Financial Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, Lars.

Good evening, everyone.

We're going to wait a couple of minutes.

Recording in progress.

We're going to wait a couple of minutes because Sid Hart is joining us, but he is at another... He could not move his other meeting, but he'll be joining us shortly just so we have a quorum. Marcos called in that he could not make it today, and Sandra Sifkin has a... Conflict with the Surfside Commission to where she is chief financial officer. She has submitted her resignation from the board. Show her back down to four.

Keep looking for people.

We may be able to fill out the next commission meeting, but I can't promise you that. I have a couple of feelers out there. But we'll see what happens. But I just need Sid to join us so we can go ahead and call the meeting to order.

All right.

But in the meantime, you all received your budget book for the year? Yep.

Yep.

Nice and thick book that Maite has prepared for us. The first couple of areas are an explanation of what the city is and what each department is. Hopefully there's Sid there. Yes, Sid has finally joined us. So we can start the meeting anytime. Lars, your call.

Alrighty. So we have a quorum. So let's call the meeting to order at 6.31 and it's Tuesday, January 13, 2026.

And I will act as your secretary for this meeting again, since we have no secretary yet.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Commissioner. So let's do, I guess, the roll call then. So Marco is out, Sandra's out. Elizabeth Avalo. I'm here. Thank you. Sid Hart, Rishi Mehta, Sid.

He's still muted, but he's on. Okay, good.

And we have Commissioner Chevroni on. And we have city manager, Frank Rolason. And I believe we had Maite, our CFO as well on. Correct. Great. So let's move ahead with our agenda. Point number two, approval of meeting minutes from our last meeting on December 9th, 2025. Can I get a motion to approve these minutes, please?

Motion to approve.

Thank you. Anyone second? Sid, you want a second?

He's still muted. He may be at the other meeting and is just listening in to us. So why don't you second it, Lars? Okay.

I'll go ahead and second it. Apologies. I'm just on a work call. No problem.

Thank you, Stitch. Second it. Do we need to vote on that?

All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, like, sign. It passes.

Okay, great. I mean, it's approved then. Agenda item 3A, old business. First one here, then update on the Villages Community Center and Treasure Island Elementary School project.

I don't know how many of you have been going by the project. We are, I believe, already in the pouring of the roof. portion of it. All three floors are up there. The building looks really nice from the outside. All three floors, they're going to start doing the partitions to the ground floor soon. Last, of course, is going to be the porch, the Padel porch and the Pickleball porch. That's once the building is completed. Today, I received an email that there was a cease and desist order from Durham on the field. There is an issue that Frank may be able to explain better than I can regarding they needed a permit and they were told they did not need to apply for said permit. And now they're rushing to get the permit to go ahead and continue with the fields. It has to do with the draining of the fields. And that's where we stand with the project. Recently, there was a payment made from the village to MG3 for our portion of the building for a couple million dollars. And that's... The building is moving ahead. That has not been stopped. The one that got the cease and desist order is strictly the field.

Okay.

And we had agreed that they were going to go ahead and complete the main field with the draining system, of course, and the lights and all the good stuff by the time the ribbon cutting takes place right before the uh we're still shooting for that and they're telling us that they can do it and the four smaller courts they have till december of this year to finish the four smaller courts because they're only a five by five and i mean it's a big project

Was that the payment that the village made? Was that a milestone payment?

No, that was an accumulation of invoices from October and November. We had been holding those invoices because there was an issue on finalizing the GMP contract. and our attorneys advised us not to make the payment until those issues had been resolved. They've been resolved, so we made the two payments, and shortly they will be giving me the invoices for December.

Okay, so that sounds like we're current with our payments there then?

Yes.

I actually, Mike, Dan, Frank have been working quite hard besides getting the finance book ready for you, not only for you guys, for us as well, and getting the specifics as to what is available still in funding for these projects. And basically, it has not been made public to the commission yet. That's why we have not really put this email out. At the community center, the funds that have been received and designated for the community center that we still currently have are from Sunbeam, $138,500. From Continuum, we have $600,000. From Shuckers, we have $974,000. And from Grand Vita, we have $3,700,000. We have received a total of $5,412,000 for the Civic Park Ties project. So we have the funds for whatever invoices come in. There are also some other items that have not been designated yet as to whether they're going to Village Hall or the parks or there are other outstanding projects and there's still $88,000 in the park bond balance for the village that can be used at any of the parks.

Okay. Thank you. All right. So any, Sid, Liz, any questions from you guys on the community center update?

Nope. No, thank you.

No, you're good.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner and City Manager, for that update. The next agenda item then is 3B, update on the Village Road project.

Frank, do you want to take this one?

Well, I know you've got the financials in front of you if you want to go over that and bring them up to date with that, and then I can talk to them about the actual project.

Okay. Basically, the village hall is still an empty space. But we have received a total of $31,145,000 already. There are $12,893,000 from Sunbeam. From Continuum, $546,000. From Pagani, $1,250,000. I'm rounding off the numbers, by the way. From Shoma, $2,723,000. S2NBV, which is the empty lot across from Tula, or next to 360, $1,712,000. From the Relator Group, which is the East Coast The end of East Drive that was just approved is $12,022,000. So we have received $31 million. We still have approximately, I'm going to say $9 million, $10 million worth of undesignated contributions, funds that will be coming into the Village, I'm gonna say eventually, because some are sooner rather than later, but some will take a couple of years, max two years to come in, that will also go towards the Village Hall. We have over $4 million, $4,285,000 left in the Village bond. And we're also not including in this approximately $7.5 million that the fire department is kicking in once we prove that we have the finances to do the building. The undesignated, those contributions that are forthcoming that have not come in and have not been designated to either Ties, Village Hall, Civic Park, or anything. that are up in the air that the commissioner will decide. But if we need obviously the funds for city hall, they will go to civic hall, I think. Is Tula, Tula residences with $280,000 community contribution fee that has been received and $364,000, another bonus density that was received, but has not been assigned anywhere Not received yet is Sunbeam for $4.5 million that they will pay at building permit when they pull the permit for Grove on the Bay. Continuum, $2.3 million at building permit. In my last conversation with Bruce, they are planning in February pulling the permit, so that one should be coming in in February. Pagani, I can't. Figure that a building permit is going to be approximately sometime in June or early third quarter of next year, of this year. That's $600,000. Shoma has a $750,000 community contribution one year after pulling the building permit. and another $750,000 once they receive the temporary certificate of occupancy. Related is giving us another $500,000 in May of this year. So that makes the $9.5 million that we have undesignated and pending.

okay so i want to remember that back in december we did kind of look at this in in detail um and we discussed the the funding gap that existed and i think what we talked about then was also that there were forecasted or expected payments to come just like you you outlined uh commissioner chevroni so with that we're still then targeting to bridge the gap with the expected payments for the project?

If the projects go through and they pull the building permits, and they do it in a timely manner, of course, and they don't have to reapply, and the funds are there for them to do the construction. There's a lot of ifs involved in construction. It's not just pulling a permit and giving us money. Yes, the answer is yes, we're looking at a yes.

Yeah, at least the plan and the expectation and the forecast is bridging the gap. But then, of course, things can happen.

Correct. And we are not included in this. At the last commission meeting, we, I want to say sold 16 TDRs at $160,000. Is there $160,000 each, Frank? $150,000. $150,000 each. And they paid us already the 10% that they have to, and they will be paying the 90% in five months. At this coming meeting, we also have the second hearing for the T6 area, which is the causeway of bonus height possibilities up to 30 feet at $100,000 a foot, of which supposedly MG partners are interested in doing the whole 30 feet. So that's $3 million more coming in. That's not on these calculations that I gave you.

Okay.

So we're still looking at creating more TDRs, selling more TDRs, and getting as much funds as we can to create the breach that we had. Yes.

Okay. Great.

Now I'll give you a little update on the operational side of what's happening. So our target is that we will break ground by June 30th of this year. We'll start construction. And the project schedule shows us completion by January of 28. We got a new wrinkle in the plans just yesterday. FDOT, which is going to raise those bridges, I think you're aware that that's going to happen, the two flat bridges. They now have some issues. We thought we had resolved with the elevations between the roadway and our property, but we have a walkway that goes from our property, from the city hall, and it goes to the sidewalk right along the causeway. And we also have the main entrance is off of the Harbor Island entrance. And there's a walkway that goes from that to the sidewalk there. There's no elevation problem. There's an elevation problem in the difference between us and the causeway on the south side. So we're going to have another meeting, see how we resolve it. The crux of the problem is that FDOT does not want a set of steps or a railing adjacent to their sidewalk or touching their sidewalk. We will be at a higher elevation than their sidewalk because we've had to account for the raising of the bridge and not having our building underwater if we have issues with the runoff because the road's going to elevate as it goes towards the bridge. So we're like going to be down in a catch basin. So we have elevated the building, taking care of that issue. But now there's a sidewalk from there to the, from our building, a walkway to the sidewalk on the causeway. And we're going to be taller and it's about three steps down to get on to the sidewalk. So we have designed a, the path comes and it goes to a set of stairs. It's these three steps and goes down to the, and they said, no, no, no, no, no. You can't have the steps next to our sidewalk and you can't have a railing that interfaces with our sidewalk. So we're going to meet with our architects, Steve will, maybe this week. I know they're trying to get this resolved right away because we're going to have to redraw some plans that FDOT will approve. And every one of these redrawings causes a resubmittal and time goes by and we're trying to hit that June 30th You know, everything's a timing factor. And we're talking about moving the steps back away from the sidewalk and coming down the three steps and having a straight platform that goes, you know, to the sidewalk. So the architects are trying to come up with a resolution, and I'm sure we will. If push comes to shove, we'll eliminate the walkway from that side of the building to the causeway. And we'll just have the entrance on Harbor Island. But it'd be nice to be able to, you know, walk along there and then walk up to the city hall. Yeah, of course. So that's the wrinkle at the moment that we're dealing with. Everything else, we're at, you know, the last submittal of plans have been done. Most of the comments have been addressed and gone back in. And we will now be prepared. The RFI, the RFP for contractors is being finalized in our, in the law department with Weiserota, with them putting in their issues. And then we'll be going out to bid for the contractors. We've already narrowed the number of contractors down to five or six, I think it's five, that have qualified through a previous process and the RFP for their proposal Well, for it, we're going to do a guaranteed maximum price type of a deal and it will go out to them and they'll have, I think, 60 days to respond. And then we award and then we start to work. So, you know, we see the time crunch is very close. Here we are in January and we're talking about breaking ground by June 30th. So come quickly, but it's, it's coming.

Good. Thank you. Exciting. Thank you, Frank, for that update. Um, if no questions on that, I actually did have a question because you mentioned it. So, and it's, uh, doesn't have anything to do with the, uh, the village hall per se, but the, when you say raise the flat bridges.

Yes.

Is that the flat bridge that comes directly on the west side of Harbor and Bay Island?

Yes, they're raising both of them.

All four flat bridges will be raised.

Right.

The last threat of a hurricane, which I believe was Irma, let's say six or seven years ago now, it's no longer five years.

That was in 2017.

All the bridges, all the flat bridges were under five feet of water. The salt water really damaged the bridges. The bridges are old and they need to be replaced. All four of them. The two, one heading towards the beach, one heading towards Miami between Treasure Island and Harbor and North Bay Island. And the two in the same directions between Harbor Island and Treasure Island Harbor Island and North Bay Island and Miami or the West Bridge. So all four bridges will be replaced. We will be having a town hall meeting with FDOT in the near future. I don't have the date yet.

We're working on it.

to inform the public exactly what is their plan for developing these bridges, how high they're going to be, where they're going to start the height of the bridges, what's being remodeled, what's being removed, what's being replaced. Basically, they call it a PD&E. That's forthcoming as soon as they have their plans pretty much ready. And basically they're gonna close down, I don't know which side goes first, whether it's the north side or the south side. I'm sure they're gonna close down one side, knock down those two bridges, and convert the other side to one lane each way with cones in the middle separating the traffic lanes. So we're gonna have a little backup. As soon as that side is done, they come to the other side.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, it sounds like a lot.

It is a lot. You're looking at a couple-year project. And the elevations will start at Adventure, start going up towards the bridge because they're going to raise the bridge. I don't know. I hear two feet. I hear four feet.

I heard it was five.

Yeah, it's coming up. So the elevations actually, you know, I've got to start way back so that you can not be, you know, jumping up on top of the bridge. One of the things that's kind of nice in the discussions that we had with them is that they're going to install a different, you know, they're concrete. And so there's a seam between the slabs. so the concrete expands during the hot weather and so it doesn't crack. And that's that, what current bridges we have is all that thumping that comes across the bridge if you live on North Bay Island, that you hear that all the time, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, but a car's going over. And the design that they have, the way it's evolved over the years since those bridges were built, that the expansion that they put in between the slabs greatly reduces that noise. So that's a benefit for those that would like to sleep with their windows open on North Bay Island and not have to listen to that constant thumping as the cars go over those bridges.

But I don't think there's anybody in North Bay Island that sleeps with the windows open right now, but what the hell.

I guess there are other reasons for that. Yeah. At the moment.

Yeah, so how is that going to affect our houses?

It doesn't affect the houses. No.

No?

No.

It doesn't put us in a valley that the water will just come in. No, no, no.

Well, the whole new drain, they've got to put all draining systems in. I mean, it's just not the bridges. Oh, okay. Yeah, there's a whole, you know, we haven't seen all the plans, but they've got to address all that runoff. Like, that's why we raised Village Hall up. But they're going to have to put the drainage in to protect the neighborhood there on the south side. And they're aware of it. They're aware of it.

Did you mention if they had a tentative start date for the project? Not yet.

Well, around 2029 to actually start construction. But you may notice going across, you've seen rigs out there doing core drillings into the bridge. Yeah, I've seen that. They're getting samples. They're seeing what the actual shape of the concrete is as part of their analysis of what they got to do. My understanding is it's all going to be new columns. Everything will be replaced.

Nice. The last report that I was able to gather, did I lose everybody?

No.

Okay, I just got back.

Now we can hear you.

The last report that I got there about the bridges, the bridges were at 40% of capability. So it's time to replace them. That's why they're replacing the bridges.

Yeah. Okay.

All right. Well, it's a few years out, so don't worry about traffic just yet.

Not just yet.

All right, great. Okay, thank you so much for that update, both of you. If no other questions on Village Hall, we'll move over to agenda item 3C, update on budget amendments from October 1st, 2025 to present.

And I will introduce, she hasn't been present at the prior meetings with the three of you, Maite Gamiottea, who is our CFO. She is sitting silently in the background, and she likes to not speak, but I'm going to embarrass her and have her explain the budget amendments.

Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

Okay, this is the final budget amendment for fiscal year 25. Every year, we're supposed to do one at the end of the fiscal, so we can actually close out the general ledgers and the accounts. This is all including all of the funds. I want to specify the general fund alone was $1,652,537.88. And that was just moving in between line items. It wasn't getting anything from fund balance. It was just credits and debits trying to equal all the accounts out to positive. It wasn't taking any money from any of the fund balance. So that's not contributing to the shortfall that we have. We also did it for the building department. That was $1,636,260. The street maintenance, was $42,660. These are line items that came in negative and I had credits and revenues and other line items. So we tried to make them all whole. The transportation fund was only $4,800 rounded off. And then the debt service was $21,225. And then the rest is capital projects for the community center, $881,458. We took it from the parks improvement fund. It was an expense that was paid and there was actually no budget on that new GL account when it was opened. So we moved it from the parks fund. The sewer improvement, $670,000. And then the utility side was $558,741.20. That includes all between water and sewer operations, sanitation. All of those three operations are included in this utility fund. So the whole, oh, the stormwater, I'm sorry, was $111,774. So the budget amendment in total was $4,910,158.34. But like I said, it's not getting any money from fund balance or appropriation. It's just expense and revenues. One exceeded the other, so we brought them out to OU. And that's what that budget amendment was for, to try to clean up fiscal year 25. As we know... Physical year 24 is being audited at the time. I have two accountants, accounting firms that are helping me. One is TriMerge with Jerry and CRI with Yvonne. They're both doing two different things. I handled more the operation side of the GL. One of them is doing fixed assets and debt service. The other one is cleaning out all of the leases and gas fees. But I have planned for tomorrow to get that trial balance to the auditors. Since I had two people working on it, Checking both things, things crossed applied. So we're trying to clean that out tonight. So tomorrow morning I can have all the spreadsheets and upload it to the trial balance to the auditors. I have been in contact with CBiz and they understand. And they've been working with us trying to make this possible. a progress to get them the trial balance, but there has been a lot of corrections done in this fiscal year that was actually not done in 23. So just to inform you, tomorrow they should have a trial balance and the audit is on the go. I was promised that it should be done by the end of February. They do have a lot of spreadsheets up in their portal as we speak, but they are actually waiting for the trial balance before they actually kick off the audit. And that's the holdup. You have any questions? No, I have read through the amendment and the budget, so.

I don't have any questions.

Okay. Also, I want to mention the budget that we sent out today. Last year, the budget was manually done in spreadsheets. This year, we did begin in spreadsheets, but we ended up with OpenGov as our software. As we started entering the items into OpenGov, I don't know if you understand, we had a controller at the beginning of October of last year, and she left us in May. So after May, when we were actually kicking off the budget, she had already entered a lot of things into OpenGov since we were doing training. Now we've gone back between my finance team and I and try to clean up what I've found errors and updates to what happened during the whole budget season. So the one you got today is one of the cleanest ones. I have Annabelle, my accountant, working on this all day today. She's been putting it on a link and I shared that link. As she updates it and you go into that link, it'll update. Like right now, she just finished entering the table of contents. So as she updates it, the link gets updated with whatever she does. The first initial copy that I gave to Commissioner Schiavone was a notebook page. Huge book. No page numbers, but we've overseen that already. This one that we issued out today does have page numbers, table of contents. statistical reports at the back um it is a little bigger than the one that i did last year but i think it's more detailed and and it has a lot of history of the village yeah it's only 448 pages i don't know about 472 right now if you oh okay that link again uh

Well, besides the general finances of the village that just shows you the budget for the year, first of all, I want to say, yes, I've cheated. I received my agenda for next Tuesday's general commission meeting. There is one item there, which is a quarterly finance report that now my day is preparing of both revenues and expenses by categories. By categories, I mean by departments. It shows us what percentage of completion or percentage of income that were to receive for the year we have received, the exact amounts. It is not broken to specific items. Those items we can find by going into the actual finance portal and doing a little digging. But at least we're getting quarterly reports now from Mike Day. And after the commission meeting, after we have a chance to review it and speak about it at the commission meeting, I will make sure I forward it to you guys. So you have it also on a quarterly basis. The other thing that I want to direct you to in the budget book, there are goals and objectives that have been created by each department director. or at least have been presented to administration by the director, how they reach those goals. I don't know, some have meetings and some are one person departments, so they create their own. And it gives you a breakdown by quarters, how much they have completed. That is something that I pay a lot of attention to, what the goals of each department are and the completion rate. And that is the key element for merit increases when we afford merit increases for the employees for each department. Have they fulfilled their goals and objectives and have they fulfilled it in a timely manner? So you have a lot of information besides just numbers and figures. It's a very interesting read. So when you have nothing better to do, I suggest a little digging. It's fun. You start reading.

Yeah, there's tons of information here. I didn't go through it prior to the meeting, but I'm scrolling through now, and there's a lot of good stuff here.

Well, let's put it this way. You have it, and the rest of the commission doesn't. I'm the only commissioner that has it because I've been on their case for a while now, and I got mine on Friday.

Oh, okay.

So you're not that far ahead of me. Well, I'm not that far ahead of you.

Yeah, this is really good. Well, I would have tons of questions after reading all this, so I'll wait with that until... another meeting. But yeah, there's a lot of good stuff here. And one question, Maite, thank you for giving the update. I'm trying to find my way back to the Zoom meeting here so I can see you guys. So this system that you spoke about, what was it called again? OpenGov. OpenGov. And OpenGov, does that then help you publish the content of this book?

Yes. OpenGov, it looks a lot like a Word and an Excel sheet. And you enter all your notes, just like a Word document. And it does combine it. And it creates the whole link that you got. We then have to put it all. Once we close out the whole adopted book, you can see it online. And you can also print out a hard copy. So, like, we have to send a hard copy to GFOA for the certificate. We can do that online or hard copy. And it creates, it's very interesting. I haven't gotten into it as much as Annabelle and my prior controller did, but I went in to change numbers and it's pretty easy to navigate within the system. It has proposals for each department and worksheets. Like the proposals will be the history, the Word documents for each department, and then the worksheets would be By year 23, it has several years until you get to the proposed and adopted. So it's very nice and it does come out to be a nice book at the end. I like it. At least what I have here printed out so far, I like it. It's a little bit of work trying to combine all the PDFs in Adobe and try to get them out straight and numbered. The only thing it does not create is a table of contents that has to be created on outside and then imported into the book.

okay and and when you then update this book with your accounting information so for example I'm on page 326 now. It shows expenditure account details for, what's this, 114 after school and summer camp trust fund. It has actuals, your adopted budget, projected actuals, proposed budget for the next fiscal year. Is that something that you can export from your accounting system into these Excel templates or how would that work?

Yes, it comes from our Tyler system. You use Tyler ERP 10 and we can import it into OpenGov. We did not import anything this year because it's like a first year testing everything and learning the system. But it is able to be imported.

Okay. Great. Very, very useful. I can explain technically how it's done.

Oh, yeah. Johnny was very involved in it too. Oh, yeah. Go ahead, please.

Technically, we're running a VMware server, running a server in the background. And I don't like a third party to have any of our data.

Johnny, you got to speak up. You're very low.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah.

Can you hear me now?

Much better.

Okay. Okay. We run a VMware server, and we run an application in the background. So we sync the data between .gov, OpenGov, and Tyler. So they don't have a direct connection to our information just in case of anything. So we pull financial data, and then we pass it on to OpenGov.

Correct. They're not allowed to come into our system and take documentations. So every night there's an upload done for Tyler and they receive it in the morning. It's not like OpenGov can come in and take information from our finances. Whatever update happens overnight, they get the next day.

Okay, so OpenGov is a cloud-based system?

Correct.

Okay. And Tyler sits on your own hardware?

No, Tyler sits also on a cloud base. So basically the server sits like the middleman for security reasons. So it pulls it down from Tyler and passes it on to... So that way, if anybody gets compromised, there's no direct connection to all the financial information and all the data that's held on the cloud-based servers.

Okay. All right. I understand. All right. Thank you.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure, Johnny, our IT guru, is extremely well-versed and well-qualified in maintaining not only city information, but I'll go as high as police, FBI, uh, kind of codifications. So he keeps a very private network with shitload of firewall firewalls that, that, No matter who tries to attack it, you ain't getting in.

Well, that is needed nowadays. For sure. Yep.

And anytime you have the chance, I mean, I suggest you stop by City Hall and meet these people in person.

None of us bite. We were hoping our February meeting was going to be done in person.

It is. We can have staff there with Maite and Johnny and you all lay a, you know, see a face with a name and so that'll be good for everybody to see each other.

That'd be awesome.

Yeah, that would be really nice. All right. Well, I will for sure study this book to some better detail and then come back with more questions in our, in our next meeting for sure. Um, one additional question, if I may, might, because you also spoke about that this didn't, uh, this budget amendment didn't represent, um, it only represented the transfer of line items more or less. It didn't address any budget gaps. Was that,

That's correct. It was not to fix the gap. It was to fix the line items that when we went to audit, they were not negative.

Okay. So was the budget that was approved for the current fiscal year still has gaps or it's not balanced? Or how should I understand that then?

No, the budget is balanced. What has gaps is moving the money that's in general fund to where it actually belongs to be able to cover the expenses of the capital projects.

Oh, okay. All right.

But it is balanced and the money is in general fund except the gap that we came up in fiscal year 26 that we noticed the money had been spent.

Okay. All right, clear. Thank you. Okay, team, any other questions for Maite on this agenda item and update?

No. Well, thank you. I hope to meet you in person next month.

Yes, for sure. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right, next one, for new business, for a discussion on how the board can contribute to the village's financial process. So I think this was something that we kind of just briefly mentioned in one of the other meetings to see if there is anything that we as board members want to, you know, discuss or come up with as potential ideas to move forward with for staff or the village finance department. Maybe I'll just ask Liz or Sid first if, there's something that you have thought of or want to bring forth to discuss at this time?

No, but I would love to be more involved kind of in that long-term planning.

Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I, I also had thought about like what it, I need to study this book a bit more because I think it has a lot of good information. I saw there was one statistical section with some demographics of the residents and the population of the city. To me, it's kind of one of the items in terms of long range planning or long term planning, whichever term you want to use. At least to me, from my experience and previous work, it's kind of taking a risk approach to identify risks, whether it be a city or a company. And through that long range planning, you would look at what type of risks can we foresee for our revenues and expenditures? What are the kind of drivers for it? And if there are ways that you could then forecast three, five years ahead based on those risks to kind of figure out what your position would be over the years and what your financial capabilities would be based on what you either know already around these risks or what you could somewhat confidently forecast whether it be For example, if we talk about revenues for the city, what do we know about the new developments? What do we know in terms of the tax base of more residents coming along? What would that mean for revenues? Yes, there are unknowns to tax rates. And also on the expense side, what would we expect that the city's cost would be in terms of more residents coming in, whether it be trash or utilities or infrastructure for stormwater or whatever the case might be. Maybe not to a great detail, but just some key building blocks to manage or maybe mitigate risk and the finances. I think that's... I don't know the... It's always resource intense to do these kinds of things. And I don't know how big of a finance department you have. Very small. But I guess it's small. But I did hear, Maite, that you said you had one or two consultancy companies that supported you on some of the work.

Since I lost my controller, we went ahead with two consulting companies that are helping me go through this audit process. And hopefully, as soon as the 24 is completed, they're just going to roll into year 25 so we can get that audit accomplished by June. So yes, I do have two companies helping me along with my four, my other three employees. It's only four of us in the office.

Okay. Yeah. That's not a big department.

No. Lars, let me jump in here a minute. This is Frank. So we talk long range, long term. You know, we're into that because that's, That's what we're facing. You can't just go year to year. We need to really look at what we're facing. And I can tell you the two major things that are in the forecast that are really going to have an impact on this village. One is the infrastructure, water, sewer, and stormwater. We have the stormwater bond, $60 million bond, but it only scratches the surface of what we're facing when we start to do that in-ground work. The first project actually going in the ground will be on North Bay Island. That contract has been awarded. And in a few months, they'll be breaking ground on that project. And when they do, although it's stormwater project, they're going to interface with sewer and potable water lines. And we don't know exactly what we're going to be facing, but we know this stuff has been in the ground since the 40s. It's not in great shape. So that's an issue that we are going to have to deal with and face going forward. And to that end, at the upcoming commission meeting on the 20th, is a recommendation from the administration to the commission to approve a work order to Ardura who is a big infrastructure engineering outfit here in the Southeast, really. And for them to give us an evaluation of our water lines and our sanitary sewer lines so that we can start planning ahead as to what kind of finances we're going to be facing. Because it's just not building these two buildings, we're going to have to be taking care of this infrastructure. Right now, it's been a patch and repair as we go. And we're probably still going to have to maintain that for a few years until we get some of these buildings online and start to get the tax revenue that will come from these projects. But the elephant in the room that we're going to have to face or is going to have to be faced by the village in some manner in the not too distant future is the sea walls that surround the village. They are old, new ones as the developments go in. Of course, they're putting in new sea walls and putting them at a higher elevation and so forth and so on. But when you get in the residential areas, those sea walls have deteriorated. They're not at the height they should be. And it's going to have to be addressed. And there's, you know, the commission is going to have to look at several different ways. Do we do a special taxing district and do a project that the city does, that the village does the project? Because if you're going to try to depend on each homeowner to do, the cost is probably going to be exponentially higher than when you look at it long, you know, for the whole project, the whole replacement, and then you'll have a, you know, you'll have a mix of what you're looking at instead of a unifying fortress around the, around the village. So that is a, that's a huge project that is going to have to be addressed. Those seawalls are on private property. They are private, you know, it's, it's something that it's not as easy as the infrastructure in the ground. This is a different animal altogether. And it literally holds the village together. So that's another, when you talk about long range issues, that is one that we can't ignore. We have to start planning for that and seeing how we're going to address it. And I think the other thing that I'm sure you're aware of is these bills that are up at the state now to start reducing the ad valorem taxes, you know, depending on what happens can be a huge impact for us, especially at this stage of our, of our viability financially. So those are issues that the advisory board would be, to me, it would be welcoming from the administrative side to have your input and to And, you know, we can meet and we can talk besides for these meetings. Now, we can't, you know, I can meet individually with you, but as a board, you cannot meet without being in the public. But if one or two of you, if one of you wanted to come in and talk about a certain area or whatever, we'd certainly be amenable to that. And then like with Commissioner Schiavone, he can join us because there's not a sunshine issue there because he's not a member of the board. And then he'd get the benefit of hearing what an individual on the board had to say, what the administration is saying. And he's really the frontline liaison with the rest of the commission when we're dealing with the finances. So, you know, I'm glad to see an active board. And we're certainly open to participate with you.

No, thank you for that, Frank. And I think you kind of hit the nail on the head on kind of what I was, what I was talking about, because in terms of risk, like long-term risks, what you mentioned here are material risks, right? You have the property tax discussion that is going far away on that end in terms of impact or potential impact. And then the two items that you mentioned in terms of infrastructure, sea walls around the islands is also major factors that drives costs far away on the other side of that line. So those two together, high impact, high impact for the village.

Yeah, yeah. You're talking about the viability of the community to survive.

Yeah.

So we're aware of it. I'm glad you guys are aware of it because we need to work together as a team with the elected officials to, and listen, it's been tough for them. Some of the things I bring to them with the money to be spent is staggering.

I can imagine.

But there's no other option. We have to move forward with this. And kicking the can down the road, we're past that point.

And I would even imagine that High level numbers on the investments needed on the two items you mentioned, sea wall infrastructure, increased tax base without any changes with just, you know, an influx of new residents would not even cover that alone, I would imagine.

Well, the good thing will be we'll be in a period of time for, I would say, the next four years where it's going to be lean. We will probably be in the patch and repair operations where we can do because of the restriction on the amount of available funds. It's just that simple. But once a couple of these towers get online and we begin to receive the ad valorem from those buildings, what we need to be ready for is not then to start planning what to do. We need to plan what to do now get that information together, get our plans together so that when the funding becomes available, we can do work, not spend another four or five years planning. So right now with consultants and so forth, like this project that Ardura is going to go, which will take a while for them to do, we will now have a good picture of our water and sewers. So that's the kind of thing that I want to try to keep moving on while we're waiting for the additional revenue to come to pass. But we had a break by the Village Hall pump station. And we have an item we had to pay emergency repair work that was quite expensive. And that just comes... out of the existing pot of money. And we're going to add more of those where it's a sewer leak or water leak, water lines. We had a water, just a water line on the causeway to one of the buildings. And when we went in to do the repair, the water line was nothing. It was only a two-inch line. But the problem was there was no shutoff to be able to make the new line in the connections. And we had to put two shutoff valves on the 12-inch line to be able to isolate that area. And that job was over $200,000 just to do that one two-inch water line break. And that's the kind of thing we're facing with this old infrastructure that we have here. And, you know, I'm just, look, It's money and time. And the clock is ticking against us on this infrastructure. We need to get it repaired and we need to replace it. It's time to replace it. So, you know, we'll get there, but you'll be a helpful partner to us. And as an advisory board to the commission and dealing with the administration too, your input to the commission is valuable. is vital for them to see that the residents that are on the board are on the same wavelength that the administration is. And when we're not, we're not. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You got your role. And if we're doing something you're not agreeing with, you need to be able to speak up too. I got no problem with that at all.

No. No, but I think that's one thing that we could provide value to the city. And I don't know, Sid and Liz, if you agree with me, but I think the way Frank describes it is a good way for us to kind of be actively engaged, whether it's in one-on-one discussions or provide input to either Whatever approach we would recommend to take based on whatever issue or magnitude or financial impact one of these issues might have or whether it be that we as board members stay very close to these state discussions on property tax be well informed on where things may head so that we could participate in discussions about that, how it would impact the city and moving forward.

But this is the information we require as well. What is it that you want? Because I don't want to bog you down with paperwork. You know, like we just sent you the finance book. We're sending you the quarterly forms. Right now, there is eight proposals for property taxes that have passed committee. And now they need to be discussed at City Hall. The one that seems to have the best opportunity of passing right now, who knows, is the exempting the senior citizens from paying property tax. Anybody that's over 65 years and over and have owned their property for X number of years, they haven't decided what that X number is. I have heard three different versions, will not pay property taxes anymore. Okay, we attempted to do a calculation of what would it be if they remove the property tax on our general fund. And we came with the general figure of a 4% reduction on our ad valorem taxes. Now, when we try to figure out who owns a home or who owns a property that's 65 or over that's claiming homestead, There's no data available. So we're trying to figure out how the Dade County come up with their figures.

You know, you need to... Well, Homestead you can figure out.

Homestead you can figure out, but who owns a home that's 65 and over?

Yeah.

And for the X amount of years it is potentially going to pass. Is it 10 years or is it 30 years? You know, I've heard both numbers. We don't know what's... So you can attempt to do the study But I mean, you can get lost in the woods if you really want to. And that's where I go in finance with the village manager with my day. We have a lot of private meetings and we go in the woods. People get surprised at the definitions that I'm looking for in our finance sessions. Let's be realistic. No building will be built before 28th. So the building is built in 28 and they get their CO. We'll start seeing taxes on those apartments in 29. That's, well, last year I was going to say four years away. Now it's three years away, but still a long time. And our infrastructure still remain for three more years when it's 85 years old. These are the things that we have to stop, look, consider, and we discuss them all the time. By the way, I can't speak that I work. I do not work. I am retired, thankfully. I am past the 65 age, so I'm thankful for that potential proposition that I won't be paying homestead. But I realize that most of you do have a job and you have normal work hours. We're willing to meet after hours. You know, our day for accepting, well, our city employees try to leave at a normal hour. Frank is a workaholic. I'm a workaholic. So if you want to meet one day in the evening, we can do that and shoot the breeze. And once we start shooting the breeze and we get into the weeds, it's not going to be an hour.

No, I think at least I can only speak for myself, but I would be open to kind of meet during office hours as well. If it's for an hour or two, it's not to me.

We're available. We'll make ourselves available. Let's put it that way.

Maybe, I guess, for our next meeting, if we're going to try to do that in person, we could always maybe have some informal start before the actual meeting.

Well, you beat me to it. I was going to say, instead of starting at 6.30, I will have the pizzas and sodas ready there as of 6 p.m. if you want to come so you can have a bite before and start the social aspect for a half hour before we start the meeting. Please. That sounds great. I'll be there. We're meeting on the third floor, the third floor conference room. The door downstairs to the building will be open, and the elevator will be available. So just come up to the third floor, and we'll hold it in the conference room, and you'll get to meet the staff employees that are working with finance, which is Maite, Frank, myself. More than likely, I'm going to try to kidnap Alba to stay a little bit, at least for the beginning, so she can meet all of you. Alba is our village clerk. know Johnny we will be there as well and we'll get to know each other sounds great that's good so the meeting starts at 630 officially but if you can make it a little bit earlier please be there a little bit earlier yeah maybe so we don't have to keep people maybe we can start like 530 or something I would be open to that for sure or five really flexible well you let me know because the pieces are coming from next door

So would you, I guess maybe we can try and see if we can figure that out right now. Liz or Sid, would you be open to 5 p.m. for February 10?

5, no, because I work until 5. I can be there by 6.

Okay. And Liz, what's your earliest availability that day?

That was me. That was Liz.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. That's okay. Sid.

I mean Sid. February 10th, you said? Yes. February. I should be able to do it.

Yeah.

Yeah, 5, 5.30. That's fine. I might bring my kid.

No problem. Sure.

Well, maybe we try to be there 5.30 unless you join us if you can at 6.00.

If I'm at 5.30, I will. I'll get there. Whenever you get there between 5.30 to 6, Liz, it's fine. The meeting will not start until 6.30. The meeting is officially announced at 6.30. It has to start at 6.30. We cannot start earlier, unfortunately. But the social part of it, where we meet and we shoot the breeze and we get to know each other, we have some pizza, we have some soda, whatever, we'll start at 5.30. That sounds great. 5.30 is perfect. Third floor conference room. Excellent.

Perfect. All right. So if nothing else on, I guess we just continue talking about the ways of contributing and what type of forum we want to have informal as well. Because I think these long-term items are something we're going to continue discussing for sure. So I'll be happy to be active in those. So if nothing else, then on number 4A, 5, staff, commission, liaison, updates, anything additionally?

I think we have pretty much slaughtered that horse. Yeah.

No wild cards in the back pocket you want to talk about?

No, not today.

No.

We have a meeting next week. I'm saving them for the meeting.

Okay. All right. Moving on to six public comments. Anyone on the bridge? No, no public comments. And then last one here, agenda items for our next meeting. Do we have anything right now that we want to propose or do we want to resolve that over email?

Well, if you think of something new that you... Basically, we will touch base on the two projects that are going on, which are the big ones. And if you come up with an idea that's something else that you want to discuss at the meeting, just let Alba know, which is our village clerk. And she will add it to the agenda.

Okay.

You know what I could do? If you're interested, I don't know if I can pull it off, but I might be able to bring... a representative from DMSI that's going to do that stormwater project on North Bay Island.

I think that's too much for one meeting, Frank. Last meeting when we had the capital improvement projects with Roger and his cohort, we went late, late.

Yeah. Or we could do that another time, but it'd be neat for them to see exactly what they're going to be going through with that. construction of that project. We got plenty of time. They're not breaking ground for a few months. So if you want to do that sometime, we could do that.

That may be a good idea for the March meeting then because we also have to solve the issue with Mr. Pawan.

Yeah. Yeah. That is true.

All right, let's do that then. Okay, if no other suggestions on agenda items, we are at adjournment. So can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting, please?

Motion to adjourn.

Thank you. Second, anyone?

The meeting will be adjourned at 7.45 p.m.

All right. Meeting adjourned.

Good evening, everybody. Thank you.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Have a great night. Thank you.