City Commission - workshop

agendas that are in our...

Sorry, I started it and there's no way for me to stop it.

That's fine. All right, we'll start.

All right. Agendas that are in our... Sorry, I started it and there's no way for me to stop it.

All right. Who's talking first, you?

I'm sorry. So there's a little delay, but we are live streaming. OK, so. So it is 107 and we are live.

OK, thank you very much. Well, it's an odd day. It's Friday and it's one in the afternoon and we are having our pre-agenda meeting for the city of Lake Worth Beach for our meeting on September 1st. May I have the roll call, please?

Yes. Mayor Betty Resch.

Hi, can you hear me? Yep. We can. Okay. I just want to say I was scheduled to be in person there today, but because of weather, my flight was delayed. So I got stuck for another day in Vermont and I'm at the airport waiting for the plane. So I'm asking Mimi to take over for me because it's so difficult with the Zoom. But I'll keep listening and chiming if I need to.

Thank you. And we'll keep an eye out for your hand.

Okay. Vice Mayor Mimi May.

Present.

Commissioner Sarah Maliga.

Present.

Commissioner Christopher McVoy?

Yeah.

Commissioner Anthony Segrich?

Present. All right. Just so you know, Melissa, I'm looking at the agenda in my book and the agenda online, and they don't match only in the backup materials.

Okay. Can I look at that after?

Sure.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I just wanted you to know.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, September 1st.

Pardon me?

If something needs to be fixed, we will correct it.

Yeah, we just need new printed agendas. That's all.

All right, no worries.

Okay. All right. This is weird to be here to do this. I feel like I should be in my dungeon.

Yeah. Okay.

Well, let's just go over this and see what questions we have. So we first will do proclamations. Let's see. Any questions on any of the presentations or proclamations? Okay. Can I just ask a question? How does the... barracks legend legend president president veteran and first responder resource update how does that get on like who who schedules that for i mean i think it's good i just don't know like you ask us about presentations and stuff and then this no we didn't talk about any of this i i don't care if that it's on i just want to know how it gets there

Um, Madam vice mayor.

Yes, ma'am.

So staff is allowed to add things to the agenda. This was added by Stuart sword, who was coordinating the nine 11 presentations.

Awesome. Okay. Um, I just didn't, I didn't know. Do you guys think we should put added by or brought forward by.

Not a bad idea. We often do.

And it's Barack's legend. It's for Barack Obama.

Oh, sorry. Do you think we should?

I think that would be good so the public knows.

Yeah, or we know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think at my staff, you just want to put it.

Yeah, brought forward by so and so.

So we even know what department it's from.

You know, I mean, I don't I don't have a problem with it being there. I just would. So I don't look like a fool saying barracks instead of barracks. And we go from there, Anthony.

I think that's a good idea. We also did it sometimes for when commission brought it forward. We sometimes identified the commissioner, sometimes did not. I think it would just be useful for the public in general to see that and maybe they can direct their questions more pointedly and so on.

Right. Okay. Well, I mean, and so that means that Mr. Sword is going to do the presentation?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. All right. That makes sense. All right. Anything the consented agenda questions on the consent agenda, we've got a bill of sale and a proclamation.

I don't have a question. I just want to say that the arc of Palm Beach is a great entity. And if no one's ever been there to support them, they have a resale shop that is adjoining to this property. And it's a non for profit. I highly recommend supporting that organization. what do they do focus on adults who are mentally um challenged and helping them have resources to live on their own and um it's a higher level so i think they start 18 and go all the way up to senior senior so they create programs and give and give resources to those who are developmentally disabled slow okay um i love that okay thank you

All right, after consent agenda, public hearing one is the pinnacle on self. I'm assuming this is William. William, you want to just to give us a little overview, just in case we have questions on that?

William Waters, Community Sustainability Director. This is a project that has been perking and bubbling along for about eight years now in one version or another. You've already approved some LIHTC funding for this project several months ago. It is a two building complex across three parcels. uh being done by the pinnacle group the entire project is affordable housing one building is four stories one building is five um you're going to hear a little bit on tuesday night about some efforts to preserve a tree that will have a very low likelihood of being able to be relocated or survived i think that there have been citizens in the community who have contacted pinnacle and have gotten them to commit to committing some sort of amount of money to the tree restoration fund You'll hear about that on Tuesday night. You'll also hear a request from Pinnacle to waive the city's portion of the sustainable bonus payment that you have put in for through a resolution because the project is 100% affordable housing.

Anthony?

Thank you. This is more of just a procedural question. So this is a quasi-judicial hearing coming to us. I'm assuming it went through planning and zoning and other things as quasi-judicial. Because it involves a tree movement, I'm making the assumption that did this go before the tree board?

And no, it did not, because the tree board does not have a role in the clause of judicial process. But tree board members did weigh in on, as I understand it, on the preservation of this tree. And the applicant did a tree survey for arborist. We had our arborist look at it. It could be moved with a great deal of preparatory effort, but with a low likelihood of it being able to be saved or that it would survive once it was relocated.

And something like this, this seems like a perfect candidate to ask the tree board their opinion on it. I know they're not part of the quasi judicial process. Would they have a regular board meeting on it if we wanted that opinion? Because it seems like we have the board, but they're acting as individuals on this topic versus acting as the advisory board.

That may be a question for legal, since it's a quadri-digital process governed by our local planning agency. In this case, it's the Planning and Zoning Board, and then on to you in the plan development process. I don't know legally how that fits into that approval process. And we have fairly... How do I put this? The tree does not have to stay if they're willing to pay the mitigation fee. And they've already had enough landscaping that's proposed on the project to mitigate the loss of that tree. And so the Tree and Landscape Board isn't necessarily totally privy on the zoning parameters or LDR that relate to a plan development. We would probably have to spend some time educating them on that because they would not be necessarily allowed to make recommendations that fly in the face of what the LDRs allow because it is a quasi-judicial process.

My concern is we have a board acting as individuals because they're kind of left out of the process, whether that's... legally necessary or not, I don't know. Hopefully legal can answer us and it doesn't have to be today. But if if they are going to be involved in the process, it would be nice if they were involved as the board in their capacity with the appropriate education from your side in terms of the planning and zoning, what's possible, what's not possible, because the fear is them acting as individuals, but perceived as being acting as a board could be problematic. Yes. And then the other legal question I have is, since they are a board, they are subject to sunshine. And whether or not them coordinating outside of the board on something like this poses an issue. So that's my, I don't know if legal's on, but if we can get some information on that, not asking for it right away, but at least send to us on that, that would help.

Thank you. Ms. Maliga.

Thank you. William, I do see that they have one elevator in each building. That terrifies me because if you, I don't know if you've kept up with on the news lately, there's been an apartment building that their elevator's been down for months and somebody who is disabled who lives on the top floor cannot get out of their apartment. um so i know this project i know that they've gotten a lot of benefit with this project from the cra from the government um in regards to the tax deferral and money from i forgot how much they got from the cra two things i'd like to see is an additional elevator somewhere um i'm looking at the plans and it doesn't look like they're short of space to add an elevator even if it's one right next to it and do you know the least expensive way to add in elevators to have the elevators banked right next to each other correct that's what i'm saying it looks like there's plenty of room um from i mean compared to their layout that's my main concern is having an additional elevator in each building as well as security cameras do you know if that's part of

They have a fairly significant and sophisticated security aspect to their project that should all be addressed on the first by the applicant. Okay. Because we made them aware. I think you all were copied on the email that let them know that the commission's preferences for two elevators on buildings that require them. And that was sent out maybe six weeks ago. I think maybe I'm losing track of time because time is going by so fast. So fast. Okay.

So they have been notified. Okay. Thank you. That's all I wanted to make sure. Thank you.

um okay the the minimum that they have to have is one and then when they went through the other two the two boards did they bring up they only went through one board planning and zoning i apologize that's right it's not historic um did they bring up the elevators no because the elevator requirement falls under the building code and not the ldrs okay oh because it's a minimum

something that they have to have service level they do have a generator that will um function to serve both elevators that are separate buildings in the time when electricity is out from something and their uh minimum they under housing and urban development their accessible rooms or accessible capacity rooms are all on the first floor oh interesting okay

That's not saying that somebody who lives on the third floor isn't on a walker or isn't on a cane. That's just saying that the first floor is all ADA. Right. So the doors are wider, the bathrooms are wider.

Well, I won't say they all are, but the minimum number they're required to have are set up there. And then some of them are set that can be converted later, like put the extra blocking in the wall. So you can add guardrails or handicapped... whatever they're called, I can't think today, assistance for those people that would like to have a room there or an apartment there.

okay so that's pinnacle so they know that and that's good so i don't want to talk too much about that especially if it's quasi-judicial because we need to make it through the hearing on tuesday all right july 4th we're going to have the wrap-up the deed restriction for 628 north k anybody have questions about that all right I'm on the one online. Oh, dude, I was just way at the... I'm so sorry. I am completely... Oh, here's that. All right, all right, all right. I apologize. Artificial turf. But let me just... I don't know if... Is Betty there?

Okay.

If she... contacted me in a way should i share what she has said because she'd like her two cents put in about this legal um i think i'm going to ask her miss rash if you would like to add something to email the clerk i don't i don't see her either but i'm not going to read it just don't think that you know that's a private i don't want my phone subpoenaed glenn if she's asked you to say something because she couldn't be here and you're sharing it publicly that's fine okay she said they agree to two elevators in the five-story building they have generators for the elevators So, all right, let's go ahead and talk about turf. I mean, if there's issues, if there's issues we're going to get into on Tuesday, let's at least bring them out in the open now so that staff can be prepared to answer the questions that might come up. Because then we won't have to say, can you go back and find out? So I saw Mr. Segrich's light on first, then Mr. McFoy. Go ahead.

Thank you. I just wanted to clarify because I did ask a lot of questions and thank you for responding. The new state preemption is only for a residential one acre or less. And basically it says if it's allowed by the DEP's rules, we can't restrict it. So reading through it, a lot of the stuff that we have in here are more restrictive than the DEP rules. I just want to clarify. those things that are more restrictive than the DEP rules, they do not apply to one acre less residential. Correct. Okay.

I just wanted to bring this up for the listening public, is that almost 40% of the city's area on that zone is single family residential, which would be exempt. And we have very few single family residential parcels that are an acre or bigger. There may be one, the Birthday Cake House, and maybe one or two out at Lake Osborne. So just so that people will be aware of what that number is.

So my request will be on Tuesday is that we really clarify this. So almost break this down into two sections. residential one acre or less we follow the dep regulations and then all other properties these are our regulations for that um the concern is because when i really immediately read it my concern was that we were falling afoul of the state preemption and then staff corrected me on that but i i re-read it and re-read it and re-read it and i it was very subtle um and i just think for the sake of clarity and given the nature um and and kind of hot topic that this is absolute clarity on it would would be nice to see and madame mayor

yes um i think i want to be clear that some things for example i think one of the proposals whether it's within the one acres or the other homes if they have an existing sprinkler system and the requirement is now that they would have to cap them off that's certainly not more restrictive because that Then we have a sprinkler system in there. The percolation is not more restrictive, the 10-inch percolation. So there are some things that I'm not sure which Commissioner Segrist is thinking is more restrictive or not, but those are perfectly fine.

Yeah, no, those are fine, but it's the front yard restrictions and so forth, as well as a lot of the installation requirements and so on.

there's a under um line 161 where applicability it refers to all the single family properties of one acre or less comply with the state standard as amended regarding the artificial turf all other properties within the city must comply with the requirements of this paragraph 15 which is what comes after that um Elizabeth and I did speak and we'll speak again about um putting a clarifying item maybe under B as a sixth and there might have been another place but we talked about it um but she and I are going to speak before Tuesday we just haven't had a chance this week uh do you have anything else

My other questions were on percolation rates and I just need to do some additional research on that in terms of what constitutes an average percolation rate on normal grass here in Lake Worth Beach. So that can be compared to what we are requiring.

Yeah, that was in there. It was 30 something per something perc. This is right.

I'm like, I think I've read that somewhere. Mom Baker Water Utilities. I'm not sure if it made it into the final copy of the ordinance, but I did provide all that data to William and Elizabeth when we were talking about writing it, and I'd be happy to pass that along. But average would be, you know, we have very sandy soil here, so it's easy for water to get dispersed underground, taken away. I don't want to say a number off the top of my head without checking, but I can pass that along.

Thank you.

Thanks, Vaughn. Any other turf questions on my left? All right, Mr. McVoy?

Yeah. i would i'm not going to get into the all the details and the legal aspects of whether we're more restrictive less restrictive all those things that that the legal department can deal with but i'd like us as a commission to think about the big picture which we talked about the other day that um when Ms. Baker went up to the workshop on rainfall intensity and rainfall expected changes, and they talked about things that other communities are able to do to increase infiltration. And it was pointed out, we were reminded, I think, which most of us certainly know, we can't do most of those things because we do not have swales along roads other than Boutwell Road. We have a little bit, which we're already using for that purpose. but most of the city does not have open space that can be used to increase infiltration therefore what we do on properties mostly residential properties is very influential on what happens to our storm water and influential on what happens to our water supply and um That should be a guiding part, particularly because we put in there, as we always do, and the attorney tells us that we are allowed to suddenly get soil physics degrees, all of us, and determine that something is in the best interest of the public health, safety, and general welfare of the city. There is no way that I can, I mean, it would be a professional malpractice on my part as a soils guy and particularly a soil physics guy, which deals with this sort of stuff. to say that any form of artificial turf is in the public interest, safety and general welfare, particularly in our city, given our geometry and the fact the stormwater concerns, the fact that our stormwater discharges directly to the Lake Worth Lagoon, that we have a legal responsibility to not pollute excessively. Here's some detail on infiltration rate. I appreciate Commissioner Segrist's more detailed interest in that. infiltration is very much a function of what's happening at the surface of the soil it's not just if i take a cylinder of soil put it in the lab and try to push water through it um it's not even necessarily a field test of it because especially in florida it varies a lot with water repellency and all of you i think i've mentioned this before all of you can try it at home with your potted plants um when you first put water on it the water beads up it may even look like it's wetting up the surface if you peel back a little bit of it it's not wetting at all and the relation to artificial turf is that artificial turf heats up way more it does not produce any organic matter it kills organic matter the dark stuff that makes sandy soils useful to grow things and especially to filter stuff out. So what we're doing every time we allow artificial turf is we are increasing the water repellency, decreasing the infiltration, and decreasing the one thing that protects our water supply and increases your infiltration, the organic matter at the surface. so keep that in mind i understand that we're restricted by the state on what we can do but keep in mind that our city is a little bit different because of how it's laid out and we do as elected officials have an obligation to look out for the public safety health and welfare and there is no way to argue that artificial turf helps us and that it hurts us What you want to do with that is up to you, but be aware of the scientific background behind it.

Thank you, Ms. Malika.

My question is, my backup still shows that the tree board was supposed to review this on the 18th of August. Did they ever do that?

Yes, they did, and they did not recommend approval.

Do you remember what the vote was?

I think it was a motion was made to recommend approval and it failed completely. So it was unanimous in making the recommendation by default.

Can we make sure that that staff report is updated before the meeting and reflected on such?

And also, are they making that judgment based on state law or based on best practices for trees?

It's basically best practices for landscape and living landscape in the city. Staff at the time did explain the preemption and information from the state, and they made the recommendation.

So basically they're recommending that natural grass is better, which we kind of know. And also, it doesn't mean that everyone's going to go out and get artificial turf tomorrow. You know, knowing this, and I think that Mr. McBoy educating us about this may, you know, make people think twice about doing that to the environment. But because of the state preemption, we can't stop people if they want to, is basically what we're saying. Right. Okay. Sarah, go ahead. Your light's still on. All right. And then Anthony, and then let's move on to the next one.

Yep. Sorry. I'll try to make it, again, I don't need an answer from legal right now, but florida friendly landscape as required under florida statute is very different from the florida friendly landscape as defined by the university program right per florida statute you cannot prevent somebody from including a florida friendly landscape design in their site plan this goes particular to commercial And the courts, I believe, have ruled that artificial turf may be or is allowed to be a part of a Florida-friendly landscape site plan. So I would be interested in having legal's opinion on whether or not that works. will be a conflict so we have the preemption on the residential but we also have a pre-existing state statute that says in a site plan they can do florida friendly landscapes according to state statute and artificial turf whether people agree or disagree whether it's good or not is allowed to be part of that and so my concern is that by imposing these regulations that we might be falling afoul with that i i i don't know um we do allow for i think a good amount in this particular statute so we might be okay but i just want to be um fully prepared on that side

support clarity in six months maybe less you're going to be seeing a whole new landscape code environmental regulations for the ldrs which you graciously approved for us and they're making headways and they're incorporating all the aspects of the artificial turf and state statutes and um removing a lot of the contradictions between the administrative code chapter 2 and the ldr's chapter 23 and likely what you brought up um we just I tuned in a little bit late to a meeting unfortunately um we were taught they were talking a little bit about what you just brought up to make sure that the new landscape code is compliant with all the state regulations and preemptions

So basically, this is kind of safe for now, but we're moving towards a more exact answer. So don't split hairs today when we're going to be revisiting.

I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm just saying you're going to see a whole new one soon.

Okay, good. Go ahead, please. All right, Von Baker Water Utilities again. So I just looked back to find my own input on this ordinance and to generalize for simplicity, permeability of regular undeveloped land in our area would have 20 plus plus inches per hour permeability. I think that to allow artificial turf to be considered 50% impervious for the purpose of site requirements, we would want to require the maximum 10 inches per hour for all levels and also recommended that we add in the NRCS web soil survey for the permitting requirements, so. What is the answer?

Does that work for you? You got your answer? Okay, good. All right, moving on to where are we next? July 4th, right? And then North K, is that what you were speaking on? Okay, Commissioner Maliga. Yeah.

Um, in reflecting on this conversation for the consideration of deed restriction for the North K, um, this is what happens when we have staff turnover and we have people not following up with things that we've done as a city. And I, I am not in favor of supporting this. And I think that the owner had plenty of time to do what was right. Um, but I don't have any, I don't have, I'm a little frustrated that we don't have a process for when these things happen, like a calendar, a tick of time. I've talked to a legal with it. And I think that we need to go back and look at all of these that have been done in the past 15 years and make sure that they're on par with where they need to be.

Okay. Mr. Segrich.

I 100% agree with Commissioner Malaiga on that. In addition, I think this also affects not only deed restrictions, but our revocable permits that have expired as well. I know it might not be deed restrictions per se, But there've been development restrictions and clawbacks in some of our contracts and CRA contracts that I believe have been released premature. And we've ended up with projects that have never happened. So not only a process, like you said, to go back and make sure we hit these dates and double check on these. But also making sure that if we're having a deed restriction or a contractual restriction on a sale of a city property or city or a property, it better require that the project be finished in a timeline, not just permits applied for. Because that's kind of the situation that we're in with some of these where... Unfortunately, they cleared that and then board said, okay, you're good. And now the city has very valuable parcels that were, I hate to say given away, but they were sold at well under market that are not developed. So 100% agree.

Okay. Let's see. Next item is the law enforcement agreement.

Mr. McVoy.

um i think my concern well i have a lot of concerns here but um yeah it comes as a shock i'm sure um I have a lot of concerns that we as a commission would deviate from our past practice that we've had as commissions in Lake Worth for probably somewhere between 11 and 15 years, where we typically do a one-year contract. And part of the reason for that is it gives flexibility to make changes without having to do something drastic. ah we're leaving pbso um it just allows for an annual revisiting make sure everything's on course and it also allows for different commissions who are there to have an influence on it um and uh i so i i have a real problem with with a three-year contract um when we that's not what we've done in the past and i don't see any reason to start with it now the other um major procedural problem that i have is i have asked a number of questions i've gotten some answers to them thank you to all who've helped mr perry was quite helpful with that and captain karn was partially helpful But I have not received answers to all of the questions that I've raised. I have a feeling that there may be other commissioners that also have questions. I can't speak to whether they've all been answered or not. But in any case, And they're important questions. This is our biggest contract, $15 million. It's the biggest contract that we do. It's a noticeable percentage of our budget. And the backup material... defining what we are agreeing on was not posted by the deadline that we have established as part of our rules and i think the combination of commissioners not having fulsome answers to things um and just we don't meet our we're not meeting our rules I don't quite understand how my colleagues would be in favor of putting it on the agenda when we have said that we should follow our rules and we know what the rules are. The rules are if the backup is not ready 11 days before by the Friday, then it doesn't go on, it waits till the next one. I would be interested to hear from my colleagues how they feel about, well, I mean, first, factually, is my statement true that the backup was not available? I believe it to be because we've had emails that the red line contract came back Tuesday or Wednesday. Some more information came along yesterday. That clearly is not a level in days before. But if somebody thinks I'm factually mistaken there, I'd be happy to hear that. If I'm not factually mistaken, I would like to hear from my colleagues why they feel it's okay to violate our rules. So I'd kind of like to hear that from everybody.

Okay, thanks. I think Sarah's first.

I don't know when you got the contract. I know when I got the contract and all my questions have been answered. My only concern to staff was page three under E. Wait, hold on. Page three. Okay. under commission meetings at no charge board and committee meetings i asked to include the cra meetings because the cra has no security here they do meet here in this room and i think that it's important with that door being open um so that was my only concern is that we spelled out the cra as well even though it says board and committee some people could say well they're technically their own board um but that was my only question i did respond to mr perry's um inquiry and if i thought that or if i felt that

this should be moved and i don't i think that this needs to be moved forward and voted on thank you mr segerich uh thank you on page 13 um in the top paragraph um talking about the trade well then before you go into your detail i'll adjust that you are going to yeah yeah oh sarah said because i don't want us to forget that oh this is right yeah yeah i wholeheartedly agree do you are you okay with it saying cra

I'm still looking for an answer from my commissioners, what their feeling is about violating.

I don't want to skip. Well, I'll answer your question, but I don't want to skip things because we won't remember to go back to them. I know us. So the CRA and when it says board and committee meetings, does that mean like just the quasi-judicial ones or the tree board and the education board? And so I kind of a little bit more clarity. It doesn't have to be clarity in here just for us, maybe.

Just to get an overview, I had a conversation with Captain Karn and the lieutenant on Wednesday, and I brought up the concern about CRA and said he was going to go back and take a look at it and look at how many resources that would be available. He didn't think it was going to be a problem. That's what he told me on Wednesday.

Okay. We should double check for the other ones because you've got the business advisory board, you've got the education.

But what I'm doing is I guess sort of mixed reviews because I thought the issue was any board, we were trying to adopt that any board that's meeting here in city hall that they try to get someone here. Okay.

So, okay. I forgot that the- That was what I'm- What about the education task force and the tree board? Don't they meet here? i think i think they meet down here in the um conference uh yeah do you feel that you i mean do you think that there needs to talk hold on i'm sorry yeah do you think that you need an officer here for those at this time now okay and i'm i i can't imagine that the tree board would but if they speak up then we can find out but i wouldn't think so i just want to make sure that we're so we put in the cra and just to be fair and address captain carmen's concerns

I guess like when we had the nine to five budget workshops, he was concerned about taking a staff off the road for eight, nine hours. But like I tried to reassure him, most of the board meetings from six to eight or nine, whatever the case might be. So that's why you think it wouldn't be a problem. Well, most of them, but that's what the discussion was on Wednesday.

Okay. All right. Great. Okay. Now back to Commissioner Segrist.

Thank you. Page 13 at the top. Hold on.

Hold on. We got to get there.

where it says agreement for up to one year, it was supposed to be agreement for a minimum of one year if needed. So the concept that we had talked about last meeting was that we wanted to ensure that they give us at least a year transition. To address Commissioner McVoy's concerns, I do agree with you that the backup was not done in time according with our policy. However, I think we do need to examine our policy surrounding things like contract negotiations and leases and other items. Number one, I would like to see us have a policy where this starts 90 to 120 days. prior to the expiration of the contract, meaning that the commission, if we are going to have to review and give feedback on a contract or lease or someone that's up for renewal, we have 90 to 120 days. That in and of itself eliminates a lot of this urgency, artificially created urgency. The second half of that is a matter of efficiency. So I firmly believe that when we have a great discussion on an item and we have to continue it to the very next meeting or trying to get through it, we've already received all of the initial backup. The public's already received all that initial backup. What we are doing with this today is going over our changes that we discussed at the last public meeting. So I actually think for contract negotiations or just in general, things that we continue to the next meeting, I think that the publication deadline should be the Friday immediately preceding that meeting, which gives people four extra days to look at what we discussed in the meeting. Or if they choose to attend the meeting or they can watch it online, it's all there and available. But to me, This discussion, and the reason why I think, Mr. McVoy, it's acceptable, is this is a continuation of the previously noticed, previously published backup and materials with our changes from that meeting. So I don't see any new backup in here that we didn't have the last meeting. And I understand we all got to ask a lot more questions, which is great. And if we want to share those answers with the public, we certainly are welcome to do so. I've shared a lot of my question answers with constituents that's asked me. So that's where I stand on this. But I do appreciate you saying about the rules. I agree, but I believe our rules are broken. And so I would like to see them changed with a 90 to 100 and Tony day, as well as if we're continuing something, it's the Friday before. And then we don't have to worry about it.

Go ahead.

Thank you. it is a little bit i i appreciate the the reasoning and i think the um the idea that for things that we negotiate particularly the bigger ones that we have a 90 to 120 day lead time on it and start in early so there isn't an artificial urgency i 100 support that uh idea um i've raised it other years with exactly this contract and i was sort of told well It's too late now. Come back next year. And here we are. I have conceptually a lot of difficulty of saying that we have rules, but we aren't going to follow it because we think the rule is broken. That's a little convenient and a little over the top. uh either you have rules and you follow the rules and you're committed to following the rules or you don't have rules um we do have a rule and i would argue that yes we had some materials available but and i don't uh ms malega said she had received it differently my email is from tuesday Oh, okay. Well, I see that my email from Glenn is from August 25th saying here's the red line back from EBSO. That is clearly a pretty key part of the backup and that the public needs the same 11 days that we give for much smaller items, they should have at least that. I find it concerning that we would say for our biggest contract, hey, why don't we just decide that the rule is broken and not follow it? if it was some minor item you know should we plan a green buttonwood or should we plan a purple whatever uh okay you know maybe but this is a pretty big contract it has a lot of influence um so i i i do have a problem with that

okay thank thank you um mr steven nothing okay i responded to the email that was asked because it was sent to all of us regarding we if we thought that this was um too hasty and my my response to that email although i didn't reply all was that it was something that was already on the schedule we already had started the conversation we had four hours of conversation we all went through this red line about four times and we knew what was coming back to us it came back to us a week before the meeting and i think that's that's plenty of time for this um if it was oh hey guys we need to throw a big contract on for next tuesday's meeting no way but this was something that we had already started disgusting discussing and i don't see anything that has changed between last week's meeting and Tuesday's meeting. So except for the red line thing, and that's the only thing we asked them to come back with. And at the meeting, we said we were going to bring it back on the 1st. So it was noticed that it was going to be back on the 1st, and the only change was the red line. So I'm OK with that.

All right. Let's move on, because I don't think we're going to change any minds here.

I see the mayor on, but I don't see her thing. So let's move on with that.

I would like to raise separate from the procedural a concern that I believe I sent to all of, or sent to the city manager and asked to send to the commission a while back that, and I think I mentioned it recently in my liaison comments, that there was a ruling from the Eastern District in Michigan of the US District Courts that made it very clear that we do have authority to decide the degree of local law enforcement involvement in immigration issues. This federal government has the authority to themselves carry out immigration issues, but they do not have the authority, according to that ruling very clearly, They do not have the authority to tell us how our local enforcement does it. And it concerns me greatly that PBSO, our contractor, did not ask us when they signed on to a 287 agreement that very clearly is recognized in criminology research across the country. That involvement negatively influences local law enforcement and that was specifically referred to in the eastern district one um and it concerns me a lot that there is nothing in the contract about pbso's involvement either as a county-wide organization or as the district 14 part of it on immigration And what I am seeing repeatedly, I do have to confess to a misspoke. I believe at a previous meeting I said that 70% of the detainees on immigration do not have a criminal record. I misspoke. I saw something more recently. It's 77%. So nearly 80% of the people do not meet the stated criteria that the federal government has repeatedly said, we're going after the criminals, the worst of the worst. And it is simply in 80% of the case, not true. That is a problem that we are signing a contract that we know diminishes the service that we get. we cannot know you know pretend ignorance oh we didn't know that we need to do something about the local law enforcement involvement at that we didn't know that it diminishes it's known to diminish local law enforcement and so we didn't say anything about it mr mcgoy i'm going to interrupt because we have less than five minutes and we still have items to cover it's pre-agenda meeting pretty important topic

Okay. Let's move on to the budget amendment for the water treatment plant. Does anybody have questions on that? All right. And the next one is the community greening tree giveaway. Ms. Maliga.

I've attended a couple of these and my concern about this event is do they verify that these are going to be, not just that, but, hate to tell i actually know like five people who've gotten the trees and they've just stayed in the bucket and not been planted so my concern is just as much as i i'm all about the tree canopy because i hate walking in complete sun would we be better off spending this money increasing our own canopy and areas along our sidewalks that are often used for kids to get back and forth to school around our green spaces and around our parks than the $10,000 to give trees away at an event. I mean, it's a great look and it's a good PR stunt. I just don't know if they're really being planted and if we're really seeing the fruits of your labor, if you will. So that was my only concern is the follow through.

Okay, go ahead, Anthony.

i agree with commissioner malega i brought up in the in the past um thoughts on a proactive program for promoting tree canopy where it actually had measured results um not saying this is like the perfect idea but something to the effect of you know if you do plant a mature shade tree in your front yard at year three or so on you get some sort of either tax break or credit or this or that but it would be verified that that indeed has added to the canopy i also support looking at um summer roads and the medians and so on and and would rather invest in some irrigation and getting some canopy to those areas um and i i've been to several of these and i will concur with your observations um i just i i think we could do better than than this okay um three minutes left mr mcvoy

I mean, I find it interesting that I think we're well recognized that we as a city do not do very well on tree canopy. It's been measured various different ways. It's certainly known in the community. i've i've heard this objection to tree giveaways multiple times will you have a hundred percent efficiency will some people leave a pot by the on the porch and not get around to planting it as quickly as would be optimal yes i'm sure that will happen um i can tell you i've got a bunch that are three times as tall as i am that came from tree giveaways um and i'm not all that thorough about doing everything on the right time. But they've done fine. That's part of the advantage of native trees. You do need to water them. I would certainly support some sort of addition to the program where somebody is in charge of, and people know when they receive the trees, maybe they sign a little something. Hey, we agree that somebody will come by in a month or a week or give me a call. Hey, have you planted your tree yet? um do you need any help with where to put it do you need any help and here's a reminder put your irrigation in before you go to the tree giveaway so you know it's there um all those things are helpful but uh and it's fine to encourage the city to do well but the city in fact has taken trees out of the medians and has cut down trees where they maybe shouldn't have um so i'm not sure that that's the right route

Okay. Well, we'll talk about that more on Tuesday. Excuse me. If we went your route, do you think that the Tree and Landscape Board would be the ones to do that? Then they really would be the tree police.

that would be uncomfortable i think as a citizen i mean if it was calling and and saying hey um and and let people know at the time they picked them up we understand that human nature is what human nature is and people are busy and you don't want to leave it sitting too long the sooner your planet the less root bound blah blah blah So we're going to give you a call. Somebody is going to give you a call in a month, whether it's community greening or whether it's some volunteer or whether it's Sarah, I believe, wants to call about trees. I think I signed her up for that.

OK, I'm just sometimes sometimes we come up with suggestions and I don't think it's a bad suggestion, but I don't I'm not putting it on staff.

But if there's 150 trees that we can get for $10,000, imagine what we could do in our city with 150 trees. That's what I'm saying. And we have the knowledge.

Yeah, but community greening probably gets 150 trees for $10,000 because they plant millions of trees.

But I'm saying if we could get the trees from them, do the project, but not give them away and actually us use them within our public spaces.

It's probably not part of their grant to give them to cities. But I hear what you're saying.

And I don't think we have staff to plan all of those. That's what the tree boards were getting.

Okay, so we'll talk about that more on Tuesday. And do you have anything you want to add? All right, thank you guys for a great meeting. It's two o'clock on the dot. We are going to have our next budget meeting starting at 2.10, because we have to have a comfort break before that. And we'll see you then. All right, thanks.

Yeah, it's 100% fine.

Thank you. That clock is one minute. Oh, there we go. Now it's 210. All right. Melissa, let us know, please, when you're live. Do I have an agenda for this one?

We're still live. I didn't stop it and restart it. We normally just keep going.

Oh, I did not know that. I apologize. Thank you. All right. So now we're going to move into. Do you really think we should do that? I think we should stop and start a new one so that when you put it up, it's different.

Yeah, but you it's all I mean, I'll do that if you want me to end it, I'll end it and restart. But everybody's on here. Everybody would have to sign in again.

okay i just can i just if you were gonna if people were looking for the all four budget meetings they'd have to watch the pre-agenda meeting no they would not no okay all right that's all i wanted to make sure bless you um okay so then we will continue on with the yes it is 2 11 and we are continuing with the budget workshop i thought you were going to say we are alive let's hope so um okay so we are going to do the fourth budget workshop of the city of lake worth beach can i have the roll call please

Yes. Mayor Resch is probably boarding her plane. Vice Mayor Mimi Naig.

I'm present.

Commissioner Sarah Maliga. Live and in living color. Commissioner Christopher McVoy.

Here.

Commissioner Anthony Segrich.

Present. All right. We have the Pledge of Allegiance led by me.

Hi.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the flag

for which we stand, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, thank you. And I see it says we're going to do Stantec. Is that what we're going to do first? Okay.

I'm going to provide a quick recap of all three workshops and then Stantec will come in.

Okay. And I know the mayor isn't here, but let's just pretend she is. Speak louder. Slower.

Okay.

I'm channeling the mayor. Like you really have to get the microphone close to your mouth. It feels uncomfortable. I know. I know, but we.

It touched my lips, but okay.

Is this good? Oh my God. That's so great. Excellent job.

All right. Good morning, Vice Madam Mayor, Commissioners, and my name is Candace Dale, and welcome to Budget Workshop number four. I am the Senior Budget Analyst here in the Finance Department. And as soon as we get it up, okay.

You know what they also have, Candace? They're like microphone condoms.

I had one. Okay.

That's it, but I'm... Yeah, because then you can get really close.

Right.

I remember them from... well remember that from the from coving i do remember i'm not i'm really not trying to be juvenile that's what they're called okay go ahead i'm not trying to be juvenile you stop sorry

Okay, I'm sorry. During today's workshop, Stantec will present its financial analysis of the general fund, the enterprise fund, and the special revenue funds. But before they start, like I mentioned, I'm just going to give a recap of the first three workshops and then they will come in. First, they will present the cost allocation analysis before they do their financial analysis. Okay next Thank you okay so during budget workshop number one we had approximately 6.1 million and supplementals that were approved by Commission and that's just showing you a breakdown by fund. And workshop number two we had approximately 1.2 million and supplementals that were approved. And workshop number three, we had approximately 856,000 of supplementals that were approved. Overall in total, 8.3 million in supplementals that have been approved so far. Also during budget workshop number three, we also went over the CIP and the next three slides, which are slides eight through 10 shows you a breakdown of those projects of fiscal year 2027. However, I do need to correct an error that was made. You guys don't have this in your printout, but on slide number 10 for local sewer fund, total funded should be 5.2 million and not the 2.4 million that's shown.

Total sewer fund. I have 5.2.

Local sewer. But if you look in the column where it says total funded on slide number 10. Oh, it should be 5.2 million. The three and the 2 million was fully funded. Yes. Wait, what? Right. Correct. And it's zero unfunded. Wait, where?

at the top where it says local sewer fund okay so we're looking at vice mayor this should not be here add this to this add the blue column to the green it shouldn't say unfunded correct so move the unfunded over and it becomes three million that becomes two million and it's all from borrowing no point out what they're doing

yeah you got it yeah i think i got to that yeah okay so total not identified for funding is not there we're moving that over because we have identified funding for it correct all right thank you you're welcome okay

okay and so slide 11 i corrected it here on this slide that you're seeing live but in your copy if you want to make the changes you can so it should be a total of 78 million 964 and 986 dollars of funded projects it's on the board nine six four nine eighty six and then unfunded and unfunded four hundred and seventy eight thousand seven hundred Got it.

478,700. What's the 380,000 from the general fund that we didn't fund?

Mainly, I think it has to do with the police fencing.

Oh, that's right. Okay.

And the cultural plaza turf.

Got it. Thank you.

What was that last one?

That we didn't want to turf at the cultural plaza.

it's not that it's unfunded we didn't approve the projects correct right maybe next time we just don't put them as unfunded if we didn't approve the project oh i see what you're saying because that just makes it seem like we approved it but right but there's no money yeah we should take that out every meeting we get better and better i know right

So instead, you could just rewrite the column as not approved. Could we do that?

CIP not approved, yeah.

CIP not approved. So then the 2.7 for the sewer fund was approved.

That becomes zero.

Becomes zero.

Oh, right, right, right. Okay. So the only thing is the fence. Okay.

And the beach fund for the turf at the beach that we didn't approve. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, that's easy. You don't have to change the thing, just the column title. Look at us working together.

Okay, and that is it for my presentation. If you guys have no further questions, I will go ahead and I'll turn it over to Pete from Stantec, and he will walk you through the cost allocation. And then David and Nick, I believe, will start the financial analysis afterwards.

Okay. I hear they're on.

They're all on, they're all zoomies? Yes.

Okay. Hello, can you hear me? Sort of, it sounds like you're in a, in a tunnel.

Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know what to do about that. Maybe it's my fan. Hold on one second.

Like you have two microphones on or something.

Is that any better?

Try again. Introduce yourself and we'll tell you if it sounds okay.

How about that? Is that any better?

Yeah, that's good.

Okay, cool. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Peter Napoli. I am a senior manager with Stantec, and I'm going to be presenting just a few quick slides summarizing the results of the indirect cost allocation. I was responsible for leading that charge on that component of the study, and then I'll be turning it over to Dave to go over the other components of the revenue sufficiency analyses. We'll start, I don't know who's controlling the slides. I think maybe Angela, but okay. Here's my first slide. So what is an indirect cost allocation? Essentially, the indirect cost allocation distributes the overhead costs that live in the general fund budget to the benefiting enterprise or special revenue funds within the city.

Peter, can I just stop you for one second? Mr. City Manager, do you think we can get a copy? Is this in here? Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I didn't go far enough in the book. All right. I found it. Sorry. Thank you. Go ahead.

Yeah, no problem. So essentially the departments that benefit other funds but are housed within the general fund budget. So things like finance, purchasing, HR, commission, manager, etc. There is a industry standard for allocating these costs amongst the citywide benefiting funds. And it was time, the city identified it was time to update your indirect cost allocation. review how it was being allocated and provide recommendations on new updated allocation amounts to incorporate into the budget. So off to the right there, just list out some of the allocation methods that we use in that gray box. But in the middle on the yellow box, we're basically saying that your current allocation was just based on budget. So the budget of the electric fund, the budget of the sewer fund, et cetera, was used as a percentage of the overall city budget to allocate costs previously. And then we're offering refinements and more specific allocation method for some of those departments. Both ways are justified, but this is kind of a more advanced and more accepted procedure around the state. So using a mixture of budget and employees and then direct allocations that came from a department interviews and then weighted allocations across all departments. Those are the methods that we use, and then in the next slide I'll show you how we apply them to the different departments that we allocated. So starting with the internal auditor department or division cost center, if you will, we use the budget to allocate this cost. And then we can reveal the next one. Human resources, public service. Next slide. Admin. No, just the next component. Oh, OK. Human resources.

No, I think we do need to be on the next one. I'm sorry. It's not reflecting on the screen in here. Is the screen being shared?

Oh, yeah. On the shared screen, I can see the right slide. But I can see in your video that you have the first slide. So that's all right.

Yeah. Maybe unshare and share again.

Okay. One second. I'm sorry.

Julian. Julian.

There he is.

Candice Jones- hey Angela just letting you know we're going to control the slides so just let us know when to move forward.

Andrew Clark- Okay i'll give you a cue to Thank you candace.

Candice Jones- Okay, thank you.

Andrew Clark- So you can you can move forward to the next slide.

Candice Jones- One second okay.

Finance is asking for a little bigger allocation if you really want to slide move forward.

Okay, I think we have it now.

Okay, yeah, I can pick up where I left off. So in the blue there, it shows where we applied the number of employees or number of full-time equivalents that are housed within each of the enterprise and special revenue funds. That number was used to allocate departments like human resources, public services admin, and then public services custodial. We can move to the next allocation. The finance allocation was a more in-depth method where we actually went through each of the activities by staff member within the finance department and then estimated their time spent on each of the enterprise funds. So there's a lot of different finance activities Depending on the activity, they may spend more time supporting one enterprise fund versus another. So there's a more special in-depth allocation method that we used for the finance department. The weighted allocation, these are the departments that You can't really use a direct allocation method for allocating costs. So the best possible use is a weighted scenario. So based on the weighting of the budget allocation, the employees and the finance allocation, we applied the overall weighted allocation to things like the city commission, manager, city clerk, city attorney, And then some additional expenses like clear govs and ADP subscription pricing. And then there was one more, the Community Sustainability Admin Department. Based on an interview with their staff, we identified that the utilities and the building fund benefit, but the other funds, I believe the golf course and the beach were excluded from their allocation because they didn't receive a direct benefit from that staff cost. This screen here shows the updated results versus your previous year's allocation and the difference or change by department or by enterprise fund that's affected. So this is the amount that they would budget, the electric fund budgets as an expense, and the general fund would budget as a revenue. So the updated allocation for electric went to 2.7 million, water went to 1.4 million, local sewer to $419,000, regional sewer $576,000, stormwater $349,000, and then golf course up to $190,000, refuse up to $586,000, beach up to $397,000, and then building up to $218,000. So overall, there were decreases in some funds, there were increases in others. And when we go to the next slide, you can see the combined result is a net decrease in the general fund reimbursement based on the updated allocations. Based on identifying a few departments that we removed from being allocated, we identified there was no direct benefit. There may have been indirect benefits, but you want to be on the conservative side with these allocations. The updated general fund reimbursement amount is about $6.8 million. That's down by about $1.3 million from the previous reimbursement. And this is already all incorporated into your budget. It's incorporated into the financial forecasts that are going to be presented after this. Yeah, this the chart on this page just kind of shows it in different manner visually for you to see the Gray is the previous allocation. The black is the updated allocation based on our study. And that's the conclusion of the slides that I had for you, but I'd be happy to answer any questions.

oh sorry chris go ahead um okay i just want to make sure i understand exactly what we did we we had a procedure for allocating um that was a i guess by proper procedures nationally recognized but it was also recognized that there are other approaches which is the gray box on the first slide allocation methods If I understand that gray slide correctly, There's a variety of methods, or there are a variety of methods, and this slide doesn't have a number, but it's the second one that's got red and blue and green and black and gray on it. If I understand that slide correctly, we apply different methodologies to different departments. Is that correct?

That's correct, based on the nature of those departments.

So, the skeptic among us might say that this is a fairly subjective process if one said okay i'm going to pick a methodology and i'm going to apply it across the board and crank the numbers whether it's employees or building space or whatever it is crank the numbers one size fits all on the algorithm and whatever comes out is whatever comes out then you could argue that that was pretty objective But given that we chose different methodologies for different departments, it to me leaves open a little bit that, you know, There is no 100% right answer. You noodle around and pick the methodologies that get you to where you want to be. And I know that it's been a concern of Mr. Liberty for a long time that he felt the electric utility was overpaying for the services. I don't have an opinion one way or the other on that. I'm aware of his concern. And I see that the big changes were electric and water. I guess what I'm looking for is a bit of a defense of how did you, you or whoever came up with the choice of methodologies, could somebody else come along and use different methodologies and come up with Uh, we come, you know, essentially the same thing we did in 2026, or we move it quite differently. How does, how do, how do I get convinced that this was a very objective process and we're now better other than Vaughn and, and, um, Mr. Liberty are very happy now. Cause it helps them out. I, um, not that I object to that, but I just like to understand better.

Yes, sir. I understand your point. And I would say that it is to respond. I would say that it's actually more commonplace in the state to use this approach where there's different methodologies applied to different departments based on the nature of the department to use a one size fits all like just budget allocation for all departments is less common in my experience. When we're updating these allocations, an older approach where I think in some cities where it's been a number of years since they've looked at this, you may find that methodology or approach still active. But in cities that have kept their internal cost allocation programs up to date, they use more of this approach where you're looking at each of the divisions or departments that are benefiting the enterprise funds and then applying an allocation methodology that best fits the nature of their operations and their service so that the reflection of the cost is proportional to the benefit that those departments or enterprise funds are receiving from those services.

and then a question thank you for the clarification that that partly it's an older what we were using is an older approach that some cities have moved away from i would point out that uh the biggest changes all were related to our enterprise funds which many cities don't have those funds. So the other changes were fairly minor. And I suspect that a lot of places don't deal with both the local and regional sewer that were a little unusual on that one too. I've been corrected, very unusual, which I'll accept the correction. I guess my question for... the folks who look out for the general fund here, we took a little bit of a hit. Are we fully comfortable with that? The assertion is the funds that had their costs reduced um felt that they weren't getting quite as much service as they were paying for i would think that might be somewhat of an objective opinionated situation that there might be more than one opinion on right um so this was the first time we've ever done a cost allocation study uh prior to this we were just using whatever schedule we had uh what when we got on board

uh so we wanted to make this official we've never had a cost allocation study before and we wanted we wanted to have a third party to conduct this cost allocation study based on best practices and this is and this is the result of that and those the numbers that you had that you see um those decreases they're already incorporated in the general fund and we're and we're pretty much balanced i think we're in a good spot

more what i mean i i understand that they're incorporated the budget that we've gone through the first three meetings reflects this reduced general fund contribution and we didn't dry up and blow away so i guess that's good yes there might have been some things we might have funded if we had another 1500 right 1.5 million um but uh but we didn't i guess i'm looking for some sort of reassurance from somebody

that that we're pretty comfortable with yes we are all right i don't think they would present it to us like this if they weren't comfortable with us well we just wanted to be fair basically to all of all the other departments because yes and we've heard that actually from from in the past where yeah it's equitable not equal equitable third chair um okay um mr segrich

I think it's great it's exactly what we asked for makes logical sense and I'm very excited that we were able to do this thank you can I answer a question does anybody else smell something with burning like heat I don't smell it you're the one sitting next to the wine cooler maybe it's that thing uh yeah we booked I don't know what it was but it smelled smoky I don't smell as much as anymore so maybe why don't we

okay i don't let us know if you feel like you're in danger okay uh what's up next we are gonna do next will be the financial analysis also from stanton okay all right now we've got david yep that is me all right hi david good afternoon good afternoon If you guys were waiting through our other budget meetings, I sincerely apologize. We have come to the conclusion that we're going to have a specific Stantec day of the budget so that you don't have to wait around those days. So thank you for your patience.

Yeah, no problem. It's always helpful for us to gain an understanding of what's going on.

Yeah, but it's a lot.

I appreciate that.

And we only have to pay you for one day, too.

Yeah. All right. Well... Pleasure to be here. We're going to go through the integrated financial sustainability analysis. And so first, we're going to talk about the enterprise funds. Not a lot of background on each fund. We're just going to jump right into the numbers, but we'll go through the electric fund, water and local sewer. We're going to talk about the sustainability analysis as well as cost of service. So I'll talk about how we've allocated cost and looked at your rate design. And then we have some recommendations in terms of the actual rate structure. And then we'll look at the stormwater fund refuse and then wrap up with the governmental funds. Oops. And I just realized I am not on the agenda slide, but now I am. So this is our agenda. So first off on the electric for each of the funds per the direction from the commission last time, we've now shown what the prior rate plan was. So just to kind of refresh everybody's memory, when we're looking at these panels, we've essentially got up at the top on each of them, what the adjustments to the rates or fees or charges would be. This is what we talked about last year, was a 6%, 5%, 5%, 5, 3, and then kind of a step down in the future years. This gives you the impact to the typical residential bill at 1,000 kilowatt hours per month. And so that's the monthly bill. And then down at the bottom, we have all of our of diagnostics and the one that we've typically focused on is working capital fund where we're trying to maintain at least six months in the fund and so with this plan because of the cost decreases and some efficiencies in expenditures in the electric fund if we were to keep with the plan we talked about last year we would essentially be slightly above the target by fiscal year 29 just about at the target in fiscal year 28 Down at the bottom, just a reminder in terms of the capital, we've got kind of the last component of the SHRIP, which is about $45 million, which is going to be debt funded. Yes.

Bother you for a quick one. Could you real quickly on the expenses by type graph, reminders, PS, OMV, OMF, at one point debt I know, but the others I don't remember.

Yep, so PS is personnel services. OMV is basically operating costs that are variable. So that would be like purchase power, things of that sort. OMF would be operating costs that are more fixed. And then you obviously do have debt service and then there's any transfers out would be the transfers to the general fund.

and which we just addressed and say again what ps was i heard personal services personnel personnel all right sorry staff yep staff and uh one other question on the working capital fund um Is there a reason, and I realize it's a ways out, but one could imagine that after year 29, one might say, well, we're doing pretty well. We're building up. We've met our six months target. Why don't we back off a little bit and just sort of... that the bar is rising, tip that down a little bit. I mean, it's probably not a bad idea to have a bit of extra, but it doesn't need to keep going up that way. Could you comment on that?

Yeah, certainly. And this is, again, this is the plan from last year.

Ah, okay.

I'm going to flip over.

Yes, now I see.

Yeah, this is the current proposed plan. Given the efficiencies... given exactly my question and your way ahead of it thank you your question and as well as director liberties a little concern and just in terms of trying to keep competitive with Florida power and light he doesn't like to keep it if possible at those three percent increases so this would push things out a little bit further we wouldn't hit the target until 30 and then yeah we would maintain just above the target right

um and i imagine that that this proposed plan which moves it out a little bit further that reaching the six months target there's a benefit to reaching the six months target in terms of borrowing um maybe it doesn't apply because the borrowing is going to happen in 27 rather than 29 or 30 or 31 anyhow. And then we're also trying to balance that we would like to stay under FD&L, our blue neighbor, if we can. Correct. do you have any thoughts is is my analysis that um given that the big borrowing is 27 and then pretty much no borrowing after uh so then we don't need to worry about the bond aspect quite as much and it's kind of okay to slide out six you know a year or two yeah historically um rating agencies and issuing the debt has been you know demonstrated ability or you know commitment from

commissioners to adjust the rates which you've certainly done and you kind of have a path to reach that level so it always helps to have cash i mean they like to see so many days cash on hand and i think that trajectory towards that six months um would get you there but and i'm not sure if that important company would argue that if you were at the target now you'd get a you know better rating i think they would i probably can't opine on that but you're i think you're correct in terms of the the overall trajectory is what they're going to be looking at.

Thank you, Mr. Segrich.

Thank you. Just kind of a quick, just, I guess, procedural or just structural kind of question. The current proposal rate plan slide, that is reflective of what we had approved in the budget process, basically? Or are we looking to make changes at this point?

No, I think if I recall the first workshop, I think we had stated that we'd prefer to keep the rates from last year so we could hit the target as fast as possible. And this slide is just something that was requested from Ed Liberty. so that he could show, just to show you, based on his proposed rates, where we'll end up at the 30%.

So which one are we doing? The first or the second?

We would like you to get to choose. That's what we need. If you can, we'll need consensus from you guys. Got it.

So just structurally, as we go through this, the first slide that we're seeing on each of these is what is in the prior year. but so like with this one that's also what is in our current budget as it exists correct budget what's in the budget increase what's in the current budget increase what rate do you have in a budget i need you to come in and speak to the microphone please

Misha McNish, budget manager for electric utilities. I think the question that you're asking me is that what is what we're suggesting in the budget. And in the budget, I believe we suggested five, but Ed is pushing towards on the lower end of 3%.

I think the question was, what are the numbers? Go ahead, Anthony. You ask it. It's your question.

Which of these charts reflects what we have in our budget? As approved right now. I think the answer is nine.

Repeat that again.

Each of these charts reflects the rates that we have approved as of now in our budget.

I believe in our budget that we presented for FY27, we were more so on the 5%, if I'm correct.

Okay.

If I recall it correctly.

If that is correct, then neither of these charts represent what we have in our budget right now.

Bear with me one second. Well, no, the 5% does.

It says 6%.

It's six. OK. Then I stand corrected. Then it would be six.

Oh, I'm sorry. So six percent.

So page one, as we go through these charts, page one, this is reflected of what is actually in our budget as approved.

Yes.

OK. So for each of these funds, as we go through them, that's the case?

That's a really excellent question.

It may be different for each. I don't know. That's a Stantec question. David, I think this is important.

Yeah. My understanding, and I'm sorry if there's confusion, maybe it's just on the electric fund, was that the one, the second slide is essentially what's being proposed and should be in the budget for this particular year.

When you're saying proposed, it should be in the budget. One was proposed and the other one should be in the budget. We have two different numbers.

Correct. How do we know that if we bring the rate down to the 3% increase, how do we know that we will have enough money to cover what you guys want? Is Ed saying that he is sure that we can't with this 3%?

Correct. So originally, the directive that we were given was to look through our budget and make sure we made to look at our budget and see what we could cut down. Because originally, the directive is that we do about 10 and don't quote me. I think it's 10 to 13% below. We're like, we look at each of our funds and make sure our expenses were down. So for electric, and I'm pretty sure with the other... other departments and other divisions, we looked at what we could cut our costs and looked at what we were spending on where we weren't spending in all the divisions. And the conversation was Ed wanted to stay, as Stantec is stating, is that we wanted to stay below competitive with FP&L. So originally the budget was set at six as we went through, but we looked at it as more so towards the three is where Ed is pushing that.

which we were told that we did do that remember when the directive the commission dies what you put in what's in the budget can be covered with the three percent increase correct okay does that does that help anthony

Okay, so to the electric utility, I'm asking what what is the data that we were being presented? So my issue is, we should be being presented with this is what you guys agreed to. This is the financial forecast based on that.

But which of these slides haven't gone through these standard models yet?

No, the standard models are future forecasting, but we have went through the budgets and the rates and okay.

I guess from our perspective, we are demonstrating that with the 3%, with the budget, that we're going to generate a surplus.

Yeah, I'm not even there yet. I'm just trying to understand which of these graphs.

So the prior year rates is what you have in your budgets.

Okay.

Yes. So page one, that's what we're looking at. Page two is we're saying, hey, we can change these things and our budget is going to be safe. We're okay with that. So if you guys want to, you can adopt page two. We just wouldn't have as much overage. We just won't have as much overage.

Right. And then it will take us on next year.

I'm assuming it's going to be different for each fund, but I just want to make that perfectly clear that, okay, so our baseline that we're starting with is page one. Page two is what we could choose. It's not going to ruin our budget. Right. It's just going to give us a different future financial.

Less conservative.

So just my commentaries to this for my colleagues, I do see a lot of financial headwinds coming down. I am more of a fan of sticking to our plan of let's get the fund up to its 60% sooner rather than later. Six months. Sorry. The six months sooner rather than later. So I'm more of a plan with staying with what we have because Right now, the PCA is not doing too well, right? We just had to up that. Our storm fund is growing, but it's not there yet. I'd much rather keep this momentum to get us up to that six-month line faster.

Okay. Is this one of those screens where you can change the numbers and we can watch what happens?

Mm-hmm.

What if we put in, so six and three are three away from each other. What if we split the maybe and put 4.5? And just, because that's what we're doing. I don't know. I'm just, if we can hit it and if we can find a compromise, then that for me is always the best thing.

David, do you want to share?

Are you guys okay with that? Just to see it?

Yes. I just have to have my colleague, Nick, share his screen. He'll pull it up real quick. Can you pull it up, Nick?

i just want to see it see how quickly we can hit that six months sure and you know right with the first page we hit six months in year 29 with the second one we hit it in year 30. right so you you know you're not going to move it very far i agree with the general goal that um sooner that we get to the six-month cash reserve is better although i would like to hear something before we make our final decision from the davenport folks given that no davenport the bond people um he's probably already talked to them and made sure that it's not going to affect that i mean when well he mentioned that david mentioned he wasn't necessarily didn't want to opine on that but i think we should hear from before we finally choose the one is it going to make any likely to make any difference to that my guess is no because one of them gets there in 29 when it gets there in 30 we're borrowing the money two years before that so oh well kind of

Well, let's just see what it is at 4.5 and then we can go from there.

And I think the big difference is between page one and two is not so much what we do right now, but what we do in out years. And I think we probably all agree that we don't need to do page one where you're going way above the six months.

No, and I honestly think that we change this every year anyway. So anything past a year from now, we're going to have different people sitting up here anyway. So we really want to look at within the next, you know, I like the 10-year out, but we're not making a 10-year decision. We're making maybe a one-year definite decision and possibly two after that just to prepare us. At least that's my opinion.

So we've got it, I just need, Melissa, could you make it so that Nick Giuliano can share? Doesn't seem like he has that capability right now.

So I've tried to promote him to panelists numerous times.

There's two Nick Giulianos.

Yeah, I don't know why he's on twice. Okay, now he's rejoining as panelists, so he should be able to share. Nick, now that you're a panelist, see if you can share, because sometimes a thing pops up about like multiple people sharing, but nothing's popped up.

Yeah. All right. I shouldn't be sharing now.

Now it says your screen. I think you have to be a panelist. I think we're good now.

OK. All right. So is everybody able to see us?

Yep, we can see you.

And Nick, you need to make 28.5% if we're going to stay with the prior. to be five five five and then 30 goes to 30s at five and then 31 goes to three and then two and now if you're on that all right so this is now fully calculated that plan that we just talked about we can't hear you nick sorry can you hear me now yeah okay so this is fully calculated now

Can you scroll it down a little so we can see the top of the spreadsheet? Yes. Yep. There you go. Thanks.

Yeah. So the only thing he changed is next year.

What's the first year? Yeah. Dropping it from six to 4.5 instead of dropping it to three.

We don't get as.

You're going over it a little bit last time in 29.

Oh, it's hard to look at it when you don't have the same scale. Okay. Going over it in 29 versus hitting it in 29.

No, you're just hitting it.

Yeah. It really honestly doesn't look that different. Right. So that's what I'm saying.

It doesn't look that different. I say just continue. I would move for 6%.

You want to keep the 6? Anthony wants to keep the 6. Chris, what about you? I would drop it down a little um I'd probably drop it to five I would just show the big six right now to be safe and then you can always come back eight months from now and drop it yep actually can you can we adjust the rates in the middle of you yeah okay I just wasn't sure okay so we have two for six one for uh maybe five um why don't we just keep it at six and we'll go from there we just need a consensus okay consensus so consent to sex yeah i don't consent to six but okay so three to one that's a consensus and we can come back and see how it goes i mean sure and we know ed and if he had a reason for this hit what next time he's here he can explain it to us if we need to change it we can change it but right now let before we hear that i think we stick with the plan that we came up with before and we move forward so let's do water

Especially given that the storm fund is still a baby storm fund. Right. That's true. And reserves.

Cash on hand. All right. So water?

Good to go underwater. Oops, sorry.

Can you put your light up there so I can see it? Because it's hiding behind your mic. I know. I just want to make sure I can see it if he does.

The only thing before we did go to the water.

Maybe if he wanted to talk, let's go put it on.

Oh. I love the understatement. The only thing I would note is the slide is yeah that slide exactly if we do the six do you happen to know off the top of your head i'm guessing that's going to put us either at the same as fp l or maybe slightly above and i would be cautious about that it's worth a lot for us to be able to say we're below even if it isn't very much below but um does this and i know they are commissioner malega correctly points out they're a moving target also but i think they only move once a year if i'm not mistaken in january so i would be cautious okay um get somebody to check that one all right so we want to make sure that we're still below fpl david or nick do you guys know what f if fpl has already made their increase this year and if we will still remain below

I don't know off the top of my head, but we can get back to you on that.

Okay, we have an internal gentleman.

Guru.

Guru. All right, good afternoon. Jason Bailey, Assistant Director, System Operations. I don't want to speak on Mr. Liberty's behalf, but I think there may be some confusion here with that first chart. That first chart was showing what the prior year's plan was. That was the plan we had made last year. This current plan with 3% allows us to stay just beneath FPL and meet all of the requirements of the budget.

The 3%. The 3%.

That's the current proposal, the 3%, which keeps us just a little bit under FPL and meets all the budgetary requirements.

So given that information, I think we should stick with that. That's what the utility is proposing.

That is the current proposal on the table to stay competitive with our neighbor. Yes. if you go to that today i don't but if you go to that next slide where it's in there that was june's i believe and you can see where they're right there in the orange so they're just slightly above us yeah this is july this is the latest we could find um so they're still slightly above you correct probably 141 and yeah i don't think we want to move i think we'll pop right above that well actually you can figure it out Let's figure it out. Yeah, but that value for us, though, is our current. It's adding the 3%. And if we could get a pin in this for a final quick phone check with Mr. Liberty on the 3 versus the 6.

You want to call him right now? Call him.

The four and a half percent. Ask him about four and a half percent.

All right. So three or four and a half. That's what you guys are looking for?

I know that I would like to go a little more conservative and go four and a half. We're not going to do the six.

Okay.

But I do want to, I'm conscious of it.

And I would like to know, you know, does he feel like if we had a storm or if we need anything? I mean, obviously I'd rather charge customers less.

Absolutely.

So if that, if he really feels we're okay, then we just need to get a final number from him. Okay. And wait, Anthony, do you have a question for Jason before he makes that call?

Well, I was just going to say, I understand the optics of wanting to remain below FPL, but that's all it is. Optics. If we're talking about, don't shake your head. That's all it is. It's a marketing piece. I've been dealing with Mr. McFoy. I'm speaking. Thank you. If we are interested in truly maintaining a healthy fund balance, getting it to that 50% sooner rather than later, and having cash on hand in the event of a storm because of our storm fund being lower, then we make a decision based on that. To me, I don't care what FPL charges. I care what is best for our electric utility. So I am in favor of taking the conservative approach, sticking with what we had so that we get to that balance quicker. And so I understand the optics of wanting to be below FPL. I do. The reality is, as soon as you cross that thousand kilowatt threshold, everything changes everything changes and these numbers are are meaningless for a good portion of our residents and households because a good portion of our residents and households are well above a thousand kilowatt hour um not not true it's it's the average mr mcgoy so if we could stop interrupting we can get through this an average means there's people above and people below

um so i'm in favor of just keeping it conservative um okay so you want six percent okay do we have it do we want to have call editor do you want to make our numbers now because i'm ready to go with three I would like to follow what our, we have a director for a read and he's proposing that. And I think we should listen to him.

I apologize. He's out of the office today, but he did this. He has the intimate knowledge of this and I want to check in with him first. That is correct.

I'm just concerned that if we have to come back six, eight months from now for an increase, I'd rather go back six, eight months from now and do a decrease. That's my thought. but knowing let me get his let me get his answer and i'm just you are i'm sorry no i don't think to them you are the professional and obviously you guys have given us thought so i will take really and say yes i'll stick with the three percent let me get you guys answers we don't you don't need to call so it's three to one we're gonna stay at this at the three okay okay thank you all right let's move on to water all right so water um this one's a little bit simpler we're just

proposing and sticking with the prior plan. So last year we talked about a 4% increase in 27 and then 4% for several years. That's the current plan as well. So 4% adjustments.

David, please speak louder or into your microphone. It's really hard to hear you.

Can you hear me better now?

Yeah, a little bit. A little bit.

That's weird. Testing.

Okay, so there's no change in water?

No change. No. Okay. All right.

So we have consensus to keep water at 4%.

Consent.

Consent.

Yep.

Okay, good. Let's move on to local sewer.

All right. Local sewer. The prior plan was a 5% to 27% and then 3% in future years. The current plan is the same, 5%, but we're recommending that in future years you consider a little bit higher increases just given the pressures that we're seeing on the sewer fund just staying just at the line in terms of the cash balance? Yes. Okay.

Hold on. Wait. Hold on. We have a light. Anthony, go ahead.

So the one concern that I have with this is given the condition of our sewer pipes and some of the reports that I've recently seen in stormwater, um is the strategy moving forward to when we're looking it looks like there's a lot to to is it going to be we go out for bond for that and and the funds okay where it is or do we have to start contingency planning knowing full well that when we get these new reports back that the pipes that were read before are probably either going to be red or beyond red and and it hasn't gotten any better so

It has. Von Baker Water Utilities. So I would like you to keep in mind that I believe the reports you're referencing, which have been requested from our team lately, are from a while ago. And since then, we have been investing significant capital into rehabilitating pipes and manholes. So our current approach has been about 20 000 linear feet per year of gravity sewer to be lined and rehabilitated as well as 300 000 worth which has been more than sufficient to do groups of manholes throughout the entire year um i want to say last year we got a couple hundred manholes done so the plan is to continue this borrowing and the 20 000 at the current rate of pipelining is going for about two million dollars and the amount of poor condition pipe that we had assessed back in, I want to say 2019 or 2020 was a little bit over 70,000 linear feet. So we are progressing as planned. So when you say things haven't gotten any better since then, they have because we have invested capital into it and we plan on continuing to do so.

Okay. So we're confident that when these new reports come back, the condition is going to be such that we don't need to be saving extra money now for when that stuff comes back.

Right. But also keep in mind that I think what you're referring to is sub-regional sewer. So that's a completely different budget.

Okay.

Okay, so are we good with the 5%? Consent. Consent. Consent and Mr. McVoy. Yeah. Excellent. Moving on.

Okay, so let me just clarify.

Cost of study survey?

Yeah, cost of service is next.

Cost of study service.

I knew what you meant.

What we're proposing, just as we shift into the talk about the cost of service, is that we get 4% more revenue on water and 5% more revenue on sewer. And so what the cost of service study does is, is tells us, okay, where should we get that revenue? So the cost of service study, we've talked about financial plan. That's just, what do we need on the system today and into the future? Cost of service looks at what does it cost to serve each of your different types of customers, residential, commercial, industrial, irrigation, and then how do you actually charge them? What's your rate structure? There's a fixed portion of their charges and then there's a usage portion. And so we've talked so far about the first step here, and now we're going to talk about the second and third steps, and it all feeds together. So just to highlight in terms of giving you a sense of your customer profile, this is the number of water counts that you have. About 80% of them are residential. You've got 11% that are multifamily, 9% are general service, which really include commercial customers, and then about 1% are irrigation. In terms of the actual usage,

Is that the city's irrigation, like our own irrigation?

No, these are customers with irrigation meters.

Customers irrigation, okay.

Yep. And then to the right, we have the actual breakdown of annual use by each of those customer classes. So you can see that, you know, while residential makes up about 80% of the customers, they only use about 50% of the water. Multifamily uses about a quarter, general service about 19%, and Irrigation, even though it's 1% of the customers, they use a lot of water.

Commercial. General services commercial?

It is. Yep. Yep. Irrigation does use a lot of water. In terms of your customer, just looking at your customer profiles, when you think of your single family customers, this is just showing the cumulative usage. So once your cumulative number of accounts So once you're at about 8,000 gallons per month, about 77% of your residential customers use that amount or less. And then once you're up to about 12,000 gallons a month, 90% of your customers use that amount or less. That's just showing you kind of the usage profile. And then to the right, I just have the average usage by account. So typical single family uses 6,000 gallons a month, multifamily per unit, 4,000. commercial or general service, 21,000. And then the irrigation customer uses about 48,000 gallons per month. So that's the understanding of your customers. Then another component of the study is taking those total costs, which we call revenue requirements, and looking at where do the dollars go. On the water side, 11.2 million is for treatment. 6.3 is for managing the distribution system, about 2 million is for admin, about a million for billing, and then 0.7 million for supply. So that's the functional breakdown of the system. And then on the sewer side, most of its treatment, about 8.3 million, 1 million for pumping, 3.2 for collection, and then the rest of the distribution.

What's the difference? And maybe this is a Vaughn question. What's the difference between collection and pumping?

Basically, collection would be our gravity system. So a lateral out of somebody's home or from a business into our gravity sewer system. Pumping is what it sounds like. It's pump stations and force mains.

Okay, thank you.

So based on this functionalization, we looked at each of your customer classes and what it costs to serve them. And the next slide really shows the initial results here of looking at a test year. So if we say what's our revenue requirement on the system and how much revenue are we getting from each of the customers? Ideally, we would be at 100% revenue recovery from each of the customers.

Wow, we're pretty close, actually.

You are, yes.

I mean, except for irrigation.

Yep, that was the key finding, is irrigation is the one where you're slightly below, or I guess more than slightly below, a little bit below on residential, but the rest, you're fairly close.

Go ahead. I have a question. How do you know when I turn my sprinklers on versus when my washing machine's going?

It's separate. These are irrigation only, I think. Correct.

There's an irrigation meter at my house?

No, not everybody has one, but if you'd like to use potable water for your irrigation, what we offer is a specific irrigation meter that's separate from the meter that serves your house so that you don't have to pay the sewer fees.

Otherwise, people like me who use regular water and don't have that, we're clumped into the residential. Right. Correct? So it's...

So wait, is it the people that have wells? No. Who are these irrigation people?

Explain this to us. If you are a customer and you don't have an irrigation well, but you want to use city water to water your lawn, what you would do is go to customer service and say that you want an irrigation meter because that prevents your water usage from being combined with the sewer fees. typically we base your sewer charges on your bill off of your water usage but if you have an irrigation meter right stuff that goes in the ground yes we don't charge for sewer on the irrigation meter

Down drain and ground. I have questions. I've been here for five and a half years. I've never heard this before. So I'm wondering how many of our residents don't know that that's an option and aren't using it. I don't have one. Well, I have a big raise in that. I have an irrigation system, so you can just request a different meter for the irrigation.

It's not as simple as requesting it. You do have to pay the same costs of initiation for getting a tap, a meter, and capacity fees, which I think that's the biggest deterrent because it's a larger upfront cost, but it's not a cost that we're able to waive legally. So if you are going to get a one-inch meter, which is pretty typical for irrigation, the capacity fees are a couple thousand dollars. So I think that that's a deterrent. But if you think about it, it's not something that I look at as a bad thing because that's our high quality treated drinking water and other water can be used for irrigation. So it's a trade off. If you want city water to water your lawn, that's fine. And we do offer that so that you don't have to pay for the sewer. but irrigation wells work just as well and then you don't have to be involved with the utility for that so these customers that we're talking about 61 they have this one percent of the customers 61 of revenue recovery so we're not making enough money right so that's the only thing that we could adjust up to be receiving to make sure that we're getting our cost of service in santec's opinion yes that's the best way to make sure we're getting our cost of service okay thank you and it is kind of nice that the cost of service is not too dramatic um everywhere else

Correct.

Is it also true that if you want to do that, getting the separate meter, you also have to repump your household water such that the irrigation is not connected to the normal rest of the house?

Not necessarily. Could either tap the main again to put that irrigation meter in, or you could tap your own water service line before the current meter. It does require some adjustments, but essentially it would be the construction of a line from wherever you tap. Like I said, either the, the city, probably the city system, um, because most people have three quarter inch meters. Yeah. And you want a one inch meter, so you don't want it to affect the pressure in your home. So you tap the city and then create a connection to wherever your current irrigation control system and pump is.

It involves some re-plumbing to get that to work. Yes. In addition to that.

Okay. Since you're here, and this might be for some other people too, is it possible that since we haven't had a lot of rain that the wells are dry? The production wells or the irrigation wells? At our houses. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because mine's not pulling any water up. I had to get a new one at my own home last year, year and a half ago. Yeah. I already did that. I already got the new one and this one isn't even pumping. Okay. Anyway, going up, moving on. What do you suggest we do?

All right. So as I mentioned, they're fairly closely aligned on most classes, just the exception of irrigation. So what we're suggesting, and this is kind of that third step, is where once we've completed the cost of service, we look at your rate structure. How do you actually charge for service? And I can say that we were really pleased with the structure that you have. You have a very modern and well-designed rate structure. Fixed charges, so what somebody pays, even if they don't use any water or sewer service, generate more than 30% of the revenue for each system. That's at the top end of the range that we typically like to see. Most utilities are in that 20% to 30% of their revenues are generated from fixed charges. So that's a good thing. The structure also does encourage the wise use of water. So you do have what's called an inclining block rate structure. So I'm going to just step through real quick to talk about your current structure. So at the top here, this is on the water side. You've got a customer charge. So this basically pays for customer service. It's the same regardless of the type of customer you are, whether you're a large customer or small. And then you also have a base facility charge. And this charge scales based upon your meter size. So if you're a large four inch meter, you would pay a substantially higher base charge. And that's just essentially reflective of the capacity demand that you can place in the system. Multi-family is charged this per unit. And then single family, most are going to be in that this $18 because they have a three quarter inch meter. But those do scale. And then in terms of the actual water rates, you have, again, an inclining block rate structure. So the more water you use, you're basically stepped through these tiers. So if somebody is using 6,000 gallons, they pay for the first 4,000 at the 391. They pay for the second 2000 at six dollars and so on irrigation customers are charged at these higher rates that are shown here sewer side you've got the fixed charges and then you just have a uniform rate there is a cap on residential usage so you're not charged for more than 12 000 gallons on your sewer bill multi-family is 6 000 and then there is no cap for commercial if you're an industrial and can demonstrate that you're not returning water to the sewer system you could have a 50 cap as well so that's the rate structure what we're proposing given what we've seen is that you should maintain your current fixed charges so remember i mentioned we wanted to get four percent more revenue on water five percent more on sewer

Right.

So we would propose to keep the fixed charges as they are, so there'd be no adjustment there, but that we would generate the additional revenue, that 4% on water, at the higher tiers, given the higher cost of meeting those max demands, and through the irrigation rates. And so essentially, this is on the water side what we're proposing. On the sewer side, the fixed charge stays the same, proposing increasing that Sewage unit rate 5%, or it's actually 7% to generate the 5% more revenue because we're keeping the fixed charges constant. What this looks like just in summary is your typical residential customer uses 6,000 gallons per month. They would see a $2.90 increase or 2.5%. And then if you use more, you can see it scales up more given the proposed adjustments. If you're an irrigation customer, again, the average use is about 48,000 gallons. They would see about a 12% increase. So that's the recommendation that this would essentially align you with the cost of service, generate the additional revenue for both water and sewer. And it really kind of protects the small user. We're not increasing the fixed charges and the lower usage rates are not adjusting.

I love it. Anthony, go ahead.

Thank you. With the monthly fixed charges, would it make sense to break out the irrigation considering it's only recovering 61% and have that at a higher monthly fixed? Or are there so few customers that it really wouldn't make an impact? And why add another layer of complexity?

Yeah, I think it would. Because they use so much water, it does It's more easily to direct it at the usage rate. And one of the nice things about your rate structure is that it basically treats everybody the same, but in that everybody pays that fixed charge based on their meter size and you get the scaling. See, I don't know that because there are so few that probably wouldn't move the needle in terms of that cost recovery.

okay thanks mr mccoy um just a clarification from probably ms baker if i remember right from a long time ago the tiered structure uh plan for water i believe it comes from a state law that we're required to do i don't know if they specify the numbers or the hearing but i recall is that your that predates me and i don't know the answer i mean it's a very interesting thing it says you know it encourages you to conserve and look at your usage at one time i tried to get us to do that for electric on the same argument but we didn't get anywhere um but yeah it's i'm pretty sure that it's a came out of a state thing and yes it's been around for quite a while um is my recollection so cool yes i i'm highly in favor of

Okay, so do we have a consent?

Yes.

Excellent. Thank you. And thank you for that presentation. It made it so clear that it makes the decision-making easy. So thank you. And Vaughn, you're doing a great job. Thank you, David.

And thank you all.

Well, I mean, it's got to be cool. It's like you were confirmed that you were right on the right track, right? The cost of service study? I mean, I think that's... It's cool. Yeah, it's got to feel good. The... Okay, so let's move ahead. Where are we now? Stormwater?

A quick last comment before we leave on the slide that's up.

Okay, go ahead.

It is a little concerning that we are at the high end of that slide, but in that context, we have 50% reverse osmosis water, which is a good deal cleaner than everything else, which is why some other folks have looked to us from time to time for our water. So yes, it's a little bit on the high end, but it's also a better product.

Yeah, you can drink it from the tap.

Yeah, and I want to be clear that the water bill is not changing for your average customer.

No, that's great. Thank you. All right, let's go to sewer. It's like sewer is going up.

It goes up by $2.90. Wait, we did sewer.

Sorry, now we're on storm fund. Yep. Stormwater Fund.

We're on the Stormwater Fund. And this is what we had talked about last year was 2.5% increase in the assessment. What was actually adopted, and this has already been adopted, is a 7% given the cost increases, the capital that needs to be accomplished.

Okay.

And so you did adopt 7%. Okay. So this one's good? Yep. All right.

Moving on.

Shows you where you are. You're still kind of in the middle of the pack on the stormwater.

Yeah, we're all right.

And then refuse.

Beach refuse?

Next is refuse. Yep.

Oh, not beach refuge. It's lake where it's beach.

Oh, my God. I am dumb today. No, I read the same thing and I thought.

Wow. Refuse fund.

Refuse. Sorry.

Yep.

We already did this one too.

Yep.

Okay, good. Moving on.

You adopted 10 and we're thinking.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who read it.

No, I read it the same way. All right.

So now we're at recycling.

It's the same. So garbage and recycling. All right.

Moving on. Love it.

Keep rolling. And this is the comparison on the commercial side. So we've talked about that.

Now we're at the Beach Fund, the Lake Worth Beach Beach Fund.

Now we're at the Beach Fund. And so this is the prior rate plan that we had talked about last year.

Oh, this is parking. Okay.

Yep. The parking meter rate is the thing that we adjust here. And it's currently at $350. weekday and $4 in the weekend. We can see if we go forward with the trajectory that we had last year, we're showing by 2032, even with some modest increases in the parking fee, we would be dropping below that target.

All right. So we want to go up 50 cents is what you're saying.

Yeah. There was discussion that it's problematic to have different rates on the weekend and the weekday. And so, yeah, we're proposing 50 cent adjustment to the weekday parking for 27.

Okay. Sarah first, then Chris.

Thank you. How did you disseminate the fact that we want to give our residents a discount in the hourly?

In the what?

So in the hourly rate? with these projections, how do we know how many are going to be residents and getting a discounted rate versus what's published?

Call as best as parking operation manager. Wait, we can't. Call as best as parking operation manager. So this discount rate is through the ParkMobile app, the 20% discount.

So this includes the 20% residential discount. These numbers that Stantec is showing us. Yeah.

Um, yeah, the 20% discount it's through the park mobile includes in that is included in these, in these numbers. Correct.

So wait, I'm still, I still have the car. I will tell you that I went to West Palm beach, just West Palm beach recently to get my haircut. And for an hour and a half, it cost me almost $9. That wasn't even a beach. That wasn't even a beach. That was literally just on a street. Not in a fancy parking garage, but on the street. So if this is including the discount, so then if we go to $4, our residents are paying $3.80 an hour? Correct. And if we went to $4.50?

Yeah, but remember, you're usually there multiple hours. We don't want to price people out at the beach.

no the additional hours are cheaper they don't pay the the rate no it's per hour i don't is it per hour carlos if i go to the beach for four hours i'm paying sixteen dollars well i'm not because i'm uh it's per hour yeah already isn't it when you wrote i don't i'm on the app right now but as you add time you don't have to add the hour block

the meters on the park mobile does require you do the the hour block on the meters you could do it in in increments increments that's not true on the park you could do it by the hour and i can increase it for 30 minutes as well not on the not on the mobile uh park mobile app not for the beat yeah on the meters yeah correct so we could change it on the app that we could do it that way on the app as well

can change it yeah i would highly recommend that because if i'm laying at the beach with my kids and we're already settled leveled in and i only need a half hour more i don't want to make them go all the way up to the meter to add they can't we're taking those meters out But we could do it on the mobile app. We can just rotate 15, I think it's by 15 minute intervals.

We could do it increments of 30 would be the best set. So we could talk to the vendor and see how we could do that.

I think we could do that. We could look at that. I think that that's important. There's also a rate comparison on the next page if you want to look at it.

My recommendation is that we at least keep us close to the county parks next door. They have $4. Across the board.

Yeah, that should be the same. That would make sense. Yeah. All right. I'm going to be quiet because it's not my turn. So Sarah, are you done?

Yeah, I'm good. But yeah, can we get the little increments to be added? That would be helpful.

Okay. Mr. McVoy, then Mr. Segrich.

I think I heard something from David about a difficulty, and I might not be using the right word, of different weekday and weekend rates, which raised for me the more general question of varying time variable rates, whether it's time of day or day of the year or holiday or whatever. and i'm curious about the difficulty part because my understanding of the app-based parking which i believe we are moving away from the meters and to the app-based parking the cool a cool part about app-based parking is that you can program whatever you want into it and it doesn't really cost anything now you may have to badger the vendor a little bit to let you do it but it really there's no significant cost for them you know put a table in that says whatever right and i would be very much in favor i'm certainly in favor of what commissioner malega says and i would make it 15 minute increments not 30 and if the vendor says well we can't really do that i would push back hard on them and say yes you can it's possible other places there's nothing weird about our beach that you can't make your software do it and then i would think a lot about and there's a name for it and i don't remember what it is demand-based parking or whatever it's known in the parking world that you you know you try to manage your parking by developing a picture of when it's busiest and charge a little more then and charge less when it's not um and i would be much in favor of us doing that a question for you um how does park mobile know whether i'm a resident or not

So for you to get the 20% discount, you just have to submit the documents to us online. Once we get those documents, we go in the back of the house, enter your license plate, register to the park mobile, and you get this 20% discount.

Can I do that when I'm parking at the beach? Or is that something that I have to kind of like getting the parking decal? I got to come in and or can I do it online?

yeah it's all online you just have to submit the documents since we verify that you're late court beach resident and then we apply your plate to to the park mobile back the house and then you get your discount do that um that's a good idea um okay cool and uh is my description that we could with a little pressure on the vendor get him to do you know a little bit increments

nuanced parking rates i'll work with them yeah i'll work with them on that i'm sure they can assuming that there's support from my colleagues that that's a good idea okay mr segert uh thank you one of the the only considerations that i would throw out there just on whether you do it via an hour versus 15 minutes I think you'll be surprised at the amount of revenue that is generated by that hour. So many parking lots, that's where they see like a 20%, 30% increase in revenue because they go in hour slots versus 15%. I do understand the argument over, hey, let's make it more convenient. But I think before we make a decision like that, see what it's going to do to these numbers, because this basically is funding our beach fund, right? And it if we're looking down the road there's an awful lot i think we want to do at the beach and then there's an awful lot we have to do right because you know erosion and the weather and salt and things so i would i would be hesitant to veer too far off this plan and add something like that right now without fully understanding what that's going to do because i i think it could have a significant impact in like the 20 25 range of revenue drop

Okay.

Or have them do some analysis for us before we make a decision.

Yeah, maybe we do some analysis. And, you know, we can always, you know, if we want to do 15-minute segments over here, no segments over here, we go for 30, we've got our compromise. Right. Ms. Maliga?

Thank you. So I'm on the app now. And if I go to Cruiser Park, it's $4.30. On the app? supposed to ours is three dollars and ninety cents which means we're losing money with the the forty percent forty cents um charge from from park mobile doesn't matter but they're including their fee because you have four dollars written here but it's 4 30 and we have four dollars written here and or it so it's 390 but phipps park is ten dollars and forty cents an hour yeah one hour well the 40 cents goes to park mobile it's always been ten dollars that's why you don't go to that beach That's astronomical to go to a beach. So I just want to make sure that because when I first got elected, we weren't collecting the fee. We were taking the fee out of our parking hourly.

No, but people take the fee.

No, they do now, but they didn't.

Yeah, they do now.

I just want to make sure whatever we adjust that we're adjusting it, that the fee is correct. So when it's $4, it's $4. So 10%.

that's a lot imagine how much money they're making at 10 of each car park it's a lot okay all right so oh go ahead chris uh i i hear commissioner segrich is concerned that the hourly probably picks us up some extra fees and the recommendation that before we jump we look before we leave and do a little research my question would be for you carlos would be um How do we know? The only way I could imagine to do that research is if 50% of our users go for an hour and a half, but they're paying for two, then it's pretty easy calculation. If 90% of our users go for an hour and 50 minutes, then it's not a big deal. How are we going to know what the actual time that they were there to do that research?

yeah so there's a turnover on the spot but also park moment providers with the uh the dashboard that we could kind of analyze what's what's the average day and all that if if somebody doesn't park in the same spot and i forget are the spots numbered are they no they know but they park by there So I park in spot number 820. I drive away.

Somebody else parks in 830. I don't know when I drove away. Mark Mobile doesn't know when I left. they only know what i didn't know what you paid for yeah so i don't know how to do that research other than making some of this all the mechanical components in there we could look at what's the average day and what the that that long speed is that's the thing it's hard to do that i would look at the concern but i don't know how we would get that number i think the the more important thing is make it the smaller increments more accurate to what people use i think the public relations benefit to that is good and if we need to adjust our rate a little bit up to make sure that we're that we didn't have a big drop from one year to the next because we went to 15 minutes that's how i would deal with that i would also bet that out of state plates stay longer than local plates anyway

So we're really giving the benefit to our locals.

Right.

Because locals know that you can't wait at the beach for four hours. We're smarter than the average bear. When you get somebody who comes from Connecticut, they're like, oh, we'll be here all day. And they just.

That's why they come up with my tourist trips.

Okay. So we're going to get consensus that we're going to go to the $4. Yes.

And consensus that we're going to go to $4.

Hold on. So the $4 we're done with, and then we're going to go. $4, $4. Weekend and weekday are both going to be $4. And. think our weekend rate should be more so you well okay so then then right now we have weekend at four you think they should be fine i think they should be for 55 it's the weekend

so my suggestion is that we keep the rates the same for the weekdays and weekends just programming-wise it'll work better i appreciate that but programming i don't care about because i could see what park mobile does for everybody else and they can do that for us um when people pull in to go to our beach they don't go to the app they park in a spot and they pick the thing and they pay they don't go i'm going to park over here cruisler parks because i'm going to save versus over here

tourists don't care they're going to park in the first spot they find okay so all right so let's do this then okay so if we're going to do um higher rates on the weekends why don't we do 450 on the weekend anthony do you are you okay with the 15 minute segments or do you want to do 30. personally i think we should do 30. if we're going to do it i'd rather do 30 i i think we should stay at the hour

i'll consent for 30 and 450 on the weekends i'll raise you five um you want to go to five on the weekends no no no i'll i'll consent to the same okay so 450 on the weekends and um half an hour segments that's what's on the table okay going once my concern is is it in our community Not reasonable to us, or is it reasonable to assume that most of our community is working folks who work during the week and their chance to go to the beach is the weekend?

Yeah, there's a resident discount that they could get to apply for. Yeah, they could apply for the discount.

This is a fight worth fighting for. Most locals don't. We don't go to the beach on the weekend because we know what it's like.

Where is that?

Okay, so we're going to consent guys to 450 and half hour and half hour blocks. Okay, excellent.

We begrudgingly.

Okay, we have them. What? Please don't put a knot in this because we're moving on.

No, I just want to confirm. It's $4 on the weekdays and 450 on the weekends with 30 minutes.

and 30 minute increments and do i have consensus that carlos will push on park mobile and investigate whether we can be even more variable in our rates to deal with hand-based parking research yes i'll look into it and push them a little bit what all right did we already do the golf fund nope all right well i know we didn't do it today i'm asking if we've talked about it yet

Huh? Did we do it? We talked about it last time. I believe you guys wanted to see a rate comparison with different golf. We want to talk about the capital improvements that were needed.

That's right. So we have here a 3% increase and a 5% increase.

Where's our golf pro?

Right there. Is there anything else besides 3 and 5? But if you look at it, it goes 5, 5, 15, 15. But I don't want to look even more than two years out because that's irrelevant.