction, which is unbelievable that we're doing all that in the same timeframe. Let's see, I think those are the highlights that I wanted to present. There will be rate increases in the stormwater fee to pay for this debt, no doubt about it. There's water and sewer rate increases. We have the stormwater assessment going on now, fee assessment going on now, water and sewer rate studies as well. water and sewer rate study will be redone next year to address all of the estimated debt that we need to deliver. There are some projects, I'll point out, like we have some pipes that, oh, one other thing I didn't mention on the stormwater is we have cleaned an incredible amount of stormwater pipe in the city over the last, I'd say, 12 months. It started last year where we cleaned every stormwater pipe in the southwest section. If you go in the southwest section now and you go under a heavy rainstorm, one street by, I think it's King Manor, is that what that development's called in there? Where right on that street, you'd see standing water a foot deep. I went by every rainstorm in the last, I don't know, couple of months I've gone by, no water whatsoever there. So CM is asking us to make sure that we have all of our protocols for making sure that all of our pipes get cleaned on a very regular basis. It's great to have the infrastructure, but if they're full of dirt and debris, it doesn't help. So we have gone through the southwest section, we've already cleaned the northeast section, and now we're in the southeast section. So all three of those where we see most of our standing water, if you will, we don't get as much in the northwest section for standing flooding water, but those three sections, we should be done with the southeast section very soon in order to have all those storm water pipes completely cleaned out by a contractor. So we've done a lot of work there too, which has already delivered a lot of great results for the community in terms of making sure that standing water dissipates as fast as possible. With that, I'm happy to take any questions on the program.

Great. I just had one question on that because I know I talked to the director in regards to in front of the fire station, one of the drains down there in that area. I believe that it was scheduled to have some replacement or fixing there across the— Which station, ma'am? Near the fire station on— No, on the beach. On the beach, 60. but it wasn't clear whether they were R drains or if it's F dot drains. And they're all F dot down there, and I haven't had a chance, but do we know what their scheduled maintenance is for A1A and Hallandale Beach Boulevard? And the other curiosity that I would have, I know 14th Avenue is connected to the main pumping station, but 14th Avenue Canal obviously feeds Gulfstream, the church, all along that canal area, and the vacant property, which is Gulfstream. I'm wondering what part, as far as FDOT tie into that canal, if that is something they would partner with us since their drainage is tied to that system. I'll text the secretary, but I'd like to maybe see if we did some preliminary work, if their maintenance people are scheduled. for those areas we have identified the project so we're at the very beginning of the planning phase for that so we will certainly do that and see what we can accomplish together good because i but i'm curious if they have the schedule any i'll reach out i'll text them today i hadn't had a chance because i was traveling but to find out what their maintenance is for hallandale beach boulevard federal as well as the beach because they're all are that's all their their roadway

I will say there's been some times when we've gone out and identified some FDOT catch basins that haven't been draining properly. I'm thinking 3rd and US 1, where it's always a puddle right there on the other side of the track. And they came out within a week and had their contractors take care of that. I don't know if it fully addressed it because it still floods a little bit, but right outside of the... I think it's on Hollandale Beach Boulevard. It's either Exxon or Mobile, just by opposite corner of Flanagan's. That always has that right lane flooded. I've reported that several times. So we try, and they're very responsive to us if we say, hey, listen, there's an issue. I'll send a couple pictures. And they are very responsive, and they send the contractors out right away.

Yeah, because sometimes, like, A1A still gets banged up down there, too, as well. So any other questions on capital improvement?

No? Anything else?

Do we have, when is our stormwater master plan going to be ready? Do we have a draft yet or where are we at with that through Dr. Earl?

That's still at the beginning stages of getting that done. Beginning?

Oh, because I thought it was going to be with us this fall. No? The full evaluation. I'm sorry, you have to come up. Because I knew that was a huge project, then they were looking at city-wide programming.

Yeah, we have the existing plan from 2024, but we are updating that plan. So we have the proposal for that plan, and we're planning to take it, I think, on the August 5th meeting.

August 5th? So we should be seeing it. You don't have the preliminary draft yet, then?

Yeah, we have a draft, so we have to review the draft.

If I could, I'd like to be copied on.

We have the draft proposal.

Pardon me?

We have the draft proposal. The updates just started.

Oh, okay, because I thought it was being completed already, and that's when it was going to teed up. The other question I had, on Lane Boulevard, there was, I know we had a mess there, and we found some other problems with piping, and there was some loose reference that there's going to be another project there. Is there another project planned on Lane Boulevard? That we've already done?

No, they're finishing with the force main and they're looking to do the resurfacing.

So the resurfacing.

Okay.

And then there was some kind of capacity that they were presenting to expand capacity or pipe size to that pumping station. The one pumping station's been being built for like two or three years. Is that going to be done or are they reevaluating and what capacity are they looking at expanding there? Unless I read the wrong project.

Yeah, from what you had sent in the questions, it was lift station one, and that one's been designed for, I think it was 26,000 gallons per minute, three submersible pumps.

Okay.

We talked with the consultants. They said that's the size that's needed. So I don't know if it was upsized from what it was before, but that's what's been designed there now.

Okay. So what capacity, or I guess in my mind, that pump station serves existing build-out areas.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know at what capacity. Is that feeding Gulfstream as well? And we keep increasing capacity based on what need. I guess I'll just say it this way, unless it's project creep or we're doing it and are we over building sanitary store based on what capacity increase? And I guess it would depend, does that pump station take everything from the beach and go north or does that include Gulfstream and are we pre-planning capacity for Gulfstream?

When they do the design, they should be pre-planned, and usually that's based on what the zoning areas are and the densities are going to be. So they'll make sure they design what the future zonings are and the density is supposed to be, so they'll design the pumps to meet that capacity for where the future is.

But one is, again, one is tied into, I guess in my mind, I can't see major additional density there I mean it's single-family home it's already built out condominiums you know I know we have the one program with the office coming in but the rest is the beach so that's the whole southeast quadrant west of 14th Avenue Canal that serves that area correct I just found it unusual that we're still redoing something that I thought we had already planned and it jumped in my head that like why are we expanding capacity If Gulfstream's coming in, obviously, but to me, if they redevelop Gulfstream, they're gonna have to do a lot, maybe even their own capacity based on their demand for sanitary sewer. So if you could, you'll just let me know why that increase was happening. I'd like to see that done finally in some time.

By the way, Madam Mayor, we met with Gulfstream a few weeks ago and I did inform them that whatever changes they're gonna make to their plans will require them to build a package plan.

Exactly, so this comp station expanding that.

So the same gentleman that we spoke to, he and the others from Gulfstream, that's what I told him.

Okay, so, all right. Okay, I don't have any other questions on capital improvements, on plan tables, fire assessment.