Commission - workshop

Thank you all for coming to our budget workshop, the second of these we're having this budget season. No votes taken today. Fortunately, Commissioner Tender will not be with us this afternoon. Commissioner Perno may be joining us here soon, but the other three of us will try to keep it to a dual roar as we get started. Kiki is driving this today, so I will...

I got you, Mayor.

Go for it.

Alright, Harold. So we've got our third budget workshop for fiscal year 27 today. We met the other day or a few weeks ago and kind of laid the groundwork of where we would be based on our first strategic workshop we had. Second workshop, we kind of utilized that, that if we went all in, just like we discussed at the strategic workshop, what our deficit would be, what the millage would have to be, and where the city would go from that. So we've gone back and adjusted a few things to present to the commission. Once we get to the end of the workshop today, we're going to lay out some dates that you all will have to vote on for the millage ceiling for the year for the trim notice and when the final budget will be adopted in September. as well as scheduling our next workshop after this one. The next workshop, as we've all discussed individually, will discuss our staffing of where we're going to be fiscal year 27. So today we're going to go over most of the capital stuff, what we've cut so far to be able to get to where we are today, and what will not happen in fiscal year 27 as far as purchases. So based on Governor DeSantis' law that he signed into effect the other day, this is where we would stand based on the new millage laws. A three to two vote, we would have a 3.9707 millage rate with a deficit of $1,472,000. a four to one vote at a four point three six seven millage a deficit of negative seven hundred ninety four thousand dollars and to break even we would have which would require unanimous vote our millage would have to be a four point eight three zero six now keep in mind we haven't got to the cut to present to the cuts yet that is cuts of general fund items capital services and staffing which we will address in the slides later on and also the millage if we kept the millage the same of 4.05 which i didn't put in the slide our deficit would be negative one million three hundred seventy five thousand dollars in the ballpark so where we are today There is absolutely no capital improvement projects in the general fund for fiscal year 27. That includes any expansions, the multi-use fields we talked about, any of the equipment purchases, except a fryer for the sports and rec. It's an $8,000 fryer. We do feel it will make its money back in the concessions, so we're not worried about the $8,000 equipment purchase there. There are no vehicle purchases in fiscal year 27 for the general fund. One dilemma that does cause is we have several vehicles that have over 100,000 miles, and we've got a vehicle replacement plan, but we will not be able to stick to that plan for fiscal year 27 the way the numbers fall. Since the last meeting, we have implemented a hiring moratorium on the general fund positions unless they're critical positions, like if we had a firefighter leave or a police officer leave or one of our critical general fund positions. But there is a hiring moratorium on the general fund. There will be no proposed COLA for fiscal year 27. But we do have implemented the first year of the salary study, and our training and travel has been reduced significantly to only cover the necessary requirements and needs. Most of the travel has been removed from the budget. The police and fire and some of our other departments that have their necessary training, that money is still in there, though it has been reduced from what we originally presented.

Do you all have this implement first year of salary study? Do you already have that nailed down yet?

We have a general number, but it's not dead on. Our next workshop, we hope to have all the staffing to present to you.

For the proposed COLA, when you say no proposed COLA, does that mean not just the employees but us, the Commission, and yourself?

Yes. No one will be receiving a COLA. The only salary increases would be if they're part of the first year salary study implementation. There may be some employees that are not in that first year implementation that their salary was already where they need to be, but there are some that would be affected in that first year. We've also got some proposed changes. Some of these are more of a long-term effect as well. Reducing our leave accrual structure which will reduce the long-term liability. Eliminate the PTO buyback program and reducing our paid holidays from 13 to 11 which will reduce overtime pay. The estimate on the two holidays, if we cut those, would save about $22,000 for the year. It's an estimate of about 11 grand. It's not a huge savings, but it is long-term. It adds up. And then our PTO buyback, we have a $200,000 estimate of savings there. If we eliminate that program, we are the only municipality that offers a PTO buyback program now.

What two holidays would you be cutting?

That is to be decided. It could be the day after Christmas. It could be Good Friday, Juneteenth, the day after Thanksgiving. It just really depends. But it's up to the commission.

Gotcha.

Some other proposed changes we have would be to eliminate our retirement bonus, to eliminate the longevity bonus, and eliminating the part-time employees receiving benefits. That's anyone that's under 32 hours a week. We have some that we would increase their hours to 32 hours a week. but most of the part-time employees would lose their benefits. And then in the numbers that I presented to you of what our deficit is, we have removed every event from the city budget, If we receive a sponsorship 90 days prior to the proposed event, we will present the sponsorship to the commission. And if you all decide to accept it, then we will have the event. July 4th would be the one-off for that with 180 days because it does take more to plan that event. Also, the communications and marketing budget, there's about a $10,000 line item for holiday decorations. That line item is still in there, but that is a discussion today. We've had both positive and negative feedback on holiday decorations. Do we want to continue decorating this facility for Christmas, or do we want to cut the $10,000 from the budget? Commissioner Warren, I know you had some thoughts from our discussions on the sponsorships as well.

Yeah, so this is something me and Mr. Lightfoot have been discussing. And, you know, we've talked about sponsorships and public-private partnerships for quite a while and really haven't done anything more than what we typically do every year. And I just thought this would be a good idea to – to do this to kind of see, kind of push and urge businesses and sponsors to kind of help with these type of things and I think that would help with that program as far as sponsorships. I know one of the other things we discussed was using the community services board to kind of try to help go find those sponsors using especially with the the two seats proposed seats i don't know if we end up determining whether we're going to do that or not but um using their network and knowledge to kind of try to help finding those sponsors for those events not that we don't want to do the events it's this is a as i said before this is a This is a tough time, and we're going to make some tough decisions, and we kind of got to get out of our comfort zone on this. So I think this is one of those areas.

And I will add on to that, there was a business owner that reached out to Commissioner Peebles probably two weeks before July 4th, maybe the week before. He and I were able to meet yesterday. He has agreed to sponsor the dog park for the year. It was a $2,500 sponsorship. It will help cover some of the expenses of the dog waste bags. I mean, though $2,500 isn't a huge hit when you look at a negative $1 million deficit, it's a great gesture and good for his business as well. So we will gladly accept that donation and put that money towards that.

And when we say 90 days and 180 days prior, that means not when we start advertising. That's, we'll probably be advertising, I think we figured like a year ahead of time or so. And then 90 days prior is like the deadline when we need to get everything. If we don't get enough funding for it, then we can have the discussion of do we want to still have the event, but like de-scope it a little bit, or just do away with the event altogether. I know originally we discussed 120 days for the July 4th, but now we went to 180. Is that for the 5th?

Yes, sir. It makes more sense to have that 180 days with the fireworks planning, the logistics of the parade, concerts, the stage, everything it takes to go into that.

May I add to that, please? So I have preliminary numbers for the July 4th event. Not all the receipts have been turned into finance. However, this number will only go up. The city spent $126,000 on July 4th. We saved contributions and sponsorships for fifteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars Which means the net cost of the city was a hundred and ten thousand eight hundred forty nine dollars and fifty cents so Fourth of July we would need sponsorships to break even of approximately 125 to 150 thousand dollars

And that is something, too, that the commission would have to decide is do you want to, does the sponsorship need to only include the hard cost as far as, you know, the concerts and the parade and the fireworks and that kind of stuff, and the city absorb the overtime costs and staffing costs, or do we want to give a price and say, hey, we've got to cover all of the overtime expense and all of the staff expense for the sponsorship as well? That is some direction we would ask from you all.

Was that 126? Did that include the overtime and stuff, or is that just? Yes, sir.

The overtime is approximately $43,000.

And what did you get in donations for the 15.2K?

$15,750. Okay, and what was that?

Was that someone donated a check?

It was $5,000 checks from Panhandle Engineering, Dewberry Engineers, CBC Construction, and then whatever the other small amounts were.

I don't know, this is the way I look at it. Trust me, I enjoy the July 4th parade and the events. I can't wait to break back out the George Washington costume, but if we're spending over $40,000 in overtime, i'd rather try to get sponsors to kind of make up for that and and use that forty thousand dollars towards other things for employees that's kind of how i see it because if we're gonna spend forty thousand dollars on this and yet if we end up going with all these other proposals of hey we're gonna not have cost of living adjustment and things like that what kind of message are we sending to our employees that's kind of the way i look at it

Gentlemen, any thoughts you want to share?

I like the idea rather than just being like last time when we just basically cut two events. We're not just cutting events. We're changing our model, which is good. We're saying these events are scheduled. If you want to see them, we need sponsorships. rather than just saying, hey, this year we're not going to have Easter egg hunt because of budget cuts. We're just saying they're scheduled. Depending on how much sponsors we get, that's how great the event's going to be.

We already had cut Easter egg hunt beforehand, but if someone wants to bring it back, you know.

And to finish up on that slide too, I would say the retirement bonus and the longevity bonus, they are not policies. That's just been a longstanding practice the city had. There is no policy that the Commission will have to adopt or change to eliminate that. That is just something that we will be eliminating to help save costs. Stormwater this year, we will be bringing you all a 3% proposed increase. It's following the same as last year. Our revenue projections to follow hopefully at our next workshop, but that is staying along the same lines as Stantec discussed for fiscal year 26. It was scheduled to be a 3% increase this year. For sanitation, back in 2019, Stantec did a study and recommended a $12.88 monthly charge for yard debris pickup. That was never implemented. The table below shows if it had been implemented, what revenue we would have taken in every year. I did exclude the senior garbage on this. So that number, the seniors would not have been charged the $12.88. So this number does not reflect them. We are going to request either this charge or a charge to be added. It doesn't have to be called a yard debris pickup. fee. It can just be added on to the sanitation rates, but we have not raised those rates in at least six years, and the sanitation budget is reflecting that. We will finish in the red on that. We still have some reserve money for sanitation, but that reserve is dwindling heavily every year because we have to dip into it to cover the sanitation expenses.

Do you have a slide so we can deep dive into that piece? Because those are enterprise funds, right? So those are Those are particularly kind of subsectioned out from the general fund.

So deep dive into what part?

Well, you said we're running red in sanitation. So how much and for how long?

So the past three years we finished in the red. I believe this year we will be 490,000 I believe was our number. Don't hold me to that. In the red. And we had just over 3 million in reserves and sanitation.

If you could give me just a moment, please. Sure. Now, sanitation has no debt. Everyone understands that. So that's the component that I always say you can't just look at one number. Sanitation does not have any debt. Today, sanitation department has $3,300,000. That number will diminish at the end of the year by about a half a million dollars. So at the end of the fiscal year, we'll have something shy of $3 million in the sanitation

Staff direction, so you all approved the resolution for the consolidation of services. We have been working with Bay County and other municipalities to investigate that. We've met with the county, establishing a game plan on that. You all did receive a letter from Mayor Branch from Panama City and then a response from Chairman Peace from Bay County. At this time, we just don't have enough information to do the summit as suggested by Mayor Branch. But once we work through that, we will likely bring back that summit discussion for all of the commissioners or all of the commissions to at least designate a representative and possibly meet. But we are looking at the consolidation of services and what that long-term savings would be, especially if the property tax is changed in November. And that includes fire, police, public safety, animal control, and any other things that we can do there. The next workshop will discuss our staffing efficiency. It is very likely that there's going to be a furlough and reduction in force of employees for fiscal year 27. That is what our next workshop is going to be heavily revolved around. We are looking at outsourcing of certain tasks, whether it's culvert installations, asphalt repairs. We're looking at residential garbage pricing, janitorial services, et cetera. Though all of these may not be cheaper to outsource, we are looking at numbers just so that we can present to the Commission different avenues of possibilities, even though there are some that the private sector may not be able to do cheaper than we can. Of course, shopping our liability insurance costs and we will be bringing a restructure of benefit plans for employees. We may have to present this year of employees may have to pay a little bit more of their insurance costs for health insurance. We've got the numbers back. It looks like it's going to be a 0% increase for health insurance. But a way to save some money would be to restructure that so that the employees have to pay a little bit more of their health insurance premiums. And then for our dates, we do need some direction for our next budget workshop. Before I go on with the dates, some other areas to save money that we would like some direction or some discussion on today. Our cemetery plots, we sell for $1,000 per plot. We have about 420 of those plots left. They're for city residents only. Staff is reaching out to other areas. I believe Panama City is the only other municipality with a cemetery. We checked in 2023, and they did not have anything available at that time to compare pricing to. If you compare pricing to the private sector, Kent Forest sells, they own multiple cemeteries, and they sell theirs anywhere from five to seven grand. We don't want to get to those prices. We're not asking for that, but we are looking for possibility of increasing those sale prices a little bit. It's a one-time deal. Once we sell it, we don't collect any more money for the cemeteries, and we do have annual costs associated with keeping those cemeteries up. We are looking at a company that will perform lien searches for us. I've received it. The city of Callaway and the city of Springfield recently went under contract with this company. I've received the information, sent it to legal for review. They will charge $120 per lien search. They will give us $100 per, and they will keep $20 per. We do sometimes 10 to 15 per week. You may not have any the next week. The numbers vary. But that is a way that we may generate a little bit of revenue. Some other costs are our senior center. We provide paper products, coffee, copier, internet, which I believe the internet and utilities is included in our agreement. But the paper products, the coffee, the creamer, the sugar, everything we provide them is not. We provide that. It's about a $10,000 a year expense. that we could potentially save or pass those costs on to the senior center. We've rented them the building for a dollar a year for 20 years, I believe it is. So there is no revenue generation from the senior center. We've done research on the splash pads. We've had a lot of discussion on charging admission for splash pads. There are very few places that charge admissions for splash pads unless the splash pad is connected to another aquatic facility, whether it's a community pool or a water park. Most of your splash pads that are municipal-owned, they do not charge any revenue. And if you were, it would be minimal. You would very likely just be awash with what staff time and the expenses would be on that revenue. So it's not a huge revenue generator that we're missing out on there. As of July 1st, we had made $11,650 in rental revenue from the Garden Club. Our biggest expense in this facility is the janitorial services. We do provide the utilities and the internet there. Justin did increase the fees back in February when you all increased the fee schedule. So he's estimating about a 30% increase in that revenue next year. Rental revenue for the senior center as of July 1st was $3,850, and like I said, we spend about $10,000 a year estimate on supplies over there. We did have a $23,000 expense there this year for flooring, but it is our responsibility for maintenance of the building, so that is not something that we could have passed on. Staffing. And we covered events already. Is there anything else, any questions anyone has on that topic?

You rent the Senior Center on the weekend when they're not using it?

Yes, sir, we do, and we've generated $3,850 as of July 1st in the Senior Center rentals. The Garden Club is our major spot for rentals, and we've made just over $11,000 or just under $12,000.

What did the Garden Club do last year?

Last year in rentals?

Well, I mean, yeah, what kind of revenue does the garden club produce?

It was less than 20K in revenue.

Senior Center is a bigger spot. You could probably land.

That one doesn't rent as much as the Garden Club. The Garden Club rents about every weekend. If you pass by, it's rented out in full. Yes, we could go up on that rent again. I don't think it would hinder anyone from renting it. But again, we're not going to make enough on the rental of that to cover the entire budget on it.

One thing we could do is, us as a commission, but also maybe there's something for Ty and River, is go on a marketing campaign of things that we have available to rent. Because I'm sure there's quite a few people out there that don't even know that we have facilities to rent. And so that will Even if that brings in a few extra thousand dollars, I mean, it's not going to take much time to create a graphic and start a campaign of periodically advertising. It doesn't cost us anything other than man hours. And for us, it doesn't cost the commission anything other than your time.

Yes, sir. One other thing I wanted to cover with sports and rec, we would need about $670,000 a year in sponsorships or field rentals to cover half of the salaries and the sports program expenses. Our midyear budgets showed a revenue of just under $270,000. So we are still $400,000 short in that, meeting half of that, just to cover half of the expenses of salaries and the requirements. And then, like I said, the dates before you on this slide, calendar, max millage approval is Tuesday, July 28th of the next meeting. And then our tentative budget approval will be September 8th at 530. And then the final, September 22nd at 530.

The 28th, is this going to be any different than what we've done in the past, where it's just like a max trim?

No, sir. It's just the max that the millage can be for the year.

Okay.

So are you looking for a third budget workshop date to be nailed down?

Yes, sir. We would like that budget workshop if everyone is available. August 6th at 3 would be one recommendation.

What day is that? Thursday? That's a Thursday. Okay.

Would you want to try to line it up with the day we got to set the millage, the 28th of July, or is that too soon?

No, sir, because the next one is going to be staff discussions, and we need some time internally to discuss with staff before that workshop hits.

Is August 6th doable for y'all, gentlemen?

Yeah.

Let's book the 6th then, 3 o'clock.

Yes, sir. Part of that too, I mean, we've had some... Some discussions, I mean, Ben and I met with the EDA yesterday about potentially having to cut the just over $30,000 expense that we do every year to be a member of the EDA. There are a lot of small programs such as that that we will likely have to cut for fiscal year 27. It's, like I said, the next workshop when we discuss staffing, There are things like the EDA membership or other memberships that will be cut first before we get to that. But there are many, many things that have already been cut out of this budget to get to where the numbers are on the millage slide here.

this uh these three two vote four one vote five oh is that on the max the max millage vote or is that on the final vote the max could be the five oh i'm not sorry is that the july 28th day yes on july 28th i have to submit a maximum millage that you will allow for next year and that's this slide right here

That's what this is telling you, is if only three of you agree, we can only use the rollback rate. If four of you agree, we can go up to 4.367. If you all agree, we can go above that.

That's for the one on July 28th or when we do the final vote?

July 28th. I need to know what the maximum millage you will allow for 27.

Well, if that's the hard date, then we need to push this third workshop up before then. Because if we're looking at Bottom line cuts. We're trying to nail down all the big rocks, all the big muscle movements, and we're trying to get to a hard bottom number. We need to have that done before the millage rate.

So the millage that you're voting on, the 28, though, is not what the millage will be. It's just the max that it can be.

Yeah.

Yeah, so when I first came on the commission, this was so weird to me. So basically what happens is you're required by law to send out a trim notice to the residents to say, this is the max that we can raise your millage this year. Almost every single year that we've done this, that number has been higher than what we actually vote on for the millage rate to be. So like, for example, a few years ago, we sent out a max millage rate of 4.3, but we voted on a 4.1. because that's just how it works i don't know it's the law so this number that we're voting on the 28th there's like a probably a 90 chance if not higher that is going to be different than that number it just can't go above that number so you have to give me guidance as to what

You will allow as the maximum millage, it's the ceiling. We cannot go above that. You can only go below. So to my mind, you want to err on the side of increasing the millage as much as you possibly can. And then we will reduce as we identify further cuts.

So let's say we agreed to 4.05 on July 28th, but then later we're like, oh crap, we need 4.367, can't do that.

Correct.

Okay. Sure. Kiki, for the benefit of the audience as well as the commission and anyone watching at home, give us a real quick rundown on what you mean by the rollback rate.

So the rollback rate is, generates the same dollars as the rate that we're charging this year. So the millage this year is 4.05, but all of our property values have increased. Our homes are worth more this year than they were last year. So to have the homeowner pay the exact same amount of dollars, you reduce the millage to what is referred to as the rollback rate.

Gotcha.

So the 3.9707 would bring the city the exact amount of dollars we received. Sure.

Not accounting for inflation, but bottom line, if your home's worth $20,000 more this year, it takes less of a millage to get the same tax dollar.

Exactly correct, yes, sir.

Everybody tracking with that? It's George W. Bush would call that fuzzy math, but you know.

It goes a lot back to the homestead exemption too. Limiting your home going up to 3% per year. It kind of follows about the same. The math is pretty close.

Mayor, I put on that slide too the chart to the right that just shows the historical millage rates just so everyone would have a reference of what the millage has been over the past 10 years.

And I think it's worth noting here in 2024, 2025, it remained a 4.05. But with the inflationary costs, especially fuel, that actually drove quite a negative impact on the budget. Do you want to speak to that at all?

Well, I mean, you're right. I mean, inflation did, but also we didn't have the disaster bond debt service affecting the general fund at that time like it is today.

It was about $2 million. We ended up being in the red there, right, with the fuel cost for 2025?

I'm sorry, Mayor.

How much did we end up being down when fuel spiked with inflationary? I know in 2024 as well as 2025, but we maintained the millage rate. What kind of impact did the inflationary cost actually hit on our bottom line overall for the general fund? Is it about $2 million?

Our deficit was around 2.8 last year.

2.8? Okay. It was just about the amount of the debt service payment. That was our goal, was to balance the budget with the exception of the debt service payment.

Okay.

So 2.8 million.

I stand corrected. It was higher than I thought. I was thinking it was about 2, but 2.8. Correct. Okay.

Any other questions, gentlemen? That's the number I was hoping it was going to be this year, but it's not.

I know the Financial Review Board looked at, what do you call it, refunding the bond, and it didn't sound like that was advantageous to do. Not at this time.

Not at this time. After November when we see what property tax does possibly, but our rates are very good compared to today's rates.

Speaking of the Financial Review Board, are they coming to provide any recommendations or inputs as well, budget-wise?

They received quite a bit of information at the last meeting. They requested another meeting. Because based on our normal schedule, they wouldn't meet again until after all of this was finalized. They're going to meet on August 17th at 8 o'clock in the morning. It's a Monday. And we will discuss further. I gave them a... many reports about the bond and the cash flow and we discussed if the information we received about refunding the bond. They did get a brief description of where we were at with the budget for 27 and that it was entirely possible we were going to have to raise the millage. Again, that's in your hands. It depends on how you vote. But The numbers that I have right now, fuzzy math. They are fuzzy math because I do not have good revenue numbers as of today. The state does not publish their revenue numbers until the latter part of July. Sorry, the latter part of August. Sometimes it's as late as early September. So I'm using historical data. And I'm just doing the best I can with what I've got right now. But these numbers are going to change one way or another, depending on the economy, depending on the state, depending on how we all react to what's going to happen in November. There are a lot of moving parts to this. So when we quote you these numbers and what the budget is today, I want you to be fully aware that these numbers are going to change. Okay. We have done, my way of thinking, an extraordinary job of cutting. And there's going to be some ramifications.

But frankly, this is what we owe our citizenry, is our due diligence. We should not take any type of millage rate increase willy-nilly. This should be done with the utmost sincerity and transparency. And times are tough, especially with our seniors and folks with fixed incomes. We can't go, hey, we want to raise your millage rate. without doing every possible thing to reduce cost and figure out how we can belt tighten and belt cinch before we even go the millage rate. And it sounds like y'all are doing that. We've got a whole third workshop to do to discuss that. Potential personnel reductions and how and all those details that I appreciate the due diligence and the very serious nature of this. This is not fun. But this is governance. This is sausage making. And we owe it to the citizens to be good stewards of the tax dollar to the utmost degree. Any other thoughts, gentlemen?

Do you think we need to have two workshops in August?

We likely will, yes, sir, especially after the first one. We will ask for another workshop before you all start voting in September. Should we try to plan that now?

That would be great. Might as well.

So 6th of August is the first Thursday. You want to do it on the 21st of August?

How much time do you all need in between the two workshops?

So our work will be nearing completion at the next workshop. At that point it will be information that you all have and direction to give us. So it's how much time will you all need in between the next two workshops.

I don't think we need a whole lot of time. We could piggyback one to the next. If y'all are good with it, say the next week and not having to wait two extra weeks.

I propose 21 August.

If we do the first, I'm going to have to call in. I can call in, but I won't be here locally. I'm willing to do that. I have no problem calling in. I just won't be able to be here. I'm gone that entire week for work.

Or we could do it on the 25th before the next commission meeting or before that commission meeting. Yeah, I'm good with that. At 3 o'clock on the 25th.

What day is the 21st? That's a Friday. That's the week the 18th is the primary meeting. Yeah, we could do either. We could come in that Friday the 21st, like you recommended, Jamie, or the following week.

I'm good with the 25th, if you guys are good with that.

Any preference, gentlemen?

I think a couple hours would be more than enough.

Yeah, so that would be more than enough.

All right. 3 p.m. Now, one related topic. So this third budget workshop, we're going to be talking about potential – Recommended position cuts and all of that.

So this is the third, that'll be, yes, or that'll be the fourth, yes.

So the position cuts is the fourth, is that what you just said?

Which is, this is the third, that'll be the fourth workshop was talking about the position.

You're counting the strategic as the first one.

As number one, that's correct.

Okay, I was thinking.

No, that's what I asked Commissioner Walker earlier, is it the third one? Yeah. But technically with the strategic, I was like, okay.

Well, you count that, but okay. As far as this next one goes, I'm just trying to be mindful and thoughtful of our potential city employees whose jobs may be on the chopping block here. So how much situational awareness will they have at that point when we're publicly discussing Johnny and Jane may be losing their jobs in X department?

We will have met with everyone internally that will be affected before that.

Okay. Any other thoughts or questions, gentlemen?

If not, I'll open up to the floor. I just hate this freaking law, man. It's like the millage law. Because we can't talk about our votes. You know what I'm saying? It's illegal. So if I was to say, like, I really think it should be 4.3%, I'm not going to be like, all right, who's voting yes so I can vote no? You know? Because I hate this. It's not. But anyways, I'm just venting.

Yes, sir. Now we'll email out this PowerPoint that you all can reference to so you all have it after today.

Okay. Pat, you got anything, sir? Well, I'll open up to the floor. I know the first one is going to be Johnny. So if you want to sit down, we can bring you a mic. All right. Good to see you up and around on that.

I'm not very compliant to my doctor's orders. A couple things. I'm on the Finance Committee, and we did meet, and we considered the millage rates, but at that point in time, there was not enough information. We were waiting for this meeting to occur and some other information to become available. Before, it was thought that it would be appropriate for the Finance Committee to make a solid recommendation on something like that. but we scheduled that meeting on the 18th so we could meet prior to y'all having to vote on the final millage rate. And I'm saying that I'm not necessarily the representative for the Finance Committee, but I was there and that's where we went. The other thing I would like to say is you know as you cut cuts are going to be across the board but keep in mind you're looking at the senior center and it was 10 000 that you paid for the senior center we pay over a million a year for for youth sports in the sports center the only thing that we do for the seniors is the senior center so please keep that in mind for the seniors um i know we have to cut everywhere but just we need to be cognizant of the services that the city's providing here and there thank you

Hey, Johnny, before you go sit down, I completely agree with you. That's probably the last $10,000 I would cut from the city budget. It's for our seniors. The least we can do for them is that. But my question for you is, if you need to sit down, go ahead, but... What are your thoughts on the city financial services board actually coming in and meeting with the commission? Do you all want to actually have a sit-down, eyeball-to-eyeball workshop and discussion with us? I can't answer for them.

To me, it would probably be beneficial, but I can't answer for the finance committee. I mean, we're looking at a lot of the same things that y'all are going to have to look at, but we've not been charged with that as a committee, that that's the recommendation we need to make or that that's something that we have to do. So that's something that if the commission directs it, I'm sure the finance committee would be more than happy to meet with you. Just do a workshop.

Please take that back to your teammates that we'd really like to get y'all's thoughts and inputs here. We charge y'all to oversight and work with Kiki on this.

Can you direct Chris to do that? Because I can't contact him.

Sure. I'd really like to get inputs. These are our financial being.

Typically, either the chair himself or someone else will come and address the commission prior to the budget. So that's something that's already typically done.

Yeah, let's please do that. We ask you all to do due diligence and oversight here. The least we can do is make sure we're tracking with your opinions and thoughts and recommendations as well.

Okay. Yeah, I would think Chris could get the chair to send something to the chair to make that effect.

Thank you for that. No, thank you, Johnny. Mm-hmm. Anybody else got any thoughts today? Kind of has a whole Irish wake vibe in here, minus the alcohol, right? Yeah, exactly. You got it. Good deal.

No, sir. Before we wrap up, I would just ask them to consider, too, before the next workshop, just some direction of the events. Is that something that you all want us to keep out of the budget like that with the sponsorship theory in mind, the holiday decorations, the sanitation rates? We will be bringing you all a proposed sanitation rate. It may not be July 28th meeting, but likely the first meeting in August. That way we can kind of plan for that one. And if we can get it done by July 28th, we will, just so we can, the earlier the better. But any other thing, too, that you all see from either today's presentation or meetings that we've had one-on-one, please let us know before the next workshop so that we can ensure we incorporate it.

Speaking of sanitation, how difficult would it be to send someone around and double check that people are paying for their second trash can?

They do that quite consistently. Dustin, who is our sanitation supervisor, is very good at checking on that. So we constantly get calls that rise to me of, hey, they took our can and they've had a second can for a year they haven't paid for. So he does a very good job of auditing those and ensuring people are paying for what they're supposed to be.

That's what the cameras are for.

That does help, yes. Most of the time it's when people call and say they forgot to put their garbage out and they check the camera and then realize they had two cans and then he verifies on the bill that they don't. A lot of times it's people calling in on themselves actually, but Dustin does a great job of that.

So circling back here, what do you need guidance on commission-wise that you have asked for but we haven't given you today? The The 4th of July festivity, which is kind of our big, big thing, right? That's something to wrestle on on how we're going to do that. I think we're all still trying to mull over.

I would just say after today, I will email this presentation out so you all can read it and review it. But if there's anything that we discussed today as far as the events or the sanitation rates or eliminating some of the programs, some of this is policy stuff that you all will have to vote on anyway. But if there's anything that is not related to that that you don't think is going in the right direction, let's definitely talk about it at the July 28th meeting or the workshop on August 6th.

I guess the core philosophical lens here is what do we do as a city? Our very core services are to protect our citizens, our police, our fire, our rescue, even our animal control, and then our public works, the toilets flush, stormwater drain, you know, all of that. Those are our very, very core functions as a city. Utility services. Anything beyond that is gravy, effectively. Quality of life, very important things for sure. But we've got to figure out that right balance. And I don't know that we're there yet, but y'all have made a heck of a dent in looking at all the options and trying to come up with, here's how I think we can thread the needle I appreciate the due diligence here. It's probably going to get less fun before it gets better. And we're all in the rowboat together here. Anybody else got any thoughts, questions, inputs before we wrap up? Bueller, Bueller? You know what that's a reference to, right, Sam? Absolutely, brother. All right. Any commissioners? Y'all got anything else? City manager?

No. All right.

Ready, ready, break. Thank y'all for coming this afternoon.