City Council - Regular Meeting

Now I'm calling this regular workshop meeting of the Jacksonville City Council to order.

And we have a proposed agenda for tonight's meeting. And I'm going to entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Next we have adoption of the minutes and consent items. The minutes are from the May 19, 2026 regular meeting and the two consent items that you see.

Move approval for the minutes and the consent items as presented. Second. Motion is second.

Is there any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? All right, first item on non-consent would be the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget adoption. And I will turn it over to you, Mr. Ray, to lead in for this.

Thanks, Mayor. So we have presented the budget ordinance to the council for your consideration. This is where we would be. In a normal year, the challenge with this year is the General Assembly is considering some actions that could impact the local government budgets across the state. And so when I say in a normal year, we would be one meeting behind what our adopted calendar would say for consideration. However, the general statute does say that as long as the council has a Balanced budget adopted by June 30th, 2026. We are good where we need to be. Budget highlights. We have presented a total budget of $134 million to the council. That is approximately $9 million less than last year's amended budget. So that's the adopted budget with all amendments that the council have done throughout the year. We have lowered the ad valorem tax rate in this budget from 60 cents to 56 cents. That is 56 cents per $100 of valuation. We have investment in our employees, which has been an initiative for the city council for the last four years. We have our uptown Jacksonville development, continue investing in that project and moving it forward so that we can expand the property tax base. We have $34 million for public safety. That is a priority for our community. That includes police, fire, and telecommunications. We have a change in business practices for how we utilize the resources that we have now. We have water and sewer rate increase of 1%. And then we have sanitation increases for commercial and business, but not for residential. Those are all items that have been discussed throughout the year and during this budget cycle that council has discussed. You will see the comparison and side-by-side for last year's amended budget. That would be the fiscal budget that we're currently in until the end of this month. On the left-hand column, and then you're going to see the proposed on the right, you'll see the increase in the general fund expenditures, but you'll see a decrease in both solid waste fund and the water and sewer fund. A lot of times what we see here is the same on the capital projects. We ebb and flow based on the number of projects and the size of projects that we are presenting for that year. Some years, based on our CIP, are going to have additional projects. Some years are going to be lighter. That's why we have our capital reserve fund balance so that we can fund those projects year over year and not have to slow up just based on the revenues that we receive in any one given year. What is the most significant thing that's fallen off this year? in terms of projects? Well, one project that you're gonna see is on the water and sewer, or the sewer line. You know, that's a large project. That's roughly a $70 million total project. So as we complete part of that phase, that's one large section that we have, Mayor, that you won't have for next year. Other projects?

No, I think the NOAA grants. There was substantial funding from NOAA and some big stormwater projects.

And we've listed the NOAA projects out because those are exciting projects for next year. Think about Northeast Creek Park revitalizing that boardwalk. That's been a huge concern for people. We built a boardwalk. The storm took the boardwalk and we've not repaired it. So part of the NOAA grant is to revitalize that area as well as address some of the stormwater issues that we're having. So I think that package of projects is a big deal. But that's a good point out, Mayor, in terms of there's $8 million difference right there in capital projects. for the year?

With the reduction, or going from the 60 to 65, what in our CIP that's major that we do need to do? I mean, it's a project that we need to definitely stay on top of.

So nothing is removed from the capital improvement plan with the What we're doing is with the reduction in the tax rate from $0.60 to $0.56, we did have a budget that basically balanced with zero fund balance reserve from the general fund. This budget will utilize approximately $2.6 million from fund balance reserve. And what that is is very similar to what our number was last year. Last year, we were approximately $3 million to start the year. So we're in about the same number from the FY26 budget to the FY27 proposed budget. But generally, we've not had to really use that. fund balance at the end? That's right, Mayor. So in the last four years, we've utilized that fund balance one time, and that's with some large appropriations that we've had to use. A lot of times we'll end up using the fund balance from the water and sewer fund based on the projects. If we have to change a project there, it's because those projects are very large. Until we get into the construction for the Uptown Jacksonville project and the sports and multi-use facility, I don't see any of those projects skewing how we utilize our foot mounts at this point. Same thing for the fire truck. That purchase is different from the last time we did a fire truck purchase. The last time we did the full prepay up front so that we could realize some of those savings. In this budget, you're seeing an annual payment of roughly $250,000 to purchase that next apparatus. But that's all part of doing business. It's the same as buying any type of vehicle. It just happens to be a little more expensive. So we're not losing anything with the budget proposal the way it is. Okay. And that's why we have the projects and the priority investment employees to maintain that level of competitiveness across the board. We just have that fund balance appropriation. So back to your point, Mayor, we believe that as long as we're not amending the budget throughout the year for large amounts, then employee turnover allows us some of that space for revenues over expenditures. That happens a lot because we experience turnover throughout the organization. As of Monday morning, we had 37 full-time positions that had not been filled, and that ranges anywhere from four days fresh to six months, depending on recruitment and retention. So 37 is pretty good. We have 631 full-time employees, six part-time with benefits, and 158 part-time employees. I think we're at a pretty good spot in terms of recruitment and retention. I think a lot of that goes back to the things that the council is considering year over year in the budget. So all those items remain in the budget for this year. What we have done is we had to, based on the capital planning model, we had to remove some projects that Not based on just this year, we had to remove some projects because the priority focus has been the uptown Jacksonville development. It's not water and sewer projects. Those are funded out of the water and sewer side. It's the general fund side of the house where it would take additional reserves to fund those projects.

I know the solid waste fund used to be subsidized by general fund dollars. Is it still...

So the best part, and hopefully when you see the audit this year, you're gonna see that the general fund's not subsidizing that. And that's the efforts of the council for three straight years of $4 increases per year, both residential and commercial. That's getting us to that point. And you're gonna see a reduction in the overall expenses. But that doesn't mean throughout the year based on equipment because a lot of their expenses are going to be large purchases in terms of those trucks because those trucks take a beating. But for this year, you're seeing that subsidy has been removed based on the aggressive approach from the council. And water and sewer, we don't subsidize, nor stormwater, right? You do not subsidize water and sewer. We never want to subsidize water and sewer and stormwater as well. So those are all three enterprise funds, and they're true enterprise funds now because they bring in the revenues that they need to. cover all expenses. We've usually had a general philosophy of not commingling those funds. It is sacrilegious to put those funds somewhere else, Mayor. For lack of a better phrase, the council's done a great job of setting that standard. And that's why the sanitation, the solid waste fund is such a big deal, because we had to get to that point. But that's one of those changes in business practices before. where we looked at solid waste as we got into the solid waste business, you know, we slowly got into the solid waste business. There were multiple things. There's the residential side and there's the commercial side, and then we also have the small business side of the house. So as we're making these changes and bringing that to council, the council's had to make those decisions to make sure those are business-type funds, unlike the general fund where we provide services that may not be self-sufficient. So I think that's all part of that strategy people have to understand is your recreation programs may not pay for themselves, but your trash collection should. And that goes directly back to the user. And then the last comment on those two funds is they're not voluntary services either. So when people are in town, they sign up based on the policy. They sign up for water and wastewater when the service is there, and they sign up for trash collection. So we don't allow people to check out of those services because that's the way the volume type of pricing works out is by having everyone on the system.

And then we offer yard waste. I mean, that's big because, I mean, obviously, living in the county, you're not getting that. Not everyone covers yard waste.

Especially right now, when you drive around town, you're going to see a lot of the yard waste. You're going to see all those piles sitting out, and that's an extra benefit. So when Tony comes back here in a few months and gives that report to the council, once again, you're going to see the comparison of where we are against our market. And the market here is any other private provider. So you're going to see the services we offer, which will be more services for less price. So we're hoping that continues moving forward.

I think it's good that we advertise for the yard waste because we have certain areas. The limit's always an issue for people, but I think it's nice that we advertise that so people will want to do more during that period. I think it was like spring, it was like April or something like that. And then we do one in the fall as well. I think that helps out too. And the limit is not too bad. I mean, you're not going to make everybody happy.

But if, you know, I put a little bit too much out there and they sent me a bill, but It wasn't outrageous. It was too much. It was too much.

We try to discourage people from doing too much work at one time at their house, so we tell you just do a little bit each week and put a little bit out so that you don't get tired and hydrate. Drink that water bill up. That's right. Drink extra water, pay a little more there, but don't do too much with your leaf and limb at your house.

And then we have also the conversation about paying the extra for the amount of yard waste that people were putting out additional that some of the residents were not happy because there was an additional charge.

And that's the bill we sent Mr. Yonero because he was trying to overdo it. And so- He got tired.

But it's still way cheaper than hauling it out. And people, by the time you factor in hauling it out yourself, plus the tip and fees and everything else, you actually come out cheaper.

And that's why I appreciate that dialogue, because that's the message we have to continue sending out to our citizens is, here's a service, it is valuable, it is mandatory, but we're trying to keep those costs as low as possible. So when we're showing you the comparison year over year, last year's budget should not be your standard, but it's at least a comparison where you can tell someone that roughly there's a... 10% reduction in your overall expenses, 9% plus or minus, because it's going to fluctuate. You think two years ago we were at $150 million, so we've gone from $151 down to $134. A lot of that, Mayor, is going to be those larger projects that we have, but it's still showing a trend for how we're trying to be more efficient and effective with those taxpayer dollars or user fees. This is the breakdown on the general fund side. It shows the ad valorem tax at $35 million and the sales tax. Sales tax are going to continue to be a large discussion point for us as a community. It may be a large discussion point for the state of North Carolina over the next three years, especially as we go into the longer session next year. It's potentially an option next year that the General Assembly says... We want to move away from the ad valorem tax. That's an old property tax, and we want to move to entirely a sales tax model. That's good for the state of North Carolina. We see these numbers from the governor that came out last week, that tourism is still a booming industry for us. But we also see that we moved, I believe, from third to fifth in terms of tourism. tourism dollars coming to a state. So what that means is there's a little more competition. I don't believe it's South Carolina that's our competition, but I believe that there's a Florida that's our competition. I believe that for some reason California is still a competition. And I think that's because people go there, visit for a little bit, and then run away and come back home to somewhere else. But we're seeing that competition because there are more and more people that are investing in tourism. And we know that's our third Third leading industry in the state. So we know that's where we're at. And then we know that the second is our military. So that's great for us. Tourism is here as the military is here. We're one of five communities to say that. So when we think about this for next year, one of the conversations that the council has been engaged in is what is the action that the General Assembly is going to take that could impact this year and next year and the year thereafter. So part of the dialogue that we've had is you have to look at your tax rate and your revenue stream to make sure that if there's certain limits imposed next year through any type of change by the General Assembly, we are prepared to respond. And so we just want to make sure that even though we're not proposing a two to three year multi-year budget, we're constantly going to be aware of what these actions could mean to next year's budget and to our citizens. I think it would be, I think it conceptually sounds phenomenal if the state says they're going to increase the sales tax by four pennies and they're going to eliminate the property tax. That would be... a large revenue shift for us as a city, as long as the county keeps the distribution the way it is. If the county were to change their distribution next year and give us an opportunity to focus on the different method, we could receive $10 to $11 million in additional revenue, which means next year you have the ability, if that were to happen, to make a more significant change on your property tax rate, which is a push that the state of Florida has been going towards. Higher sales tax, no income tax, no property tax. So that's what we're hearing now. I don't know if any of that will move this year. We do know that the ballot will see an item of referendum on a state charter change for next year, so we don't know what that will mean from the state. General Assembly, but that's why we focus on those numbers. Right now, between the two, the number's $52, $53 million, so we need to know that's the number we need from those two items. Whichever way you split this turnip, we have to get that amount of money. Back up to that state charter change. Yeah, so the state constitution. So when they put it on the ballot, they're going to do an amendment to the constitution. And since that passed both the House and Senate, we know it's going to go. And my belief is there aren't many taxpayers in our state who will say, no to placing limitations on taxing ability of local authority. I believe that's going to pass just because that's what a lot of us believe in, in terms of limiting taxing ability. So once that happens, Mayor, then the General Assembly will have to decide what that means. Currently, we have a limitation on the tax rate that we can have on our ad valorem tax, which is $1.50 per hundred. Right now, no communities have a tax rate greater than $1. So $0.99 would be the highest for one county. So anyway, there could be a lot of things that impact us next year. I just ask the council consistently to keep that in mind as when we're talking to citizens, exact same story is. Some things are going to be out of your control next year, and you're just going to have to pivot based on what they tell us. And that's because they're the state. And I say we're creatures of the state, but sometimes we're not even creatures of the state. We're just the puppets. Habitating the state. We're here. And that's the way the state was created. So it is what it is and we'll pivot based on there. PAL bill. PAL bill is a great fund for us. It's a fund that a lot of states don't have. We've talked about this before in terms of there's a lot of value there. But there's also some concerns at the state level that maybe the PAL bill is not working the way it used to work. And that's not because of electric vehicles. It's because maybe it's just not working and we need additional revenue streams. Again, we don't know. We just know next year we're planning for that allocation from the state based on our gas tax. And we're going to utilize that throughout our city and spend those dollars and then the investment earnings that you see based on the fund balance that we have.

Mr. Ray, I have a quick question. With regards to the ad valorem tax and the sales tax, do you think the General Assembly will be aggressive enough to say for municipalities, we're no longer going to double tax you where you're paying both city taxes and county taxes? You just pay one tax. Do you think they're going to get that aggressive?

You know, I think, Dr. Washington, I think there's a lot of opportunities for next year. The only thing is if they do that, then the one tax that will stay will be the county tax. Because we're third. State's first, the county's are second, and we're third string here. So if they did that, that's where we would go. I don't even know if...

I think Virginia has that in place.

There's a larger entity, and then locally you miss out on that. I'm still concerned that the sales tax is going to be such a heavy push to try and see if they can move that. We've asked that question in multiple settings this year to say, is this something we can push? And we've actually ran those numbers to calculate what it would mean for us to have the sales tax instead of the property tax.

I think what Dr. Washington is talking about is they probably have taxes in Virginia and Maryland. We don't pay for certain services, they're duplicated. That's right.

Yeah, I mean, it can happen, but we've not heard any discussion.

What we have encouraged them to do is look at other states to say, where is it working, where is it not working? Because there are some good models for how they do it. We talk all the time about the Texas model and how everybody gets their own tax. You know, the school system, the fire district, the city, the county, the water association, some guy named Rick. Like, everybody gets their own tax.

Some guy named Bishop. You're right.

Bishop's got his own tax on there, and... We all pay him a penny a year, and that's a lot of pennies. But I hope the dialogue starts soon so that we can at least be at the table to engage with them to say, here's what that model is. We've had some good feedback from Senator Lozara in terms of thoughts he's had over the past couple years. But again, it takes those votes. They're going to have to move it through. And I don't know what's going to happen with it, Dr. Walsh. But I think that's a great question and something that we'll start tracking sooner rather than later to see if they move it.

In Florida, they sued them. They sued the municipality, sued the county. He said, you know, we're not getting these services. And it changed the dynamics because I had a friend that was a police chief down there. They actually sued them for services that they weren't getting. Like, you know, we have two 911 centers here. We don't get service out of the county's 911 service. And so why are we paying for that? Why is city residents paying for that? So I think that's been a general push. If you're not getting the services, then there needs to be some adjustment of your county taxes.

And that's part of the dialogue. So the mayor's got his meeting with the county chair this week, and they've had a really good dialogue about how the taxing authority looks moving forward. When you look at the fire tax, you feel pretty confident because the county said, we're gonna use this fire tax to serve the volunteer departments, and we're going to do some of that money towards the city. So that would be a great example. That's funds that we receive every year from the county, which makes it an excellent partnership. So the good news is, We have active dialogue with the county. I think the mission going forward is shared, that we want to work together to deliver services. And I think based on this request that as soon as we get through the next election, we will have a joint meeting and we'll sit in a dialogue. I'm excited to see that dialogue. I think you're going to see some real positive communication between city and county. But I encourage you just to have that conversation. I mean, you've got people that are... not elected yet that are showing up at our meeting now. So it shows that they actually care to hear what we're talking about. And I think there's a lot of value there. So as long as we can figure out how to use these dollars to serve all of our citizens, I think we're going to get to a good answer. Great points. I wish I were smarter, Dr. Washington, and give you a better answer, but we will pay attention. Here's the last thing you haven't seen yet. So we have went ahead and scheduled two special meetings, and we've only scheduled them for budget consideration. So if the city council adopts a budget ordinance today or if you adopt at the next meeting, what we've scheduled is a special meeting for June 29th at 530 and a special meeting for June 30th at 530. The reason that we're doing that is Those are the last two days in the work week that city council can hold a meeting to consider a different budget. For example, if the General Assembly passes a bill before that date that says you cannot use your 2026 reval, then I would recommend council reconsider the budget document. However, we haven't seen that bill move forward in the House right now. So I don't know if that's going to happen. If nothing happens on the 29th and the 30th, then we will not have those meetings. They'll be canceled meetings. Our next meeting will be the second meeting in July, which means we'll start the fiscal year. You'll have your adopted budget. We'll move forward. Then the next meeting the council would have is when you have your post-budget retreat. But we have proposed these dates so that the city clerk can go ahead and advertise for those dates and that we can be ready to pivot should you need to pivot. So, Mayor, the last screen is staff has presented that ordinance in there. We've also given you the ad valorem tax rate. We've included the fee schedule, capital improvement plan, and the other documents that go through. And we're here to answer any questions based on all of the items that we've presented or to take direction from the council.

I have a quick question on the fee schedule, if you don't mind. On the fiber optic cable fee schedule, It's jumped 25%. Most of the other changes, just from 50 bucks to 54, from 26 to 27, 28, cost of living kind of thing. That one's kind of a pretty hefty chunk for labor rates, standard and after hours. It says on here it's to cover our costs, but is that 25% really how high our costs are? That's a lot of a jump.

Thank you for the question. In reality, we haven't updated that number in several years. And so, yes, it does cover our costs precisely. We don't build any more than it costs us. But that's unfortunately just a lag on our part from updating. Lag is painful when it catches up to you. Thank you. Fortunately, it is, yes.

A lot of times you see on the fee schedule, you're going to see, we try to have as many of these items reviewed every year that may have some slight adjustment, but sometimes you just don't have those adjustments because they're going to be minor. But as Anthony had pointed out, you may not move those items.

And I was going to ask about some questions about the budget. If we were to reduce the tax rate even more, say 54, 52 cents, we could fund that through some fund balance, couldn't we? You had 2.6 million this year. You had 3 point something. And so there's an opportunity there for us to do the same thing we did last year and go up to, you know, 3.5 million from the fund balance and see if we can reduce that tax rate. Cuz I'm looking at the impact that it's gonna have on a number of our citizens.

So we're looking at an estimated $620,000 is one penny. And so anything that we would do if you were to go from 56 to 55, then you would reduce, you would add $620,000 to the estimated 2.6, that'd put it at 3.2. And so that would be the one penny adjustment if you want to move those items. And back to Ms. Smith's question earlier, you would leave every item in there and that would be impacted. And then back to the mayor's point, then you're just weighing out the level at which We're willing to utilize fund balance at the end of the year to cover all expenses.

What is the estimate for the use of fund balance this year?

So for FY26, I would say we'll estimate under $500,000. So if we have the $3 million allocated, hopefully we won't use the majority of that. It would be under that amount.

That's an educated guess. It is a guess, just based on where we are with revenues and expenditures. Of course, a lot of things do come in at the end of the year. There's payouts from projects. It's all based on the estimates of all the departments, which I know they try hard. But sometimes there's an expense that sneaks up, so It is a guess and it makes us a little nervous to guess, but I do feel pretty confident that it won't be the 3 million.

So in theory, we could reduce it down to 54 without making any cuts to the budget by moving the fund balance up to what we had this year. Somewhere close to it or an estimated close to it, right?

In theory, the council can set the rate wherever and we'll move the fund balance appropriation to that number. And yes, it would not impact the expenses of the budget. It would only impact the revenues of the budget. So if the council says set a tax rate of 55 cent and do that by utilizing additional fund balance reserve, we would take that action. The only challenge there is the unknown of next year, creating a ceiling or moving the rate.

You don't know, but you're going hurricane season soon. You always gotta worry about that. That's true. That's a big expense in Florence. I mean, we had a lot of money tied up for a while for a cleanup, and that took years to get. About $7 million. Yeah. I mean, you just don't know. I mean, if you get in a pickle with that. I just hate to keep dipping into the fund balance. I mean, I understand the tax, and I understand trying to help people, but at the same time, That's not an endless pile of money. We keep dipping into it. Big things out of nowhere happen and out of our control. What do we do in that situation?

We talk about that every year now for the last three years. The mayor's asked us a question on resiliency and how do we respond to catastrophic events. We put that in our budget document that says we do not budget for... hurricane cleanup or for those events. What we say is if any of those things happen, then we utilize fund balance reserve and then we would come back to the council for any type of allocation where we would ask you to do something else. Because if there's not a reimbursement from FEMA or another agency, then we have to foot that bill for the cleanup.

Does it come out of restricted or unrestricted? So that would be unrestricted.

And we actually still have, we're almost to the end of Florence. We still have Florence reimbursements that we're waiting on. That was 18, right?

18. 18.

Yeah, that was 18. Seven years is a normal response.

And you can't bank on others, you know, to get the feedback. Well, that's the problem for a lot of the smaller municipalities. They just don't have that level of fund balance because the expense... isn't cheaper for a smaller municipality. They still pay the same contractor and they're paying the same rate. They probably just pay lower based on the amount of debris or cleanup or damage that they have. So seven years would be devastating. But if they don't have the cash on hand, they go to the back of the line. Well, it's even worse than that, Mayor. You can't pay a contract. You know, you can't let a contract to someone if you don't have the cash.

The reason why we got ours picked up so fast after Bertha is because, not Bertha, but the last one.

was because we had those contracts in place and we had the cash to back it up. Yeah, Mayor, and that's the benefit of what Wally, when Wally presents on that, and he did that this year on those contracts, we line those contracts up now so that we're ready, and he keeps communication with them so when something happens... We're up. And so even if it's something small, we're up. And so, you know, that's why throughout the year, Wally will give another update on those contracts just to make sure the council's aware of how that process works.

I think it's a huge service to, you know, to the citizens to have that because a lot of communities do not have that. You know, when you need them, you want them to be there. And that's what, you know, I think the city's always stood up for that.

And that's part of that resiliency effort. A lot of us have had that dialogue for the last few years about how resilient can we be when something happens. And that's from a lot of categories. When we're talking about hurricane resiliency, it's about making sure that the water and sewer is working, that people are getting safe out of any danger, and that we're able to assist in cleanup.

Are there some creative things that we could do to reduce it down to like 54 cents or 52 cents? For example, you know, you've got several people in the budget. I think it's 800,000, according to that. Is there a way that we could not hire those people until January 1st and be able to reduce some of our costs so that we're reducing the tax rate a little bit?

Yes, sir. So at any point, as I said earlier, there's 37 positions Monday morning that are vacant positions. I think one thing that you can always consider is doing a freeze on the positions so that you don't have those issues. Even these new hires that are not outside of those 37, the challenge that you have is the bill's going to be due next year. And so when you're setting a tax rate, you're not just setting the rate for this year, that's the revenue here. The bills due next year and the next year. And so those are spot on. That's what cities and counties think about every year. How do we defer some of that cost? One of the things that Mr. Nera and Ms. Smith pointed out is when we get to the financing for Uptown Jacksonville, we wanna stretch that payment method out to 30 years. Well, we've already started putting together our work of doing that, and we just need to make sure that when we present that package to the LGC, that they approve it at 30 years. That'll reduce that payment if we went from 20 years to 30 years by, let's say, 500,000 a year. I forget exactly, but that would, back to the mayor's point, it would share that load for citizens for 30 years, so people that are here for 10 years pay their fair share, and then so on and so on. So, yes, sir, I think, back to that point, Council can make some of these adjustments and say, hey, we want to lower this and we need to make that happen. And as staff, we can do it. I still just have the same fear of the tax rate.

We could do that for one year, but what about subsequent years? I mean, how is that going to end?

It's going to be due. There's a lot of ifs there. Is he doing it every year? One of the things, Mayor, and just from a conversation I had with Mr. Yeager earlier about a different project, there are some things that next year you think there may be capital funding that could be available. One of the things we thought this year was the state may have capital funding available for projects, and at one point they had talked about a billion dollar surplus in revenues, a lot of that generated by tourism dollars. Well, then it was two billion dollars. Well, then the state looked at some items in their budget, and they said they were going to increase pay for public safety and for teachers. Well, there are a lot of those positions in the state. So therefore, a lot of that first billion was gone. And that's great. That's part of the program. So then when they come to the next billion... It's all relative in terms of the dollars that they have and the expenses they have. A lot of those projects are either going to be determined in the budget process through their negotiations, or they're going to be moved to another year. So Mayor, I think the question is, you're going to defer it, but you're going to pay it next year as well. I think the challenge the council is going to have consistently is, do you do something this year and then come back next year to the taxpayer and say, we do this, we may have to ask more next year or reduce based on those factors?

We're really in an ambiguous situation here. We don't know what in the world we're going to be facing next year. Now, I like the idea that... Councilmember DeNiro has about trying to look for things in there that we can, you know, put off. But the thing about it is, say, like for hiring, you know, if you're waiting to hire somebody in January, what are you going to do next year? We're being the same crowd. You know, I just need to know the answer to that.

Not going to be a good answer on that, Mayor. The recruitment and retention process, I said that earlier just because we're having a lot of success through the actions that council's taking. Some of those positions, as he said, they're not going to get hired right away because there's going to be a challenge to recruit positions.

I mean, I'd like to see the tax rate lower like he does, but I want to make sure that we're not cutting off our nose to spite our face here, you know, and that we end up having to cut services because we failed to

And I wouldn't want to freeze any essential personnel. Okay. I don't think that would be a good idea.

I don't want you to have to revisit it next year, but I know that the problem is going to be what happens in a long session. And I think there's going to be a lot of policy things next year, but moving along, we have capital projects that we're going to keep moving. Fire Station 3, we're going to keep moving. There's going to be another apparatus.

How much money were you talking about as far as...

How much is that going to take off? Oh, if you were to freeze and go?

I mean, estimation? You're looking at two-thirds of a penny, you know, if you were to do that in terms of the half year. Even projects, Mayor, the challenge with the projects are since Council has adopted an effective capital reserve fund, You're not focused on year-to-year funding projects. You're funding them for multi-years. And so when you look at that sheet, you're going to see those projects that move over, as we've said before, because you've already funded them. So you're moving them forward. So if you have a project, some of those have been kicked off. multiple years, and so there comes a time when you're knocking out that project. Could be something as challenging as the Miracle Field. We received a grant. We're putting it forward. It's taken us a while to get that project moving forward because we have to have the contract or we have to have the plan. So there is a deadline. You got to get it done or else you lose the part of funding. You don't lose it. So the answer is yes. There's a lot of good creative things. You're just challenged to do something this year knowing that you're going to have a different set of obstacles next year.

But you're going to have them regardless.

No matter what we choose to do now.

No matter what you do because we don't know what they're going to do. We don't know about the referendum. We don't know about... what they're going to do about sales tax. So it seems to me that we could reduce it this year and then figure out what we're going to do next year based upon what the legislature does. I mean, it would be nice if we knew... what their plan was, just like, I know the county passed that resolution to help us with the 400 acres and the uptown Jacksonville, but we won't know until next year what that's gonna look like.

I feel like the county is going to write us a check for $25 million just to start. So that's a foundation. So I agree with you. It's going to be great. I'm excited. It's going to be great. Oh, I would love that. I understand.

I mean, we're going to have to readjust next year regardless. But it's whether you want to raise taxes next year.

If that situation arises. If we go too low now and then we have to do that, then you have to be a bigger jump. I feel like it's more to stay a little conservative and stay where we're at at 56% because that gives a little more flexibility because you hate to go down to 52% this time. Then all of a sudden you've got to do a huge jump to make up. Then you're really going to tick some people off. Or go higher.

But even if you go down to 54%, maybe.

You're talking about $1.2 million. If a penny's worth $646,000, I mean, you're not shaving anything off to make up that difference. If anything, you're going to just keep digging out your piggy bank.

Just cutting little pieces here.

Yeah, I mean, it's just not moving the needle. But you don't know where the needle's going to be next. That's what you're saying. You're just... Just to shoot from the hills.

I mean, yeah, we are. But we just don't want to get to the point where we, you know, bite ourselves in the backside by going too low. It can't push it back up against what we need. We try to shoot from the hills without no bullets. Oh, yeah.

Just look at that and make double sure that there's some clearance there. Something that can be moved that's not going to have a major impact as far as...

I don't know.

Project-wise, Mayor, we've reviewed. So one project that we talked about is looking at Commons parking lot. Once you move them into the Capital Reserve Fund, it's funded out of that, and that's where the capital planning model comes in. That's a project that we moved out seven years. So the challenge there is you keep moving projects out, and then once you're funding them through the capital, planning model, then we're using that year over year. The largest expenses and the changes are going to be seen in the changes to our personnel and our benefits package. And like I said, next year we're going to have to consider the benefits in terms of health insurance and we're going to have to look at how council is going to handle moving some of those expenses to the employee or if we're going to absorb increases.

Which is common to all organizations, government and private right now. Everyone is dealing with rising health care premiums.

Yeah, that's been the duration of my career in local government. We've always dealt with rising health care costs. And so we're not seeing anything just plateau and it's not going to dip.

I don't want to have to raise taxes next year because we went too low. It's kind of a bad fix that we're in. You look around some jurisdictions, which I won't name any of them, but where their tax rate is so low because they've benefited from other types of funding, such as sales tax, et cetera. I mean, you've got some jurisdictions that are probably making, at one time, it was under 30 cents for $100. Am I right, Paul? Yeah.

Oh, there's some good, some really low tax rates in the state.

And even in our region, they're really good. You know, we saw one of our neighbors, one of our larger neighbors this year, Mayor, who, you know, they lowered their tax rate last year, and then this year they're having to increase it. I mean, that's a challenge, but Mr. Nero is right. You're dealing with that year to year, and you've got to decide, do you try and set it now, the one strategy, set it now and hope that it makes it to four years, and then you reconsider after four years, or do you say, we're going to do this, and then we're going to revisit year over year, and there's a... There's a challenge either way.

Well, I mean, it's really going to depend on what the legislature does next year as to what our challenges are going to be. I mean, if they go to a sales tax sort of thing, you know. They don't have a plan. Who knows what they'll do.

Yeah, exactly.

We can't guess. They're not sure yet.

I don't think it's been debated that much.

Yeah, we checked this morning in terms of the House and the Senate calendars, and not a lot happened today, not a lot happened yesterday. The calendar doesn't look real heavy tomorrow. Right. Soon. It just came back in session because it was off last week. Last week was a vacation week. Oh, that's yours. I don't have any more questions. What do you mean? We either take a motion today or we bring it back on the next council meeting.

Well, I move that we bring it back on the next council meeting for fiscal year 2027, proposed budget adoption. Second.

And I'd like to know what you can do. You know, what are the things that you could reduce and how would those affect? Obviously, I don't want to put to, you know, we've had some challenges for the last 10 years with pay and we don't need to go backwards. And then the Uptown Project, you know, I think people don't understand. That's an investment in the future, and what it's gonna do is it's gonna reduce our tax rate, because there's only two ways that we can get funding, and that is, one, is to raise taxes, and two, is to encourage growth. And I think I think we need to educate our public about that because at the last council meeting, somebody was saying, well, that Uptown Jacksonville project is just a waste of money, but it's not a waste of money. It's invested in our future so that we can... ultimately reduce the burden on our taxpayers. Expanding the tax base is the answer for... I mean, that's the only two ways that we can get additional revenue. That's right. And I think sometimes people don't understand that is they think that if we don't do a project that we're going to be able to reduce the tax rate, but eventually it's going to catch up with us just like it's been for the last several years. We're trying to hire qualified people, and we can't because they're... We're not paying them like other communities are. We're losing our good quality people to other jurisdictions because they're paying better and giving bonuses and those kinds of things.

But I think that's what our responsibility is, is to make sure that Jacksonville understands why we're doing the projects that we're doing, especially with Uptown. And that's putting it out on our social media, talking to the community leaders, and making sure that they understand it so they can pass it along. So that's our job to make sure they know the importance of uptown and why we need to pursue it. That's why I'm grateful for the expansion of the loan possibility because that does help. But to go and find some more of those small projects that don't move the needle, I think that'll be a waste of anybody's time. I would more so want to know what the council, if there are certain projects that you think we could put aside, you know, put it out there for us all to look at. I wouldn't, I wouldn't. Can you text me yours? You text me your list. And then I'll text you what I don't want on your list. Well, I appreciate that.

Now you sound like my wife.

Because if I'm hearing it correctly, you have penny-pinched and pulled on your end. Now I think it's our job. If we want to go down, we're looking at going below $0.56. We've got to put it to you on what we are considering. And I can tell you now, I'm not messing with anybody's wages or that 401.

I didn't mean to put that out there, but I'm just saying. Again, I think over the last several years, we've had... You know, we've had a lot of turnover. You know, it takes a year to get a firefighter. It takes a year to get a police officer trained. I mean, and look at how much money is going out the door when they go to Kinston because they get a $25,000 bonus. I mean, you know, when you talk about it, it's $100,000 a year, you know, to train them and to equip them and then them to walk out the door.

I went to the IOP breakfast the other day and sat with Sheriff Thomas, and he even commented to the fact that you're underpaying your police officers. He's telling me this. He's stealing police officers from us, but he also points out that places like Maysville is outpaying us. Buleville is outpaying us. That's sad. It's in the evidence.

Well, it's costing us. It's costing us in personnel costs because every time they leave, you know, we're paying for a year's salary before they get on the streets, you know, in both police and fire and in other parts of the city, too. So, you know.

That's what I understand. We can't lower it and still get more. And that's kind of, I mean, I just don't see how that's going to be. That just doesn't make sense to me. mathematically. You can't take in less, but then want to pay everybody. That's what kind of got us in the jam with the employee a few years ago, and that's why we had to keep putting money out. Was it $3 million a year or something like that? We were playing catch-up. We were so far behind, and we got ourselves in a pickle, and I think that's what's going to happen here. I mean, I understand where you're coming from, and I get that, but at the same time, you can't have it both ways. I mean, I think what you've done, and I think... Personally, I feel like the 56 cents is about the best we're going to get where we're not losing services, we're not handicapping ourselves for the future, and we're not digging in a piggy bank. I mean, I don't know how you're going to change anything to really move the needle on that.

And you're almost not set. You're not. You're putting yourself in a hole.

And then if we come to find out that we're going to have to dig ourselves out into a bigger hole, then people are not going to love to go from 52 to 62. You know what I mean? I feel like 56 is the most conservative best route from what we've been told. I don't really know how we're going to change that from two weeks from today.

Can you put the total revenue from last year to this year with the proposed 56 percent?

Total, like on this, on the, what did you say, from 56 to? I thought you had it broke down somewhere. I do.

I think I got it here, Mayor. Give me one second. What is the total gravity difference from last year in this proposal to the 56th?

I do have a chart and it's going to be in this proposal here, Mayor, so give me one second. Please, sir. Is that what you...

I didn't think it was this, but it's the one.

With the levy, that would be a good page there. So at $0.60, Mayor, the FY26, what we have is $25 million. The FY27 is $38 million, but that's using the different levy. So if we're using the number there, then the $0.56 rate is $36 million. What was the total revenue last year? 25 million is what we're showing there. About $10 million.

I have a question about uptown. If you're trying to convince the public of the benefits of it and you're just talking abstractly that it's going to be, it'll pay off and it'll be returned someday, that is a challenge. My question is, have you done return on investment calculations on that? Yes, sir. Is there a way that that can be kind of promoted and put in a way that you can?

So it's not on our website now, but we have done it in two presentations. So we have that that we can bring back as that marketing strategy to talk about it. As a marketing strategy? Yes, sir. We have that information that was done externally by the firm. So yes, sir.

Could we do some sessions on G10 as well? We can.

Yes, sir. I was over here telling him we have a motion and a second. This is true.

It was to move the conversation to the next meeting.

Oh, to the next meeting. And that's the only what?

No action tonight.

June the 16th. Okay. So a motion and a second. So we've had ample discussion on it. Excuse me. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay.

Just a little bit more. Just a little bit. All right.

You feel better after that discussion, don't you? I still want this.

I did write down something on this.

All right, so Dr. Washington, we have a discussion on the Evergreen Smart Home Technology Initiative.

I wanted to bring before Mayor and Council and to our new elected officials that are part of the City Council. Approximately two years ago, Mrs. Tracy Jackson, and the UNC government DFI, also known as Development Finance Initiative, came into a partnership to address affordable housing in the city of Jacksonville because it was on the forefront of many of our conversations with the past previous council. Just this past November, there was a citizen, Virginia Hill, that came before council in November of 25 and passionately talked about the need for affordable housing in the city of Jacksonville and particularly when we've had so many devastations after. Hurricane Florence that impacted housing and availability of housing in the Jacksonville area. So this particular partnership with DFI Council has been in conversations for just a little over two years in terms of some of the initiatives that we should consider as we think about moving affordable housing projects forward. However, at this time, because there was some sensitive information that was shared with us with DFI in a closed session. Right now, I would like to table this conversation and possibly have Ms. Tracy Jackson and staff to have a closed session with the new council members, with the entire council to just recap And to discuss some of those initiatives that were discussed that was talked about before we actually move forward. So I would like to see this item table to our June 16th City Council meeting and a closed session and I just need a council member to second it to add it to the agenda. First off, I need to ask the attorney if that's- Does it meet the criteria? Does that meet the criteria for a closed session? We were in a closed session with DFI. That information was shared.

There was no evidence of that other than- So I think that's part of the issue. Ms. Jackson, can I ask you, I think you and I discussed earlier, we thought it might have been a closed session, but it turns out it was a small group session. Is that right?

Yes, it was a small group session. Several members met with counsel. I did present with three sessions, but as far as the information, the sensitive information that appeared to be in small group discussions with counsel.

Yeah, I think DFI came in and did that so that we wouldn't have a quorum, so we wouldn't trigger the public meetings laws. That is correct. So we thought initially it was a closed session. Ms. Jackson did, but it actually wasn't a closed session. So I'd have to reevaluate to see what the criteria were.

Can you do that and let us know, and then I will be happy to present because I wasn't part of that.

Yeah, that's understandable, yeah.

You want to move that forward, right? That doesn't require being tabled, does it? Can she just request to have it?

We did adopt the agenda, so it probably would be more appropriate just to have the motion to go ahead and defer discussion until the next council meeting and then we can do an analysis.

Second. Any other discussion on that? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay.

Mr. Ray, you have some one city moments. I do, Mayor. It's been a while since you've let me talk about the one city moments. So we have a few we'd like to just bring up since we have a few minutes. We did have the Peace Officers Memorial Observance that was held on Friday, May 16th. This is an event for us to... Remember those individuals who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in serving our community. Some we take a lot of pride in because those individuals served our community at the highest level. And so we do this every year. Mayor, one of the comments that you make every year is that for a couple of events that we have, as a caring community, we will not forget. And this year's service showed a multi-agency participation and an event that allowed us to remember those individuals. So we had the military, the sheriff's department, the Wilmington PD, Jacksonville PD, our fire and state highway patrol all in attendance. We do this at our memorial, which adds that value because it's not something that we do just once a year. It's a memorial that we take a lot of pride in. every day of every year. And so for those members in our community that worked with these officers and these individuals, it means a lot. And so you see here between the mayor and DC Weaver and Chief Phelps and also for Officer Lanier's daughter, you just see that to have her in the event just gives us another layer of appreciation. So every year we do this and we encourage people throughout the community to remember those individuals. And if you don't want to go for the day of the event, I encourage you to go anytime during the year to see the memorial and to take time to appreciate those individuals. On Happy or No Mayor, second there, we did have our Jacksonville Jamboree reboot. We rebooted it because the rain told us we had to go to a different date. And apparently after the rain, we have snakes. So I just encourage you not to play with snakes unless you're this young lady here. This is the animal rescue tent, Mayor. So you may never want to go to the Jamboree if you don't want to rescue... this python here that seems very aggressive. Not really. It was a great event, Mayor. Excellent turnout. We had several thousand people. This year we also had the BMX bike exhibit again. It was a hit last year, so having it again this year was phenomenal. We always have the carnival, we have the train rides, and we have some very talented food truck vendors that consistently show up and feed our people. One place was active in the area. We have the rock wall. We have plenty of rides. And as we said, we have music and we have our BMX riders. These guys do crazy things on bicycles. I was doing the same thing at age five. So it's not that impressive, but that's been a while. And apparently people enjoy watching these guys do more impressive things. Kudos to Susan's team, to Michael's team, for setting up the event for our tourism team. And, you know, when we have the live music, remember this is the stage that the TDA invested in to give us another avenue to create something where people come together. It's awesome. It's awesome to have the event. This was just this past weekend, and it was another successful event. And then the last thing I have for you, Mayor, for you... You were out there with this ball. And what the most important part here is, this is the third year in a row where the mayor's thrown out the first pitch to kick off the season. And it's the first year the mayor's thrown a strike. And I think this was like a 90s fastball. I wanna see the footage. The pitch camera shows that it was 92 miles an hour and it was a strike. And you can't argue anything differently. But the Osprey kicked off this year. This is another partnership from multiple groups here in the community. And they have a new lineup this year. They have recruited talent. They're very excited. The Patino family is very excited to bring talent from so many different programs across the country and internationally. You know, last year they had A number of international pitchers this year. They have international players across the diamond. And so we're really excited to see them bigger and better. They're trying to win the whole thing this year. Last year down the stretch in the second half, they made a good run. And we're hoping they can pick up on that. Last night, their opening night, they did not get the win, but Reverend Churchwell said he would do all he could to help them out next year. And between their mascot and Sammy the Silly Goose, we think this is gonna be the year we bring a championship home. And what they're hoping to do is expand the partnership so that they can expand the park for next season. So this season, the park is exactly laid out the way they had it last year. They have new sponsors. They have new staff to come in. They also offer a lot of positive internships during the summer. So they're giving people the opportunity to be a part of an athletic program that's not at a recreation level. These guys are at a competitive level, and we're very excited to have them continue to call Jacksonville home and hopes that next year the mayor works in a knuckle curve. Ellie did estimate the crowd at around 1,800. Yeah, it's incredible, Mayor. And if you didn't take a lounge chair again, you were standing up to watch unless you were the mayor and you got priority seating. I got the worst seat in the house.

Mr. Ray, if the public wants to purchase tickets, what is the process for that?

If there's still tickets available? Yes, ma'am. So open day is really the only challenge that they have. And there's no real sellout for these games. So they can go online to the Facebook page. You're all free. You're all on Facebook. They also have a website. But you can buy tickets at the gate. So never to discern anyone that you can buy tickets at the gate. I will tell you that these are not cash transactions at the gate. You are purchasing tickets using mobile purchasing options. It's not Ticketmaster, but you're going to scan the code. You're going to buy your tickets, and you can go in. They have plenty of bleacher seats unless it's one of those really active Saturday or Friday nights. So the more the traffic increases, you may want to take a chair. If it's last season, you want to take an umbrella and a boat. Hopefully this year, the good Lord says, we can play more of our home games. Roughly... I can't tell you now. I was a bit ready to tell you how many home games they have scheduled, but I don't remember. It's through July. And you can get season tickets too, and they're not that bad. Yeah, you can buy packages or you can buy season tickets. So just encourage everybody, if you like having the offspring in town, if you can buy a ticket, buy a ticket. And if you can support some of the food vendors that they have out there when they're there, please do so because it's an added amenity that we enjoy having here. They have an alcohol bar, right? They do. They do serve alcohol on site, and that's a great partnership that they've worked through to get there.

You can go there. It says click to buy tickets. There you go. Thank you, ma'am. Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor say aye.

All opposed.