Financial Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

I think you live there, right?

Yes, yes. Building A.

Does Marcos also live at 360?

I don't think so.

I thought he did.

I think he does also. I think all five of you live there.

Oh, really?

That's crazy.

Concentration risk.

Yeah, no diversity.

Actually, Paul and I live on the same floor. Oh, wow.

There should be the 360 board instead of the... Hi there.

I know that face.

How's it going?

Hi, Enrique.

Hello. So I'm not going to lie for a minute there. I saw you. I'm like, what meeting did I just join?

The Finance Advisory Board.

That's funny. All right. So I think we have everybody that should be expected to join.

Recording in progress.

I believe we're missing Maite.

Oh, that's right. Okay.

But until, I mean, we can start with all the preliminaries until she gets on. Is it 6.30? Yep, 6.31.

All right, I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order at 6.31. Okay, so roll call. Last week's minutes. I got everybody's names. Okay, so roll call. Nicholas Martin, present. Sandra Sivkin.

Present.

Sandy Horowitz.

Present.

Marco Zuniga.

He is traveling. He said he wouldn't miss this meeting.

And then Paul Jacobs. He is traveling.

He said he wouldn't miss this meeting. Try to join us.

Got it. All right. All right. So the next item is going to be the approval of the meeting minutes from June 10th. I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Thank you. All right. And then since we have Enrique here from CFLG, we can move up the update of the presentation of the ACFR for 2024. I'm sorry, of 2023 up to the front of old business. So, Enrique, you could go ahead and go ahead and present the ACFR for 2023 if you're able to share your screen.

Oh, I actually don't have a digital. They gave me a printed copy. Does everyone have a copy of the financials?

um i'm not sure if it was included but what i could do is if they are i don't have a copy of the financials okay i can i can try to uh get the one online if you like and i'll share yeah i have it yeah i have it here as well um What I could do is I'll download it right now and I'll share the screen at least so we could follow along where he's referencing to.

Thank you.

Okay.

Are you guys able to see the screen?

Yep.

Okay. Yes. Thank you.

All right. Perfect. Nick, if you can, if you can go to page three of the PDF.

Yep.

All right. So see, here we see, well, for the record, my name is Enrique Yarena. I served as the quality control partner on the audit of North Bay Village for the fiscal year end of September 30th, 2023. I'm here to give a brief presentation of these financial statements. As this financial information is a little dated, I'm not gonna get into a lot of specifics of the numbers, but I would like to give an overview of the document and answer any questions you may have. I guess we can start here, which is on page three of the PDF. This is your table of contents. It gives you a 10,000 review of the various components of the financial statements. Here you see it starts with an introductory section This is followed by the financial section that contains the statements and related footnotes. If you go to the next page, Nick. The third section is the statistical section, which has a lot of interesting information for the residents to see 10 years of data related to the village and see how the village has evolved over time. And then finally, the last section is a compliance section that contains the remainder of the reports. And in the event that there was a single audit, which in this case there was, you'll see the schedule of expenditures of federal awards, related footnotes, and additional reports that are necessary when you have a federal single audit. If you could please turn to page 11 of the PDF.

If you, Enrique, if you have a printed copy, you can just make reference to it and I'll go to that page so you don't have to work too hard for the PDF page.

Okay, perfect. So... The certificate of achievement is on page Roman numeral six. This is something that we like to highlight. This is a very prestigious award that the village received for the September 30th, 2022 document. And we don't see any issues why this September 30th, 2023 document would not receive it. Again, it's a testament of management's execution in conjunction with the communication and coordination of your external auditor and results are undeniable. The village continues to receive this very prestigious award. If you please turn to page one, which is our independent auditor's report, and it's right there at the beginning of the financial section. This is our independent auditor's report, and it starts with the most important section of this report, which is our opinion. It says that we've audited the accompanying financial statements OF THE VILLAGE AS OF AND FOR THE FISCAL YEAR END OF SEPTEMBER 30, 2023, AND IN OUR OPINION, THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS REFERRED TO ABOVE PRESENT FAIRLY IN ALL MATERIAL RESPECTS THE FINANCIAL POSITION OF THE VILLAGE AS OF SEPTEMBER 30, 2023. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF AN UNMODIFIED OPINION AND THE ONLY KIND OF OPINION THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH. AND IN ORDER TO RENDER THAT OPINION, WE CONDUCTED OUR AUDIT IN IMPORTANCE OF AUDITING STANDARDS GENERALLY ACCEPTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AS WELL AS GOVERNMENT AUDITING STANDARDS. On this first page, if you scroll a little further down, it gets into the responsibilities of management, which, in essence, management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of these financial statements. And as auditors, our objective is to obtain a reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free from material of a statement and be able to issue our auditor's report that includes our opinions. On the next page, it talks about a few of the things that we need to consider when performing an audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and government auditing standards. These are things that we always did. Now, on the auditor's report, they're explicitly stated on here. There's a few bullet points at the top. Things like exercising professional judgment and maintaining professional skepticism. We conduct an evaluation of the appropriateness of accounting policies and the reasonableness of significant accounting estimates made by management. And we also conclude whether in our judgment, there are conditions or events considered in the aggregate that raise substantial doubt about the village's ability to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time, which in essence, that's something that we always did is now as nice as there for the readers to see. We explicitly stayed on our auditor's report. Our auditor's report is followed by management discussion and analysis, which begins on page four. This section of the financial statements goes from page four to page nine. And in essence, this is a 10,000-foot view analysis in the management's plain English as to what transpired during the year, what changed, and why. So it's a very useful portion of the document. It's very easy to digest and understand. And if there's one section of the document that you read, it should be this section. This management's discussion and analysis section is followed, beginning on page 10, by the financial statements of the village. It starts off with the government-wide financial statements, which are full accrual. And then it drills out into your governmental financial statements. Then it talks about your enterprise funds. One thing that I want to highlight is on page 12, you have the general fund. One of the things that a lot of organizations like to focus on is the amount of unassigned fund balance. If you notice here at the bottom there, the first column, the unassigned fund balance at September 30 of 2023 was $6,315,785 in the general fund. These financial statements are supported by the footnotes, which give a lot of useful information and give you things like the significant accounting policies of the village. It gives you the breakdown of capital assets, components of the long-term debt. It gets into the pension-related information. It's a lot of data to support those numbers that are presented in the front. And these are the footnotes that begin on page 19 and go through page 44. Again, a lot of useful information to give you details to the readers of the financials as to what is supporting those numbers and what are the assumptions and rationale that supports them. These footnotes are followed by the required supplementary information, which begins on page 45. This is the budget to actual comparison for the general fund, and that is followed by the budget to actual comparison for the ARPA fund and has its related footnotes. and then you have the schedules that are required to be presented for OPEB and the pension information of the village. Following that required supplementary information, you have supplementary information which presents the other non-major funds, and it gives you detailed statements that you can see here, follow by budgets and actual schedules. Those go on until page 68. And all these non-major funds are summarized in a column in the front, in the front statements. These fund-level statements are followed by the statistical section. As I mentioned, this statistical section has 10 years of data, so it's very useful for the readers of the financials to get a snapshot as how the village has evolved over time. In this section, it goes from page 69 to 87. You have financial trends, debt capacity, demographic and economic information, a lot of very interesting facts about the village and i encourage the readers of the financials to spend some time there to really get to know the organization this statistical section is followed by the last section of these financials which is the compliance section and the compliance section begins on page 88 and for this year the village had a federal single audit so this compliance section is a little more extensive It has a schedule of expenditures of federal awards. It has the related notes. In the event that during the course of the audit of the financial statements or during the single audit there were any instances of noncompliance or findings that have been identified, you'll have a schedule of findings and question costs, which in this case we do. We have two matters that were identified as it relates to the financial statement audit, and those are detailed on page 94. Again, very easy for the user, for the financials to see exactly what transpired, criteria, cause, effect, recommendation, and the views of responsible officials and plan corrective actions. If we did have a single audit, you're also required to present a corrective action plan, which has been included, and it's the last document of the financial statement, which is the last page. And in essence, it talks about what actions are going to be taken or have been taken to address the findings or concerns that were identified. This concludes my presentation related to the financial statements. I'm available to answer any questions you might have, but I just want to take an opportunity to thank the village for the tenure of the contract that we had and for the opportunity to be of service. It was a very rewarding experience to see how the village evolved over time and the things that were addressed and some of the members of management that even change I've worked with at other clients. And it's nice to see the evolution and the progress that has occurred. So very grateful for the opportunity and thanks again.

I have a couple.

Before you ask your question, Sandy, let me butt in. This is Commissioner Schiavone. First of all, I want to say thank you to you and your firm. I have been with you for the five years that you have served the village. You have served the village very well, very fine, on time. You've helped us all along. And I am very pleased with the service you have provided. So you have my extended gratitude. Thank you very much. Regarding the findings, there's two findings there. that occurred in the year 22, 23, basically. Now we have an HR director that is a real HR director that has total control of our payroll. We have switched back to ADP. I believe we're using UKG for a year. That did not work out. And the other finding, which is a change in our CFO, Maite has jumped into the CFO position. And she's doing an excellent job in straightening out all our books. We now have a new controller. We have a new AP clerk. Hopefully in October, we're going to have a procurement officer. So we're moving in the right direction.

Excellent.

So it has to do a lot with the guidance that your company has given us. And the findings will no longer be there for the following year. So I thank you. Great. Thank you. Now I open it back to the advisory board. Sandy.

First of all, thank you, because I was going to ask a question about corrective actions. But I think it was the balance sheet towards the first part of the presentation. Governmental activities and business activities. What would be under the business activities?

Your enterprise funds. The enterprise funds are consolidated in the business activities.

So Sandy, to elaborate on your question, the business type activities are essentially the utility fund and the stormwater fund that the village has. So any water and sewer related activity that the city builds the residents and also storm, whatever is being charged and collected for stormwater.

Great. Thank you for that. I don't have a copy of this, so maybe I could get one.

Yeah, I'll go ahead and share the link because this is posted on the Village's website. So we could go ahead and share a link to this document.

Also, if any member requires a hard copy of it, let us know and we'll provide it for you.

Yep. Enrique, I have two questions. I think they're relatively high level and I guess it's just to kind of highlight and kind of explain a little bit further in detail. uh, for the board. Um, number one was, um, was there anything that, that was from a financial, uh, aspect, uh, was there anything of concern that, that was required for you to be, to, for your firm to communicate to the, to villages management of, of a, of a financial concern?

Almost like you're, you're referring to like, uh, Like an opportunity for improvement? Is that what you're referring to?

Not necessarily, but there's certain requirements that are supposed to be communicated to the village if there's like a deteriorating condition, things of that nature. Was there anything of a major red flag concern from a financial aspect that was required to be communicated to management?

No, that evaluation takes place. We do a financial condition assessment prior to issuance of a re-audit. And if there's anything that's... the warrants communication, it would be included in the management letter on the financial and condition and management section. And I went and just verified right now and there wasn't anything that came to our attention.

Okay. And then I guess one other question as far as looking at this statement in that position, which is essentially at the balance sheet. I guess if you could elaborate a little bit on, I guess to the board on the explanation of this net pension liability because it's typically like a large number that's being reflected as something that the village owes. I guess if you could explain a little bit of that net pension liability and typically the OPEB is a lot bigger but here is not that big. Yes. If you could just focus on and give a little brief explanation of what that net pension liability represents.

Right, so that non-pension liability is a total obligation in the event that as if today, or as of September 30th, 2023, everyone had to be paid out with the current projected benefits that they were going to receive, the village would have to provide that funding that you see there. That is the net result of the contributions that are provided and assets that are accumulated for purposes of pension. The net amount to still do when you compare the liability to the resources that have been accumulated, that's the number that represents the obligation that the village would have. Now, this is a long-term obligation. This is not something that you have to pay short-term. These plans have a long life and these net pension liability amounts evolve over time depending on greater return of investments investment mix and you know rotation of personnel and participants so there's a lot of assumptions that that impact these amounts but they are long-term in nature um and they and they're required to be presented so you have a fun entire financial snapshot of the village's financial position and and and seeing like a number

Of that magnitude, is that common for other municipalities of the similar size even or just in general?

Yes, this is not anything unusual. This is expected in the industry.

How does that relate to the deferred outflows of resources on the assets side of the balance sheet?

So there's deferred outflows of resources. When you calculate the net pension liability, there's timings of contributions, there's specific criteria for recognition of investment performance. So in all those calculations, you have deferred inflows and deferred outflows that are calculated and are part of that formula to get to that net number. And the impact of those amounts are amortized over time. So all those deferred outflows for investments is over five years, and then the remaining service life of employees. So there's different numbers that are amortized over time. And all those numbers change every year as you calculate this, when you factor in the investment. The biggest driver here is investment performance. Assuming there isn't significant changes in your personnel, the investment performance will have a big impact. And also, if there's any changes in the benefits of the plan that need to be considered. But for the most part, that investment performance is what drives this number.

And those figures are calculated essentially by management or a third party? How are those numbers determined?

There's a valuation that's provided as an actuary that does those calculations and provides the information so that the village can apply them to their financial statements.

Okay. Okay.

Sandy or Sandra, do you guys have any other questions for Enrique?

I do have a question. I noticed that we are one year behind on the audit and I wanted to know if there's a plan to catch up and ensure that we're staying current moving forward. Are you planning to complete the two years by next year? 630 or what's the plan?

I want to say the village at

And what is the implications of being late? What are the consequences or the implications of being late on with the audit?

Okay, so if you look at... These financials were issued with a report date of February 28th, 2024. The current auditors that are engaged for 24 when are those financials being issued?

Yeah, exactly. That wouldn't be you because it's CBIS, right?

Correct. There's a new set of orders now that would catch this up. And I think they are in process. I'm not sure where we stand. The timing of this presentation has been delayed based on scheduling conflicts, but in terms of what we were responsible to do, We completed it when we issued this February 28th, 2025. Maite, can you answer that question for them, please?

Yes. Good evening. We are in the process now of transferring from Enrique's firm to CBiz. That has already happened. CBiz has contacted me and opened their... like an upload that is required for us to start sending them the wanting list. And that has already begun in our side. We have a scheduled meeting next week with Brandon. He is the manager on the CBiz side to actually start the process of all the wanting lists, get them all the information as quickly as possible. It is late. We did go out for RFP for auditing services end of April. So it's running us a little bit later. I have requested an extension for the GFOA certificate, annual certificate for the annual financial statements. I have not received a response from GFOA yet. but it's already been sent to them and I'm waiting for a response. But we are actually starting to work with CBiz to start sending them information so they can actually start the audit process.

I can tell you without knowing anything that if the village provides the items that are requested on the want list within the timing that they discuss, CBiz without any kind of issue will be able to execute. They have an excellent team there. AND I DON'T SEE ANY DIFFICULTIES IN THE VILLAGE BEING ABLE TO ACHIEVE THE NECESSARY TIMELINE THAT'S AGREED TO ASSUMING THE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE ON TIME FOR THEM TO PROCESS IT. YOU'RE IN VERY GOOD HANDS FOR THAT FIRM. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, ENRIQUE. THANK YOU.

SO, ENRIQUE, THIS IS THE NEW VILLAGE MANAGER. THE COMMISSIONER FORGOT TO SAY THERE'S MORE THAN OTHER NEW PEOPLE ON BOARD. I'M NEW BACK AGAIN. Nice. That's great. Go ahead.

No, no, that's great news. Frank is very direct and effective. So that's awesome that he's part of the team.

Thank you. And when I came, I saw what Maite was facing. And a lot of work went in to even get the documents together to be able to provide to the auditors. They're not going to have that situation this time around. So I got a couple of questions for you. One is, as the manager, when I read this report, and I've gone through it, and I'm not an auditor, but are there areas that you feel I should concentrate on? I mean, I look for findings and observations right away so we can start looking to see if there's things we need to we need to pay attention to and make go away, because I don't want those coming back again. And sometimes it takes a long time. When I was director of the CRAs, it took us two or three years to get rid of about 14 findings, because you've got to put systems in place, and it's just not easy to do, as you well know, in a very short period of time. But what areas would you suggest to me that I concentrate on to look at? when I review these orders.

You guys have an excellent position right now because you have a new set of eyes that are coming on board. They're asking you questions that are not routine. I would focus on where is my management team encountering friction in terms of providing the deliverables for the auditor? Because again, CVIZ has a large portfolio in this industry of different types of clients so that they know the things they need to ask. what to focus on based on their risk assessment this initial year is going to be very comprehensive in terms of the process of gaining an understanding of the village and the questions that they're going to ask So definitely be involved in those initial communications and seeing the requests and the things that they're asking of the management team. And in the event that management encounters any difficulties in the preparation of that information, you'll be able to identify any opportunities for improvement within your system, within the flow of information between departments. That'll be your pain points that'll rise to the top for you to focus on as you interact with them. By the time this document is available, A lot of the legwork has already happened because the last thing you want to do is put something in this document and then at the 11th hour realize, hey, wait a second. Now that we're reviewing it, we realize that this thing should have been different. So by the time this gets put together, there's been so much communication that has occurred, so much back and forth, making sure the findings are accurate, that the author's perspective and what they have documented is accurate. So definitely being involved in communication is key. And they should provide you access to these shirts. the open items, you'll want to pay attention to the timeliness of an item being requested and management responding. If it's taking a long time for management to provide the information, they're either asking for something that you don't have the capabilities or there isn't a clear understanding or effective communication between the two, or maybe there's an opportunity for improvement or something that needs to be enhanced within the village to be able to provide that information that's necessary to look at a particular area. So definitely the timeliness of those deliverables and flow of information between your management team and CBIS.

All right. Another question. You've been with us for a few years. What would you advise or what would your observations be when you look at our fund balance, when you look at our reserves? Are we where we should be, you think, or are we... You know, there's different philosophies on what to do, spend some of the reserves, build the reserves more, et cetera, et cetera. And, of course, I'm in the position that when we have cash flow issues or something that I can, you know, tap into that reserve, go to the commission and, you know, get authorization to go in and get some if something happens. I want to keep at least a couple of million dollars in emergencies. especially now with what's going on with FEMA and that type of thing is that cash flow coming back may not be so quick. And hopefully, if we don't get hit with such a catastrophic hit that we can't handle it. The last one we had was Irma. It cost us about a million bucks, mostly debris, that type of thing. And we were reimbursed rather quickly. But you can see the tone of things now are changing. And we need to be alert to that because it could not be so easy to rebound. And we may not with a catastrophic hit even have the resources within us to do what, you know, you're talking millions. So I was the emergency manager for the county for a few years. So I'm, you know, well aware of what we're facing.

I mean, your general fund has about $10 million in expenditures and you have 6.3 million in unassigned fund balance. So I would, without going into the details, I would venture to say that unassigned fund balance is healthy. Obviously, the more the better so that you're prepared, especially in this region and if the natural disaster were to occur. FGFOA has best practices that are implemented. I think that level of unassigned fund balance you're exceeding the recommendations of what you need to have available to be prepared and ready. So I would say yes, but always be vigilant in terms of when you're doing your budget, projected expansions and things that are coming that you don't start encountering issues where you start consuming some of that unassigned fund balance.

Well, Sandra knows from way back we had, what, about a million dollars in the reserves and that was it.

We didn't even meet the 20%. Yeah. Yeah.

It was tough.

It was tough. Again, it's been tremendous evolution and growth within the organization during the tenure of our contract. And it's very rewarding to see. And I'm very optimistic as to what's to come, especially with the new additions to the team that the village has brought on board.

Well, that's good to hear. I got one final ask. So I am... Having to supply information, we're in the midst of a capital project where the contractor, it's split between our property and the school property, and it has to be bonded. And I need to send a letter, which I usually don't ask a government for this, but the bonding agency is asking for a letter on our capability to be able to handle this coming with this project. And I met with Commissioner Schiavone today, and we see that we're in pretty good shape on that. So I'm going to answer that with the money, you know, that we have the capability. But is there a document in the audit that you think that I should attach to that that would show them something of the stability of the city? You know, they're not going to read through a bunch of stuff, but should I send a, the letter that you talked about at the beginning, or is there something you would suggest that I tack on there that they can see from our most previous audit, the shape that we're in?

I mean, I can tell you that they would want to see your full accrual financial statements, which are pages 10, 11, I would probably send them the full accrual financial statements as well as those governmental financial statements that we were looking at, although this is dated information. This is from September 30th, 2023. They're probably going to want something that's a little more recent. So you're probably better off focusing on the results of your general fund, which is your main operating fund. And in that one, you have a very healthy amount of unassigned fund balance. So I think that that presents a very favorable position that you can show to them, even if the numbers are preliminary because the audit just started.

Understood. All right. Well, thank you. And thanks for the work that you did on behalf of the residents. And everything is really on the behalf of them to build the trust and to point out to them where we've got issues or alert them that there's things that we got to fix. And so I appreciate the work that you do.

Our pleasure. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Enrique. Okay, so we could go ahead and move to the next item.

Is it okay if I disconnect from the meeting? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Have a nice evening. Thank you.

Okay, so we'll go ahead and move over to an update on the TIES project.

I have to laugh at these. Ties Project. Ties Project is on schedule. As Frank was mentioning, the parties are requesting a letter from us, and we went over the figures today to ensure that we have the capability to fulfill our requirements, both for the ties and for the galleon street projects. even though they're one and the same, they're separate projects. I am personally, with Frank, of course, meeting with the principals of FTL, which is the alpha-designated company that has taken over the project on Wednesday to go over some timelines. Basically, they have already submitted the plans for to the village for the community center. And they have submitted, I believe to the school board, the plans for the fields for their review. And I believe they're also now in the process of being reviewed for stormwater drainage. So those, according to them, to them being PFL, They plan to have the ribbon cutting right before the World Cup next year in 26.

And also I'll add that as far as construction goes, they have started on the fence installation started this past Monday, which is a requirement of the school board to allow the workers to be on the grounds because they still have students there. for summer school, and we have some summer programs going. And there are issues with the Jessica Lunsford Act of people being able to where they can access those children. So the fence has to go up first, and they're in the process of doing that. And they're in the process of starting the demolition on some of the tennis courts and on the racquetball court that are going to come out and be replaced with the soccer fields, the smaller soccer fields. They are already putting the piles in for the building. So that's moving along. And we're finishing up on the demolition on the other end of the property, on our property, where the new wastewater pump station is in. We've got to demolish the old pump station and get that out of the way because the courts are going in that area. So there is activity out there every day. Okay.

All right. Does anybody have any questions on it? Okay. If no questions, then we'll move to the update on the Village Hall.

Ah, Village Hall. Frank and I had another meeting today discussing the financial end of the Village Hall. as of the last projection that we have of the cost of constructing the building, we're approximately $2.6 million short, but I think we found it today. So we're covered as far as that goes.

Let's be realistic.

This study was done by Walker, whatever the name is, Walker Meyer, the people that are doing the architectural drawings for us. And before we added this explore, all in all, it's going to be a little bit more expensive than the projection we have. Everything is going up. Tariffs are being imposed. So at this point, I can't give you an exact number of what we're short, but we have identified some sources to go to that will assist in making the shortfall. I don't foresee it being a very large shortfall. We're talking that we have approximately $45 million in the bank for this project, which is what was projected. Well, actually, we have $42.5 million in the bank for this project. And I found the... remain there later on this afternoon, I hope. So it's heading up all new development that is forthcoming to the village that has not been heard from to see how they cooperate and collecting the impact fees on parks and police. for the projects that have been already approved. That means that they're going into the building stage when they have to pay us the impact fees. So I believe we're going to be able to tackle this on a timely basis. If I'm not mistaken, we have pushed back the groundbreaking for the city hall for the early second quarter of 26. Right.

March, April.

So it's going to take a good year and a half for them to finish building it. Hopefully, I will have offices in the new building. I doubt it, but we're looking at the end of 27. I get out at the end of 28, so I hope to have an office in there by then.

They figure we're going to be finished by the end of 27.

The emphasis I am putting to the new building is I want to see the fire station built ASAP and put it in to work ASAP and then continue with the rest of the building.

Do you have funding from Miami-Dade for the fire station?

We have $7.45 million from Miami-Dade.

Oh, we increased it. Oh, that's great.

Yes.

Do you refresh my memory? I may have missed a meeting and I apologize in advance, but Why again was the sixth floor added?

When we, okay, the, I hate to use names, but the prior village manager planned a five-story building. When we started assigning office space, we realized that as we're growing and we are growing by leaps and bounds, we have all these buildings going up. Therefore, we're going to need to hire more police. We're going to need to hire more employees in all departments. We didn't fit in the buildings. So we added a sixth floor. Basically, there's two thoughts, and I don't know where we stand right now permanently on the two thoughts. We're doing a sixth floor that's going to be city hall. The fifth floor is just going to be a shell. And then I've also heard that the sixth floor will have village business end of it, while the fifth floor will have the police. And as each one grows, they can grow into the empty space in that floor.

What about one through four?

One through four. Downstairs, we have our lobby, which is the post office, building department, and all that good stuff, and the fire station. Two, three, and four is parking.

How many parking spaces?

Because of the shape of the building, parking is really a problem in that building.

Yeah. It's... Everything in the building is a challenge. It's sort of a kidney-shaped or avocado-shaped type building. Rounded ends and just, you know, fitting it into that particular location has been challenging for the architects to meet the demands that we've asked for. I want to say there was something like 200 parking spaces, but I could be wrong. I can certainly get that and supply it to you. But as the commissioner says, two, three, and four is parking. The police parking has to be segregated. Obviously, there's entrances in what they call a sally port, so they can bring in a prisoner and be able to go up to the fifth floor where the police department is located, or the sixth floor now, and have it secured with a separate elevator and so forth so that they can not have the chances of a prisoner getting loose in the general population. So that's a challenge in itself that's been designed. And so to speak to what the commissioner was speaking of, we looked at putting police on five and just having the expansion on the two floors. But the cost of moving some of the stuff that's in there already and redoing would have cost us more money and would have cost us more time. So we'll expand. And there's areas in both areas in police that are not as sensitive. They can move down to the fifth floor with expansion, the same as with our offices. We could easily move code enforcement down to the fifth floor. It doesn't have to be, you know, in the administrative area. So we've got flexibility. It's not ideal, but you have to look at the pocketbook too. And you, you know, finally say, hey, enough's enough. And I'm glad that... the commission had the foresight to be able to bite the bullet and put that floor in because five or six years from now when there's a different commission or 10 years from now and they're bursting at the seams, they're going to be saying what were they thinking of back then that they didn't plan for some expansion. The current layout Without the expansion, without the added people that we brought in already, which is not a lot of people. We brought in a couple of backup people for directors so that when they're away, somebody can be there. We brought in a controller for finance.

So, we brought in an officer, just one person. We brought in a supervisor. also community center seven day a week up that type of thing those changes it became and brought it to the commission. It became apparent.

We talked to the commissioner about building a city hall annex already in the area where we have the dog park, that we may have to build something over there to house the additional people and parking. So this is going to buy a lot of time. and it's an investment well worth it that we're doing it on the front end.

Was the original budget like three years ago something like 21 or 22 million dollars?

The budget that was given to me on March of 24 for the construction of the building is 45 million dollars.

Yeah I think that's double But was proposed or forecasted, say, three years ago.

But that was a forecast without any drawings, without any going out to bids. You know, it's all very much in the air. But let's be realistic of the $45 million budget. Seven and a half is for the fire department that they're paying for.

Right, right. Okay, thank you.

Do you know how many parking spots you have?

Sandy, I have to look at that and see. I'll give it to you. I mean, I just don't have it offhand. I know that with the addition, we didn't add any more parking.

As a matter of fact, we went outside for some parking.

Yeah, yeah. They had to put in, because some of the changes that we made, we had to put in some ventilation in the garage, and that took up a couple of parking spaces at each end to be able to put those evacuation fans in there.

Okay, we have 15 parking spaces for the fire department. We have additional parking in the second floor for the fire department, based on what I'm looking at the building build-out. And there were 76 parking spaces in the parking garage. besides a fire station?

Police have a separate area. And I know the fire department, the parking is so dear that in the morning, when the new shift comes on duty, there isn't parking for them to come into the building. So what they do is the off-going shift will move their cars out of the building and park in the regular parking spaces on Harbor Island. And we got right by where the old Sakura restaurant is. We're going to designate those spaces from them between the hours, like five and eight in the morning. Because a lot of them come in early to work out before they go to work. So they'll park out there and then they'll swap the cars and come into the dedicated parking spots that the fire department has. And they have eight spots inside that are dedicated to them. And if they put another truck in there or whatever, you got, you know, There are four more firemen and the fire department will probably grow because we're going to have these high rise buildings and you can't just deal with a pumper. They're looking already about putting an aerial truck in there. And so that's going to bring another four people. So the station will be able to handle it, but the parking is going to be tight.

How many employees right now, including the fire rescue department?

Well, fire has seven on duty every day, three on the rescue truck and four on the pumper. So they have eight spaces that are dedicated to them. If they have an extra person or somebody swings in, which happens sometimes, they'll be able to ride five on the fire truck because somebody didn't take off or whatever. So they have eight dedicated spaces. Our police department is about We've added a couple people. I think we're close to 30 now, or 32. And then I would say we've got another that'll be inside that building. Maybe another 20. We've got more employees, but they won't be inside that building with public works and so forth with the workers. So probably another 25 we got to build now besides on the ground floor you got the building department and you got the post office the building department is another area that we're going to have to have more people in there even though we use cap engineering for the uh inspections there's going to be more inspections with the development that's going on there's going to have to be more inspectors so they have to come in and they dare a while but they got a park to go out so A lot of times they'll be able to come in early and park in just open spaces on the street, and then they're out in the field. So it's a lot of juggling, but parking is certainly an issue.

And where is Public Works right now located?

I've got two trailers. You know, we tore down the building.

Okay.

And I've got two trailers over at Grove by the Bay. I've got a trailer out in the parking lot.

Okay.

Just an office trailer and a sort of a lunch room for them. And then I've got a shower trailer they're required to have because of the sewer workers, OSHA, they have to have a shower. So those two trailers are there. We've got probably, Mr. Hanson's talking about demolition of that building. in mid to late 26. So between now and then, we're looking for a warehouse to be able to house public works because we can't put them in the village. There's no property to build another facility like that. And so we're looking for something close in, either in North Miami or just west of us in the Little River area. We've had several leads, but we haven't been successful on closing a deal yet. But we've got to find a place for them to light, to work out of, and be close enough to come to work in the village. We can find places out in Hialeah and Opelika, but to come into work and if they have to go back to the shop to get something or a piece of equipment, you're talking a couple of hours with the traffic round trip just to go out and pick a piece of equipment. So we want to get them in where they're fairly close to come to work and to go back to the shop. So we're on that hunt.

Our prior village manager and superintendent of public works had found us a place that we had put a deposit down on that we're going to rent for many years. But that didn't pan out, and we're in a lawsuit with them right now.

Was that Miami Shores?

No. No, no. Miami Shores did not accept our deal.

No. No, this was a private building way out west on 79th Street, and it just didn't pan out.

Hmm.

Okay.

Thank you.

Appreciate all the input. Yes. So the next item is going to be the update on budget amendments, which were attached to the agenda packet. I personally didn't have any follow-ups on these. I'm not sure what the rest of the board, if they have any questions.

I don't. I don't have any questions.

Okay. So that closes out old business. going over new business. We did have the village manager's reports attached. I was able to read them before today's meeting and I think they were very useful and helpful going into the call. I think a lot of the projects were kind of discussed already. Did anybody have any other items on the village manager reports?

Not me.

Okay.

No.

Alright, so now we'll move into the discussion of the proposed budget, which was attached in the agenda packet. Is someone going to be able to share the screen and navigate through the budget document?

I don't know that any of us are ready to have it up. Mike, are you able to do it?

Yes, let me go online and get the one that's there and I'll share.

Okay. In the meantime, I'll give you a brief overview of what was presented to us. The main and most important factor for all of us, of course, is our millage rate. We, at this time, are proposing This is prior to some changes that were made at the meeting. So I do not have an updated budget yet. I will not have it for a couple more weeks because we're working on the capital improvement budget that's being done in two weeks. We're keeping the millage flat at 5.7062. This was our intention to try to maintain taxes low. uh those of us that own our properties for a long time will only have a three percent increase in our tax in our local tax i wish it was on the whole tax bill uh those that just purchased their properties are going to be hit with a little bit higher fee because they don't have the save your home budget and i've And we're leaving the debt service also flat. So there's no increase from the village side. We actually might be, and our department has worked extremely hard in maintaining our tax millage flat. I believe that those are the same figures that are going to be brought up at the meeting this Tuesday. I have not had a chance to look at. Excuse me?

Sorry, sorry, it was my phone ringing.

Okay. I believe it's going to be heard at the Tuesday night's meeting what we're telling the county that we're coming in at. And we can always lower it. We cannot increase it from that rate. So we will be proposing more than likely those rates of 5.762 and the debt service flat as well. Okay. different than prior years is a new village organizational chart uh we are hopefully it's going to pass at this coming commission meeting as well we are going to name our hr director also as our deputy village manager Actually, it's the village manager's choice. He fires and hires but three individuals. We only hire and fire clerk, manager, and legal. For calling it such, all the departments have been split into two areas. The deputy village manager's gonna oversee the communications department, the finance department, Human Resources Department, and IT. There's one other additional department that she will oversee, which is the Parks and Recreation, but that's slated to begin in July of 26th, because that's when we expect for the building to be open, the community center to be open. And we have to get it ready with some programming going on, especially for the end of school year, for the school kids and adults in the community. In those departments that I have mentioned, there is only one new hire in Director of Marketing and Events. And in the Parks and Recreation departments, IT is getting one part-time assistant because if Johnny gets ill, Johnny still has to work because he does everything for the village. In the village manager department, he will be handling the police department, code compliance, public works. Now public works used to have capital improvements department or a CIP director. Now we have split out the CIP from the public works and the building department. The changes in those departments is in the police department, one part-time Marine patrol officer one full-time community affairs officer, and we have already hired the police professional standards administrator who is doing the recertification or the continuing of the certification of our departments. There has been some changes in the police department in as much that we have had recently two lieutenants retire, which are formal announcements will be made in the near future it's uh jimmy and brian have both retired and a i believe he was a corporal jackie has also retired so we are soon going to be in that well not me the chief will be announcing through frank or frank to the chief the promotion of two new lieutenants therefore there will be openings in the sergeant ranks there will be Somebody is sending in the sergeant department. Somebody is sending in the corporal department. And these new positions that I mentioned will be filling the holes in of those that are going up in the ranks. Code compliance, as Frank already mentioned, we're hiring one. Hopefully we're hiring one more enforcement officer. And now we divided public works and capital improvements department. So we have a CIP director. Roger, who is our CIP individual, has been named director of that department, I believe, at the last commission meeting. We approved it. And we're looking for a community resource officer that hopefully soon will be hired that will fall under the capital improvement departments besides all the projects. The building department, we are promoting the existing building department manager to director. And we're going to hire one new building coordinator to cover all areas of the building department, which is post office, permits, and finance downstairs. So as you see, we're not really increasing that many positions. Oh, there's one more position. Our village clerk, which falls outside of this schematic, has one new position for record specialists. we are trying to put everything finally on uh digital and we need to finish scanning all the records and she will be assisting in the large number of record requests that have come in now the because of the police cameras we're getting three pages of just record requests for backups from the police cameras that we have to answer because they're basically to our feds. I mean, they're state officers. Mike there has downloaded the sheets for you. I don't know how you want to go about. You want to go sheet by sheet, department by department. You want to ask questions. I'll leave it up to you how you want to handle this part.

I just have one quick question. Based on the same millage rate from last year, what is the additional ad valorem that we're receiving? Do we have that amount?

Give me two seconds. I'll open up my phone to the last letter that Frank sent me.

It increased a lot, right?

The taxable value increased 2.3%. 2.3%?

3 billion. Ah, 2.3 billion. What percentage? Do you know the percentage?

Give me one second.

I'm trying to open up the last message because I requested that last letter that we received.

Sandra, I can tell you that With the additions that we did and the, you know, it's contract negotiation time this go-around, too. Okay. So I had to face that.

A letter was addressed to our mayor, of course, and it says the Value Adjustment Board has completed hearings for the 2024 tax rolls, and the final valuation are submitted below for the city of North Bay Village. Real estate. $1,577,409,370. And personal property, $31,256,734. If you have any questions, contact his office directly with his number, signed Tomas Aguilar, property appraiser. So that's the final tax roll value. Thank you.

I don't have any other questions.

On this page, I had one question. What? I guess, obviously, in order for it to balance, but I'm just looking at the grand total, the ending fund balance from 25 to 26 increased from $4 million to $44 million.

Remember that I said that we have close to $43 million in the bank for... City Hall, and we have, I don't even know how many millions for ties.

Right.

All those are included in there in between those. They're basically under restricted fund balance. Restricted fund balance for Village Hall contribution fees, you have $15 million. Another one that took a big change. Beginning unassigned fund balance.

Right. That's the one that changed the most.

That's all the TDRs and all the donations. I call it donations. Developers have given donations for us. They are assigned by us, but not by the donation type.

Understood.

They had been moved from the general fund into the restricted accounts now for what they were donated for. Like Village Hall have moved it over as a deferred revenue to that fund. Same thing for CHISE.

So what is that line that maybe you guys already covered this, but the line that is the fourth line that is blank that went from 1.3 to 19 million, what is that?

Beginning unassigned fund balance.

Yes, I'm sorry it's blank. When I did the copy of the PDF, it erased that line and I caught it at the meeting and I fixed it. But I didn't fix the PDF file that I have open.

Perfect, perfect. Thank you, Mike.

That's all the funds that we have collected for the two major capital improvement projects that we're working so hard on. And now actually the funds have been assigned to these specific projects. So the updated version will be totally different. It's not just money sitting in the bank there for the hell of it.

Correct.

I have some high level questions. I mean, I'm not interested in going through every single page. Go for it. But on page seven, expenditures.

Page 7 expenditures. Okay.

So you have the expenditure column and then you have adopted budget, revised budget, and revised budget. How can you have two columns of revised budget? Is the second one projected actual?

The third one is projected actual. These spreadsheets have been corrected. So on the second meeting that we're going to have, I'm going to issue corrected copies. It was duplicated, the same title, but the second line is supposed to be projected actual.

Okay, that's what I thought. That's what I made a note. Thank you. A couple of other high-level questions. In terms of human resources, code compliance, and communications, where were they each housed before? And are the budgets that you're proposing comparable to what was embedded in whatever department?

Human resources was, the problem was, and I don't know the exact dates, so forgive me on that one. We had a vacancy in human resources. Then we brought in Evelyn Harbaio for several months. Then we had a contracted individual. which is Yoli Menganazo's company. And finally, we got Janice back. Through all these changes, the actuals or the proposed for the year, are very weird because you have to add up all these different individuals at different salaries. There's not one individual salary that was proposed at the beginning of last year's budget. That's what happened with human resources. Now, human resources If you want to see Janice's personal salary, you have to go into human resources and into the village manager because she is serving two functions. She is going to be the deputy village manager and she's going to be a human resources director. So that salary is split into two.

That wasn't exactly my question.

HR, I can answer. I'm sorry. HR was under the village manager's budget previously. Okay.

That's what I was thinking. But as I'm looking at the budget for the village manager, it's certainly not going down by any significant amount. but we're adding 424,000 for human resources. I'm just trying to understand.

Inside the village manager's department, you have basically now four employees. You have the village manager, the deputy village manager. You have an assistant to the village manager. And in the past, you had Leo, who was chief of staff, which no longer will be there. And I believe that that's the positions.

If human resources was under the village manager.

Correct.

Then the budget for the village manager is close to projected actual, but you have another $424,000 of new expenditures for human resources. So I'm trying to reconcile that. Now there's a human resources.

Human resources department has.

There's a payroll generalist, HR payroll generalist. She's also in the HR department.

We have an employee that is, the title is payroll generalist. Basically she is, I don't want to call her a deputy because she's not the deputy HR director. But for instance, now that this week Janiece is on vacation, she is covering for the HR department. You can see here the salaries is 190 and 92.5.

Yeah.

Plus pennies. What's eating us alive, and when I saw the figures, it freaked me out, is the FRS.

Yeah.

An FRS increase this year. I don't believe that Maite has the increase of FRS in this report yet.

What is FRS again?

The federal reserve.

Florida has state retirement.

Florida retirement system.

Uh-huh. Okay. Where was code compliance before and where was parks and recreation?

It was under police.

Parks and recreation was only one employee and she was under communications and marketing. Code compliance was under the police department.

I believe there was a charter amendment of 2016 or 18 when the village decided to move code compliance out of the police department by code. And it has not taken place till this year.

I have a question. What is the proposed COLA? What percentage?

What is the proposed what? I'm sorry?

COLA, cost of living increase?

3%. Across the board? Across the board.

No, no, no. Three, four, and three. It's a three-year contract.

No, but across the board for this year for all the employees. Oh, it's 3%.

3% for this year. That's correct. And merit? 4%. Okay.

But now merit is tied to merit. It doesn't have to be a full 4%. Correct.

And how many employees do we have that are maxed out or there's nobody maxed out right now?

No. Well. I think there might be two only that I've seen on the spreadsheets.

Right. Because you had those three senior officers retire.

Correct.

And I've got one, I think, in public works that's maxed out.

I think that that was it. I think he's the only one that's maxed out.

Yeah. So they'll get a COA, but they won't get a merit.

Sorry. I have a question. It's the dollars that don't matter because they're not even a rounding error. But what was the policy behind giving an accountant a clothing allowance?

That was not really a clothing allowance. Per the CBA, they used to give a boot stipend. When I started here, they told me it was for everybody, all the employees except directors. So this year I've made changes to the name. I've called it a boots stipend, and it's only for employees that work out in the field as per the CBA contract. The clothing allowance, they used to call it, but it's really the boots stipend.

But it was for someone in... Finance, an accountant in finance.

They will not get boot stipend. Those things have been corrected. Okay. And you're also seeing the 457 under additional benefits and a lot of the employees. the commission requested that to be deferred for at least two years until we have one building at least online bringing us taxes before we go into the 457 program, which is an additional, we're calling it such bonus to employees that have been here for long periods of time.

Okay. I was going to ask you what that was.

That has been, that has been deferred.

Right. And then the clothing, They do get, the civilian employees get shirts, you know, the North Bay Village logo. They get a certain number of shirts, I think like four a year or something like that.

Including commissioners.

That's correct. So there is a clothing.

We have a limit. All right.

Very nice shirts.

All right, listen, I have, believe it or not, I've got a conflict. I got another Zoom that I have to get on.

Go to your Zoom.

I'll take care of it.

Yeah, I'll take care of it.

Thanks. Thank you, Frank.

Good night. Bye, Frank. See you manana early.

I have another question. How much did... Did you estimate for the health insurance? Do you know, do you have an estimate of how much it's going to increase yet or not yet?

We were between, Janice and I were looking, they have not given us the actual policy yet, but we are actually estimating a 10 to 15% increase.

Okay. Thank you.

I have a question. I don't know if anyone read on Facebook some comments that Gorin made after the first budget meeting.

That who? Oh, okay.

Is it Cook or Cuck?

Same thing.

Okay. He said something about, you know, he's concerned about the expenditures, whatever. But he says, bells and whistles of drone shows, elaborate groundbreaking events and free services for non-residents. What's he talking about in terms of drone shows and the free services?

We had, on the proposed budget, there was an item for the grand opening of our community center that's supposed to take place in June of next year or before June of next year. Besides the expenditure that we're making on the actual tent, food, whatever, entertainment, you know, all the crap that goes into it, we were talking about doing a drone show, or there was a proposal of doing a drone show. The drone show was $30,000. When we discussed it at a commission meeting, we requested for that item to be removed. We don't believe in drone shows.

Okay.

Commissioner or Vice Mayor Cook came in with a very strong statement. He was trying to cut the budget to the, I mean, yes, there has been increases. Maybe I'm trying to find something that's going to be heard at the meeting to read it out loud. I don't remember his exact statements. but he has come back and spoken with the manager, has gone over the budget. And at this point, I have been informed that he feels comfortable with what the budget, as we discussed the budget at the last meeting.

Oh, okay. Then what free services are provided to non-residents?

Free services provided to non-residents. We just had a fabulous 4th of July party with food for 200 people and over 300 people showed up. Are they all residents? Can we control it being all residents?

Right.

Well, we are doing programs with the city of Miami Beach. They're looking to participate in some activities of ours. we have made a very strong statement that at least the child has to be a TISE student. As long as he goes to TISE, we allow him to participate in our programs, either a reduced rate and sometimes free, depends what the program is.

How do they evidence that they're a student?

TISE. We check the information with the principal that dies.

Okay.

But we can only limit it to a certain level. Bring me a bill from your house, making sure that your child meets the requirements. How do you tell one child yes, one child no? You're caught in certain situations where some people may sneak in. that are non-residents. We cannot guarantee that everything is done 100% resident related.

Yeah.

Now, at this commission meeting, we have a resolution, the one that's taking place next Tuesday, that states that The proposed millage rate for the village for fiscal year 2025-26 is declared to be 5.7062 mils, which is 5.7062 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The rollback rate is 5.0445 mils. If we would have gone to the 5.0445 mils, we would have had to remove about $1.8 million from the budget. And that's 13% higher than the rollback rate, our millage rate. keeping it flat, and this debt service millage is 1.666, staying flat as well. That's as far as that goes, and there's another item, which is item 11D, which is a resolution of the North Bay Village, Florida, approving an agreement, no, sorry, that's Ties I.B., Where is it? 11C. Approving amendments to the management benefit policy for executive level employees. And the management benefits are vacation time, Let me see if I can read this tier. Tier one, which is the village manager, deputy village manager, HR director, chief of police, deputy chief of police, public works director, CIP director, village clerk, chief financial officer, director of communications, parks and recs director, chief information officer, building director, and law enforcement director. In years one through four, you get 20 days vacation Five and over, you get 25 days vacation. You can cash out a max of 80 hours per fiscal year, and carryovers are allowed. This is paid 100% upon departure, whatever you have banked.

Is that comparable to other villages and towns of our size?

Yes.

Yes.

This has all been now redone because we want to be comparable and be able to hire and not have competition. Sick time is 16 days per year. You're paid a max of 1920 hours upon departure. So you can only bank 1920 hours. Carryovers are allowed and you can cash out a max of 80 hours per fiscal year. You have the ability to move five days of sick time each fiscal year to a vacation bank. Emergency cash out. Limited to no more than 100 hours each fiscal year taken from vacation, sick banks, or emergency circumstances. Personal time, five days total. paid a max of 30 days upon departure. Carryover is allowed. Car allowance. $500 monthly or a village-issued vehicle as per the village manager's discretion. For instance, Code has a vehicle. Chief of Police has a vehicle. Our Deputy Chief of Police has a vehicle. I believe... Public Works has a vehicle, so those will not get car allowance. They have the use of the vehicle. Cell phone is provided with the Village Phone. Educational reimbursement, max of 7,000 per school year. If you get an A, you get 100%. A B, you get 90%. A C, you get 70%. And you must remain employed with the village for a period of two years after final reimbursement or monies reimbursed will be paid back to the village. How do monies get paid back to the village and what they have back in vacation and sick times? Can we get screwed over that? Absolutely. They use all their vacation, all their sick time and they went to school. We got screwed. But that's very doubtful. Usually they only do so much. Yeah. Longevity, at completion of year three, four, and five, a 2,000 lump sum payment. At completion of year six, seven, eight, or nine, 3,000 lump sum payment. At completion of year 10 and each year thereafter, 4,000 lump sum payment. Lump sum longevity is not added to the base pay.

So someone could get a payment, but not a merit increase, say.

Yes, and they can also get, since it's not included to base pay, they don't get COLA on that either. Right now, I believe it's a monthly, for calling it such a monthly stipend. So they've done it as a lump sum payment one time, that's it. You have your figures that you can work with. Telework. Telework. which means working from home, limited and allowed only at the village manager's discretion. Severance pay, termination or mutually agreed upon resignation. Six weeks total base pay with release from employee and you're only eligible after completion of five years of employment in a tier one position. FRS is for Senior Management Service Class Designation. There is a formula that's designated by the Board of Retirement System that says, for instance, and I'm throwing out numbers, just don't hold me to it, Director of Public Works gets 26% of their base salary as retirement on a monthly basis. We don't designate those figures. Those figures, in other words, are designated for us, but it's senior management service class designation, whatever they tell us. Insurance benefits, health, dental, vision, and life, paid 100% of insurance coverage, elected, employee independent, or the option of 500-month stipend with proof of other insurance. Life insurance coverage for the employee is at $300,000. Remember, we're talking about Tier 1, our directors and our senior management.

And is the pension plan a defined contribution then, as opposed to a defined benefit?

The Florida department, Florida's retirement has both plans. You can elect to be deferred or you can have a defined. And they give you, when hired, they give you a chance to change it only once during your employment. We do have employees that have them defined And some of them do have them as a deferred benefit.

Which is more advantageous right now for the village?

Really, either one. The village still has to contribute the percentages that they're giving us as of July 1st. For the Tier 1 management, it went up. Well, it went down from 34.52% of their salary to 33.24% of their salary. But the other general employees did get a higher increase. Employees contribute 3% of their salaries. Awesome. But they can elect both and either way they pays that percentage.

Got it. Thank you. You're welcome.

And the merit-cola merit increases are annually ranging from 3% to 5%. Budget and performance depends based on data hire or promotion. As you heard, Frank, we're negotiating right now with the unions for the next three years. And we're talking about a 3 for 20... I don't know why I'm going to say 24.

3 for 24...

A four for 25 and a three for 26. 343 is what's being negotiated right now. That's not coming up to us yet.

So I can't really give you that information.

And basically, that's the new plan that we're going to be discussing for senior management at this upcoming commission meeting. So do you have any ideas, anything that you do not agree with that you want to argue? Feel free to show up at the meeting and talk about it when we discuss it.

I have a question. Go for it. I saw that the finance budget, there's an OpenGov software for the budget, and I wanted to know if it has already been implemented or if Or if not, when is it gonna be implemented and what stage of the process you're on right now?

We are implementing that and we're gonna try to get the physical year 26 budget out of that, even though we are in the process of changing payroll systems. That's holding us a little bit back with the workforce part of it. But we are getting training All this week, we've been admin training on OpenGov. It is very helpful. It's basically Excel sheets. But one triggers to the other. So it's not like a single sheet by itself. But does it also create the book for you? Yes, it does. Yes, it does. It creates the book. You can add stories to it. Stories would be like the goals for each department. You can add pictures to it. I really like it. I enjoy getting the training on that. It's a very sophisticated budget book. Once we have everything in there like it should be, once the ADP comes on board, hopefully for 26, 27, everything should be implemented in Open Go. But this year we're going live with it without the workforce. We're going to have to enter that manually.

Got it. Understood. Thank you.

You're welcome. I have a question. Would you be able to go to page three on the PDF?

Go for it.

Okay. So my first question is for the license and permits. Oh, I'm almost there. I'm sorry. I'm still moving. No, you're good. You're good. I think one more page up.

Licenses and permits.

But one more page up on page three.

The $2.8 million?

Yeah. So I guess.

I saw the new buildings.

Yeah. Okay. So I just want to double check that. And then the next question, just double checking. For miscellaneous revenues, the 11.6 for actual that was received in 2025, is that contributions that were received?

I'll let Maite answer that one.

Yes.

I mean, it just seems like a big number compared to last year's budget.

We had it under miscellaneous revenue. They have been moved to where they really belong, and they are contributions.

Got it. It's from these buildings and construction. Correct. Okay. And I'm assuming the 3.8 is basically contributions expected to be received this year. Yes. Okay.

Please remember that we had a little hiccup in the finance department. We were without a CFO for a couple of months. And after we had a CFO, we were without a controller for several more months. So finally all the spots are filled and everybody is doing their work and hopefully all these I don't want to call it errors, but all these little blips that have come up on this book have been fixed and will be showing up correctly in the subsequent book that's coming out for the meetings. By the way, the meetings have been set also off the top of my head. The first public meeting First public meeting is on Tuesday, September 16th. And the second public meeting is going to be on Thursday, September 25th. We had to wait to get the dates from the county, the city, for insurer, fire department, all those people that get preference to see what dates were left open and we had to work with those dates.

Okay. Does anybody else have any other comments on the budget?

If there's a question, if there is a statement, anything that you don't want to go in front of the commission to say it, Feel free to call me, and I'll be glad to relay the message. I will try to answer your question, and I will try to get you an answer from my thing and get back to you. And I will try to relay it to the commission if it's a statement that you want to make regarding some anomaly that you see within the budget, whatever, whatever, whatever.

That's very kind. The PowerPoint presentation you're looking at now was the one that was presented on June 24th. There was errors, and we are correcting. I am going one by one of the departments, making sure, plus cutting off whatever the commission recommended to be cut off. So the other one, I am praying that will be better looking than this one, and I'm sorry for the mistakes.

You have a lot on your plate. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, you're doing a great job because I know how difficult it is to audit the budget. So kudos to you. Great job.

Thank you.

I second that. I second that as well.

Thank you. It hasn't been easy with an RFP and everything going on at the same time. But we're getting through it.

Did we decide at the last meeting that you're taking the month of August off?

That's correct.

Okay, so you're off in the month of August. You'll be back in the month of September.

I believe, yes, that is September 9th as of now.

So at that meeting, we can go over lightly, and I say lightly because I have a whole budget to do on the 15th, over the capital projects that are going to be heard at Tuesday's meeting because we won't have a meeting after that.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, that would be a good item to go over. I think we'd try and go over that on an annual basis.

Right. And basically you're getting the report anyway from Frank, basically of what's going on with the capital improvement projects. And if you have any questions before that, you're going to be putting out the final budget book, if we're calling it such, A week before the meeting, the first public meeting? Yes. So be on the lookout for that one, the Tuesday before, which is our meeting. Our meeting date. The new budget book will be out on the 9th. Correct.

The risk of being an annoyance. I have one more question on parking.

Parking where?

In the new village hall.

We already decided that. We're taking over your parking spaces at 360.

Oh, very good. One, can anyone park in the garage?

No.

How is that?

We're going to have assigned spaces outside of city hall for people that are coming to city hall to do business.

Okay.

On the side street on, we're calling it such, I believe we still call it West drive that fronts with the building. There will be some assigned spaces there for people to be able to park and go into perform business at city hall. So there will not be parking. We have been kicking the can on opening up the parking at night if it was needed. But it seems that ever since we put a parking rate on parking on Harbor Island, there is plenty of parking spaces on the street. So we don't see that as a need at this time to say, hey, yes, you can park. But the other problem we're going to encounter is will that person leave in time for City Hall to open at 8 o'clock in the morning?

Yeah. And what about, you know how Miami Beach, certain parking lots during a weather event, people can park there?

Let's get to a weather event and let's get the building built. That one hasn't even been discussed.

Okay, I was just curious. That's it for me. I don't want to keep people all night.

No, people, I mean, that one, it's a great question. Don't get me wrong, but we have not even, we're talking about actual day-to-day business. We didn't even get to weather events.

I guess they're on my mind.

And right now we don't even have the parking garage behind our village hall is. It's still being fixed.

Still?

Yep.

Crazy.

All right. Nobody has any other questions. items to discuss of the recess next month. We're a group in September. I'll call the meeting to adjourn at 8.14.

I second.

All right. Everybody have a good night. Thank you. Thank you, guys.

Good night, everybody. Thank you. Bye-bye.