City Commission - workshop

setting yes I want to thank the police department for allowing us to conduct our meetings here temporarily and of course I want to thank city staff for building this beautiful dais which will remain probably a permanent fixture going forward after we build our new City Hall but Wow. Pretty nice, right? Anyway, so let us begin the meeting. We're going to start with our joint workshop with the Budget Advisory Board. Mr. Clerk, would you please call the roll of the commission?

Commissioner Herbst?

Present.

Commissioner Glossman? Here. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Here. Vice Mayor Sorensen?

Here.

Mayor Trent Tullis?

Here. And the chair of the Budget Advisory Board. You want to call the roll of your committee? We have a quorum? Great.

Mr. City Manager, please proceed. Great. Thank you, Mayor. So we're going to start with the presentation from staff with Laura Reese. And just before we get started, I just want to acknowledge the work of the Budget Advisory Board and Chair Brown. You'll see in the work program and the backup, this team, this committee in particular, has done a tremendous amount of work this year to get us to where we are now, and we are just grateful for their support.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Laura Reese. I hope you enjoyed your summer. We're very excited to be back with you. As you know, we have a regular cadence of the budget advisory board meeting with the city commission. It happens three times a year. This is the third of three meetings that they have. At this point, the city commission has set the maximum millage rates and the budget advisory board spent the summer weighing in on the budget and making recommendations at their last meeting. So before we turn it over to the chair to get going, can we have the tentative budget presentation? So before we turn it over to the chair to share their presentation and their recommendations, staff would like to go over some summary information of changes that happened between when we met with you last time in June at the joint workshop and this meeting because we got new taxable values and a few things changed over the summer. So we want to make sure that we're all on the same page. The Budget Advisory Board has already received this information at their July meeting, so I'll quickly go through it just to make sure we're all aligned at where we're starting. So today I'll be going over taxable value growth, tax bill comparison, the operating budget by fund. We'll talk about the general fund a little bit more. That's really where we focused our time in June when we had our joint meeting with you. We'll talk about where the money comes from, where it goes, some key changes since the proposed budget. In the general fund, 2027 tentative FT snapshot. We'll share with you the projected budget and the capital improvement plan some strategic budgeting balancing strategies that we implemented since we met in june and which were part of the proposed budget that was shared with the commission at your july meeting and then some key takeaways for the budget So the first item is the change that we got between June and July. So our proposed budget was based upon the assumed taxable values as of June 1st, which we got from the property appraiser. The city's required to use the July 1st values that we received from the property appraiser as part of the adopted budget that we bring forward at the two public hearings in September. So the good news is it went up. So in June, we shared $67.3 billion, and that has now increased, which will result in $756,000 in additional revenue to the general fund. One thing that's kind of cool to note is the net new construction increased this year. It's the highest it's been in over five years. So that's a good indicator of the economy in Fort Lauderdale.

When you say this year, you mean 2025?

So the tax roll for 2026 is what we use. So it's as of January 1st. So it would reflect any growth that happened the year before January 1st. Right. And so it grew by $1.75 billion. Okay.

Thank you.

Yep. You're welcome. And so we shared with you this tax bill comparison for illustrative purposes in June. Sharing it again, it really hasn't changed. But just as a reminder, tax bills or trim notices will be going out to residents within the next week. And so they'll start seeing their trim notices. A part of that is the city's tax rate and the city's assessments. So for a $640,000 taxable value, the amount that comes to the city on the tax bill in 2026 was $3,493. The increases that are being proposed on the tax bill this year, millage rate stays the same, but because there's that... CPI cap or the CPI growth in a homesteaded value, that'll go up by 2.7% this year or $69. Voter approved debt goes down because the taxable value went up and that's the calculation of what it takes to make that payment. So that'll go down by approximately $5. Stormwater assessment is scheduled to increase by $75 or 20% to support the new debt that we'll be issuing. And fire assessment, the full cost of service true up was $41 or 10.2% increase. So the total increase for the city's portion of the bill will be $180 or 5.2%. So the total operating budget for the city, the tentative operating budget, is $1.3 billion. The general fund is the largest portion of that budget at $561 million, or 43%. And the second largest is water, sewer, and central regional wastewater system at $310 million. In the general fund, approximately 50% of our revenue comes from property taxes, or 47.6%. And the rest come from fire assessment fees, utility taxes, and other revenues to support the general fund. We share every year that this is a pretty good place to be where we have a diversified revenue sources. So... We think this will position us well even if property tax reform occurs, unlike some municipalities that are even more reliant on property taxes. And police and fire drive the largest portion of the general fund budget, over 60%, followed by parks and recreation, community services, and other functions that are funded through the general fund. There are some key changes that we wanted to highlight for you since the proposed budget went to the City Commission at the beginning of July. Key revenue changes are the increase in ad valorem that we spoke about, $756,000 in additional revenues. We are proposing to shift some costs in the City Attorney's Office. There are two positions that are being recommended to be funded in the city attorney's office through an offset or a reduction in the risk management charges for external counsel. So that'll come in as a revenue to the general fund for a service charge and will be used to support those attorneys. And then another item is Wilton Manners has requested an additional position to be dedicated to the fire rescue contract with them. So that's $194,000 to support one new FTE. And so both of those are cost-neutral proposals to the general fund. Additional expenditures are an increased transfer to the capital improvement plan of $450,000. We talked about the city attorney and paralegal position that will help to offset some external expenses related to auto liability and general liability cases. The fire safety captain position for Wilton Manors. Additional contractual services and operating expenses and parks and recreation to offset some positions that were reduced in that area. An increase in the tax collector payment related to the true up in the fire assessment and an increase in transfer to the CRA based upon those July 1st values. So those are the changes that you'll see when you vote on the budget in September. If anything else is added, we'll add that to a change list that we bring forward. The FTE snapshot remains the same as what we shared in July with the exception of the three positions we just shared. And so the net increase in the general fund is a net of two new positions. And again, three of those are fully supported through reductions in other expenses or revenue from Wilton Manors. As part of the city auditor's review of the budget, I believe he'll speak more about our fund balance. We've spent some time with them over the summer, so I'll leave that to him, but our estimate is that $9.4 million above our 25% target is available in the general fund fund balance. And for CIP, this also remains largely unchanged since our July meeting. $8.1 million in seawalls. We have funding for sidewalks, streets. $5 million is kind of a key number for the parks bond gaps. So if there's shortages in the parks bond program, we can turn to those funds to help to fill the gaps in funding. Repair and maintenance for city facilities remains in the budget, and traffic mobility and bike lane improvements. So when we shared this general fund forecast with you in June, we shared that there was an $8.9 million projected deficit in the general fund due to some new expenses that were coming online, including the new city hall, including some fire grants that were going to be expiring. But we spent some time in the month of June planning developing strategies to fill those gaps, and those were incorporated in the proposed budget ahead of the decision related to City Hall. And so here's some key things that were implemented. Revenue enhancements for fire ambulance transport fees, interest earnings. We reduced six vacant positions in the general fund. And payroll attrition was budgeted in areas with a history of vacancies. All of those were incorporated in the preliminary budget. In the proposed budget, we added some additional strategies, a shift to internal pension bond payment, $2.1 million, $2 million for interest in general capital projects fund. We eliminated the subsidy for health insurance administrative costs, reduced fleet replacement charge, so we have to extend the... life of those vehicles or rely upon interest in those funds we're reducing the fire rescue department overtime budget as we briefly mentioned and a reduction for grant writing services so the total reductions and balancing strategies implemented were 10.9 million dollars in the 2027 budget and that was really to prepare us for 2028 so the new model shows that we're balanced essentially for 2028 And we started a neutral position heading into that year as well. And so our key takeaways for the 2027 tentative budget is it addresses the city commission's priorities. We spend a lot of time identifying that in the city manager's message. The key ways where each of your priorities are funded is structurally balanced. It accelerates the completion of key capital projects. It maintains a healthy fund balance and prepares the city for the future. Any questions?

Okay. Does that complete your presentation?

That completes my presentation.

Okay. Does anyone from the Budget Advisory Board want to add to this presentation or comment at this point? They have their own. You have your own presentation. Okay. Very good. Does anyone from the Commission have any questions of Laura at this point? Thank you. Amazing job. I see you made a very serious attempt to reduce our expenditures by almost $11 million, so that's great. And I know a lot of work went behind all of this, so I want to thank you and the entire staff, the team that works for the city in making this happen. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor and Commission, and thanks to the manager, Assistant City Manager, and the whole team. We appreciate it.

All right, great. Mr. City Manager.

So if there's no further questions for our staff, we'll turn that over to Chair Brown for the Budget Advisory Board.

Hello, Bill. Welcome back.

You're instrumental in building the dais, and it looks fantastic.

Thank you.

So once we'll get the slide deck up, first of all, I'd like to thank opening with the Budget Advisory Board members. This past year, they've spent a tremendous amount of time working with key identified staff from OMB on special projects to look at, you know, like affordability operations. And each one of us took a section on, like, REVENUE ENHANCEMENT AREAS AND EVERYTHING. SO WE PRESENTED THAT AT OUR LAST WORKSHOP. SO TODAY WE'RE GOING TO FOCUS ON THE FUTURE AND KIND OF SET A STAGE TO HELP YOU IN JANUARY WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR NEXT PRIORITY WORKSHOP AS A COMMISSION. AND ALSO I'D BE REMORSED IF THE VICE CHAIR LETTING THE COMMISSION EVERYONE KNOW IT'S HER BIRTHDAY TODAY. happy birthday happy melissa happy birthday what a way to spend it so during our summer meetings we focused a lot working with staff on the uh the physical year fy 27 budget which was just proposed budget final budget presented to you earlier and then we took a look at the city hall We've talked about property tax reform, if that were to pass. We met with Strategic Communications. They came in, did their presentation on the public outreach of that referendum, and then also the Balancing Act, which is a tool online in trying to engage the general public. We come here before you as a board to endorse the FY 2027 budget as presented by staff by unanimous vote from our last meeting as presented it's realistic it's a responsible budget that meets all the city's current needs and it's also balanced as required for 2027 with priorities for public safety and supporting the initial cost, the general fund cost for the new city hall. I believe it's 11 million next year in this budget, if I'm not mistaken. And then it includes reductions that was addressed as concerns for 2028 as staff presented. So as I mentioned, we're looking ahead. as a Citizens Advisory Board to help you and the Commission to meet the goals and your priorities and what we feel the residents and taxpayers are most concerned about. And we've identified five key areas that we feel we're going to all have to roll up our sleeves as we move forward for 2028. And that's affordability, the millage rate and the fees. Do we continue to keep them the same? Or will there have to be increases if property tax reform comes in, development slows down? We're going to talk about development. We also are concerned about keeping a business-friendly environment. Anytime you raise business taxes or fees and permits, it's a double-edged sword. What do those developers, what do those business landlords do? they raise the price back on their tenants. And so in essence, it's an increase in their rents, and that has some effect. Same with affordability. When you have more cost involved, then the landlord will always raise the prices on their tenants. And the big elephant in the room is property tax reform. We won't know until, like we said, until November how that's going to play out. But we do have concerns. So here's what we do know. Affordability, approximately somewhere around, it says 49, there's some statistics say 46, 49%, that the average income, household income, are below the thresholds of the basic cost of living or poverty standard here in Broward County. And the housing cost in Fort Lauderdale The median cost for a home now, this was in 2025, is $530,000. And the fair market rent for one bedroom in 2025 is $1,900. So the impacts that those have is increasingly challenging for young people to manage. move in here, especially first-time homebuyers, and make living in Fort Lauderdale achievable and affordable. I know we have a Housing Affordability Board that works on certain issues, but we have to keep in mind any impacts that we recommend to this commission will have an effect on affordability. Some businesses are having trouble finding the availability of workers. And we'd like to keep our workforce here in our own city because they're spending their tax dollars. And Fort Lauderdale's had the opportunity to strengthen its appeal to promote Fort Lauderdale, and it's a place to live in a vibrant community. As we know, the current millage rate's been maintained now. This budget's approved for 20 years. And the other cities have seen substantial increases communities around, cities around Fort Lauderdale, the average millage rate has increased 36% over that time period. And we have, though, seen cost of fees as such, the fire assessments fee, the stormwater, utility rates. And the impact all this has is, you know, it affects the holistic preparation of future budgets and proactive addresses affordability challenges we must take into concern. Development. New construction, as you just discussed. We had a good year with new growth coming online. We had, I believe, the Saline. They came on the tax rolls this year. And that was two high-rise condos, two 30-story buildings down on the beach. And I think Flagler Village had a couple projects.

A couple?

Yeah. And there's a couple more still.

Well, Fat Village is going to be an intense development project that's going to add significantly to the tax rolls during the year in which it finally gets its CO.

Correct. And that kind of leads me into what we're concerned about, because currently we're seeing a slowdown in the development market due to high construction costs and the interest rates. Just to give you an example, I'm sure you're aware that Planning and zoning, typically on a good month, will have three to five development projects come before them. Month of June, they had one. Month of July, they had two on their agenda. Month of August, zero. So what's that tell you? We're seeing a slowdown, but everything is centrical. We understand that in the construction world. We have to take that into consideration as we do future planning for budgets. But we also have to be cognizant of when we have that downturn and we don't see those 7.5% increases in assessed value. If it were to drop below 5% in any given one year, historically looking at a 5% increase will be eaten up just in salaries and benefits of our workforce of Fort Lauderdale. That's what giving future raises and paying the health insurance costs and everything else. So that's a pretty staggering number. 5% automatically is eaten up in personnel costs and benefits. As I mentioned earlier, keeping a business-friendly environment, we did increase the business tax by 5%. That's within the Florida statute, and the maximum every year can go up five. But as I mentioned, it has a double-edged sword there when you do that, and we have to take that. So as we look at future budgets, we can't just say, okay, we can go out here and raise, start raising the permit fees and business taxes and things without fully taking into consideration the impacts that those will have. And to our next big one, property tax, we all know what's being proposed, taking homestead up from the $50,000 next year to $150,000 with 2028 going to $250,000 to pass. Five-year residency, if you move here, you won't be able to homestead for five years after the end of the year. And then the non-homestead properties will no longer be taxed. Maximum 10%, it drops to five. So we know at 2028, if this were to pass 17 million, we know 2029, then a reduction of 27.3 million. So to offset all this, we have to come up with some strategic reductions and or increase the millage rate. It's pretty simple. We're not advocating increase in military rates to do it, but we're going to have to make tough decisions as a community and as a commission and as an advisory board. Does it mean we start cutting services, or does it mean we start defunding non-for-profits? Next year, you have to take a look at the CRA report. If it's a two-year proposal, you come back and look at it being funded at 50%. Maybe the choice has to be made you don't fund it for the next two years at 50%. Those are some of the things. Not that we're saying this has to be done, but we're going to have to really, really take a hard look and a hard dive to balance the budget next year if property tax reform passes. And that's why we're setting... As I mentioned, the stage as we move to your workshop in January on what the priority is going to be, and a lot of those priorities are going to be driven on what happens to property tax reform, keeping in mind that public safety is always priority number one. And that concludes my presentation. Okay, great. Any questions of Mr. Brown?

I do have a question. Please go ahead. Mr. Brown, on the... moving forward and looking at those areas we may need to reduce. You said services. What services are you suggesting that we reduce?

Maybe the programs that the parks offer might have to be reduced. Services that we do for for the special events for district certain districts and the parades You know those who carry a big impact on services city services and the cost of those so I'm we're not saying We're cutting anything at this point, but we I think I collaboratively, we have to all sit down and figure out what is the best model that works best. And we do know police overtime, you'll hear about this following this presentation, is high. Fires reduce theirs. But one of the reasons is police overtime, we're seeing more protest that requires public safety support than we've ever seen in the past in our community. So that drives up overtime costs. You can't cut those types of services because those are still required for certain types of security measures. So I think at this point, I know the previous city manager presented a list of some strategic thoughts of her and the staff at the time that maybe if property tax were to pass, we'd have to take a look at. But I think overall, I don't want to predict what's going to happen, but just hearing and seeing, and truly people don't understand the impact if this really happens. And hopefully, you know, we're trying to educate, strategic communication is doing a great job, but we just got to keep pushing that message out and letting the voters will decide. And I think the message voters are hearing is, oh, great, our tax bills will go down. Well, it might on one side, but services still have to be provided if they want that same level of service.

And that was the reason I was asking when we say service, that's a broad statement. So that's why I asked where were you saying the services that would be suggested maybe or what we need to look at specifically. Right. That was the reason for my question.

Right. And at this point, we really don't have it looked at particular yet. Mm-hmm. hopefully once we have clear guidance from your workshop in January, what the priorities will be.

I think we're going to have clear guidance on in November.

Yeah. So, uh, we'll probably, but then your, the priorities will have to be built around that budget and that resource.

Right. You know, and we'll have neighborhood meetings and, and, and try to determine what the priorities of the community are. And, uh, And then make decisions going forward. So whether it be services, whether it be staffing, whatever it may be, you know, the commissioner would have to make a decision about the millage rate and any other fees that we charge. You know, these are all, you know, questions that will have to be answered at some point. You're right. We agree with you. But, you know, it's going to have an impact. You know, my windstorm insurance just went up about $3,000, so there goes my savings.

Well, and October, November, historically, and we are this year, too, the board does not meet because we've met so much throughout the year. We're one of the boards that have probably one of the most meetings throughout the year, and so we give... staff a chance not only to take a rest from having to work closely with the board, but then they also are in the process of doing every year-end closeout for the previous physical year we're coming off of. But then we'll possibly come back in December if we see a need to, and then, of course, in January. And we'll hit the ground running again because, Mayor, as you said, we'll definitely know by November And I think once we know in November, we'll probably meet in December.

Okay.

Very good. Any other questions?

If I may, I just also wanted to echo everyone's sentiments. Thank you so much to you and your entire board for the work that you do throughout the whole year. I mean, it really is amazing to track what you guys do, how it all starts, the process. And I really hope the public understands the commitment that you guys all make and the work that you all put into it. It's very helpful, and I'm really happy that it's jiving with the tentative budget that was proposed by Laura. I want to reiterate, so your board is firmly in support of the tentative budget as proposed?

Yes, unanimously.

Okay, excellent. And I do look forward to the work. We are going to have to roll up our sleeves, especially if this passes. But I think we'll get there. What I really feel sorry for are all the small communities in our state that so much rely on that ad valorem tax, that homesteaded tax that they collect, which really is their entire budget. We are fortunate that we are a diverse economy. We are diverse revenue sources for taxes. It's going to be very interesting to see if this passes what happens to those smaller communities, towns, and counties in our state. I really don't know how they survive, actually.

Well, one of those cities might be something like Parkland, which has 75% to 80% of their tax base based on homesteaded properties. Right. Do they become unincorporated?

Do they merge with another town in Broward County? I mean, what happens? So we'll see. Luckily for us, we're not in that position. But I do hope that everyone understands the ramifications for the entire state. and what can happen. And it's interesting, Mayor, that you mentioned the increase in your windstorm. We seem to not think of those things, or the state doesn't think of those things. It's easier just to say, let's cut your property taxes. And in the meantime, the other issues that affect us so greatly, like property insurance, as you mentioned, windstorm, those all get no attention. So that this almost becomes like the out for the state without basically focusing on a lot of the issues that affect us day to day as citizens of the state. So it's an interesting concept. We'll see how it plays out. But again, I wanted to just say thank you. And I'm thrilled that you are 100% behind the budget as proposed. Again, thank you for your work. You will have a few months off now, and we'll see you in December.

Thank you. And then just closing, I can't emphasize enough the staff in OMB. I mean, not to alienate any other department, but we have more internal staff. Contact and directly contact with that staff. They are tremendous I know even a former board member mentioned and came from the private sector was always so amazed at how well OMB and how they were always on top of things and The kudos and I think they deserve a round of applause Can I ask him to stand up

Mayor, I had a couple, Bill, before you sit down, just a couple questions. One, thank you again for your work and especially in partnership with OMB. How has the process been going? Because you all dig deep into department spending and so forth. Is how we're collaborating and working together and working with staff, is that going well? Is there anything we can do from a commission standpoint, staff standpoint to do better?

No, I think it's working well. Everything we've asked for, members have been supplied. Okay, great. I think as we move forward, coming once the elephant in the room is exposed on the property tax, that's when things are really going to get figuring it all out.

Right, yeah. And that's one of the questions I get from neighbors regularly is, hey, are there savings now that we could be putting in place and not waiting until November? And so you all have obviously dig in and so forth. What would be your response to that?

You shared a couple of the savings possibilities, but are you feeling – You know it's always been the commissioners, the non-for-profits.

Yeah.

We've always had concerns there's not been a really good vetting system for those. Some of the non-for-profits feel like it's an entitlement program.

Well, you guys came up with $11 million of savings. So that's amazing.

It's a good start. Yeah, I mean, those vacant positions, those funds were always carried on the books. So, in essence, when you eliminate six vacant positions off the books, that frees up that money that ultimately would, at the end of every year, go back into the general fund to be used for other things throughout the year. Does that explain properly? Yeah. Yeah. So, like you said, Mayor, that was a big savings right there. Yeah. Not reabsorbing it, basically. Right. Like, yeah. Okay. So, those are some of the things. And... It's, you know, as I mentioned, non-for-profits and CRA. You know, if the CRA has a lot of money in that account that we can maybe hold off another two years, especially with development not moving right now, maybe that might be a time to take a pause. I mean, that's a strategic idea.

We have a CRA meeting after this, and it's an issue that I would like to address also, because I understand, was it $6 million a year that we're generating now?

Approximately, yes.

$6 million a year, and that's just city funds. It doesn't include the funds we used to take advantage of when we had the full complement of taxing authorities that were contributing to this, but So something we can think about, look at the schedule of opportunities that we have in the CRAs, what our expectations are, what the opportunities are, and what we can afford. And maybe that would be another source of income. So we'll see.

I agree with you. Great. But I think we all have to agree that we have to keep a mindset as we move forward is everything should be on the table. Excluding the key elements like public safety, providing good quality water, sewer, stormwater, and protect this community for the infrastructure needs of those that are required for life safety and sustainability. After that, we should be able to look at everything on the table. Yeah. Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you all.

Any other questions of Mr. Brown? Yes.

Not of Mr. Brown. If we can have Laura come back up.

Laura, would you mind coming back up for a second?

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Again, thank you to everyone and all the input, the reports, and the time that has been shared and added to this opportunity this afternoon. But I want us to roll back a little bit, and I want us to really, for the record and for the room, let's dive a little deeper and really say the sources of this $11 million that's been identified. If we could say what buckets exactly, how much money is coming from these buckets. Are they, in a sense, encumbered or uncumbered? What is this money? Because I want to know exactly where it's coming from and then how else we may need to look at using it going forward thinking about this property tax referendum.

Sure. Thank you, Commissioner. Just to reiterate, so I'm answering the correct question. So in the proposed budget, there are $10.9 million in strategic reductions that are incorporated. Are you asking for me to talk about those? Yes, that's my question. Yep, absolutely. So the first item on the list is revenue enhancements. And so we've been partnering throughout the year with departments and with the Budget Advisory Board bringing forward then to the commission certain revenues and fee increases. One of the main ones that was incorporated was fire ambulance transport fees that were increased and that was already implemented. And then the fire rescues really spent some time trying to enhance collection efforts in that area. So with the revenue enhancements, which included interest earnings, a new program that finance put together to enhance our interest earning program, business tax, those fee increases, and fire ambulance fees for the three major ones, that was $3.2 million in revenue enhancements. The second item that we pointed to, and this was incorporated in the preliminary budget, was a reduction of six vacant positions. So many of them had been vacant for over a year. An example we pointed to was Parks and Recreation had trouble recruiting for polymer positions, some of those technical positions. So we did add some contractual services later, but we did reduce positions to the tune of $767,000 for six positions. And that reduces the ongoing increase in growth in the wages for those positions in our modeling as well. The next item is what Chair Brown was talking about, which was the attrition. We previously used to budget for positions at the full amount, even though we realized there was vacant positions throughout the year. So now we factored in an attrition factor for departments that have vacancies from year to year. That allowed us to budget for $550,000 in the general fund for attrition. And so that reduces our expenses, meaning we don't have to actually cut positions, but we're just budgeting for less salaries. So those are the ones that were incorporated in preliminary, and we talked to you about those in June. But since then, we added some enhancements. And for proposed budget, the first one, really what we were trying to do, our strategy was to impact services individually. in the least amount possible by looking to the resources that we already have. One of the things we identified in concert with finance was that we issued pension obligation bonds and they have a limited life, I believe seven years left. around seven years left, and we had a fund balance that was reserved for payment purposes. We used to pay that 1 12th every month for cash flow. Our cash flow is really strong in the city right now, so we can do our transfers from the various funds into that fund on October 1st and that frees up the fund balance we had in that fund and we can spend it down over the last seven years of the bond and that freed up $2.1 million a year. So that was this financing strategy using our own money to reduce our expense.

Question, just is that considered operational or is that falling under a different category? Am I in the wrong?

Yeah, so we're repaying debt.

Okay.

And so we have a separate fund set up for debt. And let's say the police department's portion of that debt to support the unfunded liability falls. Let's say it was a million dollars. We would have spread our one point two million dollars. We would have put one hundred thousand dollars every month into the account to make the payment. Now we're going to pay it all at the beginning of the year so that we don't have to have. It's kind of like an escrow for your mortgage. We don't need that escrow anymore. We can spend that down and take advantage of funding that we have in place by paying for it at the beginning of the year. And so that was $2.1 million. Over the next seven years, we were able to realize. The next item is budgeting for interest in capital projects account. So previously, we didn't include a budget for interest, but our capital projects account balances have grown over the years and our interest program is better so we're earning pretty consistently two million dollars a year we're going to start budgeting for that to offset how much we need to actually cash contribute to fund our capital so if we have ten million dollars in projects we only need to budget for eight million because the fund itself is generating two of the million so that was one of our strategies that got us an additional two million dollars The next item is related to our health fund. We're self-insured for health. But previously, the city also paid for the administrative costs related to the health fund. The health fund's now in a healthy enough position where we don't need to do that. So the general fund portion that we won't have to pay is $850,000 with no increases to employees' premiums. So that solution was $850,000. The next item is $882,000. And it's similar to the other funding that we talked about. It's reducing the fleet replacement charge. So our city has an internal service fund that's set up to replace our full fleet. So if a general fund position, like somebody in code, if we purchase a vehicle for, let's say, $20,000, we put money aside every year so that when that vehicle needs to be replaced, that we have money saved to replace the vehicle. What we were doing before is we were funding it at 95%, and that took into account that we could sell the vehicle for 5% of its cost to offset it. We're seeing that we're getting higher prices at auction and we're earning interest in that fund, so we're able to reduce the amount that we put aside for replacement by 5% to 90%. so again that was that change in mechanism would be 882 000 in savings um two more to go um 350 000 reduction in fire rescue over time fire rescues implemented some really strategic approaches to how they fill their vacant seats they're experiencing ongoing savings um So the city manager recommended $350,000 reduction to their overtime, which is an ongoing savings. And then the last one was a pot of funds we used to budget for grant writing services. The city always wants to be prepared to leverage grant funds. We had $250,000 set aside for that. What we've seen is really only around $50,000 was spent. So we're reducing the amount. And if we have a higher amount, we'll have to come to you to ask for permission through a budget amendment.

Where I'm going, where I'm trying to land.

Yeah. Okay.

Bottom line. Where is this money? Capital or operational? Operational. Okay. All right. So we're looking at operational, right? This is where the majority of this fund is coming from. We're looking at the November tax property tax referendum. If that goes into effect, how is this going to affect our operation ability?

So these strategic reductions prepare us for 2028 before property tax reform. If in 2028 we see an additional $17 million reduction in revenues, we'll have to implement additional strategies. We'll try to look to something similar to this. We'll try to impact services in the least way possible, but it'll be collaborative. We'll have to bring ideas with our departments. We work really closely with all of our operating departments to come up with ideas, but we will have to bring additional ideas. This only gets us through 2028.

And what are we going to use this $11 million?

So this is already incorporated into the budget, into the proposed budget.

If you would identify it for us.

So the primary thing we were able to do was to enhance our capital contributions because we don't want to add to ongoing operating expenses. So one of the things I'd point to is $5 million for the Parks Bond placeholder. and items like that. So we didn't enhance operating programs based on these reductions because we're specifically trying to balance for 2028.

Any further questions?

Yeah, I'm just trying to formalize the question because I'm...

While she's formalizing, these are recurring savings. These aren't just one-time savings, correct? Yes, correct. These are recurring every year? Yes. Yeah, okay.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so the structural balance budget means ongoing revenues tied to ongoing expenses. We do still fund a large amount of capital, which is one-time costs. We have the opportunity to look to reduce that as well.

Okay.

Anything you have? May I ask a question? Yeah, you can ask a question while you're doing this.

Because there's something, there's one other direction I want to go in. Go ahead. Because this board, they've really done an amazing job in their presentation. And I'm hoping that I've talked to some of you And you all have had some great input. And Mayor, is this an opportunity now that we allow some of the board to share as well? I would love to hear from Mr. Oliver if that's an opportunity.

Well, if they have something they want to.

Well, I'm asking for Mr. Oliver. I don't know if he has something to share. But I would like for him to share.

Well, Laura is up there. Can I just ask her a question? Yes. Okay. Thank you so much. So, Laura. I just want to talk about the grant writing services because I don't want to cut off our nose to spite our face. If we are facing some really heavy decisions next year, what are the opportunities? I want to make sure that we're still going to be able to fund what we need because I'm thinking that we need to go after as many grants as possible and even maybe accelerate what we've done in the past. I don't know right now what the temperature is out there in the world of grants, but it seems to me that that's something we're going to have to be really aggressive about and making sure that we don't leave any grant out there that we don't go after. Obviously, especially if we're going to be facing some cuts. So are we still prepared to be as aggressive as possible with grant writing, even though we are looking at that reduction of $200,000?

Yeah, Commissioner, I'll take this. So, you know, we are and continue to be aggressive in our grant program. There are a lot of grants out there that we don't need that grant writing assistance for. So our FXE grants, for example, are usually completed by staff or we don't need that external assistance. So we're basing this reduction on our historic trends for what we've actually needed the assistance for in these cases, and we think that that'll be adequate going forward. Now, if we see new grants come out, if the federal or state government start to create new programs and we need to get more assistance, as Laura said, we can come back with a budget amendment to seek those funds if we see an uptick in what we need.

Okay, great. Thank you. Again, I just want to make sure that we're as aggressive as possible, especially facing the climate that we are going to face. Thank you.

And even with that aggressiveness, awareness of what is actually we're possibly facing. And I'm sitting here because I'm really in a personal moment. And I'm remembering and recalling just being a homeowner, being the person who I am, a resident in this city. And just... living from day to day, what I'm facing, what I've faced in the past. Just remembering a time when I had to look hard at my personal budget, making true decisions and being real with myself that, hey, I need to do some things differently. And being humbled enough to say this is not the time for what I'm hoping to do. So I'm having an out-of-body experience, if you want to say that, because I'm really taking this in, because you all gave us six weeks off. So what we did with that time, some of us may not admit, but a lot of bedtime reading here. But with that being said, I'm with the fact that we definitely need to be aggressive with what we're doing. But at the same time, with that aggressiveness being responsible with our neighbors of what we're moving forward and not acting like November isn't something that more than likely is not gonna be what we consider to be favorable, okay? I'm gonna get off the soapbox right now.

So a couple of things, and if I may, since I haven't had a chance yet. So I wanna make just a statement. This is not a question, but a response to Mr. Brown's statement. So one of the things that I haven't heard yet, and this is in line with your statement, but it's also in line with everything that I've read, all the editorials that I've read, all the speeches that I've made by my elected colleagues here locally and throughout the state. Never once, never once have I heard anybody ever mention the word, we're gonna be more efficient. All I've heard is we're going to raise fees, we're going to raise taxes, We're going to cut services. We're going to cut police and fire. And never once have I ever heard anybody mention that we're going to get more efficient. And I think that's just a travesty. And this is a global issue. This is not just with us here. Again, I spend a lot of time consulting in the private sector. I have a lot of clients that I work with. And when our revenue drops, the first thing we do is we look at ways that we can do things more efficiently. We look at ways that we can do more with less. I don't start thinking about how I'm going to look for ways to keep my staff employed while my revenue plummets. I'm thinking about how am I going to do more with less. I don't say I'm going to cut services, I'm going to cut product offerings. I look at how am I going to continue to deliver on the expectations of my customers while I have less revenue coming in because that's how you grow your way out of a problem. You don't grow your way out by saying, you know, we're just going to cut all of our services and we're going to put our clients at risk because, you know, the residents are our clients. And so we can't say we're going to cut our services to our clients. That's not the answer. And we can't simply say we're going to charge all of our clients for it. That's not the answer. The answer has got to be that we're going to do better and we're going to do more with less. And that never seems to be the answer in government. Government has this unique monopoly where we just say, great, we're going to charge you more. And I just think that that's a shame. And I think we need to be thinking more about, again, how we drive efficiency and how we can implement efficiency. Again, the thing I'm doing right now is I've incorporated AI into everything that I do. My work is 50% more efficient than it was a year ago. I've increased my productivity, my output, and the quality of what I do because I'm using chat, I'm using Claude, I'm using Grok every single day, multiple times a day in every single thing that I do. And again, I encouraged our city staff here to do that, and they're doing it. I know they're doing training classes on Copilot, and I thank you all for embracing that. But over time, our workforce is going to decline, naturally through attrition, and also it's going to have to be through strategic layoffs, where we're just going to simply find that we don't need as many people to do the job that we're doing today. And we always have to remember that government is not an employment agency. We don't exist to employ people. We exist to provide services to our residents at the lowest cost possible. And we lose that concept all the time. I never hear people say that that's our role. But I always hear people say, we can't lay off staff. We can't cut staff. We can't do this. We can't do that. I never hear people say, here's what we can do. And so I just want to encourage us all to have a different mindset when we're looking at this. Scarcity drives improvement. Nothing focuses the mind like scarcity. I learned this a long time ago when I was working for a company that was experiencing financial distress. And I will tell you, nothing focuses your attention like bankruptcy. So I would encourage us all to look at this not as a crisis, but as an opportunity for us to get better and to be more focused. And it's a challenge to us to get better at what we do. And I would love to hear from Olivier. So Olivier, if you would care to share your thoughts.

Can you hear me?

Yes. Yeah.

Thanks for the opportunity, Commissioner, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Commissioners. When Chairman Brown described the unanimous vote on this budget, I would mention that I was not able to vote because I was stuck in the Italian road and I couldn't participate via Zoom as I had anticipated. Damn Italians. If I had been in Greece and I was there a week before, I would have been able to do it. And I was thinking of Socrates, Mayor Trent Alice, who encouraged everybody to question, to uncover the truth, self-knowledge, Aristotle with ethics, logic, and politics. And I think it reminded me of the fact that at BAB, And I've tried to champion this approach for the past two years with some degree of success among my peers and talking to some of you at the Commission, is to try to bring ideas that are concrete and anchored in the reality of numbers and putting into perspective what we have done for the past three or four years. And I put a lot of analytics on the table shared with my colleagues to see the trends. Unfortunately, and we can't blame staff or government for doing that, but to echo Commissioner Erb's comments, there's... Bless you. There is a tendency to copy-paste from one year to another, and generally with increasing of the general fund and a lot more on charges, fees, et cetera, et cetera. And we have incurred a lot of burden on our residents. And I was advocating all this year for some task assignment from everybody to gather ideas in anticipation of the loss of revenue, how to stimulate our revenues. And there is a lot of ideas from staff as well we can do better. in positive enhancement of revenue. Now the other side of the equation is how do we save money? And I think we need to get better for you to make the arbitration that you have to make and anticipate that before next year or before 2029 when we have 15 million deficit with tax property and city hall. Because we added City Hall at a very difficult time, and we have to – this is the worst timing to actually commit to City Hall, which is, funny enough, the same amount on the load on the budget per year as the tax property impact. So – Basically, I don't think the budget this year I would have voted to approve it because I think we didn't anticipate enough structural reform that we could have done. And I think waiting for next year when we'll be in a more difficult position and the year after is going to be a little late. I think we had an opportunity to bring new solutions this year. I'm hoping that as we start our new cycle, we'll go deeper as a group into pushing staff to get better ideas and more enhancements. And we can't create miracles. I think we need to cut some budgets. I don't think that's going to be off the table. Maybe some service level changed. In general, City Hall seems to be The wrong decision at the wrong time. We're adding a lot of weight to a $217 million baseline, and we're still very expensive per square footage. Commissioner Glassman, at the last commission meeting, you mentioned Sunrise, you mentioned other cities around us. And I looked at the numbers, and the price per square foot is still much less than what we're going to pay. And we all know that, like this building, if we budget $100 million, it might land at $150 million. So what about the $217 million, especially when the design is not finalized? This trend is moving, apparently, but I think this was the worst idea for the worst time. My concern for the budget next year is that we should put affordability not at the gimmick or word, but really at the center of our budget process. And with CC staff, I think we should help residents to get some sort of relief and find ways to not increase Beyond the constant 41193 millage rate, which provides more revenue as we expand the tax value, we have taxed our residents with fire assessment, with storm water. Those increases are gigantic. I made a calculation on the budget based upon a 640K homestead house, and it's staggering per year. It's not the numbers that I've seen previously. So I think we missed an opportunity this year to go further in structural reforms. And there is positive revenue enhancement. There is positive use of AI. I'm tired of hearing about AI and we're training and we're learning. I'd like to show me the money. How much are we going to save with AI rather than cutting some jobs? But eventually I'm afraid that If this commission doesn't do it, the next mayor or the next commissioners are going to do the dirty job of cutting jobs and cutting employment. Remember, we are relatively well-funded and we have a lot of employees. They cost a lot of money. Every year, the cost of those employees is increasing. structurally without even increasing the budget. So I think we need to really go deep, and I'm echoing this out-of-body sentiment that Commissioner Beasley-Pittman had, is that we need to be more concrete as Bob in pushing staff towards more tangible solutions, positive, and also sometimes hard solutions. Well, that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you so much.

I do have one question, though. When BAB meets with all the departments, because you've mentioned that you think we need to go deeper. So have you had those discussions with staff or have you looked at the departments? Where do you see the bloat? Where do you see the need to cut departments or staff? Where do you see the need to cut positions? Have you? Have you been able to have those discussions with the departments?

Yeah, I had analytics at the beginning of the year that I shared with my colleagues and staff, obviously, about the ratio per capita in terms of employees, budget, looking at other cities in Florida, across the nation. I've done the same thing with CDO costs. Per square footage, we saved a little money. We went down on the proposal of CDO, but we're still overpaying. We're still overpaying compared to renovation. across the nation.

I'm talking about staff. I don't care about that. I'm asking you about staff and where have you dug in to say this department is overstaffed. These positions are too many for this department. This is where we need to cut This is where we have some bloat. Have you done that?

Yes, I have done that, Commissioner Glassman.

So where do you see that? And I saw that in the city manager's office. City manager's office.

I have seen that at Stratcom. Those departments have grown a lot in the past three or four years. And their budget, even if you look at, and I don't want to put public safety on the spot, but the Office of the Chief of Police has grown a lot. There might be some good reason, and I will hear more about it tomorrow, because we are meeting with the Chief of Police on that, and the KPIs and the performance of the police department compared to the well-funded budget that keeps growing. But I have identified and shared with my colleagues, I think what we need to do better as a board is to take those analytics and hard numbers and bring you some more insider solution. And we need to get better at challenging staff and heads of department at how you can do better with less money. I think it's not a... a private sector versus public sector, I think we should get on board. By the way, Miami-Dade, Broward County, the school board all have done something to do better with less money, cut jobs, and even provide some degree of relief for their residents in terms of taxpayer money.

Well, the school board has seen drastic reductions of students to service. as opposed to our city where we've seen increase in population, increased growth. So I can't see how we can compare ourselves to the school board. Plus the school board is exempt from the property tax reform. Lucky them. And also the school board has another ballot initiative on November to even raise more money in addition to the millage rate money that they raise.

Isn't that true? It was one of the example I cited. We can revert to Miami-Dade and Broward County. I think there's an effort to be made in terms of hard measures. If you don't swallow the pill now, you might have to have surgery later. So I think we need a And I said it six months ago in front of you. We need to go on a diet. We're going on a severe diet. Bob can help you find some solutions. You have to direct staff to be serious about it, whatever the city manager in charge, previous and current. I think this is a hard job and hard pill, but we need to swallow it now because in the next two years, we're going to be in a difficult situation. and we can declare bankruptcy, but I don't want to be an alarmist, but I think we need to do better, and I hope we can start the next budget process with my colleagues to actually be more of what we should be. which is a sort of a consultant that help beyond city staff open some more question and more ideas. We want to be more proactive, we want to push staff, I think that should be our role, and with the voice of residents at the center of our process. Affordability should be not a nice word on the slide, but we should actually do something about it. And if we don't raise the millage rate, Don't cheat residents who are not stupid by seeing the fire assessment or the sanitation fee or the water sewer go so, so much higher than three years ago. I have those numbers as well to share with you later if you want.

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I look forward to that work, actually. I'm really curious to see those numbers and that outlook from you because I JUST MENTIONING THE CITY MANAGER'S OFFICE OR STRATCOM, THOSE ARE INSIGNIFICANT NUMBERS IN TERMS OF OUR OVERALL BUDGET, SO WE NEED TO SEE DEFINITELY A LOT MORE THAN THAT, BUT I DEFINITELY LOOK FORWARD TO THAT WORK. I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT, BUT I THINK STAFF WOULD BE VERY HAPPY TO, YOU KNOW, BASICALLY work along those lines. We're all going to be in a position where we need to dig deeper.

I don't doubt that. I just think that our role as BAB is not to do kumbaya, and actually, we should ask the hard questions, and that's part of our role. We represent the residents. We are a budget advisory board, so let's do our advisory job. It requires lots of work and research, but I think we have bright minds on these boards. It's a matter of leadership and really pushing hard. So I think we need to continue that. I will meet with you gladly with those analytics that I presented to my colleagues six months ago.

Excellent. I look forward to that. And by the way, kumbaya is not necessarily a bad thing. If you actually agree with what the staff is doing, you can be kumbaya. I think we can do both.

It's great. And I think I work well with staff. We meet. We talk. It doesn't mean that we can't challenge. Right. Our idea is to have a different perspective from city staff, and it's okay. We can disagree. We can have a different reading of the numbers. I think the problem so often is that we go one year and the next year, and we don't take the time to take perspective, to take some... some long-term perspective. And I think we need to do that, and I think Bob has an opportunity to do that more.

No, and I understand, although the projections that we see do go out into the future. So we can continue the discussion, and I look forward to it. We're all going to have to roll up our sleeves and work really hard when this next cycle comes along.

Commissioner, the projection from CENTAC still shows negatives in 2008 and 29.

All right, so we'll get to that. Let's just focus on what we're doing today. Thank you. And we appreciate your words and your perspective. Yes, Bill, last word, and we're going to conclude this meeting.

Very quickly, the question about department heads and efficiency. This past year, they've been more efficient than I've seen in a long time in accountability in this government. What are the things a previous city manager did, and I make this as a suggestion, not coming from the BAB, but Because we've not taken a position. But I think the previous city manager did an exercise of what if. If you had to cut 5%. I don't know if that was shared with this dais or it was never shared with the board. We can't direct staff or something. We can ask, but that doesn't mean. I think it would behoove us all to take a look at that.

So there's a recommendation to... 5% off of police, 5% off of fire.

Every department. How was the exercise conducted?

All right. Let's not go there.

All right. It would be interesting to see what they came up with.

Actually, no, Mayor, I think that's a great idea. I'd love to see that. I'd love to actually see whatever was put together. If staff has already done that exercise, please share that with me. Thank you.

Yeah. We have not seen that.

Yeah. All right. Because that could help the foundation moving forward for next year. Thank you. Very good. Yes.

All right, Mr. City Manager. Yes, you have one more item on this agenda, which is the auditor's review of the budget. But for this item, again, I want to thank the BAB, Chair Brown, and the entire team for their work this year. It was really great to participate with you, and thank you for bringing us a recommendation today. Thank you. Mr. Riley.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. The City Auditor's Office has performed a review of the fiscal year 2026-2027 proposed budget. The budget is compiled by the City Manager pursuant to Section 4.09 of the City Charter. We had several objectives for our review of the fiscal year proposed budget. The primary focus of our review was to ensure that the budget is balanced, revenue and expenditures estimates are reasonable and materially correct. and that the priority established by the city commission's priorities all show funding allocations in the coming year, and that the proposed millage rate is in compliance with Florida statutes. The scope and methodology of our review consisted of the following. The city auditor's office performed various analytical procedures, reviewed budget, support worksheets, and made inquiries to OMB as needed. Additionally, The CEO compared the line item detail from the proposed budget to the projections actual expenditures through September 2026. Furthermore, the city analyzed trends and variances of the three prior fiscal years, budget versus actual, to gain a historical perspective to identify opportunities to to look to see that the accuracy and revenue of the expenditure estimates. The documents reviewed also included the executive summary. We reviewed reports that were provided through the city's software system and any reports that we were able to request from OMB. Again, finally, as part of our audit work, the CEO attended all budget meetings and relevant meetings as they related to the development of the new budget. This participation gave us further insight as to the conditions and recommendations that were being prepared for this year's budget. As I mentioned in prior years, the city budget review The CEO's budget review is performed each year. The communication between management, BAB, the CAO, and the city's commission are ongoing and frequent throughout the year. And the budget office has had continuity of senior staff within the department, and in prior years, no material errors were noted on previous reviews. The CEO's conclusion is that the fiscal year 2026-2027 proposed budget of the City of Fort Lauderdale is considered a balanced budget as presented. In addition, the priorities established in the City's Commission priorities also show funding allocations in the coming year, and the proposed millage rate is in compliance with Florida statutes. The areas of concern section noted in our memo, which is not all inclusive, but currently represents areas the CEO deemed important enough to be brought to the city's attention. These concerns are related to ongoing events and may impact the budget in the city resources going forward. Areas of concern over time.

Wait, are you trying to take away our parties? No more 4th of July, no more Great American Beach Party. When you say events, what do you mean?

Well, I'm just, you know, depending on, you know, things that we may in the future, there's some that I don't believe we're ever going to cut out, but there's some maybe future ones we won't do. It's okay. Keep going. All right. Keep going. Okay. I'm open to any questions. No, because everyone's... All right.

Bill was on the spot. He had already said that.

Yeah, I know. You know, the thing is, we're hearing a lot of very nice-sounding things, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, what are we talking about? Someone says efficiencies in departments. That means telling people to work longer hours or doing better at their job or we're laying off people. Those are the realities. And we can dance around those topics, but those are the realities. And people don't want to say it or hear it, but that's ultimately what it comes down to. If we have X amount of dollars and we're going to have X minus 17 million, well, it means we've got to cut some. It's going to be staffing. It's going to be events. It's going to be contributions. It's going to be all those things. And that's why we have to reach out to the community to decide what are the choices. And those are the priorities that the commission would have to follow. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Pat.

All right. The first concern that we had was overtime. The CEO continues to note a significant amount of city funds allocated to overtime. Based on current operating practices, actual overtime expenditures consistently exceed the amounts included in the proposed budget. Police Department overtime remains the primary contributor to the projected budget, which they are the largest department. It would make sense that they would have the most. But during the... fiscal year 2026 um the projected um this is the final year of the fiscal year 26 it's projected that over time for the for the police will be 13 million dollars and it is underfunded by approximately 1.9 million dollars currently under current operating practices the total i'm talking about all the different departments the fiscal year 2027 overtime costs including associated 6.5 in FICA costs is projected to be approximately $26 million. Accordingly, the overtime amounts included in the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget do not appear to reflect anticipated expenditure and may require reliance on salary savings from funded vacancies or other available appropriations to cover overtime costs. Next item is the capital improvement plan.

Regarding all that. Sorry, city auditor. If you just pause there. Mayor, if it's okay, I'd like to take these kind of in turn. The city manager responded to your concern about overtime, which I think is a valid concern. And I just want to hear a little bit from the city manager, Mayor, if that's all right. Sure. so chris you know given this concern if you could just share with everyone especially folks who maybe haven't read your response on overtime what's how are we addressing that yeah thank you vice mayor so i will say and start off with we largely agree with the areas of concern that uh mr riley and his team identified and in that response you'll see

both alignment as well as things that we've done to address these areas as well. So you saw in our reductions for next year's budget, looking at the fire department overtime where they were able to find more efficiencies in their service and scheduling, where we've proposed a reduction to that budget next year. Police and fire, we continue to work, I'm sorry, police, we continue to work with our police department. I work with the chief. We review those overtime statistics monthly. We go over the causes and the needs that that department may have to overcome those overtime challenges. I will say we're also looking for ways to recover those costs, so you'll see later tonight on the agenda an agreement with the FIFA host committee to recover about $1.7 million in overtime expended by the police department. So this is ongoing, it's something we're very aware of, and we've been working internally to try to alleviate and find ways to adjust so that we can have less overtime occurrences. Although we know, public safety especially, we're going to see a need for overtime from time to time.

Yeah, thank you. And what, Chris, what patterns are you seeing in overtime? In other words, is it event driven? Is it gaps for shift work where we're down a person or two? What are you seeing?

Yeah, I would say in the police department in particular, it's a combination of some vacancies and those vacancies kind of go up and down depending on when we have classes graduate and we can fill those vacancies. So right now we're probably in the 20s. vacant position ranges, but we're waiting for that class to graduate, if they haven't already, to be able to recruit and fill those positions. You've got everything from FMLA leave, it's a large department, so that can affect scheduling as well, and just vacations, absences, and things like that. With events, we usually recover the costs, so if we expend overtime for a special event that's approved and that we have awareness of, You know, we're able to cost recover when we have situations where there's an unforeseen thing. If, you know, a protest pops up or there's some unrest or something that the police has to deal with, you know, that's something we would have to cover. And those are the things we budget for.

And how do we, if you kind of rack and stack us versus cities of our size, police force of our size in terms of overtime, are we kind of similar to other cities, similar size?

Yeah, so I haven't looked at the data compared to other cities. You know, we are unique. We do experience a lot of different factors other cities don't. So I would assume we're a bit ahead of the curve in terms of the overtime need. We have a spring break season. We have some other seasons that do require some overtime staffing. So I would assume, I don't like to assume, but I would assume that because we have some of those factors other communities don't have that we do expend a little bit more in overtime than your average community.

Okay, thanks. Pat, based on that, I just wanted to get your feedback, the response. I mean, comfortable?

I mean, I think the city manager's made some points there. There's other different factors to consider, too. If an art schedule that we prepared, you can see over the last several years, just overtime is exponentially increasing. So there are certain things, too, that... are in certain contracts when overtime kicks in before 40 hours of work has been completed. But, you know, you can include sick days and vacation days as part of your 40 before it kicks in. And there's certain things like that regarding when the overtime kicks in. But I think I understand that, you know, police department definitely and fire will have more overtime. They have more emergencies and Like Mr. Brown mentioned, sometimes there was a lot more activities in the committee that were unexpected relating to protests and things like that. So they have to be out there regardless. But I think there are some things that could be done. It sounds like done through the collective bargaining process is what you're suggesting. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks. Great. That's good for that one. And if unless there's other comments, feel free.

I'd like to just also talk about that a little bit. So either Pat or city manager. So when we talk about overtime and police, first of all, are we adequately staffed to meet our operational needs in the police department?

So I'll ask the Chief to come up and answer from his perspective. I know we've discussed this, and I know we experienced some vacancies a few years ago that were a driver for overtime, but I think for now we're more staffed.

And Chief, thank you for being here, and thank you for hosting us today as well and into the future. What I'm concerned about is when we talk about overtime and say, oh my God, look at all that money we're spending on overtime. First, I want to know if maybe we should be a larger department to meet the growth of our city, the growth in the number of people that are visiting our city, the growth in events, the growth in, as was mentioned earlier, when we have to go out and we have to help with, you know, if there's a state or a national protest, whatever it is. Because I think when we look at overtime, correct me if I'm wrong, but the rate that we pay for overtime is less than if we were actually hiring more people, correct? So while it sounds like an exorbitant number, actually it is less than if we went out and increased staffing. Correct me if I'm wrong.

That is correct. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission, Bill Schultz, Chief of Police. Several things that you brought up. That is correct. Overtime is less expensive than a full-time employee overall. Currently, we have about 31 sworn vacancies within the department. And then you add on to, as the city manager mentioned, FMLA. At any given time in our department alone, and I'm sure the other departments have similar concerns, we have 20 to 30 individuals, sworn individuals who are not able to report to regular duty. So you add that to the 30 or so vacancies we currently have. That's a good chunk of officers that are there. Now, to answer your question, how do we compare with full-time employees, full-time staff of officers? We are currently beginning a process where we're going to do an updated comparison to cities of our size, as you mentioned, Vice Mayor. to include various issues. We'll look into see if we can get those hour time statistics, but also see where they are with their sworn staff. I've had conversations with my colleagues, the other chiefs around the state, and it appears that cities that are similar or comparable to our size do have more sworn officers. So that's where I want to really compare and contrast what their levels of staffing are compared to what our levels are, and I'll be prepared to make a recommendation on that.

No, and that's very helpful. That's what my next question is going to be because I think that's really important. I think people don't understand that the number of sworn officers that we're working with now, what is that number right now?

We're at 571. 571. Yes. Right now we have 31 vacancies. We are in the process of processing certified officers who have applied, but I have yet to hire any of those as those files are just about to be finished. I'm told we'll have about eight that I'll be able to sign in the near future.

Right. And I think when you look at all of those other cities that you've mentioned, you're going to find that we probably are understaffed. I would not be surprised if we're understaffed by even maybe a hundred. And I just think it's important as we go forward and we consider everything else that we have to consider, public safety being what it is, we have to be cognizant of that. But I just want to make sure that we're putting the overtime into perspective Because again, we're spending less right now on overtime than we would if we were paying for those full-time positions. That's all.

That is correct. And what I'm going to look at as I look at this, I want to make sure we are doing apples to apples here. We are a beach community with a lot of tourists, a lot of special events, potential for severe weather impacts. So I want to compare us to those same cities. For St. Pete, for instance, I know for Off the top of my head, they have over 600 sworn in St. Pete. So that's what we'll be looking at, and I'll be happy to report back as soon as that's completed.

And I look forward to that. And I do want to just thank you for your service and the entire department, because I think for the numbers that we're talking about in our department, you guys do an incredible job, and I just want to say thank you. Thank you, sir.

And also, to add to this conversation, yes, thank you for... the great service that is given to the city. I'm a little unsure about what's being said about that overtime and it being less than the higher full-time employee. Because I'm thinking about those employees who have seniority that's at a higher pay rate than some that would be lower. So is that an apples to apples when we say that we are paying less for employees the overtime than it is to actually hire someone that we can utilize in that space. Where's that balance?

And that was a generalization. And let me clarify. If we had more sworn officers, we would have more officers available to cover, per se, the vacancies and the non-regular duty that we currently see. So that's where that would come into play. When we were talking about what the status is right now, that was the comparison of the overtime versus the full-time employee. But if you have more full-time employees, that gives us the ability to have that backfill, so to speak.

Right. Okay. Thank you for that, Clay.

You're welcome.

Can I also chime in on that, too? Because our vacancy rate has fluctuated. So in the last two decades, I know when I first got here in 06, we were under Chief Roberts. We were running a very high vacancy rate back then. But a lot of that had to do with the fact that we were in the middle of the war. And a lot of the people who would otherwise have been interested in becoming police officers were over fighting in Iraq. They weren't they weren't signing up to become police officers. And so it was very difficult for us to recruit at that point in time. Not too long ago, I think within the last couple of years, we were at like zero vacancies. So I'm actually surprised to hear we're back up at 31. I mean, obviously, we have retirements. We've got people in drop. And so but I know I know statistically speaking. It has been my experience over the last several decades in various cities that it tends to run about 6% to 8%. It tends to be about that number. So that's not unusual to be at roughly 6%, which is where you are just in terms of the pure vacancy number, not counting FMLA. Correct. You know, the issue that Commissioner Glassman brought up, there's some truth to it, but not entirely, right? So we see this a lot in the manufacturing sector where, for example, on a manufacturing line, your Ford motorcycle, and demand increases and we want to increase productivity, production, not productivity, it's cheaper to pay overtime on a production line to increase output than it is to hire a new employee. But that's within what we refer to as a relevant range. At a certain point, that no longer works for two reasons. One, you've spent too much on overtime, and two, you've burnt out your employees. So there's a significant decrease in performance amongst your staff when you start having them work double shifts on a regular basis. So that model falls apart at a certain point. And also, to Commissioner Beasley-Pittman's point, If you have, you know, sergeants and lieutenants out there working overtime at six-figure plus as opposed to, you know, your new recruits out there running and gunning on the street, the numbers change dramatically. So it's a much more nuanced question than simply overtime is cheaper than new people. So I think we need a much more robust analysis on this to really have an answer to that question.

Agreed. Thank you. Any other questions of the chief? Thank you, chief. You're welcome. And I will take this opportunity, please, to thank and commend my officers. They have been working diligently, especially over the five to six weeks of FIFA World Cup soccer. I unfortunately had to cancel their days off. Hopefully they are forgiving me by now. But I do want to commend them.

A few less parties there, chief. A few less parties, okay? Yes, exactly.

All right, thank you.

Chief, on that point about World Cup, I just, from what I saw and heard and experienced, you all did a fantastic job. Thank you. So I just want to give you a hand.

Thank you. They did.

Because there are several instances, in my understanding, where we had large crowds gathered, didn't anticipate the size and scope, and so just amazing job officers did to handle that so well.

I'll echo that. I got some feedback from my friends with the FBI, and they said that the coordination and collaboration was just outstanding. So to all of your guys and ladies, again, same thing.

Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you. Mr. Rowe, you want to proceed with your presentation? We have to wrap this up soon. We have two other meetings we're late for. Thank you. Okay.

The next item is capital improvement plan. Again, this is something I've mentioned in the past, but regarding projects, starting projects and completing projects and additional... change orders and in delays and uh... have been a bit significant effect on the amount that's uh... added to the the cost of these these projects and uh... i think you know we've made some some strides this year because we've broken out that department. There's a lot more activity going, money's transferred to the CIP to move some of the older projects to get those because the longer you wait, it's going to cost more. So some of the examples that we saw, I listed it in my memo, but we had some significant changes Change orders related to the water and sewer projects that we had to increase and a couple things at the water treatment plant. We had some things with parks and bond projects. We definitely have understated what we really needed for that. And a lot of it is because it was a long delay in design and getting things rolling and getting into construction. So that's kind of general comments on the CIP area. Next item is reserves, general fund, unrestricted fund balance. Again, we talk about this often. The reserve balance for a municipality, as per the Government Finance Officers Association, is having expenditures of approximately 16.7% of your revenues are expenditures. The city has established a reserve balance of 25% of the expenditures months of you know trying to get two months of reserve and and keep it the uh restricted balance unrestricted balance at a at a reasonable rate um during the review of the budget the ca was able to confirm that the current balance of balance for the city or the monetary difference is in excess of the 25 percent that we've established by uh two percent and that represents approximately $9.7 million in additional funds that could be used for various things, as paying down debt, possibly paying down the COLA increase that we had last year for the general employee's retirement system pension plan. And there's other things mentioned, even allocating some of it to a new fire station, which you know, had somewhat to do with, you know, that we are paying for the assessments, fire assessments. We've added fire stations in there, so that could reduce future fire assessment fees. And then, you know, really the last thing I just wanted to go over is the union negotiations. You know, as union negotiations are currently underway, You know, we feel that really, at this point, it's interesting because at this point in time, even there's only one really union left to go, and we've successfully got those two of them completed before they expired or matured. And our understanding as of this date, the fire is coming forward with a tentative agreement today. So it's really mainly with the police department's negotiations and you know we had mentioned with uh... meetings with budget and city manager some ideas while that's still open that that could be uh... considered there, and we're just hoping that we can get that one done before September 30th, 2026, but I'm not sure if that's still possible, but one of the things that we had mentioned in the past is that the idea of And I've seen other other cities, some other cities do it. Some other cities don't have a point in time where you won't be retroactively paying for the changes to the to the. increases their salaries and that. So this year we were trying to encourage to get everything in by the maturity of the existing contract. But that's something to maybe kind of look at while we're still negotiating to see if we can speed that up. Because I believe the last time it went three years before we finalized the contract, The contract, and it was retroactive for three years. So those are kind of the main things. I just lastly like to recognize the Office of Management and Budget, Yvette Matthews, Laura Reese, and their staff for helping us go through this process of reviewing the budget. And I also... have our staff here, our city auditor staff, that did a great job in putting that all together. And I guess I thank Joey for giving us the courtside seats over there. But I don't know.

Can you stand for a second and let everybody know?

Our auditor staff. So at this point, I'll address any questions you may have.

Does anyone else have any additional questions of Mr. Riley? There being none, thank you. Thank you so much for your great work and for the team that you work with. We appreciate it. Is Yvette Matthews here? I don't see her. Oh, there you are in the back. Okay. All right, great. Thank you, Pat. Thank you so much. Mr. City Manager, does that conclude our presentation and joint workshop? It does. Thank you. Okay. Okay. We'll now conclude that meeting.