Village Council - public_hearing

Thank you.

Hello. Where am I?

Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. No, you're good. I was watching it for you.

What's that?

No, I got it. I'm good.

Yeah, I'm good.

No, I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, I'm straight. yeah we're good so Okay, let's get started. Tell Geller, tell Geller, tell Geller.

What's going on, man?

How you doing? All the guys like me.

Nah, people are coming. They always come. We're starting later today, too, so people will roll in. Next week? All right. All right. The Village of El Pertal first budget hearing is called to order at 6.33 p.m. We're going to first have a moment of silent meditation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

these are roll call roll call mayor Nickerson here vice mayor Martin present council person herb on present council person like for board will not be in council person winters present also present for the record David Roseman village manager Janice Jacoby village clerk Joseph Geller village attorney Harry Tom of all CFO and chief Mendez thank you very much most to approve the agenda So moved.

Moved by Vice Mayor Martin. Second? I'll second. Second by Councilor Urbana. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right, so this is how we're going to do it. So we have two resolutions. We're going to read the resolutions into record. I'll take a motion and a second, and then we'll open it up to, then we'll make any little comments we want to make up here, and then we'll open it up to the public. Then we'll come back for final comments. So, Attorney Geller, if you could read your resolution. E1.

Yeah. Yes, sir. Resolution number E1, well, item E1, resolution number 2026-11, tentative adoption of the millage rate for fiscal year 2026-27, resolution of the Mayor and Village Council of the Village of Alpertown, Florida, Miami-Dade County, Florida, Adopting and improving the tentative millage rate for fiscal year 2026-27, providing for incorporation of recitals, providing for an effective date. And Mayor, before you proceed to either motion or second, the actual tentative millage rate and the rollback rate should be read into the record, I guess, by the CFO.

They need to be stated on the record.

Thank you.

The proposed millage rate tonight for the proposed budget is 8.1. point one which is seven point seven eight point one eight the robot rate would be seven point seven eight one eight of the millage rate of what eight point one thank you very much before I move to the second thing and then we're gonna open it up I need a motion in the second of a motion for resolution e1 move by Vice Mayor Martin do we have a second

Second. Second by Councilperson Erbal. Attorney Gill, if you can read E2 for us.

I'm sorry, the second one, Mayor? Yes, second. Item E2, Resolution Number 2026-12, Adoption of the Tentative Budget for Fiscal Year 2026-27, Resolution of the Mayor and Village Council of the Village of El Portal, Florida, Miami-Dade County, Florida, Adopting and Improving the Tentative Annual Operating Budget of $5,257,000. nine hundred nine dollars for fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven providing for incorporation of recitals providing for an effective date thank you very much um we have a motion for this one we need a motion to say we're not going to be talking about it we're going yeah

Yes. So moved. Moved by Councilperson Erbom. Do you have a second?

Second.

Second by Vice Mayor Martin. All right. So right now, you guys will open it up, open up to the public, and then we'll come back here for our comments. Okay. So we're going to open the public hearing at 6.37 p.m. Come up, say your name and address for the record. And the floor is yours.

Good evening, El Portal residents, Mr. Mayor, Councilperson, staff, ladies and gentlemen of the audience. My name is Ian McKenzie, 8950 Northeast 4th Avenue, El Portal. I've lived in El Portal since 2003, 23 plus years. I have an MBA and experience in developing and managing annual operating budgets five times the size of that of our village for a non-profit institution, 501C3 Corporation. At Tuesday's village of El Patel budget meeting, I and other members of the immediate audience received a copy of the FY27 budget proposal which included fiscal year FY26 adopted budget, actual revenue and expenses for the fiscal year July 31st of 2026, projected revenue expenses for a close of fiscal year September 30th of 2026 and budget proposal for fiscal year 2027. Of note, this is the first time the public have received any information on the actual current fiscal year-to-date numbers for July and September, despite repeated requests made in public at meetings through Freedom of Information requests in June 2026. Why? This is not a transparency at work and undermines all citizens of El Pertel. Figures were presented according to general fund revenue, various department expenses which included council department, administration and finance, planning and zoning, village clerk, public affairs, police, code enforcement, public works, building department, revenue and expenses, transportation fund revenue expenses, city funds revenue expenses, stormwater fund revenue expenses, parks and recreation fund expenses, depth services fund revenue expenses. Since we do not have an overall summary of the net loss, I spent my time collating the information provided at Tuesday's budget planning workshop. My observations, according to the figures supplied in the aforementioned documentation, fiscal year 2026, we have a projected loss of $14,355 at minimum, and that's if revenue and spending occurs at the projected rates on there. But note, this does not account for any restrictions on revenue which could make operational expenses even higher, as revenue would be restricted to offset expenses which would have to be absorbed by the general fund. There's no mention of carry forward of revenue or loss for our 2027 budget proposal. Why not? Additionally, a debt from Hurricane Irma. We have not received any information fiscal year to date about our principal or debt interest payments or anything like that and that should be part of our budget for fiscal year 2027. So in closing, we do need this information. It's pertinent. I mean, managing a budget is very serious, and we need to be financially sound. And I hope you all take this into account when you consider this. Thank you very much. Good night.

Next, public comment.

Hi, everyone. Edna Edelman, 301 Northeast 88th Street. I just have a couple of questions about the, I finally read the 2025 audit. And some things really struck me. The audit identifies the deficit fund balance as a recurring significant deficiency. And I'd like to know what the village. what the plan is and the timeline for correcting it it reports a negative 454 000 and change unassigned general fund balance as of september 30 2025 obviously to a year ago what's the reserve level that the village considers appropriate the planning and zoning budget spent approximately 568 000 against the budget of 126 000 That's roughly $442,000 over the budget. I'd like to know what caused this variance and were formal budget amendments approved before the expenditures were incurred? And of course the public works budget, that went $887,000 against the final budget of $717,000. So $170,000 over budget. Again, I'd like to know what caused this. And then again, we're doing these budgets on a yearly basis. Has any thought been given to a multi-year budget plan so that we can see where we are and what our targets are? And the final thing before my time is up, I'd like to know, What is the oversight of departmental overruns? Because we see quite a few of them. What is the process before that overrun is incurred? Who looks at it? What's the process for it? And the last thing is obviously public safety. My understanding is that it's been increasing every year, so over a 50% increase since 2024. I'd like to know what is involved in that as well. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next for a public comment.

Hello, good evening, El Portal. I'm Thomas Pulliam, 205 Northeast 86th Street. We all know the elephant in the room. This budget operates on a 100% pass-through model, handing every dollar of our building permit revenue, over half a million dollars, fiscal year 2026, directly to an expired vendor contract that's under active sheriff investigation. all while forcing a 4% property tax increase over the rollback rate for all of us residents, homeowners, property taxpayers. This is extremely upsetting. Would love to get to the bottom of that and understand the council's perspective on this. Uh, further based on the workshop, uh, on two days ago, uh, the CFO calls this an operating surplus year, but that $129,000 surplus comes from freezing all public works and deleting our stormwater master plan. Why we need to be investing in resiliency, our environment, our nature. Look at where our priorities are stuck. On page four, I support modernizing council pay and discretionary funds from 1992 levels. Incoming leaders need real agency to drive change, but that must come with total fiscal accountability across the rest of this budget. On page five, the village attorney admitted his budget is spiking 25% due to commercial development. Why do taxpayers foot legal overhead while a private vendor gets 100% of permanent revenues? Meanwhile, we left $100,000 on the table with plus Serbia for an unfulfilled contract for the code revision workshop. deliverables and recommendations. The manager admitted he's too busy to file an insurance claim on the botched roundabout and IT is getting an 11% hike despite failing to deliver basic email blasts to residents. Nor do we have software that manages record requests and our building permit police and financial records are not stored in a publicly accessible database like every other municipality in our area. On pages 13 and 15, $0 for pothole repairs, $0 for swale trimming neglected, and an insulting $2,500 total for parks and a designated bird sanctuary where we claim we value our trees, our nature, our wildlife. Here, from my perspective, is what a modern responsible budget looks like. Four points. One, modernize local government and power council leadership, but hold administration and failing vendors strictly accountable. Two, restore basic infrastructure, put money back into pothole repairs, swale maintenance and storm water planning. Earmark $50,000, roughly 1% of our main operating budget, specifically for tree canopy protection, wildlife, and our bird sanctuary. And four, issue an immediate 30-day competitive RFP for building services so commercial development finally pays its fair share. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, good and welfare, or public comment.

Daniel Rojas, 60 Northeast 86th Street. So I had a few questions regarding the budget that I'd like to be addressed. It's a lot of a budget and a very little time, so I kind of try to focus on just one small piece for this meeting and for these three minutes. I had questions regarding health insurance and life insurance budget. It says it's negative 40%. Does that mean that most employees are denying coverage or are not requesting coverage by the village? Otherwise, the $12,000 is very unlikely to meet the requirements for health or life insurance. There is, like Thomas just mentioned, IT consulting service, $45,000. I would like to understand what is included in these IT consulting services fees. Does this include software? Does this include any hardware? Does it include, is this IT for the village and for the police? So what does this IT include? We are asking $45,000. It begs the question, what is included in here? It seems like there's not enough detail. Our grant writer, we're asking for $25,000. You know, do we have a grant writer? I thought we kind of had given up the grant writer. Or who are these funds being allotted to? Or is it almost like a by grant almost thing that we're trying to plan on here? The big ones, vacation pay and sick pay. It looks like we didn't budget last year and we had to make some payments this year. But they're both blank for this year as well, for I guess next year, 2027. Can we explain why we had to these unplanned payments and why we're continuing to not plan for them? Sorry. And just in general, I think my question is more detailed so we know what's really being spent and what we're really asking to spend on. I am a firm believer that our budget to reflect our values and mostly things we don't really know what it's going to. It's just not detailed enough for us to make any type of educated decisions. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next for a public comment.

Hello, I'm Edward at 400 Northeast 87th Street. Good evening, Council. I just have a quick question. I noticed on the general fund revenue ledger, off-duty detail appears, and it also appears in the police department. as well, but for different amounts. So on the general fund revenue, this is on page three of the packet, if that is helpful at all. Off duty detail, 5,000 is a 2026 budget adopted. goes up to $15,000 for department requested. If I go to page nine, where the police's budget is specifically laid out or detailed, the 2026 budget is asking for, it was $10,000, and the requested is $20,000 for 27. I'm just curious why it appears twice and if there's a difference or what's going on there. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Next public comment.

Alexandra Baza, 120 Northwest 86th Street. So the first item that I want to touch is ask again, because my question was not answered last time. What is the special assessment for that is scheduled for September 22nd for 15 minutes. I'm still waiting for that answer. Then the second question is about potholes and the public works. I really would like to get more clarity on why there's zero location for repairs of potholes when my street looks like the picture I showed you. And last but not least, I wanted to address something that has been really upsetting. Why is money spent on copies to display information about negativity and why it's portrayed like that when people come and ask questions. I mean, it will be easier to stay at home, to not say anything, but I think most people that are here are doing it out of love, out of love for this community, out of love for this village. And I understand that questions are uncomfortable and you're not used to have, to be questioned. But that is unacceptable. We have the right to ask questions that is important to democracy and is important for checks and balances. So I respectfully request that that kind of language is no longer permitted because it's also permitting into the community. I know that there's some candidates talking about negativity for the exact same reasons. And I don't think that's how we want to run this coming elections. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Greg Steer, 120 Northwest 86th Street. I stood here a year ago saying the exact same thing. This is a rush to judgment, and haste makes waste, which is exactly what you don't want in a budget. The mayor promised us back in July that he would hand deliver a budget update. Instead, in August, we got not one, but three flyers. All about the mayor, nothing about the budget, or anyone else for that matter. Very nice, printed on one side only in four color. four or five pages, double spaced, so much for the trees. They look a lot like campaign flyers to me, so I wonder who paid for these. Meanwhile, both Miami Shores and Biscayne Park held their first budget workshop on August 4th. By the way, their budgets run 150 to 200 pages. Ours is 19, with no balance sheet, no general ledger, no journal entry report, no cash balances, no commentary, no explanation. But I want to talk about the police budget, the other elephant in the room. And I want to be clear that this is not a critique of their department or performance, but I think that any honest assessment would conclude that the village is paying for more policing than we need, and certainly more than we can afford. I pointed out the undisputed fact that crime rate has been declining nationally, including here in Miami. The city reported last year that their homicide rate was the lowest since 1956. In our village in the last ten months, we had a grand total of two arrests, two. Yet our budget has been increasing 20% a year. It may be hard to believe, but just four years ago, the police budget was under $1 million. Today, it's $2.3 million. More than doubled in four years. Four years of declining crime, yet 140% increase in expense. A few things stand out. Overtime was budgeted at $20,000. They spent almost $60,000. Maintenance on the vehicles budgeted at 50. They spent 75 and I thought these vehicles were leased. Equipment budgeted at a whopping $145,000 and they still spent over $200,000. On what exactly? We don't know because there's no explanation in the budget. Meanwhile, we can't get our budget done in a timely manner. We can't get our public record requests processed quickly, if at all. We can't get our potholes fixed. And most importantly, we can't fund our emergency reserve account, which has been running at a half a million dollar deficit for ten years in a row. Thank you.

Good evening, council.

Good evening.

So my name is Kirby Althor. I reside at 197 Northwest 88th Street, Miami, Florida 33150. I want to talk to you about a couple concerns I have as I look through this budget. One thing that stands out is the unassigned balance. We've seen an unassigned balance grown from Say last year fiscal 2025 to about 430,000, but we haven't had any discussions about that. We need to take a deeper dive to understand it. As Greg mentioned earlier, this process and this budget, this requires months, not just a week. We received this budget earlier in the week. Now we're going over. And we need more time to assess. We need to have conversations about a strategic plan. What's the plan for the village in the next two or three years? We haven't even had these discussions. What we've seen on this budget is just continued expenses to grow. But we know that from a village that we need to look at it from a different perspective. We need to assess these fees. We need to see where we can decrease. We have a contribution fund. If I look at it, I can't even tell exactly what's happened, but I think it's almost 10,000 and it's been used. That budget could be slashed by half. Is there a particular reason why we have it at 10,000, then we look at it from a FY, for a projected another 10,000? I mean, there are costs in here that we can slash, we can look at and take a deeper dive within this for the rest of the village. We don't need to continue to increase our costs or expenditures. We actually should start taking a look at where can we decrease costs. I'm pretty sure there's other places. We need to review some of these contracts that we've signed with third party contractors and see how they impact our revenue as well. So there are a lot of opportunities that we can make changes, and I'm concerned right now because I don't know what the village's strategic plan is. I don't know how we're going to fix this unassigned 400,000, and I don't know what we are going to consciously reduce. All we're seeing is increase in calls from police, and we're seeing some calls stay flat, where we should start to see reductions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next for public comment.

Elida 12 Northeast 90th Street. I had a question. I don't think in the budget report, I don't think that we have it separated the revenue when it comes to commercial properties or commercial zoning towards the residential. And I was wondering if there is any way we can get those numbers. Last time it was discussed that basically we have the highest mileage rate as a village. And the reason was because of the commercial area that we have doesn't bring that type of revenue as much as as in the other villages. So I was wondering if we can get those numbers, so trying to understand a little bit because when we were discussing the project on the northeast second, the school project, it was very easily accepted as a fact that even though that property wasn't going to bring any revenue, We were very open to the idea that they can come in and they can have this commercial institution, I would say, with no revenue coming into our village. So those are numbers that will be interesting to see how much we pay in residential and how much, so at least next time we kind of speak to our neighbors through numbers. Another one was that, is it possible any of you council members, maybe you can create like a workshop that we can discuss the contracts all together. It seems like a lot of people have the interest of knowing or understanding these contracts. Cuz I feel that we are sort of like throwing the staff members under this sort of like questions and we're being towards them. It sounds like an animosity. So I'd like more like for us to speak from a knowledge perspective or education perspective. So we know what exactly exists in this contracts and maybe we are the ones that we are creating this idea that more than it is. And yes, that's about it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next for public comment. Public comment going once. Public comment going twice. We're going to close public comment. We're closing public comment at 7.03 PM. Back to the council. Let me start off. All right, so at the very beginning, so what you guys saw that I believe went out recently, about the $400,000 negative, correct? It was mentioned a few times. That was in the audit. So that's from Hurricane Irma. That's not in our active budget. So basically the way that works is this. So when I first came in as mayor, so Hurricane Irma was in 2017. When I first came in as mayor in 2020, the first thing that I did was I went to Washington, D.C. I would go to Tallahassee, so I established relationships. And the very first thing that happened, I think I was like six months or seven months into my mayorship, and when I first came in, it was 1.2 something. They cut it down. FEMA cut it. I built those relationships up in Washington, DC. They cut it down 400,000, I believe, at first. Then the second year that I was mayor, and I went there between the first and second year, I think I went to DC like six times, they cut it down to the 400,000 that you guys see in the audit. from the 1.2 when I first became mayor. That 400,000 that is owed to FEMA, that's what the Synovus loan is about. And this answers the Synovus loan also, that was a question. The Synovus, for the Synovus loan, so it's essentially like this. Synovus basically paid FEMA for us, we gotta pay Synovus. We owe Synovus $65,000 off of that 1.2. And that $65,000 that we owe Synovus on the pay schedule that we're currently on, we're due to pay that off in two years. The monthly payment is $2,675 a month. There is a $250 interest rate every month. But when we renegotiate it, what happens is that interest rate, it goes down $10 every other month, I believe, or every month. It goes down $10. Okay, that interest fee, not the rate, but the fee, $250. And it's $2,675 per month. It's $65,000 total. If you see on the current pay fee, that's $65,000. The reason why it's in the audit, is because until we pay that $65,000 off, the full payment that's on the papers of the over $400,000 is not satisfied. But that's not active budget money. That's not active budget debt. That is money that Synovus paid to FEMA and we owe to Synovus. And we have $65,000 left.

Okay.

When it comes to planning and zoning on the current budget, we have a surplus coming up $88,000 on planning and zoning. We have a surplus of $88,000 on planning and zoning. I'm going to go to about public works and about public safety to either Manager Roseman or CFO Taubenfeld. Public works, why does it show such an increase in public works? And in public safety, why is there such an increase in public safety? And you guys, while you're at it, can also answer the health insurance, life insurance also. and vacation pay and sick pay. Oh, vacation pay and sick pay, I think I know about. Health insurance, life insurance, Mr. Hojas was asking. Excuse me, Mayor.

Yes. If we could just do one at a time, because I know they threw a lot out. Of course. So we'll start with the.

Public works, public safety, water increases.

what I said I don't see the increase in public works year-over-year the budget is going down it's going from 1 million 110 to a proposed budget of 875 so I'm not sure what where the disconnect is on that what I will say though is that there isn't we did budget an increase in solid waste which is for garbage collection so that's where the 410 we see the 440,000 outside of that and I'm sorry and the salaries that's the hired part-time position maintenance staff worker that we the village hired but I know oh year over year the 27 request is less than the 25 requests I'm sorry 27 is less than the 26 requests I'll let the manager answer the question as it relates to the insurance on the admin side health insurance life insurance

Can we have the issue from the police department while I figure out exactly where the health insurance issue is?

My apologies. The reduction in the health insurance for the admin is due to the village manager not requiring insurance. So we reduced the amount from the admin budget and allocated those funds either to other line items within the budget or allocated those funds to other departments within the general fund budget. Okay.

Okay, go ahead.

Just make sure that we understand that I do need insurance. We're just shifting the cost to Medicare.

Okay, so it doesn't come out.

I was able to say, okay, there's no need to charge the village for something that the federal government is willing to pay for.

Okay. Did we hear about the public safety, the heightened public safety budget?

I'll quickly state that, and I guess I can let the police chief speak as well. The major increases that you see are, right now we have a proposed $25,000, I'm sorry, yeah, sorry. We have a $27,000 proposed increase in insurance. We're proposing a $40,000 increase in gasoline. We're also estimating an increase in the equipment for the police, 145 to 160. but please note that those last two items those two increases are being offset by the revenue that the police department does bring in on the general revenue revenue page so as I mentioned in the previous meeting if you go back to the general fund revenue line item And this kind of answers the gentleman answering the question on the off-duty detail. The off-duty detail is a policy. If I'm wrong, correct me. There's two different, I guess, not policies, but two different practices that they offer the off-duty detail. So it kind of falls into two different line items. But you suggested one practice we don't see. The other practice is an in and an out. So it's kind of a guessing game. But to answer your question, the end money coming in for the off-duty detail, if you look on the revenue line item, you're looking at 15,000 plus the $127,500 of miscellaneous revenue. That's the revenue that comes in from the off-duty details. So the projection is 142,000 in revenue, right? And the assumption is 20,000 of that is going off one practice and going towards one practice. The other thing that I wanted to point out is, I'm sorry, going back to the The police, there's also an increase, a proposed increase in salaries, there's also a proposed increase in contributions. You'll see that the proposed number's going from 316 to a potential of 358. I hope that answers it one other thing I just want to clear up as it relates to the meeting at 645 regarding the special assessment it's procedural it's procedural it's just to confirm the non-advilarum that the residents pay for a solid waste every single year I don't remember the rate off the top in my head but I think it's whatever the rate is that's just the formality whether the council approves that rate that has not increased I will point out though that since it's been brought up we did mention it last year and I'll mention again this year the Delta the differential between what the village is bringing you potentially bringing in for the non-adval arm if you revert back to the general fund revenue page You'll see garbage solid waste revenue at $383,000. That's the non-ad valerian special assessment that we do every single year. And the proposed expense is what we just discussed, the $440,000. So one of the things that the village, we're proposing here is for the village to, I guess, encumber that expense, the differential of $57,000, and then not pass that off to the residents.

all right thank you can you go a little you mentioned the off-duty police officers can you go into just a little more detail on what the residents said about it being on page three and nine yeah so i'll let them finish but so you guys when you guys see something on the budget page it might look like a loss but then on the revenue page the revenue that was brought in offsets that what he does is he doesn't so for example let's say if there's a budget page and it's for whatever item and let's say the budget amount was ten dollars if we could spend thirty dollars on that and it looks like a $20 loss, but on the revenue page, there might have been $100 brought in. We don't offset it. We don't do the math on the budget item page, or he doesn't. The revenue page for some of the same items offset and even bypass what shows as a as a deficit or discount on the budget page so that's why on the revenue page eddie you'll see the revenue of off duty what was brought in on the budget page is what was budgeted and you can see there if what was budgeted if we if it went over budget And then you offset those two. So that's how that works for all the items throughout the budget. That's the reason why and you can kind of touch on this. It might be confusing, but that's the reason why really quickly. I mean, you can just verify it. We don't have a deficit in this current year. We have a surplus. Is that correct?

We're projecting a surplus in the general fund for this current fiscal year.

So on that revenue page is really important because it offsets things on the budget page. And on that revenue page, we're ahead. So that's what's confusing, but that's how those things kind of work out. When it comes to the vacation pay and sick pay that you see just one time, that's due to manager lose payout. Manager Lou had a contract. That's due to Manager Lou's payout. Manager Lou had a contract, so when she left, per her contract, she got a payout. That's why you see it one time, but you don't see it budgeted for next year, that amount. That was Manager Lou's payout for this year when she left. Because remember, she left in October. The fiscal year kicks in October 1st. She left after the fiscal year, so it's this current fiscal year. When it comes to IT, I'm not sure, maybe a manager question, but that would be in their contract. I believe that IT, their contract, they're also due for a new contract. They had a contract, I remember, under Manager Alou, but I don't know how long it was for. So that's another contract that needs to be looked at. When it comes to, now getting to Mr. Pulliam, the same thing with CAP government, that's very, very important. Council pay. So when it comes to something like that, council pay has to be raised in an ordinance, right? Resolution ordinance. So I do, doesn't have to have a resolution, but I always, the last time I started with a resolution, right? So if anything were to happen in the budget, then that would have to happen in the budget, but it wouldn't kick in unless the ordinance is kicked in. So it could be budgeted, but it wouldn't be of use unless the ordinance is kicked in. Unless that happened, it would stay at the $3,000 level. So that's how that happens. Attorney pay, again, like I said, and let me just say this also. I mean, you guys heard my suggestion last time about the salaries and those things like that. And I'll repeat it maybe a little bit later when we kind of get down to what we're going to do with the budget and what we're going to change and alter. But also, you guys, this is the first budget hearing. Remember that anything can still be changed and adjusted up until September 22nd, the second budget hearing.

okay this budget is officially called the tentative budget it's not called the budget all right with the first hearing okay so just know that that's that that can be adjusted also mayor can i add something on that while you're on that topic yes just very quickly um besides pointing out that another percentage is a high one only because it's been as i said uh some six years since we had any raise that we've had a couple of difficult budget years for the village during that time and as a result we didn't seek any additional monies we've never asked for an increase had we gotten just the the four percent the five percent any of those that were being done um during all of that time it would have been This year's would be just the same very small agreement, very small increase. I'm looking for this here, and I'm sorry, Mayor. I thought I had it here and just ran out of battery. But the clerk is, excuse me, the CFO has pointed out the increase for me at this point is a total of half. I mean, the grand total of this is, Half of 1%, it's only a total of 2,000 a month. I did do a little research into neighboring cities. We're still waiting on some public records requests. Biscayne, well, let's start with Bay Harbor Islands, currently pays 17,500 per month. They're going to, I believe tonight, to 20,000. City of Surfside recently hired new council. They pay 37,000 per month. City of Opelika was paying 16 and three years ago they raised theirs to 22,000 per month. North Bay Village pays $30,000 per month. Miami Shores next door pays $26,000 per month. The one that was closest that has, of course, no commercial property at all is the Village of Biscayne Park. They were paying $8,333 per month, but that was recently raised maybe a year ago to $10,500 per month. If this raise to 10,000 a month were to be given, we would still be the lowest paid council for any city I've located so far in Miami-Dade County. We're still waiting on public records requests. But the closest one, Biscayne Park, again, has zero commercial property. And even if you grant this, we'll still be lower than them and lower than absolutely everybody else. So I know that that's not something that most people would necessarily be familiar with. That's why we did the research and I just wanted to place that on the record.

Thank you very much. When it comes to the potholes, The potholes, the reason why it doesn't show in the line item is because we have the money for the potholes in the gas tax. So you have the gas tax, you guys, you have the six penny and the five penny gas tax. And in the gas tax, which I have in my budget packet, those two can cover, Give me a second. I'll tell you exactly what it covers. transportation funds. The transportation fund budget, these are my notes here. The transportation fund budget represents the restricted revenue allocated to maintain and improve the transportation infrastructure. It's the Miami-Dade County six cents local option gas tax and the five cents additional option gas tax. Because these are collected for transportation purposes, from the county so we're saving money on this they must be used for eligible expenditures such as street resurfacing and repair potholes sidewalk improvements speed humps drainers work connected to roadways traffic signs pavement markings transportation planning right-of-way maintenance and other authorized mobility or capital improvement projects so it's in the gas tax also if you look at your budget, look at the public works, if you look at public works, at the bottom you see contingencies. And since it is public works, when you're talking about road repair, potholes, street repair, and I put out a flyer also about road repair, pothole repair, and what was the difference? It was a green flyer about that. So I put out a flyer about that. And so in the contingencies of the public works, you also have that available funding for street repair, road repair. When it comes to the police, we spoke about the police. We spoke about the audit and that money with the hurricane. Yeah, the decreasing fees and cutting fees. Like I said last time, I put down what I think should be cut. And I read that last time on my papers. when it comes to oh the workshops uh miss alita workshop contract or contract about work or workshop about contracts i think that'd be a good idea thing about it is that the manager has to be involved in that or the manager has to run it so we could discuss the contracts as residents but as council members we can't give our input on it as council members because those contracted, whether it's the, you know, planning and zoning them, whether it's cap government, any of the staff members, all of these contracts, IT, they follow up under the manager. So they follow up under administration. And so, In the charter, it states that the council, I should probably pull it up right now so I can read it for you, but it states that the council cannot, not only cannot hire and fire, they cannot dictate to the manager what should be done with any employees or any contracts or anything like that. So it all falls up under the manager. It all falls up under the manager. So that's how that works. Now, like I said, we can do a workshop about that and just have that happen, but we have to have the manager involved in that. So we can do it. We can do it. We'll get it done. But the manager has to be involved in that. Vice Mayor Martin?

Is this the part where we chat about what we would cut or not? Okay, awesome. I do want to backtrack us a little bit. I didn't want to stop your flow, but I do want to add some more color to the conversation that we were having about the revenue for the police department. I know that we spoke about off-duty detail, but I wanted some more specificity as to other ways that our police department generates revenue. Do we have a forfeiture program? How exactly are we generating that revenue?

Good evening. Alejandro Mendez, chief of police. Aside from that, which is voluntary by the officers to give that hourly amount when they work their off duties, when we give citations and it goes to court, once those cases are finished, there's a sharing that also comes back to the village. Average is about maybe between seven, eight, $10,000 a month, depending. Aside from that, we also have detached officer that brings in confiscations from long-term cases.

Perfect, thank you so much. And I just want to make sure that those funds, I know, maybe we don't have a forfeiture program, but I know that sometimes you can receive funds in a way where it's restricted as to how you can use it. That's correct. Those funds can't go back into the general fund. Are any of those funds that the department is generating, are those restricted in some way or can they be used anywhere?

The voluntary ones, I restrict them because it's on a voluntary basis and it's by the officers. The ones for the citations are for the police departments. And the confiscated ones, Once they're in, those can be modified.

Thank you. I appreciate that. So this is for our finance director. So what you said is that despite there being some increases in the police department's budget, all of those increases are kind of accounted for by the revenue that they're able to generate. Is that correct? that is correct okay all right thank you for that I just wanted to flush that out a little bit and then you can yeah take it away thank you very much madam vice mayor um council person Irma council person Winters this might take a while um

First, before I continue, manager, there was a lot of questions we had for you on Tuesday. Were you able to find any of the answers for the different items we asked about?

I'm sorry. They're in process. I wanted to make sure that I got back to you with information that I can be sure to deliver on a timely basis. So the answer to your question, nothing specific. OK.

All right, so I'm gonna go to the first one on page four, council discretionary funds. I know that I've submitted things since April and I've not been reimbursed for them and I'm not seeing them in here either and I don't want this to be some kind of unknown fact afterwards that when the discretionary fund usage goes up. So actually, I went to the Miami Dade County League of Cities Gala. I had to pay for it myself, and then I was supposed to get reimbursed. And I did not get reimbursed, even though I've sent multiple emails to get reimbursed. And I noticed that line item would not be correct if I was reimbursed.

For the council discretionary, I know you guys like to keep your discretionary for things you may like to do. Your reimbursement for those tickets and for all the League of City things, they're coming out of public affairs. I'm not taking them out of your discretionary. Okay, but I will be reimbursed? For the tickets, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, 100%, 100%, yeah, it's back there. But it's coming out of public affairs.

Okay, so it's not coming out of the discretionary fund. Thank you for answering that.

I have another question about the discretionary funds. Should we do it just all at once? I think it might be efficient if we just kind of stay on the same page. So everyone can follow us.

Oh, you have more? You had more?

I do. I do. I do have lots of other questions, but I just thought we might tackle it page by page so everyone can just follow along with us.

Oh, okay. Okay. I didn't know. Okay.

Don't worry. Or if you don't want to handle it that way.

No, that's perfect. Go ahead. I'm fine doing it another way as well. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So I think at the, well, I know at the last meeting I asked about if we can have any sort of specificity as to which council member has spent what out of the discretionary fund. Do we have that info yet?

No, it's probably just me, but there's only 180 dollars that's spent, though. There's only... No, no, no, the 210 is projected. It's just 180 a year to date.

So you've only, well... 180 dollars. In total, we've only used 180. For all of us, 180 dollars. So we'll probably tag on to this conversation once we get to the public affairs budget. Yes. So the majority of the activities and flyers and all of those things, they're coming out of public affairs?

They're coming out of public affairs.

Okay, all right. I'll save my question until public affairs. No problem. Thank you.

Remember, public affairs is a revenue of 25,000.

I have a question about that too. No, I'm done on page three. Okay.

All right, I'm going to jump over to page six, the planning consultant Placerbia. We're going from 60 to zero. So we previously retained Placerbia to survey our residents, develop a plan based on the community input. The village paid for the work, but we still have not received the completed final plan. I want to make sure that before we close this chapter, the taxpayers receive the product they paid for. Therefore, I move that we direct the village manager to formally request and obtain the completed final plan and outstanding deliverables from Placerbia. If Placerbia cannot provide the completed deliverable required under that contract, I further move the manager, in consultation with the village attorney, pursue reimbursements of the approximate amount paid by the village for that contracted work that was not delivered.

So on September 28th, I'm going to Preservia's office. So I've contacted him and told him I'm coming there to pick it up and I expect it to be done by September 28th. So I'm going there September 28th. the evening of September 28th. To do what now? To pick up that report. Which report or the plan? The plan, it's the report. The Resilience Streets Plan? It's the, no, it was a code, it was a code amendment, there was a workshop for that.

Okay, and all of those are ready to be picked up?

They're not, but they will be, they said they will be at the end of September.

And then what of the Resilience Streets Plan?

The Placervia plan that we paid for is the resilient streets and the code plan?

That's part of it. It's all together.

It's all together as far as I'm concerned, but I'll make sure that the resilient streets is in there.

So I made a motion and I'm going to retract the motion.

Yeah. So the only thing about If there's a motion to, so let's say if we get to a point to where we have a discrepancy about a particular pay amount, right, then we can have a motion to solve any type of, you know, disagreement there. But as far as a motion to instruct the manager anyone to do anything like that, that just can't be done here because it's a budget hearing. It's not a regular meeting. So. Okay. Yeah.

We can go into this October.

OK. I have a question on page 5. Does anyone have an idea of the amount of revenue the grant writer has brought in for this year? Do we have a number on that, if any?

No, the grant writer every year, the only thing that he pretty much facilitates or oversees is the tree grant.

there is I'm not well that's the only interaction I have with Robert Rano in terms of our grant writer and what I know of as well however in years past it seems that there has been quite a number of other things that he has worked on throughout the year I don't believe

I remember in a previous budget hearing, there was a solid number.

I don't believe that the accommodation of Tree City USA status, which he certainly does handle that, but I don't know that that's his only charge in the village.

There are a couple of other projects that he service in terms of completing work and getting information back and forth from us to the funding source. So we will be preparing such a final document to end the year. But I wanted to make it inclusive. all this time that is still part of what's going on this year.

So you would say at this point that he is a vital part of your operations and you think that the $30,000 that's being expended for his services are well spent?

Well, I haven't had the time to be able to review everything that he has done prior to my arrival here. We had had a couple of meetings to talk about what are the things that we can shoot for to include in this, you know, budget inclusion but it's with anything that has to do with grants it's in the hands of the of the exciting so it's hard to to come in with a significant or a figure that we can say we're pretty certain that we should be able to get this this money or a part of it

I know. It is a very imprecise endeavor.

It's a very fluid process.

For sure. For sure. I just think, well, when we look at the budget, we know that Amendment 3 is out there. We know that there might be. it might be wise at this time to look at ways that we might pause spending, not saying that we will never have a grant writer ever again, but is it a vital thing that we need right now if what we're looking for is to try to make this as lean as possible? And that's one opportunity that I see is the grant writer. I know in years previous we've had like a concrete amount and he had generated, revenue that was almost twice as much as what we were paying. And that was impressive and a compelling argument as to why to keep him on board. I wanted to see whether or not we can make that numerical argument tonight. I think that it would be prudent for us to at least look at cutting the grant writer at least for this year until things become a little clearer.

let me just add because one of the things that that robert and i discussed in the last meeting was the the way that these contracts have been structured um so there's a certain amount of work that has been given to him for him to do on behalf of the of the village uh but he does provide an option of less work on his part but greater return for us because the budget the the work will be done in staff on staff so we have the staff to to do that to manage those grants i'm assuming that that would be we would take on a portion of the management and he would do the sourcing exactly so so basically one of the things that that i will be doing sometime in the next two three weeks is restructuring some of our external functions right now we have someone who does public work we have a and we will have a new officer court enforcement officer who is a young lady that comes from boca raton that's where her previous work has been she actually was trained by fish who was our previous corner officer. So we are looking at getting those functions absorbed into a single unit that will deal with resident concerns, resident issues, like making sure that, for instance, one of the things that that has happened with the tree planting efforts some of the property owners have not been watering their trees etc etc so these are some of the functions that we could be begin to delegate to some of our contractors like the folks who maintain the the parks our you know public works area etc so that we can begin to to take away from the contract that Robert does for us, the function that he does for us, and distribute it internally so that we can get greater revenue from those contracts.

I think that's so smart. I really do. I know that one of our issues is staffing. You are only one person. So I complete support like this really wise kind of restructuring or delegation of duties in a way that kind of helps with that.

I'm trying to retain as little of my sanity as is left. because I end up doing a lot of the stuff and I end up doing it like 10 11 last night I left here at midnight so this is the way that I envision is that they would all work together kind of like as a single unit we just want to make sure that we had a problem with a bulk pickup and I had to step in and handle that because there was no one else so I was last night doing the email you know understanding exactly what had happened who had dropped the ball and why but fortunately the concern was solved so I was like okay great because I came you know back late this morning early this afternoon and I found that the the ball pickup had been executed I was kind of like hoping that it will get done before the weekend uh it would get done today so i was like really really happy to see that kind of result but if i have someone that i can delegate that function um because i kept thinking i said i hope that when i drive by there today the the the the stuff will have been off the the public right away and and it was so these are the kinds of things that

it definitely makes sense and we definitely want to make sure that we reserve you for that high level those high level decisions and planning that's required and if you do have someone else they can take care of things that require just like spot treating right um so with that being said do you think it's reasonable or i would love to take that number for robert the grant writer down by half do you think that that's what he contemplates

we could definitely because that's exactly in the direction in which I was going and in fact Robert said you need me to go and do a presentation I'll work with you guys he has been part of this administration for quite a while but he's amenable he's a friend we were colleagues at the city of Miami so whatever we need from him and he understands that we are going through difficult times.

Perfect. So we can take that down to 12-5 and continue to work with Robert and depending on what he does and what he shows us, maybe the conversation next year will be completely different. OK. That's my comment on page, oh, another comment on page 5 is the legal retainer. I do understand, and this is no comment on the quality of the legal services that we are retaining. I just think jumping from 96 to 120 is a huge jump for the same reasons that I've been saying before, which is Amendment 3 is the big question mark out there. After that is resolved and we can talk about the landscape, I'm a big proponent of paying people what they're worth. I do not want to shortchange anybody. I think that your firm is amazing, and you've gone to law school, and you provide a tremendous service. I just don't think that the time right now is one where we can do that jump. I would love to stay at 96. until after and we can we can revisit this and talk about whether or not if we do have to jump up to 120 if we want to do a competitive bid for that but i would keep that number at 96 i would propose that staying there i don't know if anybody else has a different idea wants to chime in um

So regarding the line item 001-513-63100-00, the vice mayor just mentioned, Mr. Geller has stated that El Portal is receiving some of the least inexpensive musical services in Miami-Dade County. If that is the case, testing the market should confirm that. We have a 25% increase proposal at this time. And on this item, I don't believe we should accept that increase without negotiations when we have two weeks before the final adoption. Therefore, I move to set line item 001513-63100.00 at $96,000, same as the vice mayor said, consistent with the year to date 2026 adopted budget for the purpose of the first budget hearing. I further move that we reopen negotiations with the village attorney regarding compensation and scope of services. solicit comparable proposals from qualified municipal attorneys or firms with the results brought back to the council before the second budget hearing for consideration of any adjustments to this line item I mean we have two individuals that saying that

yeah I don't think it was a motion I think it was just nobody made a motion so yeah

Good evening. Thank you everybody for being here. I don't know exactly what to say other than trying to figure out how to get to some concrete suggestions. Mr. CFO. If we had adopted a rollback rate of 7.7818 instead of the proposed 8.1, that is a difference of .3182, what does that translate to in terms of a dollar amount for the budget? It's about $41,000 every point.

about $41,000 per tent, per tent. Yeah, I mean, before I do the, sorry, before I do the calculation, I think just quick math, it would probably be, that would be the amount that we received this year, right? Whatever we calculated for the current fiscal budget.

okay so it should match up exactly with that the point being that the difference is roughly what we're saying it's probably about 200 it should be a little less than that even almost is that right no it's probably it's probably over 200 yeah so it's a little more than 40. hold on a second so it's a little more than 41 000 per point all right all right my point being that i remember being in this exact same situation last year And I believe, I don't know, I haven't gone back to the video, but I believe I proposed last year a flat cut to every single line item. And I don't know if that's what I want to propose again this year. I'm curious, for example, to know what our true bottom line is. So with the newly adopted FOP collective bargaining agreement for the police department, for example, do we know what just the bottom line cost of that agreement is? yes I mean I don't have it handy but I do have that number and that's factored in in the current budget so in general salaries in the police department not executive salaries I believe it's eight hundred and three thousand I think that's what I saw That is covered in the collective bargaining agreement. The 825,000, I'm sorry for the requested for fiscal 27, 825,622 would be part of what we would be committed to from the collective bargaining agreement as agreed to with the Forgive me, I keep saying FOP, but was it the FOP in the end? It's the FOP.

Just to clarify, the current agreement is a one-year agreement, so it officially expires at the end of the current fiscal year, right?

It was a successful agreement. It was a temporary agreement, but we would not be thinking that the agreement... that we would arrive at this year whether it's a one year or three year or two year would we would expect that because of the work that was required to achieve this past year's agreement we're most likely not going to see a reduction in that agreement we would at least be paying we would at least be arriving at a a same amount

on this item of regular salaries is that right so what you see here is i hate assuming anything but no i don't want to say the word safe assumption i'll tell you exactly what it is that's my thought process so what you see there is the um it's a it encompasses uh um all officers with the exception of the chief uh so just keep that in notes that's not okay so there are some officers that are not part of the agreement correct okay okay so so it gets messy It gets convoluted, but it's also we have to be sensitive with numbers as we are approaching negotiations with them. But I will say that that number encompasses the current rate of pay plus a proposed salary increase for all officers included in that line item.

Okay, fair enough. anyone jump in who wants to hear but the contracts as I have it so far as far as commitments the village is made to payouts in the form of contracts would be the police bargain agreement the collective bargaining agreement solid waste, the legal fees, i.e., attorney fees, CFO, grant writer, IT department, Corradino Group, and then we have Placervia giving us a $60,000 CHIT this year by agreeing to part ways. And so who am I missing for established contracts? Landscaping. one there we go one all right so it gets difficult to offer something like a blanket uh cut across the board because many of these line items are already uh committed to one way or another i don't believe that the time to I'm just frustrated. I'm just exceptionally frustrated. As one of the residents said these are discussions that other municipalities municipalities have started a month before but we as this municipality had an agreement to address this far before August. And my proposal at this point is none. I will not be offering any proposals tonight whatsoever. I will be curious to go through my notes and see what happens as we go ahead forward i have no idea what i'm going to say at the final who knows stay tuned but uh this is uh just been outrageously frustrating and it's exceptionally difficult to offer any suggestions without having had time necessary it's it's it's a disservice to honestly all the contracted entities that work with us speaking you know up to and including especially the police department and I would even say I mean just everybody it's just I'm beside myself almost you know like really truly and so as far as saving money and everything else We saved $60,000 on Plusserbia. I would like to put that towards an arborist for the village, an established arborist, who would essentially take over all permitting for tree removals and things to this effect. that would oversee and work with Corradino Group on site plans or any resident who's wanting to alter the canopy of the resident as they come forward with either a site plan to renovate more than 51% of their property, meaning a site plan is required, or someone coming in to demolish and do new construction. So, you know, where can I fit my arborist budget into this budget? Who knows? But I'd like to try and figure out a way to do it anyway. And as people, you know, it's funny. There's three people running against me and they all agree with me and echo everything I've been saying the entire time I've been sitting on this dais. So I don't know who talked you into running against me, but you never heard a word I said, I suppose. I don't know, it's interesting. It's almost entertaining if it wasn't so ridiculous. But my proposal, I have no proposal tonight for this budget. I want an examination of what our bottom line is. We have never had an examination truly of what the bottom line is. You know, I caught a lot of flack for not going along with the rollback rate. And at that point in the budget, it was an irresponsible thing to do. As I explained to several residents, I am not opposed to the rollback rate. I'm not opposed to it at all. There should be a plan. to reduce the millage every year until a rollback would be achieved, and then start going negative. And that should coincide with the commercial development plan, and that should coincide, and the only thing you would ever need to understand why you would do that is to preserve your elderly population in your village. If you need another reason, I don't know if this is the community for you, to be perfectly honest. And so as we look at this budget, which could become obsolete, is that correct, Mr. Attorney? Our budget could become obsolete, whatever we vote on, is that correct? November 3rd, the day we, is that possible?

It's certainly possible, depending on not only if it passes, but Keep in mind that there are nothing but questions about possible implementation. People have criticized it and said it's not really even a plan.

We can almost guarantee it's going to go to the Supreme Court. Almost. Yes, sir. Almost. Mr. CFO, I saw you with slight disagreement. I would love to hear all perspectives.

No, the only caveat that I was going to add is that if voted yes, the effect would not be the current fiscal year that we're approving. The effect would be the following.

That is exceptionally helpful to know and keep in mind.

So year one would be two years from now.

Year one would be no impact.

I'm sorry, year one, 26-27 no effect, 27-28 partial effect, 28-29 full effect. Okay.

All right. All right. That cheers me up a little bit.

Incidentally, current polling on it has it, the last I saw, in the mid-50s. It requires 60. Even the governor who pushed for it has backed away from it. Not that he's a great governor.

The same governor who took $10 million to 35 I remember was Rick Scott was embarrassed though, because it was a small amount, but the 10 million would have would help if we still had to get to Yeah, he couldn't even get the 60% across. Alright, so just one more thing to divide the entire population against each other. It's awesome. So hurray for us double. Okay, so as I look at this budget and this village and what we've done to prepare for this, I am not prepared to make any suggestions on this budget other than to say I'm looking for room for a village arborist. I will finish my comments at the next meeting. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Can I chime? And also just a procedural point. I'm not accustomed to motioning during budget. Do I have to motion? Okay, all right, so on the line item for legal retainer, I think we're going to keep that number at 96. Did you get that? And then for the grant writer, we're going down to 12,500. I don't have a comment on page six or seven. I don't know if anyone else has comments on those pages. I do have a comment on page eight, public affairs. It looks like we're spending about $13,000 more than anticipated. Is that correct? And if so, why?

So public affairs, we did have more, like we had a lot of events and the events were costly. We also have, because we do have a new copier, so we have like double the copies. So we have one in the back, we used to just have the one in the front, now we have one in the back and one in the front. So we have a lot more copies starting to happen now also. But like I said, on the revenue side, it's covered. So if you look at public affairs, it actually will lead to a surplus of $2,000 once it's all said and done.

Because you said that we got a donation of $25,000? Yes. And can I ask, who was that donation by and what was it for? Was the donation just for events?

It was for events, yes.

Okay, and by whom? Do we know?

was for events the donation came through me um and it was for events okay do you who like you personally it came through me yeah it came through me personally um from from whom It came through me, like from me, for the most part, yeah.

Okay, so you yourself took $25,000 of your funds and- Of funds, yeah, and donated them.

Of your funds and you donated to- Yes. Okay, okay.

Yes, and donated to the events. Well, I appreciate your dedication. No problem.

Always trying to save the village wherever possible.

Okay, okay, and we have confirmation of that, Mr. Taubenfeld. correct i was writing it down sorry my apologies uh we have confirmation of that that it wasn't just that it's just a donation from the mayor of twenty five thousand dollars for events i have to go look at the detail but i know that we we did receive twenty five thousand dollars in donations okay okay and could you have those details by the next meeting yeah absolutely that's what i was writing down i thought that's what you were asking Perfect, thank you so much. I don't have any comments on page nine.

I have a few on nine.

Okay, perfect.

I'm just going to confirm. We asked you, Mr. Manager, I'm just confirming this. I'm not saying that we're going to be contacting FPL or you're going to see if they'll have any reimbursements for all of the overtime that we paid for the police officers. We talked about it on Tuesday, I believe.

Yeah, but I said so. FPL did not use our officers. So I said on Tuesday that, so FPL has their own officers. What we did was we used the officers because, so FPL shut off like a street, they shut off 87th Street. It was almost for like two weeks. They were doing work on 87th Street. They hired their own officers for the cutoff of 87th Street. The problem was was that the traffic, because 87th Street was cut off, they were zooming up and down 88th Street. and 88th Street being so small, traffic couldn't go both ways. And so what was happening was, as somebody was coming down the street, because 88th Street's so small, the other people were running up into people's lawns. And so we needed to have officers, our officers, be able to go to 88th Street and 89th Street over here to make sure that the residents on those streets were safe.

$47,000 is a lot for something that's signed that says local traffic only would have done, but in the middle of the road for that temporary time. Do we have Chief here?

If the chief's in the back, go get the chief. Now, that doesn't mean that all of the overtime is that particular project, first of all. So there's overtimes for many different reasons, many different projects. There's also overtimes for watch orders. All right? Many residents, week in, week out, come and they ask for watch orders also, okay, when they're going out of town. I had two this morning, watch orders, because there's a house being tented. There's somebody else who went out of town. And these watch orders, we have our officers, they come in and they do the watch orders by going to the house for a certain number of hours. right so that because they're not nobody's home for safety purposes so there's multiple reasons why um it'd be overtime watch orders shouldn't require overtime it should our standard police officers can drive up and down the street i mean If you want a standard police officer, it's not standard police officers driving up and down the street. What it is is that you have the officers that are on their routine patrolling. And then if you go out of town and you put in for a watch order, it's not like people just come and they just say it and police do it. They put it in for watch orders. right and so when they put in for those watch orders it's particularly for that purpose it's particularly for them to come in and for them to go to those different houses and sit there for a certain number of hours which takes away from the patrolling of our community so during the watch order they actually are sitting there for hours in front of a property they sit there for hours

And residents are not paying for that? It's a service from the city?

It's a service from the city. Now, regular police officers, they also do things like that also, but not to that level. But that's not all FPL.

Is the chief around yet?

And understand, it was more than just, it's not as much as putting up, when those cars in the morning traffic were zooming up and down 88th Street, 89th Street, even back here sometimes, it's not as much as putting up a sign that simply says, slow down the traffic.

So if I could speak to the increase in the police budget over the years while we're waiting for perhaps the chief to arrive, would that be amenable? All right, so there was a resident who had asked, hey, how come the police budget increased by so much over the years? So I'm gonna go back to just a year or two from before I came onto the council and then covering the past seven or eight years since I've been on the council. So as I was sitting in the audience starting to come to meetings and things like this at the request of neighbors who thought that they would like to have me starting to get in the loop on things, Our police department was in a hot mess at that time, and it did not take long to find out that the interim chief, there was all kinds of interims, this and then temporary that, firings, rehirings, didn't fire them right, had to bring them back and then fire them correctly. All of this drama was going on over the activity of the FEMA cleanup, okay? So understand that at that time our police department was exceptionally small. The reason the police department came into play was because there was an accusation from the mayor at the time that the interim chief at the time, forgive me, scratch that, reverse it. It's one of my favorite vaudeville tricks there. Scratch that, reverse it. The interim chief at the time accused the former, the mayor at the time, of being asked to do something untoward, which created an investigation into what was happening with the full trucks of debris being removed or not, et cetera, et cetera. So things I learned were that if a municipality is asking FEMA to come in and clean up, that municipality has a responsibility to verify that the resources offered by FEMA are basically being utilized to the maximum efficiency and that there is not any erroneous billing of FEMA for trucks that were perhaps empty or half full. So that was the crux of the issue in terms of drama between the current, I'm sorry, the former at that time, 2017 interim chief and the mayor at that time. And so what resulted was a consultant came in to talk to the council, and the consultant came in to talk to the council, and this consultant said, hey, listen, I know that you are one of two or three municipalities do not already have an agreement with a company to come in and clean up after a storm, and that every other municipality is currently using their contracted vendors to clean up their hurricane debris, which means there are no longer vendors available to come and do the cleanup, we can help you in this time of need that you have and we will facilitate everything. We have had such a great relationship with FEMA and with these cleanup companies that we can virtually guarantee, and I believe in the meeting that I watched on YouTube with my squeegeed third eye, as Bill Hicks likes to say, is this lady offered 120 days to make us whole. Now, to be made whole, we would have to have had a deficit, right? And so that was the consultant's argument. This is a reimbursement process through FEMA that we're going to facilitate for you. So to have FEMA reimburse you, you are going to have to pay out. So... Mr. Warner Dreher was actually sitting right here in the video I watched, and he was the only person on the entire council who interrogated this consultant. And I mean interrogated, it was a very respectable job. the village would be forever in your debt if the other four hadn't voted to pay the consultant $1.125 million of which was taken out of a loan with Synovus and the greater total is far more than that because the $790,000 surplus we had that year also disappeared in the form of cash payments to consultants, et cetera. Would you repeat that? $790,000 surplus heading into Hurricane Irma. Okay. The 700,000 $790,000 surplus. Okay, reserves. Yes, that reserves. Okay, ready to and here comes the hurricane. Alright, so we dumped the reserves. And here we are still talking about how we're going to get them back and we're still servicing the debt. So I say all of this to say that out of that process and the drama between the aforementioned interim chief and the aforementioned mayor, We were audited by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. We got audited. Our police department got audited because heavy, heavy accusations were coming from both sides. Ethics department of the county got involved, but it is my understanding through reliable sources that the FBI was also looking into issues here in the village. So understand that out of the police audit, they issued us a 150-point punch list of things that must be addressed with the police department or else, right? Not the least of which was not being able to handle evidence properly, their evidence storage is what I'm referring to, things like this. At that time, a Chief Magnuson was brought in, and he got to work immediately, and in my opinion, the village of El Portal owes him an eternal debt, and we were very lucky to have found such an individual who stayed out of the drama, stayed focused on his task, and brought us into the 21st century with the police department. So that is the origin story of the Village of El Portao Police Department with a sizable budget. Am I committed that every single dollar represented in the ask for the police department is so dire that it cannot be reduced, not a single item anywhere? No, of course I don't believe that. But I don't have a frame of reference to work off of to know what my bottom line of the police department is. We can vote to eliminate the police department, right? Except that there would be contracts, et cetera, in place that would would be challenged and we would end up paying something and so I'm curious to know where all those bottom line numbers are while we wait for the chief is there any opposition to probably moving through these pages and then we can come I will be I'll be doing my comments for the evening in just about 15 seconds I think she's not here anymore and so I was told the chief has left for the day okay so That is where the increase in the budget of the police began, was with reformation as directed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Where are we at now? I think that this would be something that would have been wonderful to have discussed three or four times throughout the year with input reports and data. And so while we're waiting to perhaps get some more clarity on specific line items, equipment, training, et cetera, I will finish with this. Out of all of this, it seems that Elpert's House Police Department could find a place for itself in the future with the following model, which I believe we're already essentially operating with more or less. Experienced officers. who bring a lot of skill sets and experience, would be matched with younger officers with an opportunity for some mentorship type training, some more focused training that you might receive in a larger department is what I'm kind of getting at. And I think that there should be a shift towards cyber crime and, you know, in terms of elder fraud, right? These types of crimes that are perpetrated against residents of Overtown. I would like to see our police department in a ready capacity to assist at those things. Frequently the FBI is involved in things like this, right? Because it might be somebody from another country. It could be somebody from another state, what have you. But I would like to see our police department poised and ready to be able to assist with those types of things. So as you choose which fear monger is your favorite headed into the election, I'll just say this. I've never been afraid of a transgender person or an undocumented person. I fear bankers more than anything. And white collar crime has cost me the most of my life, far more than petty crime.

So are you suggesting, Councilperson Winters, to lower it for next year, or you just want to- Lower, what are we talking about right now? The overtime line item for the department requesting the 30,000?

No, I was looking for reimbursement if someone else was using. And of course, in the future, if FPL is doing something and they have their own police department, we should try and work with them so that we utilize their funds for any type of road change, remaneuvering. And I know 88th Street especially has been having a hard time. And I'm sure we could have made it local traffic only, simple sign on the sides and no one that's not local would be allowed to enforce it.

That's not true, that's not true. You don't you don't understand what was going on When that was happening and the calls and the videos that I were getting from the residents over there I believe it 88 she's so small that during that morning rush hour that usually comes down 87th Street Which is a lot 87th Street during rush hour is usually bumper-to-bumper Yeah, they were zooming up and down 88 Street which is so small that they were going up in people's yards and

Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't have the police. And just a sign. They were ignoring those signs. They want to get to work, the individuals. Getting extra help from FPL's police department, if they have that, using those funds.

No, I understand. I agree with you. I understand. But also, and Captain Marino, he could shake his head with this. Captain Marino, he don't even know where I'm going with this. But is it true or not that where FPL with Officer Detective Berthet When we found out what Streets FPL was doing, when did we find out what Streets FPL was doing? But when did they let us know? So a day would start, and when did we know what street they were doing that day?

Well, it was hard to tell.

We would get complaints first from our residents about cars going through the street at a high rate of speed. There was damage to their grass. It was kind of chaotic, so we had to get our officers to... to stop traffic from coming in and out.

Did we or did we not keep asking FPL for a schedule of what streets they would be doing?

We did, but it was very hard for them to give us a schedule.

They never gave us a schedule. So we would find out the morning of, correct? So the morning of, we would find out what streets they're doing. We have to scramble because it's morning traffic rush hour and people are zooming through people's front yards.

was crazy it was crazy so it won't happen next year so that's why it won't have to be budgeted but but but that's the reason why i understand what you're saying i only have one of the line item on this page and i don't even know where it is last year the council voted obviously to pass this budget for the police department but i specifically remember the police requesting the purchase of polaris xd1500 I mean, did that not happen? No, it didn't happen. Okay, so was that not, that money wasn't used for something else?

I don't know, but they didn't buy that. I mean, I'll speak on behalf of the chief, but those funds were used for the purchase of the current vehicles. The plan was to bring the vehicles in stages, but we had an opportunity to bring them in earlier, so we decided to go that route as opposed to bringing in the vehicle that you mentioned.

So does that mean there's still a plan? They're not going to get it in the end?

My understanding is that it's on the shelf at the moment.

All right. All right. Page 10. I have one question here. We're reducing education and training for code officer from 15,000 down to 10. This is a little concerning only because we're getting a new code enforcement officer soon and probably going to need a little training.

But I believe she comes certified. So there are certain certifications that they come with. And I know that Mr. Fitts had all the certifications. I can't answer to that.

Even with certifications, Al Patel is special.

I believe the certification is to be a code enforcement officer. There are certain, I guess we'll call them degrees for lack of better words, there are certain classes that they need to take to maintain their status. So that's what that line item is there for.

I'm just suggesting. I'm just suggesting that I'm just a little worried, you know, making sure we don't know the new officer. We don't actually see her in progress or what she's been doing. So reducing the amount of education that might be needed, I'm just throwing it out there.

I'm sorry. Nature called, so I have to assume myself. I'm not certain that I understand what the question is. Yeah, because we don't have to pay for the certification process.

So the training is just for the certification, there's no extra training outside of that?

Well, the training will be becoming acquainted with community. Okay. outside of that there are there's one basic course that every every um compliance officer is required to have and then the other three which is a good thing for them to have so okay thank you i will add also uh just now looking at the uh the budget a little bit more closely um the line item also includes the licensing fees for the software that they use

That line is for licensing of software engineers?

Education and training in the code enforcement department also includes the licensing fees for the software that they use.

And those aren't going, they're not being paid for next year, so it's coming down to, or we still have to pay for them?

No, those are included. But those fees came down year over year, those that number used to be 15,000. And last year, it was reduced. And I guess we're seeing Yeah, we're seeing a trend of it coming down. Okay, thank you.

Anyone have any questions on that page? Page 11, Public Works. I see that estimated by end of September is 92,000. Of course, adopted is 100,000 for lawn maintenance. I'm not trying to say that I made this happen because I don't think I did, but that $8,000 not being used. I know I mowed the lawn.

four times and i'm hoping that we're not spending two thousand dollars each time that we go to the mound so no it's so that line item encompasses two numbers it's the monthly maintenance fee monthly maintenance for the lawn service for the entire village as well as a placeholder for the tree trimming um we have every that the village does every year um prior to hurricane season or during hurricane season i should say so that's why you see the year-to-date at 35 and the estimate at 92 just leaving the possibility of having to trim the trees so we actually do have we having year-to-date hasn't happened at the extra 60,000 it has happened yes the date has happened estimate not September 30th is me looking at year-to-date and forecasting what I expect the next two months to be So at the end of July, we were at $35,000. It's prepared. We still have two months of service. And then I'm also estimating the possibility of the tree trimming. So that's how you get to the estimated number.

I'm wondering if I see this $55,000, $60,000 amount and wondering if we can kind of utilize Council President Irvine's idea and pull the lawn service maintenance and look into someone that's also an arborist to try and merge the two ideas together.

Council? Yeah, I mean, we need something. I mean, there's two different entities working on a tree ordinance right now that's going to have a cost associated with it almost in whatever capacity it would be passed, right? And so, yes, yes, we should be trying to... include or merge or whatever it is, talk about, streamline, all of it. So, yeah, there you go, short answer, yes.

How about we change what this is called from lawn maintenance and arborists, so we could use the remaining funds for arborists use.

um well i mean uh in the lawn maintenance contract is uh tree trimming of swales in preparation of storm damage mitigation is that included in the hundred thousand or is that separate when they come through and they do the the swale tree trimming for specifically hurricane prep like uh like two or three times a year is that part of this hundred thousand

My understanding is that it's once a year, pre-hurricane, roughly $50,000, give or take a few thousand dollars. $50,000, $55,000 to go throughout the village and trim the trees.

But that is part of this $100,000? That's part of the $100,000. Yes, that's part of the $100,000.

And then the monthly maintenance with the lawn service contract, I believe, is $29.50 a month.

Okay, so, I mean, assuming that we would budget for and acquire a village arborist, any contract with a company in the future that is going to do that work for us pre-season, is going to have to work with our arborist. That's going to increase the number of hours required for the contractor to get the job done. That's just an absolute fact of what's gonna happen. but the idea is that we get a healthier canopy out of it and mitigating damage in the event of an actual storm. So those would be the two in a cost-benefit analysis. You're going to see technically an increase almost in your lawn contract just from that. If that's 50% of the budget, stands to reason it's going to be even more of that budget, assuming they're going to have to spend extra hours because they're going to be taking direction from an arborist. And that's gonna be after the part of their contract too, so that's gonna affect those things. So what does that mean for the line item? I'm not sure, but I'm open to any and all suggestions. But yeah, we need to bring our, we need to bring this line item into the future.

Any tree trimming that is done really needs to be done by a certified arborist. We have a lot of trees that have been damaged over the last 100 years because people have trimmed them incorrectly and now they're suffering and we're suffering from this. So I think that would be a very important thing that the tree maintenance is under this lawn maintenance line item. We need to include arborist services as part of that.

Let me just jump in with another item that I have realized. We have two situations now with trees in private spaces being infected with termites. These are properties that are not occupied, vacated by the owners and the trees and the area is being maintained by friends or relatives, et cetera, but it's causing damage to the the property adjacent to those properties. So we're gonna have to find a way to bring in Durham and help.

That's part of the question for me, Mr. Attorney. Do we have any recourse to be able to essentially sue? a property owner who has either such an unoccupied lot with a pest issue on it. I know that if we did go in and perform any services, there would be a lien attached to that property and I hope that lien would never be negotiated down because it was an actual cost incurred. However, is there even a right to go on the property under any circumstance to accomplish that task?

Yes, and in fact, there are several theories we can proceed in front of the special magistrate to get a lien, keeping in mind that liens cannot be foreclosed on homestead property in the state of Florida, but even those properties do change hands. but if it's not homestead property, we can foreclose. The other theory, which we've actually done here, when we still had that trailer park with disgraceful conditions that were not fit for human habitation, and we went to court under what's called a nuisance theory, and sued and obtained an order that required them to do certain things. In fact, once that was obtained, they were quick to negotiate. Now, with a single family residence, It can be more difficult to actually find the person involved, but yes, certainly we can lean the property, but we do also have the option once the violation has been confirmed by the magistrate of going into court and suing under a nuisance theory and trying to obtain certain mandatory injunctions. Now, you can't enter onto somebody's property just because you feel like it. There are laws. And if the paint is peeling or something of that nature, no. But when it becomes a threat to public health and safety, because the grass being high is unsightly, that's not enough. But if vermin are there and they're, you know, overrunning the property and becoming a threat to neighboring properties, or if the property is no longer safe, if it's become an unsafe structure that could collapse, there's another procedure where we can go to the county. So there are a number of things that can be done in those circumstances. Thank you. It's in conjunction with code enforcement proceedings generally.

I wanted to ask you, Mayor, on the same page, 001-539-6800 is the last one, the contingencies. You said that's our five or six pennies that are paying for the potholes.

No, the five or six pennies is... That would be the transportation.

Yes, transportation. Let's have the page after the building.

Transportation fund is the five, six, five, Miami-Dade County six cents local option gas tax and five cents additional local option gas tax. And that one, there's a savings of $1,927.

but earlier we were speaking about the street in pothole repairs because we have that everywhere in albert al but there's no nothing here to pay for it you said it was going to come from the five to six pennies but no i said we also have that and then i said we also have the contingency line on public works okay so we have income and revenue coming in from different places all over the place and we have a budget for it should because we do have that revenue coming from five six which should we still have in our expenditures something for streets and potholes

no so when it when it comes to certain things like those funds they have to stay within those line items you can't pull them out to say they're for this particular thing you just have to allocate that when you're going through the process as far as deciding through council vote what we're going to do with like these funds like if you have a street repair project you want to do then we voted through via resolution however we voted through and then where is the money coming from it's coming from this particular fund not even projects i mean 88th street 87th 85th there's potholes everywhere and they're not getting filled so i'm just wondering where this is going to be on here because we need to make sure that Yeah. Yeah. So the potholes are going to come from the public works or come from, depends on how much the potholes are. Sometimes the potholes, it depends on what they are.

I just said public works and contingencies and you guys said it was transportation now.

I said both, Councilperson Winters. I said both. That's exactly what I said. And that's exactly what I said before.

I have it sitting right here.

gas tax, and public 1,000-meter energy. I'm assuming. OK.

But again, so contingencies were supposed to be for that, also potholes. But both of them are at zero for next year's budget. So there's no room for any repairs at all on either contingencies or street pothole repair. Why is street pothole repair even on the item list if we're not going to put anything inside there?

We're going to put.

Hold on.

Let me go back to the public. Let me show you something. So Councilperson Winters, when you have those fees there, all right, they go back to the general fund. They can go back to the general fund. They're still there.

So now the general fund is now where we get our money for our potholes?

Yeah, the general fund is where we get the money to fix a lot of things we can fix.

So why do we have this line item for streets pothole repair if we're never going to put anything inside?

Because it was coming from the gas tax originally. In past years it came from the gas tax. And it still comes from the gas tax. It depends on how much the potholes are. We've never done street repair, if you know this, because street repair is very expensive.

I think you're missing my point. We have a line item here. Why do we have a line item if we're never going to fill it? Why is it even in the budget if we're not going to put anything inside of it?

We can take the line item away. All right.

I sit back.

It doesn't mean that that's not going to get done.

OK. Just trying to understand.

This is the thing. When you have a balanced budget, you can reallocate any line item that's within like, you know, you can't reallocate something for the police department for like streets, but you can reallocate any line item for other things as you have those things needed. Now, if you were to say, for example, street repair is very expensive, right? Potholes, you'd never know. But we filled potholes. I filled potholes last year. Right? I feel some potholes.

We have a new lake that's formed outside of the Sherwood Forest, by the way.

I understand. I have a thing for potholes that already went out. you can do that and you can do that with the potholes, but if you don't know, put it this way, when you're requesting for a budget line item, so let's say for whatever budget line item, we're requesting for next year for insurance or for the police pay or for whatever we're requesting for, you have to have an idea and know what you need You can't just say for this line item $15,000. Is it going to cost $15,000? Do you have any knowledge? Do you know how much? Do you know how many potholes right now? Do you know how many potholes are going to form? So... So when it comes to those type of items, once those items come up, then we have the funding for those items. So right now, it's in the Department for Transportation. As always, we've always used the gas tax for those things.

And I appreciate it. But just like we have inside of the lawn maintenance part of the tree trimming, we don't know if there's going to be a hurricane. We don't know if there's going to be trees that need to be trimmed, but we still allocate money for that in case it happens.

We do tree trimming every year. That's pre-hurricane tree trimming. We do that tree trimming every year. We fix potholes as they form. We... We fix potholes as they form. I just put out a flyer two weeks ago about street repair versus potholes. And I've been doing the inventory for it. You guys have to understand that this budget kicks in, the new budget, October 1st. Therefore, things that are allocated for this particular year can still be utilized. I just put out a thing about street repair and potholes. I just put it out, like two weeks ago. Apologies, let's move forward. What's next? Vice Mayor Martin.

I just have a question. Mr. Manager, could you advise as to how you envision utilizing the part time employee that you're proposing in the public works department?

Well, there's certain things that do not require eight hours of attention. So one of the things that we have done to supplement some of the things that we do do, it's like take, for instance, this hall. When we know that we have X number of activities here that this rental is going to be, utilization, then we bring someone who can come in and help us clean and prepare the hall for the guests. So these are the kinds of things that we do.

The top lot as well?

Yeah.

And you're envisioning maintenance on the top lot and those types of things as well, right?

Exactly, exactly.

Perfect. And that would be a great position to have if you had something pop up, like you were talking about the bulk trash issue that came up. That would be somebody that could just kind of pop over there and handle and spot treat.

Exactly, exactly.

Okay, thank you so much for the clarity.

We do all kinds of things. We do dead cat removals.

Yes. Thanks for that. That's the end of my comments on page 11. Do you want to move to page 12?

I do. Really quickly, I just wanted to say that I did have other questions on page 9, but I held them all back because the chief is not here right now.

I think that's smart.

And I'm just letting everyone know for next time. If you said I didn't bring it up, it was because the chief's not here.

No, that's very smart and patient of you. Page 12.

Yes. But council member, if you could just at least put it on the record so that we know what it will be and we'll be able to have an answer or response to.

Of course.

So I wanted to have a question about the maintenance and equipment and those numbers that have been going up with the new vehicles. And even though we're leasing the vehicles and we did not purchase the Polaris, I just want more information on that, all right? You want to understand the cost of maintenance, is that what? I want to understand why the prices of the vehicles are going up when we have the leases that were already signed. These are leased cars, right?

Yeah, a big portion, a big part of the actual year-to-date number and the maintenance was the total vehicle. Roughly $25,000 to $30,000 of that number is the vehicle. There is some other wear and tear. That's part of the lease agreement with Enterprise that gets allocated for monthly maintenance. So that's kind of what you see there.

So I was told the vehicle accident was maintenance of the vehicles, and that's what was said on Tuesday. Now we're saying we're talking about machinery and equipment, which is, is it also the maintenance of the vehicles?

No, the machinery and equipment line item is the actual lease expense of the vehicles.

Well, these leases are multi-year. So are the leases going up? Are we having any re-leases?

No. So just to give a little brief history. No, we've been transitioning in new vehicles. So it started in 24? No, we're in 46. It started in 25. I think it started in 25 and then transitioned into 26. And the plan initially was to go 25, 26, 27 with the thought process of, I believe, purchasing the Polaris. We scratched the Polaris, had the opportunity to bring in the cars earlier than 27. So we brought those in because there was revenue to support it. and what you see going forward looks it will be what we're anticipating to be what the annual lease payment will be for all the vehicles because we'll have a full annual your cycle of all the vehicles so now we know what all the lease payments are for all the vehicles and we should know what the estimated numbers for the upcoming fiscal year

Again, the budget was 145, 145,000 and the estimate was 208,301. I mean, where is that extra money being spent, especially since the vehicle accident was under maintenance of vehicles?

you can I think you're conflating two issues the maintenance vehicle has nothing the maintenance that the accident has nothing to do with the the lease payments so accident of the vehicle showing up in two light items it's showing up on the maintenance vehicle line item on the expense side and miscellaneous revenue police on the income side so it's a wash right because we receive proceeds on the vehicle

But year to date, we're over budget on machinery equipment, but we didn't buy $100,000 Polaris. So I'm trying to figure out why we're over budget.

So we brought in new police vehicles. So with the purchase of the new vehicles, there's a down payment that goes with them. So you brought in I want to say nine, I think the plan, again, please don't quote me on this, I don't have all the, I have this, you know, I'm trying to speak, I guess, on behalf of the chief to try to give you as much information so you have it. There was a certain number of vehicles that we were planning to bring in this year, again, and the best bring in next year. Every vehicle comes with a $10,000 deposit, right? So you factor in a $10,000 deposit for the vehicle plus the monthly payment for that said vehicle, that's going to cause the increase for the current year. But again, that was done knowing that there was revenue to support that expense.

So I want to bring this to the mayor because you did a great job of getting us a grant for the police vehicles in the past. Are we still using that grant for police vehicles?

No, no, that grant, we're not utilizing that grant anymore. So we don't have the grant anymore? That was when I first came in.

And there are no other grants we could try and ask for that might pay for this?

We could try. Yeah, we could try. I mean, we just, the other, what was it, year before last, we got the one for that truck. So, I mean, they, you know, sometimes they come in, sometimes they don't.

Okay. Let's go back to the page you were on.

No comments on page 12 or 13?

On 13, we already discussed the potholes. All right.

Page 14. Any comments? I have none. Page 15. 15.

Let's go back to page 14. Okay. Okay. So the CITT funds, so you have the transit and you have transportation. The transportation fund is for, again, transportation fund support eligible roadway and mobility improvements, including street and sidewalk projects, traffic calming measures, speed humps, drainage improvements related to transportation infrastructure, signs, pavement markings, and other authorized transportation projects. That's the transportation portion of CITT. So that can also be used for potholes. So that's another one that can be used for potholes.

Sounds like a good idea.

So I put this out. And so a lot of people were complaining about the flyers. But if I put out the flyers about what people are complaining about and people don't see the flyers, I can't help that. I got 17. So people complain about the flyers going out, but then I put out the flyers and they say, you're not doing anything about a situation where I put the flyer out about the situation. So in the flyer, it says, please note that my commitment extends beyond pothole repairs alone. If a roadway requires resurfacing rather than a simple pothole repair, I'm equally committed to working toward that solution while resurfacing projects require substantially more planning, funding, engineering, and construction time. They remain an important part of my long-term commitment to improving the infrastructure of the village. At this time, pothole repairs represent the first level of our roadway improvement initiative, and we will continue to address them as reports are received and inspections are completed. Your participation is essential to this effort. Although I regularly monitor the condition of the village's streets, you are often the first to notice new potholes or roadways deterioration on your street. By reporting these issues, you help us to respond more quickly and keep our streets safer for everyone. Who reported it to me? Now, if you're talking about certain individuals, they're being disingenuous because I particularly brought out an engineer. Did I not? I brought out an engineer to look at the street damage on that street. and the engineer has to come back with the design. I brought out an engineer. So, I mean, I understand y'all hate me, but like, I'm trying to do this stuff. I put out the information. There's only so much I can do. The CITT 414, so that can also be used, Councilperson Winters, can also be used for that type of stuff. Vice Mayor Martin, where do you want to go next?

I don't have any comments on page number 14, 15 either. Does anyone have comments on page 15? here none okay moving on to page number 16 good old lucky 16. uh yeah no no comments uh actually some something was said earlier that kind of cleared up the question that i did have here the parks and recreation fund um i mean part of that can also be used towards that big lake of a pothole next to the short forest park or it's kind of attached to it yeah but it's again there's

They're only going to use $2,500, but we have other funds we could take for that repair.

Yeah, yeah. And a lot of that is street repair, so it's a little more complicated, but I have the design for it, and so we can look at that and see where we can maybe cut some costs.

Well, the edge of the park is actually also lost as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you. Vice Mayor Munn.

No comment on our final page. I'll let anyone else who would like to chime in on that one.

I mean, I explained that, you guys, with how we got there. Even Council President Erbom kind of chimed in on the history of the hurricane and things like this.

Yeah, so my frustration with the way the debt was incurred in the first place was that the council was talked into taking out the loan. prematurely but the council took out the loan and here we are so as uh the mayor was talking about earlier um over several years we finally completed what of the reimbursement process we could with fema there was this balance left over again you know the original loan amount is not the total cost to the village of fema cleanup the total cost of the village of fema clean cleanup was about 2.1 2.2 million And so we got reimbursed out of the 2.1, 2.2 ultimate payout that the village ultimately did. As far as FEMA reimbursement goes, we really only got uh right around a million back i believe in total maybe just under it's got it hovers right around a million so uh so we really uh we really came out in incredibly bad shape out of irma so the balance left as far as debt service goes i agree should be eliminated immediately for bunch of reasons not the least of which to be able to start to put this trauma from the villages past behind us among other reasons not the least of which also be financial responsibility I would absolutely support paying this off today CFO do we have enough surplus to pay this off

There is surplus available, potential surplus available this year to cover the payment of the note. I just will play the other side, so just give everybody the full picture. I understand the urgency in wanting to pay off the note. At the same time, looking at what's coming down the pike and not knowing what's coming down the pike, I like to go conservative and I like to try to hold onto as much as we possibly can, if possible. Excuse me. I just lost my thought. Sorry.

Well, I mean, back to the Amendment 3 discussion, next year might be our only chance to have any money available to pay it off. Oh, I'm sorry. So that's what I was going to say. I'm sorry. Our payout to service this is, why do I have a calculation of $45,000 a year that we're paying?

Yes, so paying roughly $35,000 a year, but the actual interest on that is less than $3,000. For the two-year, to carry the note for the two years, you're looking at maybe the cost of the village of about $4,500. So I guess that's the way to look at it. So again, I understand the urgency and the frustration of seeing it on the balance sheet and wanting to get rid of it. At the same time, understanding where we are financially, the cost to carry it is roughly $4,500.

Councilman, the other thing to take into account, given the CFO's testimony about how low the actual cost of carrying it is, there's a surplus projected, which is great unless something happens. If another hurricane should hit, and you've expended all that money out of what would be otherwise just, I think it's a couple of thousand a month, or approximately that much, and then something happens, you may be, and it's not a ton of money, it's not enough money to address all the issues, but if something does happen, there is some benefit in having that additional liquidity if there is not necessarily a hurricane, any other kind of emergency, and when you, I understand that there's an annoyance factor having lived through it with you, but you may wanna, you've got till next time to decide, and even then, whether you put it in the budget or not, taking the action is different, but there is some advantage in having that extra liquidity

the need for it should arise okay that actually prompts another question of mine that I hadn't thought of until this morning when I read a newspaper article everyone's favorite pictograph newspaper USA Today put out an article yesterday outlining sea level rise prompts plan to elevate thousands of Florida homes raise your hand in the audience if you're familiar at all with anything about what this article is okay I wasn't familiar with this I have to say honestly and so I'm curious if anyone can speak to are there any plans currently for the US Army Corps of Engineers to come into the village of El Portal and raise anyone's home lot or otherwise prepare their property for sea level rise within the limits of El Portal do we have anybody on their list scheduled to participate in that program

Not individually. So that's a program through the Army Corps of Engineers. It was through the BBC. When Elizabeth Fonda Carpenter used to live here, she's the executive director for the Everglades Law Center. She was the chair of the sustainability task force that I had. And so she was the point person for El Portal on the Army Corps Engineers and on the BBC. So she, and I used to go sometimes with her to the meetings. So we've been working on this for a while to fight for El Portal to get in that. So the situation is this, and through the architectural landscape and environmental board, we discussed this, which is there's two options that they have. And the option that I'm trying to get for the village is the second option. When they're talking about implementing this, and it's still a time away, but they're talking about raising homes for flooding. 2028. 2028, yeah. 2028. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When are they going to start?

Very long, long time away.

When are they going to start?

When are they going to start? Yeah, so that doesn't mean that they're starting necessarily in El Portal. I have four kids. I'm sorry, two years goes by so fast, it's ridiculous.

I understand that. I understand that. But understand, you guys, that these things take before construction is design, engineering designs and things like that. And then construction takes place. But what I wanted to say was the two options that they have for raising houses is one is called the build on feel. That's the one I'm trying not to get them to implement in El Pertal. And the reason is because when they build on feel, Scott, who was part of the ALE board, he knows about this. We talked about this. And Mr. Rojas, we talked about this also.

There were two multi-million dollar neighborhoods down in Lower Keys that were built on fill back in the 70s, and both of those neighborhoods, the ground was literally just sucked out from underneath them in a storm surge.

Not only that, but the reason why I don't want them to have the build on fill, and we spoke about this in the board, is because when you build on fill, it's fill, it's dirt. And it raises your house when dirt goes underneath. The problem to me, though, that I've been telling the Army Corps engineers is that unless you do all the homes, then whatever home is not on fill gets flooded out. Because when you build on fill, it's dirt. It's packed in like dirt and soil. So yeah, this house goes up, but then everything just runs off the side, kind of like Mr. Steer, that house that was in front that I got fixed that time, right, on your street. So everything runs down into the house that is not on fill. And so when it comes to the Army Corps of Engineers, and when it comes to these things, I've been in government long enough to know that they might have intent on doing something, but it might not come through. They might have budget cuts four years into it, or two years into it, or whatever it is. So for El Portal residents to be safe, I'm trying to get them to do the second option, which is to build the keys. which they raise the house and put the stilts up underneath it so that the water then, if it gets flooded out, can roll up underneath the house and you're not flooding out your neighbor because your house is on fill. And so that's the argument and debate, and that's what I'm fighting with them about right now is for El Portal to be exclusively built like the Keys and not build on the field so that the last house doesn't flood out its neighbor. But that's kind of like the background of how we got here.

So I mentioned the article because I know we're not Key Biscayne. I know we're not Key Biscayne. I know we're not Key Biscayne. But one thing you should know about Key Biscayne is they have a war chest. for only sea level rise? Money set aside for only sea level rise, totaling a billion dollars already. They have other war chests for other contingencies. Now, can we stack money the way Key Biscayne can? No, we cannot. but should we have some sort of a plan to be feeding a contingency chest for these things that will be impactful and we will incur costs we already spent 2.2 million dollars cleaning up after a category four oh we didn't get the category four the lower keys did all we experienced was strong category one weak category two those were the bands that we experienced up here in miami-dade county My father-in-law had passed some years ago, and my wife brought his sailboat down, so before you get excited thinking I was a yacht owner, this was a $10,000 sailboat that was on a lake, and I spent two years rewiring it before I got to put it down in the bay, and then that was about three months before Irma came. And Dinner King Marina had 118 boats out on the mooring field. And Irma, again, as I said, is a category one, weak category two strength winds impacting Miami-Dade County for Irma for us in 2017. There was less than 10 boats left in that mooring field. So that's coastal impact. We are not coastal. We have shore crest to take a bunch of abuse for us before a lot of that impact gets to us. We have the FEC going by almost right on time there. So that 12 foot berm is super helpful to us compared to the homes just down at the bottom of the hill here in shore crest, just a few short blocks away. We have the canal right here, which I will remind you all, the dam at the canal here is not governed to prevent flooding in our village. It strictly and only functions to prevent saltwater intrusion further up the freshwater canal. And so while we are very well protected here at El Portal, not everybody here is, in fact, flood zone X. And so there's also going to be probably, I'm guessing, in about less than 10 years, there's going to be an elderly resident walking into the village and saying, Please do something to help me in terms of I'm going to be forced out of my home simply because I cannot afford insurance anymore. And so, like I said before, if you're not self-insured, Florida does not want you anymore. It is very clear. and so and so that is where a lot of my frustrations arise out of this budget is because we should have at least two plans of feeding a box that will help us in the future that is not touched except for those circumstances so I we are woefully unprepared for whatever is going to hit us next just absolutely woefully unprepared I will say in the event of a hurricane hitting us, we do in fact have a police department that is ready to respond to residents, I will say that. But my frustration is that there's no line item, there's no prescription, there's no prescription for what we're gonna be placing into a surplus. And so I want an arborist for the village and I want a climate change surplus. I'll talk about that at the next meeting, I guess.

If I might, Mayor Councilman, keep in mind also that nationally, there have been repeated cuts to FEMA, there have been interference with FEMA, there's been a lot of game playing about what FEMA can do and how much. So as bad as it was, then, if there's an incident, it could be significantly worse now.

So I think that um, what we definitely should do is uh mr manager is what we definitely should do is i think that we should really before and i'll help you out with this if you need help um to remind you. We really need to look at all the contracts, because by the 22nd, I want to see what contracts are still active, which ones aren't. Because sometimes if contracts are active, then it's harder to lower that cost without a penalty or something like that. so we can look at what's still active what's not and then we can see the ones that are not still active or the outdated or they've expired and see if we can do something about you know those particular line items I do want to reduce cost when it comes to that And I'm still going to look at kind of like what we did so far today or whatever, but I still want to look at as a whole what else as far as pay we can freeze just for next year and keep it on the same level.

I have a couple comments. First one is I wholeheartedly agree with our finance director and our attorney about being conservative with paying off that debt. I do think emergencies happen all the time. And I think it would be pretty reckless for us to work without a net in that way. So I wholeheartedly agree with that plan and would not support using those surplus funds in that way that Councilman Urbam suggested. Second thing is I hear your comments about freezing of the salaries. I am not as comforted about the fact that Amendment 3 doesn't take effect right away because I think something that upends the structure of What we are accustomed to in this way requires a lot of forethought and planning. And we do still need to be very conservative now and keep a close eye on how this thing unfolds and how realistically we will survive it. Because we are a bedroom community. So I do think that your thoughts on figuring out how we can go ahead and and reduce those costs are well-timed. If we are talking about freezing employee salaries, which is something that I would loathe to do because folks are out here barely making ends meet. Everything is expensive and this is a family, right? We do really love the people that work here and want to make sure they continue to work here. But I would also then think about freezing council salaries. Because I've heard a couple of the candidates discuss, I think, what was the term they used? Modernizing salary. And I think we have to be careful with that. I think that a can of worms was opened up a year ago when It was even threatened to increase the salary in that way. I'm sure everybody remembers that that was on the consent agenda, and I was the one who pulled that. Otherwise, it would have been the law of the land. And there was no other council member up here that did that, that pulled that item. Otherwise, it would have just been a simple vote, and it would have been the law, and folks would have started receiving those checks. I think once that happened, a lot of people's interests were piqued. A lot of people are seeking office, I think, for the wrong reasons. I think one way to control against that as well as in addition to controlling against that, I think another way to stand in solidarity with our employees is we should freeze the council salary as what it is. This is it, this is the compensation that is contemplated and this is the compensation that will be received no matter whether you've held office two years ago or two years from now. If we're going to do it for the employees, we should definitely do it for the council as well. And because we also like to look to our neighbors, I think Miami Shores, their council, they're getting a dollar for the year. I'm not suggesting we... roll it back, but we can't only look to Miami Shores when it benefits us or our agenda. I think we need to be fairer than that. If we call ourselves public servants, then we need to make sure we think about the village as a whole. Our biggest issue is staffing. I'm sure our manager would agree with that. I think anything that we can do to make it easier for us to acquire the staff that we need to make sure that the entire community thrives is something that we should do. And anything other than that, any modernizing of the salary is a very self-interested play that I think folks need to be very candid about. All of the folks running for office, I think the people out there, you need to ask them whether or not they support modernizing salaries or whether or not they will agree to receive the salary that has been the salary that we all signed up to receive. Because I think that will tell you a lot about why they are seeking office and what kind of elected official they will be.

Thank you very much. So Councilperson Erbom, I wanted to come back to your, to pay off the loan. If we pay off a loan, we could always take another loan in an emergency. So I'm not seeing any problem with paying off a loan and bringing up our credit. And if an emergency happens to happen, we could always take another loan. But I want to know if you wanted to make a motion about paying off that loan.

I am not making any motions tonight or any direct suggestions. I will have all of my comments for the final.

so as this is one of i guess two meetings i i want to make sure that a lot of this gets changed so that when i read through this again i know what's changed and i know everyone else in the audience also wants to know too when they read through the budget for two weeks from now and and say hey this is the new item this is here so i would love to see your arborist put inside of this now so everyone else can see that as well um i mean there's definitely things in here that we should have written down before next meeting

I think Mr. Taubenfeld is doing that as we're going along.

So I actually want that before we left tonight I just wanted to get some clarity as far as specifics as the adjustments that need to be made and so far I'm only aware of two I have my two that's the only two that I'm aware of I'm not aware of any others but to answer council person winters this question and maybe to also Council person urban know The revenue, I mean, unless the commission, I mean, the council is asking me to reduce the revenue, I'm quite comfortable with the revenue number where it's at. With that being said, any savings that you're proposing at this point in time will show up on the contingency line item in public works. I mean, that's what we've done in the past. That's typically where the quote unquote surplus for the village goes. so any adjustment that you guys see now unless you specifically tell me you want me to increase a number it's gonna fall in that particular that's where all any changes is gonna end up so

everybody knows that's what's gonna happen that's that's so anybody wants to know what's changing between the document you're getting today and potentially in two weeks I just laid it out for you all right fair enough I think we need to find out that what happens when we move the the lawn maintenance that line item we need to see what happens when that goes from 100,000 up to 180 180 yes move what from 180 can you repeat that like I said I want to see what happens when it goes up to 180 now why the 80 increase because a dedicated arborist for the village plus as I said we're going to see increase in that maintenance cost just from that one significant action which is the pre-season swale canopy preparation with the express purpose of preserving both the trees themselves so that they can survive a storm better as well as limiting the damage to life and property from aged overgrown or otherwise untrimmed limbs that would not have become projectiles if they had been properly trimmed ahead of the season so so as I said before I expect a hundred thousand dollar 50,000 approximate of that service to increase because there will be increased time involved because our arborist would be guiding that process which would slow them down and so that is where I come up with The way I see it is something around 60 for the arborist or plus 60 plus and then whatever left out of that from the 80 would by my calculation be accounting for the increased cost from the slowing down of the pre-season swale canopy trimming.

Can I ask a question? What are your calculations based on?

So my calculations are based on discussions among the tree board of what it would take to acquire a arborist. do you want to pause on that today maybe see whether or not those numbers are actually accurate before because i couldn't support just adding an additional 80 000 i don't know i mean people seem to just i mean i get it i'm a stranger to everybody i'm a recluse but uh but uh but i this is not i tried to stay i didn't want to say anything until the next meeting this is part of why so just understand My very clear, consistent answer is going to be have these discussions in the setting of the tree board, in the setting of discussion about what is it going to cost us to acquire an arborist. And for me, the low end of that discussion is $60,000 a year. to get the service from a dedicated arborist that we would want to have a less conservative number is close to the full 80. so for me asking to see what happens to that line item when we increase it to 180 000 from the currently prescribed hundred tells us how far we could possibly get towards a uh a hopeful reality of having something like an arborist service available to the village so so I can't say it any more clearly than that other than to say this is from discussions from within the tree board including a group effort to try and determine the realistic cost that might be incurred from doing this I did not just pull this number out of the middle of the air I just got pushed a little bit into laying my card on the table before I wanted to

Let me ask something real quick. Does the arborist, would the arborist be like full time or would it be like as needed as we need?

Ideally, we would have a full time arborist. That dollar amount is going to be closer to $80,000 a year.

But so you're saying 60,000 would be like an arborist as needed, like as we call them in and they bill us? Or is it like the 60,000, like an arborist on call?

So the 60,000 would be closer to an arborist who would be available to consult on anyone who was putting in a permit to remove canopy, for example. So that would be the primary reason actually for wanting to bring the arborist in would be to help residents offer a service to residents. That's an additional item for the arborist. There would be a nominal fee a resident could pay to have the arborist help them address their canopy in a responsible way. without having the resident to have to incur the full cost of getting their own arborist to come out and then we would already have our arborist on retainer for the pre hurricane season village swale canopy trimming so that we would be able to maintain the health and vitality of our swale uh canopy uh with the uh with the with the best results whereas right now every single time we have a vendor come out and do pre-hurricane season village swale canopy trimming we run the risk of losing any number of trees because of either irresponsible or uneducated persons basically giving a tree a haircut when maybe something else is prescribed additionally that arborist would also be helping us figure out, for example, how to replace canopy in and around lights, okay? So if you talk to the residents, one of the biggest issues with lighting on our streets is that we have lights, but they're covered with trees. and so and it's not the same for everyone but but uh but but that is an ongoing consistent issue with the lighting in the village is that we have some lights that are never utilized because the canopy is covering them so in all of that the conservative estimate of what that would cost us to have someone who provide that kind of a service would be sixty thousand on the low end eighty plus on the high end so that is again where I have arrived at the request for that number. And I am always open to any and all suggestions.

I want to say really quickly, an arborist to assist in the canopy during like P&Z is a great idea, but Corradino Group gets paid a lot of money. and when people come here and they paid to have them look at everything accordingly probably should have also an arborist that's allowing that to be looked at and be on call whenever we have that pnz meeting that should be coming out of the taxpayers money welcome to uh the tree board discussion and so i can uh completely and confidently tell you that we have had that discussion as well and to that end what we have to say is that uh

would be an idealized situation to have a dedicated village of El Portal arborist because as we have seen with developers attorneys or a third parties person issues arise of conflict of interest or otherwise being provided a service that you don't have full faith or trust in and so because of where we are trying to be in the future with this village with trees we would want our very own village of el portal arborist to be able to be a point person for all of these issues and so um and so that having that service in the village preserves property values. I mean, I just, I think the village is just not looking at, I just think the village is not looking at the future. I just had to, I mean, everything that we do to preserve canopy in this village returns a benefit to the resident in the form of health insurance cost mitigation so we are in one of the largest heat domes in the region and el portal single-handedly is doing a lot of lifting to mitigate uh heat dome impacts so I can tell you that when you sit inside the village of El Portal and then drive up on the I-95 on a midday with sun, there's almost a 10 degree difference. You don't typically get benefit in Miami from shade because of the humidity, right? But sitting in a shaded part of El Portal and then being up on the highway, there is a significant change in temperature. And so every single thing that this village, every dollar this village would put towards preserving the canopy and maintaining all of the habitat that lives underneath it goes towards a direct benefit to the people who live here, not the least of which is heat dome mitigation. So there's going to be a town hall on a treaty ordinance next week. It's going to be announced within the next 24 to 48 hours. But this is part of why I didn't want to say anything until the next budget because that's what happened before the final hearing, the town hall on the tree ordinance. But it would, there is a lot of cost benefit deduction that tells you that we would be in a great place to have a dedicated arborist. uh if the only balking at that is the cost um that's fine but uh but um but uh that's the that's the reason for the request so i'm happy to cut a whole bunch of places um i understand i'm not necessarily going to get what i want but the question was the question and the answer is the answer i'm gonna let eighty thousand dollars is where i'm at for an increase in that line item i'm gonna advice me remarketing i'm not against an arborist um

Vice Mayor Martin, go ahead.

Okay, I'm not saying that there's not a reason behind it and there's no validity there or it's not a well thought out plan. It doesn't sound like a well thought out plan tonight. It sounds very ad hoc and I think your initial inclination to roll it out in the fashion that you just discussed, that might be more persuasive. Have the tree board forum that you're discussing. And then in that conversation, it might become very clear as to what the cost benefit analysis is. Just going from earlier when you said I'm not gonna proffer any numbers and then kind of just having this 180 thrown out, I would appreciate some more context, I guess. And I am not very knowledgeable on arborists and their rates. But I believe that you've done the work and there's some value there. How much is the question and what is the appropriate number to land on? I think we don't lose anything by letting you have this great event that you've planned and having a deeper exploration into some of these topics and then we

actually didn't plan this event so in the in all the years I've been chair of tree board the primary and only function of the tree board in the past has been to preserve one thing and that is the Tree City USA status okay but recently there has been a renewed interest from residents to be part of the tree board and for full disclosure and just public benefit this is not any kind of a secret I'm not a voting member of the tree board As the chair, I facilitate the tree board. I am not a voting member. And so this year, we have a great interest and effort. And by no means are any of the ideas I proposed just now attributable to being my ideas. And as I said, In a nutshell, I think fairly more concise than many people who speak for long periods of time up here, I have to say that what I just proposed is not even remotely close to outlandish. And I will just say it again. I motioned into the microphone, that Barrington Brothers give us $3.5 million. So I have made an effort already multiple times this past year to give El Portal the resources needed to deal with the budget. And that's why I'm feeling off-put tonight. at a lot of the, I mean, what are we even talking about? Honestly, like really, we don't even know. And so the question was, what do you wanna see on the line item? My answer is $80,000, Mr. CFO. I wanna see what the impact is to that line item.

So I'm in agreement with the Vice Mayor on this, just throwing the number out there. One of the reasons why I also wanted to put this in lawn maintenance is because our lawn maintenance includes tree trimming. And I don't believe our tree should be trimmed by anyone but an arborist. If you're going to do it correctly, that should have an overlap there. So if we're at July 31st, $35,000 a date, there's about $64,000 that was unused by July 4th. And I know there can be some overlap here if we hire an arborist using that remaining $64,000 that's also trimming our trees, which makes it healthier for the canopy and also retains the same $100,000 budget that we already have.

All right, and before adjournment, I do have one more request to the CFO. I would like to see on the 22nd what would happen If any, sorry, let me rephrase that. Every line item, every single line item that does not have a mandatory payout, meaning we are not obligated, we are not legally required to pay that out, i want to see what happens if we reduce every single eligible line item that does not have a legal requirement that we fulfill that payment next year meaning contract contracts is really what i'm talking about here or other legal obligations for example with the clerk's office there's things that have to be required for certifications and things like this i want to see what happens when the because we can't reduce every single line item, because some of them are mandatory. So I wanna see what happens if we take 10% off of any eligible line item that is not attached to something like a collective bargaining agreement or an already agreed upon contracting service. That's gonna be a fair amount of work, and I understand I'm asking that. I would have liked to have asked it perhaps around December or January, but we never got that opportunity.

A couple things. I just want to get some clarity. The $80,000 that you're suggesting is taking everything as is, adding the costs for an arborist as well as any potential- To keep it simple, $80,000 for an arborist. I'm not trying to get technical, but $80,000, are we going contracted services? Are we looking at somebody bringing somebody in-house? In-house adds another 25, 30% for the benefits. Okay, in-house. In-house. In-house. benefits inclusive of 80,000 or 80,000 plus inclusive thank you thank you separately I actually did prepare something just to go into more detail the next meeting but just to give you a general idea on numbers I use far as locked in numbers will assume payroll it was the fix of all assume people include payroll in this number So all payroll on the proposed budget, as you see right now, roughly is 2.1 million. You have consultants and contracted services of roughly $1,450,000. When you add in the insurance for the village and we'll say gas for the vehicles, that's another $400,000. You're looking at roughly $3,926,000 out of a proposed budget of $4,555,000. So you're looking at 86% out of your expenses, we'll call it in that fixed category. And that's not even including your utilities, right? And then I mean, if you really want to go deeper, right? There is some cost to running a office, right? So that's not even factored in there as well. But these are your true hard costs, as you see it.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, I think that I'm not against the arborists and like you said, the tree ordinance is a joint thing and part of it came through my board. I just feel like I feel we should try to at least think about, I mean, I'm not sure, I'm not sure if this is doable, but I feel like we should try to think about an arborist as needed more than in-house here every day. I'm not sure on a daily or unless maybe you might know on a weekly basis how often is the arborist gonna be utilized and maybe it might be just more cost effective if the arborist is brought in and consulted. Maybe the arborist can be consulted via Zoom and then brought in in person once they're needed and maybe that might help out with it.

in that form there is one format where an arborist could be used in that style method what have you um structure uh and still accomplish the you know a grand goal of having something like that be an available service for a nominal fee to a resident you know that they're trying to do something on the property it's not not under village right away right they're just trying to do something on property there in the model you just outlined exactly we still have a path to create a nominal fee service for residents to be able to use someone like an arborist but But in our discussions, we established fairly quickly that the need is already glaring, and so we believe that the need will be great.

yeah i was just going to say for just real real quick the the path that you were discussing for the residents i understand that the need is great now but once you feel like this needs going to always be at the same level i think maybe right now because we're trying to implement the first tree ordinance and things like that so it might you know it's going to you know we're going to hit it off catching fire because there's so much that hasn't been done we need to do but you don't think like maybe

would not anticipate the need falling off by the end of next fiscal year the one thing I've got to mention previously as far as financial impact as far as so right now we have three changes that I've noted to by the vice mayor which brings the savings of thirty six and a half thousand dollars to the budget no counselor or bum you're requesting $80,000 the net differential is 43,000 so that's a shortfall that we're looking at right now at this budget so just need some direction as to how you want to handle that so

What was the projected surplus of the budget as it is?

So prior to any changes, no surplus, zero, balanced. Walking in tonight. Walking in tonight, balanced, zero. Okay, got it, okay. The $129,000 surplus is the projected number for the current fiscal year, not the proposed budget.

What he's saying, this is what he's saying. Real quick, let me just explain real quick. So we have a surplus. What he's saying is that he wants to allocate it, he wants to take that surplus and allocate it for different things. that's what he's trying to say but we have a surplus but what he's trying to say is for the new fiscal year he wants to allocate it for for various different things so what we would have to do is we would have to instead of having a surplus just sitting there you know we want to get things done we want to fix things and whatever so he wants to allocate these things And that's the only thing he's saying, but there is a surplus.

And that's the purpose of my question of which line items can be reduced by 10% to know where is it I really can cut from to achieve the $40,000 that I've now asked the village to pay out. Now, with her savings and my expense, that's part of what I want to see on the 22nd is a projection of what happens when the eligible line items are reduced by 10%.

Okay, so I'll do my best, but again, based on the numbers that we just proposed, right? So you're looking at roughly, what was it, $800,000, you factor in utilities. How do you want me to treat, again, I'm not trying to be technical, but how do you want me to treat operating supplies, right? The paper clips and the file folders, something as simple as that. Toilet paper, you know. Is that considered fixed or is that considered variable and we're gonna lock down and we're not gonna clean the toilets?

No, I mean, right. So we don't want austerity on toilet paper. However, I would consider that a variable though.

okay so based on that I would say you're looking I feel comfortable saying what I just presented to you right three million eight and fixed yeah the difference in variable right understanding that the variable includes utility like variable utilities are very we'll call it a fixed variable right but variable in the sense that it fluctuates month to month but fixed in the sense that we know we have there might be like 50,000 in there somewhere it's kind of like what that boils down to a little bit when you say out of the items eligible to be cut what I'm proposing like a 10% we could the answer can we go through a line item if the instruction is go through the line items and see if you could save $1,000 here $1,000 there I mean the answer is yes right okay because my whole mantra is in totality right yes at the same time right we might have the answer in two weeks not time to also I mentioned at the previous meeting and I mentioned it again today right I got $27,000 placeholder for insurance right right it may be 50 right right it may be zero right right so again that's what something that we're waiting for that could easily solve you know the shortfall that we're looking for okay right so there is some there is some flux in the belt you know that availability I guess then what I would say is on the 22nd I do feel confident that I would be able to find $40,000 to cover the the deficit that I just proposed

Well, at this moment, I can't tell you exactly where to find the $40,000.

Yes, I think between now and the next two weeks, we could probably, yes, if need be.

So do you want to change it tonight, Erbom, or do you want to wait until the 22nd and see where he comes back with it and then add it on the 22nd?

Well, I mean, I believe the instructions are from Councilperson Winters and I that make that line item $180,000. You've already established that based on her savings, my expense, we're going to end up with a $40,000 offset. And so I'm saying let's take a look at it. I'm saying let's take a look at it.

That's what I'm saying. I'm sorry to interrupt. So in order for it to happen and where timing is of the essence, because we have to get – our information to uh for publication so it has to be done by tomorrow gotcha so with that being said i'm not opposed to making the changes my rec my suggestion would be is let me go through it um i'll note where i think we may if you want i could take the twenty seven thousand dollars out of insurance right now and then use that you know as part of the savings just go through the budget and see where I think I might be able to save it or just leave it the other option is leave it as is and then we can make the adjustment come in two weeks time

I don't mean to interrupt. I just want to ask a question to the CFO because there is something time sensitive, which is the ad for the trim that I need to provide it to the Miami Herobites tomorrow. And I think those numbers come in play, do they?

Yeah, absolutely. So any changes and modifications, that's what I'm making. So any changes and modifications that we're making now?

The attorney just advised me that you guys have to also vote on those changes.

It's been explained to me in the past that we do not have the option to say for example let's say we cut out the blue recycling bins and we no longer did the blue recycling bins it's been explained to me that that's not an option because that is a county program that we are obligated to is that correct I

I don't know if Mr. Manager has worked with that in the past. I'd have to verify that. I've heard that, but I can't tell you.

The reason I say this is because I became a conservationist in the third grade when I read my first science book. They call it the AMOC now, but it was called the Great Conveyor in the book I read. It sits just offshore here. You guys call it the Gulf Stream, but that's only one little small piece of it. The AMOC is a global planetary current system that regulates weather in Europe, weather for us, all that stuff. As a lifelong conservationist, I have to tell you that recycling is a sucker's bet. Nobody is recycling anything any longer. Nobody is recycling anything any longer. The concept that the impetus of saving the planet is to put on the individual residents living in houses is total insanity and absurdity. There should be absolutely unbelievable changes in regulations to packaging materials. And George Washington himself could tell you that hemp oil could replace in a more responsible way almost any other oil product that we use today. Oil use is going up, not because people are putting more gas in their cars, it's because everything you buy is made of plastic. All this debate over the past years of the XL pipeline was a ridiculous debate because not a drop of that oil ever went to a gasoline tank. It all went to plastics factories in Mexico. And I would like to see the village stop paying for recycling. I mean, it's an absolute organized... I mean, guys, it's a fool's errand to be paying for recycling right now. So that's the line item I would like to cut out. And there's my... It's a nominal amount. It's not even that much. But the village is absurd in continuing with this ridiculous lie of recycling.

We just, via resolution, when was that? That was a couple months ago? We solidified Coastal for waste and recycling. That was in December? Was it in December? I thought it was a few months ago that we did that. So we have to look at that, Irvonne, to see about the contract and what we can do. Yeah.

But we've agreed that we want the finance director to, I will say this, just being candid. No, I will. Sometimes it feels like, one second.

Yeah, sorry.

Sometimes it feels like two steps forward and then three steps back. I think we spoke at the last time we met, we spoke about trying to be conservative and find ways in that budget that we can possibly save on things. And that's really what I did. I went home, and I reviewed the document, and I tried to figure out those ways in which would I think that, hey, we can save some money without really you know impacting the city the village negatively and then to go through the majority of the night and then just kind of have this curveball out of nowhere of like finding eighty thousand dollars and it's not as though you know we have done the work to figure out where to get this extra money it's then just asking the finance director well you figure it out so the staff now has to toil and turn their wheels along this path. And we have to kind of juggle everything again. And I think if this has been something that has been a desire, has been something that has been discussed, it can be approached in a way that doesn't feel so last minute and isn't so disheartening when you think about the work that is already going on. I'm still speaking. I'm still speaking. I'm still speaking. I got the budget at the same time that you got it and I sat with it for the days that I had to sit with it and I figured out where I wanted to get the money from and I think that that could have been done on this item as well. I do think that we have to be very cognizant of how we are instructing staff and how we are usurping their time when we think about the larger picture on actual movement, trying to get this budget passed, trying to move to the next level. I will not be on the council. But what I will say is I think that this has been a persistent problem and something that we need to look at as far as how prepared do we show up to these meetings. Because this is coming from left field and There's an impact. It's not just a thing that you can just kind of throw out there and say, well, figure it out. There's an impact, and we have to really think about it. I also don't think that just cutting something across the board is wise. Everything is different. Everything is important. Everything deserves individual analysis. I don't know how the finance director is going to do it. I don't know what everyone else's appetite is for adding this additional 80,000, but Council would be keep it as is until you have your meeting and you have some more concrete information that we can look to as to cost and benefit. And then we can talk about what that looks like in a meaningful way after we've all had a chance to look through and you've had a chance to look through to figure out where that money can come from.

That's not true. That's not true. The proposed savings so far is $36,000 on a $5 million budget. So I have plenty more comments for the 22nd, I promise you.

Irvine, why don't we wait until the 22nd, and then you can see where he comes from.

We waited until the 6th. Why not wait until the 22nd? I'm waiting until the 22nd. I've never had this many people interested in what I have to say before. I've got to say. usually have a reluctant audience. But I will say that on the 22nd, again, be ready for curveballs, batters up. I mean, it's the bottom of the ninth, let's go.

So with that being said, we have those two adjustments. We have two resolutions that we have to vote on. For resolution E1, we have a motion, we have a second. Madam Clerk, please have a roll call.

I wasn't done with mine. I'm sorry. I really appreciate everyone's patience here. There are some things that I would also like to add, but I don't want to do $80,000 worth. In the early 2000s, the village had an opportunity to purchase the former Raider Church property at approximately $900,000. Only $900,000. Some residents recently said they want to see the village have that as a park. We need to have the ability for the village to acquire properties like that for public use, including the possibility of parks and different walkways. But because we didn't have the money set aside, we couldn't seriously consider it in the early 2000s. So properties don't become available when it's convenient for our annual budget. we need to start preparing now. There may be opportunities involving other significant properties in the village in the future, including the middle school property, and I want the council and future councils to have the options when the opportunities arise. I am proposing that we start a small, $10,000 a year to create a permanent line item that can be added in the future when our financial conditions allow, when we have larger surpluses, they can always increase it. The money would carry forward from year to year and accumulate investment earnings until the council at that time determines there's appropriate public purpose property acquisition. Therefore, I would like to make, I don't know if I need to make a motion, but I make a motion to add a $10,000 line item for a year 2026, 2027 budget titled Strategic Property Acquisition Reserve. with the funds to carry forward from year to year together with attributable investment earnings where permissible and with expenditures from the reserves requiring approval by village council only so for the acquisitions of real properties for public purpose so future councils can appropriately have the funds in a reserve when the budget process doesn't allow but they might

sorry well that property comes up for sale is there keep going so i have an appetite for something like that so i i i mean i don't i don't know if the cfo's uh got all the details from that one but but uh a standing annual line item where 10 000 begins uh the first year and then 10 000 added every year specifically set aside for property acquisition to be used for public public use the villages use I would be on board with something that looked like that curious to see where else we might be able to cut to accommodate that $10,000 annually yeah so let me say a couple of things first of all Congress winters

Thank you for that, and yeah, so if it did happen where the council was able or had a chance to buy the church property, I just want to be clear about this, it had to be in the early 2000s. I've been on the council since about 2008, 2009, and since I've been on the council, that's never come before the council, and I hear a lot of rumors out there that under a previous administration, the council had a chance to buy it, but the council said they didn't wanna buy it. That's never happened while I was here. I've only missed, in all the years I've been on the council, I've only missed two meetings. And so that was never, there was never, and I would, and I hear that out there, I hear that rumor, but I would, let me just say real quick, but I would just say Like what year? Since I've been here since all that time, I have everything here. I can pull up the agenda. That's never been on the agenda since 2008, 2009, since I've been on the council. It's never been an agenda item. We've never had, at a council meeting, where there was an agenda item that it came on the item and we voted no to buy the church. That might have been conversations within the administration or might have been conversations, like inner conversations, but it's never come to a vote where we voted it down since I've been on the council.

so i think you're probably accurate with what you said early 2000s so it's probably the early 2000s when that occurred well opportunities don't mean it was an agenda but when something comes up for sale that is an opportunity and most of the councils realize that our budget is very tight they're not going to be able to say hey this property is for sale we could turn this into a nice park no i understand so i'm not saying it ever came to a council or it was but it has been sold a few times so that means it had a for sale sign at some point it had

way to purchase it okay okay I don't understand that clarification okay go ahead my favorite character in the play is devil's advocate so the next argument is going to be that this is a moot point because there are no more properties to acquire that would be reasonable to use as a as a piece of public land that could be used as a community center or park or otherwise right except that we do refer to 83rd Terrace as what the village annexed properties right and so at some point in the future there will be another annexation most likely since we are surrounded by unincorporated at some point I talked to Chief Magnuson when he first came on I said I said, why can't we, like, if there's an issue where our officers are spending time because of calls and unincorporated, like, large amount and things like this, right, it's like, well, why don't we just annex it, and then now we can at least, you know, be the caretakers in making the part of an adjacency that is not safe for residents a safe place for residents, and then that will be a boon to our village in the future, right? And he explained to me the number of extra officers that would be required to take on something like an annexed parcel of land that was already a high frequency call center, a high frequency area for emergency calls. And so there's a real cost in terms of this. And so in all of that, at some point in the future, there will be something that makes sense. We will acquire a piece of land or an opportunity will come along. there's this there's another school property on unincorporated that is wedged in between our properties it it's another opportunity of something that oh hey maybe that could be a facility that the village could use to its benefit the way that Miami Shores has a community center right and so some of these things do require vision it's true but but being prepared for something like that would be

close to if not flirting with uh wisdom yeah let me just say really quickly so i'm not against any of these things i think that um the suggestion that i gave earlier about the the harvest i think would be the the best way um but i do recognize that you know a tree ordinance is needed all right so i do recognize that harvest will come with that i think that we should really focus on trying to accomplish and i said this the other day at the budget um workshop i think we should really focus on trying to accomplish some really concrete things um i just don't know you guys if it's the right time especially with the you know possible thing coming um you know with the election or whatever with the property tax and stuff like that but i just don't know if it's the right time to take funds and put them in places that they're not being utilized that they're sitting there now we were trying to build like a reserve for like an emergency that's different but I really think that we have so many things that we need to just accomplish knock it out and get it out of the way So I think concrete things like road repair and things like that, we should find those type of concrete things to work on and do those things. Things that'll be an immediate benefit to our residents and to the village as a whole. Like those things that have been just sitting out there for years, like just focus on those things and fix those things. And then after you fix those things, then we can start to put money aside for a possible property and things like that. I'm not disagreeing with you, Councilperson Winston. I don't want to put your stuff down. I don't want to put anybody's thing down. but I just really feel like it's just year after year we have the same problems year after year after year after year after year because we never put like our focus and like our funds behind those things so let's just take one thing at least right like road repair one thing like fix the crack sidewalks everything about the sidewalks I was gonna put out sidewalk repair right like you know I mean there's cracks there I have I have I have mothers, you know, young mothers with children, they're like, Mayor, like, I got to walk in the street when I'm walking my kid in the stroller because the sidewalks are all cracked. Like, I can't even walk on the sidewalks. I just think that we just need to, and I'm not saying like right now, you know, let's like switch or whatever, let's find a priority, but I'm just saying, I think that we should think about that. I think we should kind of start to bring us to a close, think about that as we come back for the 22nd, but I really feel like we should stop just like, you know, not nitpicking, but like just throwing like little pebbles here this year and what are we gonna do about park? What are we gonna do about street repair? What are we gonna do about this? What are we gonna do about potholes? What are we gonna do about this? And they get pebble, pebble, pebble, pebble, and then, Five years from now, it's potholes and street repair and parks. Let's just take one of those things and just tackle it over like this year and if needed, the next year. And tackle that, get it out the way, and like, man, we really threw everything at that. That problem's solved. And that's where I really think that we should just focus on focusing on one thing, concrete thing, and get it out of the way. That's my opinion. But Councilperson Winters.

Well, preparing for the future has to start now. We just can't keep pushing stuff up. we can always amend a budget afterwards. We do not need to let it be concrete. So if there is an emergency and suddenly we need to pull from the council can agree to pull or change the budget funds at that point. What I am suggesting is an interest gaining line item. And I'm just going to make my motion one more time, waiting for a second. I make a motion that we add $10,000 line item for the year 2026, 2027 budget titled strategic property acquisition reserve with the funds to carry forward from year to year together with attributable investment earnings where permissible. and with expenditures from the reserve requiring approval by the current village council at that time for the acquisition of real property for public purpose. Future councils may appropriate additional funds to the reserve through their own annual budgets.

But we don't necessarily need a motion or a vote on all that, right? He's just asking if we can include it.

No, I think he wants a motion. I think he wants a vote on it.

I'll give it out a motion. I'll give a second to that motion.

I mean, if that's what's happening, I mean, I thought it was just a request for the CFO to put it for the 22nd. Do you want a vote on it? He wants a vote on it.

I'll provide the second. Before we get there, I just want to close what I was just saying off by this. I think this is an example, and I know maybe a lot of people don't go there, so they don't realize just how nice and how popular it is. But when I did the park over, it was no taxpayer dollars. So I took one issue, and I tackled it. now the park is done and the residents love it and the kids love it so like we don't have to think about the tot lot little peacock park anymore right it's done so i think that should be the focus we find something we pick it and we say this is what we're going to tackle for the residents and i just think that should be the focus we have a motion we have a second um roll call um roll call um council person winters yes

Councilperson Erbaum?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Martin? No. Mayor Nickerson?

No. Nothing against you, Councilperson, but I just think our focus should be a little bit different. Did you have anything else?

Well, you did mention about the park over here. And I want to let the audience know, there was a flooding situation on 86th Street a year or two ago. And from what I believe, Mayor, you're the one that paid for the investigatory work that found out the pipe that was broken. Was this ever reimbursed? No, it was never reimbursed. But you paid for it out of your own pocket?

About, yeah, the 86th Street one. That was years ago, though.

Yeah, but I'm just checking. Was that to do with the park or anything? Well, you just said you spent the money on the park when you did the- No, I said we did the park. I didn't say that. I said we did the park over- When you did the event at the park, you spent your money on it, right? Was it $25,000? I don't understand what's happening.

Okay, so the motion failed, right?

Yes, the motion failed.

I have no idea.

I would like to request, on the 22nd, Mr. CFO, could we change his, could we change Councilperson Winter's proposed number of $10,000 to $15,000 for the 22nd, same line item. I would like to see what that looks like. That line item with $15,000 attached to it and zero out the council salary.

All right, so let me just say really quickly, we can do that, zero out the council salary, but understand to zero out the council salary, we can put that in, but it won't kick in. We need an ordinance of two readings.

But also, Erbaum, you made the motion we don't touch the salary until October. And it was voted in like that.

The spirit of that motion was we don't increase the salary until 2027. That was the spirit of the motion. and so point taken on that but i still want to see what it looks like on the i want to see what it looks like i want to see what it looks like in the budget i want to see what it looks like and then um that's what it is it's not a motion it's a request that's correct to the cfo to look at those numbers and present something even if in his even if in his best practices that means that it's simply an alternative that he has sitting on the side where when the question is asked on the 22nd he hasn't he has he has ability to answer to it so i can answer you now no perfect so there's a 36 and a half thousand dollar savings on the table all right so any number right now that's sitting in as i stated before

sitting in contingent contingency line item in Public Works okay so take whatever you want tell me where you want to put it you guys discretion obviously I'll follow you whatever you guys decide but ten thousand fifteen thousand just tell me which department give me the exact wording the dollar amount and we'll go from there

OK. And I do not have the same opinion that we can amend the budget. If we could have, we would have amended last year's budget, which we were supposed to do, which we agreed to do, which we never did. And so I am fully prepared for the 22nd. Everything up until then, in my opinion, is next to meaningless.

CFO, are we allowed to amend the budget in the middle of the year?

Yes, the budget could be amended up until, I believe, one month after the end of the fiscal year. So FY2526, which we're currently in now, correct me if I'm wrong, time of attorney, I believe you have until October 31st to amend that particular budget.

The limitation legally is not that you cannot do a budget amendment.

I was being a little bit sarcastic.

There is a limitation. You can't do a budget amendment that places your budget out of balance. You can amend it, but you can't add something without either additional revenue from someplace or an offsetting cut because you you still must stay in balance very good but with if if you're doing that if it's a transfer or for that matter if you somehow stumble into additional revenue you can allocate it okay i just want to point out once again that the data would suggest that we will not amend the budget

You all, I was just gonna say, I think we should go to vote. Is there anything else you'd like? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm sorry, before you vote. Yes, yes. I'm sorry, before you vote, I just need some clarity. I'm adding the $15,000? Yes. Okay, can I get the exact verbiage again, please? of how you want to state it.

Mr. James. A line item for 2026-2027 budget titled Strategic Property Acquisition Reserve with the funds to carry forward from year to year together with attributable investment earnings where permissible and with expenditures from the reserve requiring approval from the village council for the acquisition of real property for public purpose. Future councils may appropriate additional funds to the reserve through their annual budget process.

Council, excuse me. That didn't pass, though. Saying future councils may appropriate funds is not a part of it. A, can't bind future councils, and B, nothing prevents that. So you can state that as your intent, but creating it now, I mean, you can't say what...

I'm looking for any council to be able to utilize the funds. I just don't want them to be able to use by the manager or the clerk or the attorney.

The restriction is appropriate. The restriction is not the issue. The restriction is appropriate for you to say, but whatever you create, what a council creates, the council can't undo.

Is there a verbiage that I should be using there?

just omit the part about what future councils may or may not do because you can't bind them. You can create it and you can give a statement of intent.

But for this purpose, we can just leave it at the title of the line item, right? Yeah. Are we having another vote?

Well, you said, I mean, I thought that Councilman Erbom's statement was to the CFO to prepare that as an alternative, but not to have the motion tonight is what Councilman Erbom said. That's correct.

I don't know if anyone else is making a motion, but I was not making a motion. That's correct. Just as the attorney stated, it was my direction. Didn't someone ask you to repeat it? All I'm asking for is the line item and the title. That's it. Got it.

So I got the $15,000. I have the line item, strategic property acquisition reserve. I have that.

But that just failed, though. The vote failed 2-2. The vote just failed 2-2. The vote just failed 2-2.

That's dead and in the past. I'm just making a request now, and I don't know if anybody else is making a motion.

You guys were confusing the CFO. He's asking different things.

I don't think the CFO is confused. Hold on a second. So, $10,000 was voted on. That did not pass. Correct. That's my understanding. So now, the way I'm reading it, if I'm wrong, correct me if I'm wrong, Councilor Erbaum is asking similar requests, no different than what the Vice Mayor asked. About the pay. but not as a motion but not as a motion that's for me for me to prepare a budget with that fifteen thousand dollars as an alternative for them to consider next correct so that's what so so that's my understanding so my next question that i have for you is am i remove that fifteen thousand dollars do you want me to remove it as the town attorney said right you have to cost i have to i need an offset So am I offsetting the commission salary, or do you want me to offset the $36,000 surplus of the savings that the vice mayor suggested? I'm sticking with the commission salary.

That's what I wanted to know. OK, fine. But it's still not a motion. Correct. Still not a motion. And for the public's benefit, currently the four positions that are not mayor are receiving $3,000 a year. The mayor is currently receiving $6,000 a year. That's not true.

Isn't that true?

everything's through everybody's the same you're three you've always everybody's the same no everybody's the same when did that change it's always been like that oh i have no okay the mayor's always been the same he's always been the same as the council okay well that simplifies everything even further 220 bucks is what a check that we get made 223.38 is mine i'm sure these guys know what theirs is but it's 223.38 net net okay so just understand that uh that last year um That number would have gone to just over $5,000 net a month. So from 223 to little old me to just over 5,000 to little over me is what was passed last year. And so I use my 223, I count on it. I call the clerk and say, are they in yet? That's my phone bill. I need, you know, it helps, all right? But I'm not knocking my 223 by any stretch of the imagination. and i agree that the council needs to have an updated uh salary structure but for this purpose uh i think that the 15 000 would be better served towards any type of surplus any type of surplus then uh then uh i'm willing i'm willing to give up the 223 if it means the village gets a surplus somewhere for something somehow

All right, you guys. All right. So we have that F1. We had a motion, and we had a second. Or E1.

E1. This is the millage?

This is the tentative adoption of the millage rate.

We're at 8.1 that we lowered it the first time. This should be an easy vote because we should have a plan of what the millage rate is going to be the next year, two years from now, three years from now, four years from now, and that plan should be reducing. We reduced it by 1 tenth last year. Is that correct? No. It was the second year we reduced it. Reduced it. So it was 8.32 years ago. Then last year we went from 8.2 down to 8.1. 8.1. And right now we're sitting with the same 8.1 as last year.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Last year was 8.2.

Two years ago we were at 8.3. We reduced it to 8.2 in the current fiscal year that we're in now. And then now we're proposed. You guys approved last meeting.

So this would be only the second reduction.

Second reduction in the last two years.

In two years.

You guys, we reduced it each year the last two years. All right.

And it's a mill, the reduction each time is one mill.

I think that with proper planning, the village can get to a point where we can be going negative on the millage into a prescribed point in the future. But I mean, I can't, I cannot support rollback rate at the I mean, I can support a target of getting to rollback and even negative at some point in the future.

We went to 8.1. We can always lower it, we just can't raise it, okay?

I believe the only other person on the council who has any interest in lowering the rate would be Councilperson Winters. Do you have any desire to make a motion to adjust the 8.1 to anything other than 8.1?

Not at this point.

I'm asking Councilperson Winters directly. CFO, attorney, just like the budget can be amended in the future, millage rates, they can't be amended in the future, right? They have like a set date.

You set the millage rate for a fiscal year. Your final vote on that is the second budget hearing. Whatever you set it at, that's what the tax bills go out for. So no, you cannot adjust a millage rate mid-year because you set it for a year and people are billed and then they have to pay. And that's why you have to do it by September 30 so the tax bills go out in November so people, if they want to pay early, can pay at a discount.

And we have one more vote for this millage rate before the 30th? No.

You have a vote on a final millage rate at the second budget hearing. You vote the tentative rate tonight, then you have a final vote at the second budget hearing. But you cannot vote for a budget that's based on a millage rate that doesn't support the budget. It must be in balance.

We will be able to look at the budget and the millage rate again if we vote yes today. It means that it's not meaning yes permanently if we decide to change something in two weeks. Thank you.

Whatever you vote tonight as tentative can be changed at the second budget hearing if it complies with law, including the requirement that it be in balance. We can't just say we're going to charge less and hope it works out in the end.

Thank you. I would like to move to reopen this to public comment.

I'll second the motion.

Motion to have a second. All in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Hearing none.

You have a reopening of the public comment 1012pm.

This is on the millage rate. You have a comment come up name and address for the record. And you have three minutes.

Hello, Thomas Pulliam, 205 Northeast 86th Street. My position is the same. I believe we should be at the rollback rate. We know over multiple years since the pandemic, property values have been shooting way, way up. All the municipalities have been collecting that. Why can't we maintain the same budget we had physical year 2026 when we're saying we're having $129,000 surplus projected? You're telling me we can't carry that same revenue projection into next year. We need to increase the property taxes 4%. Like that kind of behavior is what's going to drive people to vote yes on this amendment that the village is so, you know, concerned about, about, you know, if the village will continue or not. Um, you know, you guys continuously. increasing the property tax even though it's just four percent i know my property it's like 75 bucks maybe for the whole year the percentage that goes to el portal still going up still going up and you guys know the state of the economy the unemployment what is happening with the labor force and you are giving nothing to residents whatsoever and you act like you don't care whatsoever It is a disgrace. It is a dereliction of duty. It is just, it is crazy. It's greed. You want to talk about greed, about how much council people make or not across municipalities? Look at the greed of how much money you're taking from the villagers to pay staff and pass 100% to contractors who we have residents all the time coming up here voicing complaints against these individuals. And all you do is sit up there and say that, oh, I blindly trust the staff, whatever. We need this 4% property tax raise. I don't care at all about you residents, property tax owners, homeowners. Let's keep it high. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else for the military?

Hi, Ashley Lucio, 127 Northeast 9th Street. I'm in agreement with Tom. I think we should go to the rollback rate. You all have allotted $1.5 million in increased expenditures over two years. At the same time, you've had property values increase by 214% since 2016. You're making more money than you ever had from property tax revenue. And like Tom said, every single year, Our property tax goes up. Mine is about to hit a threshold that makes me consider, is it worth it? Okay? I talked to you last night, Erbom, about this, about my personal situation. And repeatedly you're up here saying we need an 8.1 millage rate. You're not hearing us, again. The economy is not in a good state. People in this village, I know we have a lot of people moving in. Three homes just sold for $1.3 million. You guys are gonna get your property tax revenue. It's gonna come in, it's gonna continue to come in. But you need to think about the longer term residents, people that moved here before COVID, that did not buy million dollar homes, who are on a budget.

That's it, thank you. Thank you.

Kirby Altador, 197 Northwest 88th Street, Miami, Florida 33150. You can balance that budget. The millage doesn't have to go up. There are other layers, other levers that you can pull to get where you need to go to balance. If you're going to increase it, it's going to impact other people in this village. And as Ashley stated earlier, The economy is only going to get worse, right? People are going to start to hurt, and that's going to impact the villages at some point. So I would push that you guys roll back and reduce the millage rate. You have a discretionary budget that's $10,000 that only $180 has been used so far, and it's projected to use 200. You can reduce that in half. There are other buckets of expenditures. on that budget for 2027 that can be reduced and help save the village that's my comment thank you thank you very much

Velvet Connelly, 355 Northeast 87th Street. I was not sure about this issue. And I was trying to just listen and hear the multiple sides of the angles. But as I've sat in these budget hearings for the last two meetings so far, I see so many things about this budget that can be adjusted. It appears that there is from whether it was the timing that people received the budget to be able to look over it thoroughly. Maybe that was where it started. But even from there, not taking the time to look over each item and really study where we have pockets of money sitting. There's a lot of places where money can be reallocated within this budget with a little bit of creativity and a little bit of time put into really thinking thoughtfully line item by line item. and so increasing the taxes should literally be a last resort it should be looked at as an emergency lever not something that we should discuss as if it's the only as if it's an option on the table like everything else to me that's something we should discuss once we've exhausted all other options and the options haven't been exhausted if we're honest you have not exhausted all other options to see where money can come from, how we can reallocate, where do we have funds that are being used in ways that are not in the best interest of the village. Those things haven't happened. So I don't understand why we're even discussing an increase in taxes right now. It seems inappropriate and it seems ill-timed. It should not be a topic of conversation until all other options have been looked at and ruled out. And I haven't seen that take place. I see a lot of places in this budget where money can be put into other areas that would be more meaningfully used. And I haven't heard those things being discussed. I haven't even heard them being brought up, to be totally honest. One that I even brought up to the mayor when I was here on the meeting on Tuesday, there's a $30,000 training budget in the police budget. It says year to date that they use $1,500 of it, and it's still asking for another $30,000. Why isn't that being adjusted according to the actuals? There's a lot of places in the budget like that, and we haven't heard any explanation for those things last Tuesday or tonight. But we're talking about raises in the millage rate. It makes no sense.

Just for the record, there is zero discussion about raising the millage rate. I understand the argument that by maintaining the millage rate at its present value, that functionally means you'll pay higher taxes because the property values are going up, but this is where we get into the weeds sometimes, and so at no point has there ever been a discussion of raising the millage rate.

Next for public comment.

Daniel Rojas, 60 Northeast 86th Street. I want to echo the sentiment of my neighbors. Basically, looking at this budget, it just looks like we're just rolling over on the same things for the next year. There is plenty of room to cut costs, and we're continuing to just being in this meeting, seeing this budget makes me understand the people that are supporting the notion to vote yes on three. Basically, people are upset and tired of bloated budgets, where just because we have budget, we're going to spend it. We've had a budget where the police could buy this all-terrain vehicle. They had the budget, so they spent it. So if we look at the budget as a personal piggy bank where we can just move the money around to where it's needed, what's the point of the budget? Let's have an actually planned budget where money designated should not be moving around from one place to another without the proper approval and the proper procedure. So at this point, I also support the notion of rolling back the military. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else public comment about the military? Okay, seeing none. Closing public comment at 1022pm. All right, you guys, what do you want to do before we vote? We do have a motion in a second on this particular one. So all right, so this is what we have to do. So we have to take a vote. If you don't want it to be 8.1 any longer, then just vote no on this vote.

Can I respond to the residents?

Go ahead. I just wanted to respond to what they said.

So I see about a dozen people in the audience and seven of you are candidates. And I'm speaking to you right now as a neighbor and a councilman. I support the rollback rate. I've advocated for lowering our millage rate. But one of the realities of serving on a council is that when you know you don't have the votes, making a motion doesn't necessarily change the outcome. I'm proud to see so many residents stepping up and running for office, including the three up here. That's 10 candidates that are here tonight. There's roughly a dozen overall candidates. Some of you will probably be sitting up here in a few months, and you've heard tonight from the CFO that budgets can be amended after adoption. If you believe the priorities need to change, you'll soon have the opportunity to participate directly in those decisions. I don't believe I have the votes tonight for the rollback rate but I'm glad we're having this discussion and I'm glad so many people care about El Portal and are willing to step forward to serve. Go El Portal.

Can I add something before you guys go ahead? Fully understand the sensitivity of the issue. What I'm about to say is strictly as the CFO and taking pure emotion out of the decision. We hear a lot about a negative fund balance. What are we going to do about it? How are we going to fix it? The simple answer is by generating revenue. So the generating revenue or cutting expenses. Now when we prepare a budget, we prepare a budget like we did for this current fiscal year, we prepared a budget and now we're 10 months into the budget and we're expecting and proposing hopefully a $129,000 surplus. That's, again, not utilizing the amounts that are there for all the individual line items. Now, to specifically answer the question regarding education and the police department, why it's showing $158 when it's budgeted 30, and why we're showing 30 again this year for next year is because last year they did spend close to $30,000, so it's continuing education for the police department. We proposed to do it again this year. We ran high in other expenses, so the right thing to do is we managed the budget as best as we can, and we saw that other areas were high, so we went lower in the other areas. so meaning point being we didn't spend the money on education that doesn't mean that the need is not going to be there next year right so that's why the number is there this for next year so you might see these fluctuations of budgeted numbers not having the allocation and seeing the proposed number for next year again because we're trying to plan out what's happening for the next 12 months it's very hard to predict what that number is going to be so I always say and I preach to everybody is that we look at totality within the department ideally and then globally within the individual fund and that's what we're doing here so yes we have a surplus of 120 potentially let's call it a hundred and thirty thousand dollars that hundred and thirty thousand dollar surplus goes strictly to offset the negative fund balance of the village Bottom line, so we have a $440,000 shortfall, $130,000 profit surplus this year. That reduces the shortfall. So how do we get out of the hole? How do we build our coffers? By spending less and generating more revenue. So we could... And the only way we can generate the rent, and unfortunately, the millage rate is where the village, the Ad Valorem is where the village gets most of its revenue. So again, I understand the sensitivity. I'm not one to affect people's pockets, so I fully understand it. But I need to stress to the commission, to the council, that every point reduction in the millage rate is $40,000 of lost revenue. Now, we could find the cut the expense, fine. We could sit here and say cut the expense, cut the expense, but let's not forget the other elephants in the room, which are the negative fund balance that we're trying to get ourselves out of, and the bigger elephant in the room, which is Amendment 3 in November. Nobody's asked the CFO what the ramifications are of Amendment 3, right? Been here for 10 months, all we hear about it, nobody's, so I'm gonna tell everybody what the ramifications are because I think everybody should know what the ramifications are if they haven't done the, I'm sorry? You have, okay, so based on my calculation, and correct me if I'm wrong, the average home owner, million dollar home in El Portal will save roughly $1,500 a month, a year, on property tax year one, based on the exemption, and double that year two, okay? Now, rough numbers, not every property is a homestead exemption, right? You're looking at a $400 million tax roll, at a $1,500 savings, you're looking at a potential loss of $600,000, maximum $600,000. I don't think it's gonna be $600,000, but conservative, let's say half, right? So we're looking at somewhere between a 300, conservative to a $500,000 potential shortfall in lost revenue if the amendment gets passed year one and double that year two. So based on all that, again, I sat quietly and I feel the pain. I'm a home. I was a former homeowner. I pay insurance. I'm a I'm a renter. So I pay. It gets passed on to me. So I fully understand it. But as the CFO, I feel it's imperative for me to share with the council that any reduction of the millage rate, in my opinion, is just going to adversely affect the financial situation of the village because we just don't know what's going to happen in November. And I'll just leave it at that. Thank you.

All right, you guys. So is there anything else you guys want to say?

On the 22nd, the millage rate will be on the agenda once again to confirm, correct? Yeah. Okay.

All right. So we currently have a motion. We have a second.

Roll call.

Right now. So we need a roll call. So roll call now.

Roll call. Councilperson Winters. Yes. Councilperson Erbom.

How we arrived from 8.3 down to 8.1, I made both of those motions. So in the spirit of getting to the 22nd, I'm saying yes.

Vice Mayor Martin. Yes. Mayor Nickerson. Yes. Motion passes by a form. Sorry.

So this is for the budget we'll revisit on 22nd. E2, we have a motion, we have a second. Yes.

Councilperson Winters.

Yes.

Councilperson Erbom. no vice mayor martin yes mayor nickerson yes motion passes thank you very much um do you have a motion to adjourn you guys so moved yeah we have um

I thought there were some other people. Scott Kobrick, 400 Northeast 85th Street. I just wanted to, on the notion of generating revenue, obviously the other element here, one thing i wanted to ask do we have red light cameras things of that nature do you know um is that something that we could consider from my understanding that could generate like two hundred thousand dollars a year per intersection in a city in a village like this um you know is that something that we can consider and the second part of that is somebody mentioned to me um that that would just go to the police fund and not be able to be used by the village so i just want a clarification on that as well if somebody has an answer to that

I'll answer once you're done. I got you. Yeah, that's it. All right, thank you. I'll answer it once you're done.

And also, I guess on that same note, I know Miami Beach also just put in noise cameras for the loud, modified, muffler, crazy vehicles that I hear every twice a minute. So think about how much revenue we could get from a couple of those right on Biscayne Boulevard, 80 seconds, or whatever, I guess, in El Portal. But, you know.

Got you.

Thank you very much. Good to see you, Mr. Kovac, as always. Anyone else good in welfare?

Hello, Thomas Pulliam, 205 Northeast 86th Street. My first one is a point of clarification. Earlier in the conversation, we were saying that the physical year 25 audit that said $455,000 unassigned. was just kind of a layover that's actually tied to a $60,000 Cinevis debt. However, just now the CFO said we are in $455,000 decline and that the $130,000 surplus from this year will go to mitigate that. Those are two separate incongruent things. that we need to get to the bottom of before there's a vote on September 22nd.

Yes, absolutely.

My second question is I know the Village has different insurance policies, including with the League of Cities, which is what I believe is financing our lawsuit defending the developer against a resident and homeowner for the launch at Little River. So I'd like to know where in this packet are our insurances coverage? How much are we paying to the League of Cities? Was this 25% budget increase the attorney asked for having to do with fees that the village is being charged? In that lawsuit, I don't see any insurance information whatsoever, you know, how much our policies cost, et cetera, in this 16-page document. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else good in welfare?

Velvet Connelly, 355 Northeast 87th Street. I was looking at the 2025 budget because the CFO said that they did spend the 30,000 on the education and training. And if I'm reading it- Yeah, and if I'm reading it wrong, you correct me. I just looked at the budget that you guys had on the website from 2025. And it says that you guys spent less than 5,500 of that year to date on the budget that's on the website. So it appears by the information we've been given, if I'm wrong, I'm just going based off of the information that we have in front of us.

No problem, I don't mean to interrupt you, I'm sorry. But you're looking at a year to date numbers which only go through July. So you're not factoring in what transpired in August and September. So my point is that the expense occurred after July. Similar to what we were just saying, similar to what I'm describing to you now, we described earlier with the tree trimming, right? We have a $50,000 expense for the tree trimming. It's budgeted, but we haven't spent it yet. But I'm forecasting to spend it. You understand what I'm saying? So it hasn't happened yet, but last year it happened in, I guess, August or September of last year.

Thank you. Thank you for answering the question. And I think for me, it also boils down to that we were asking for the budget. We were asking for the 2025 budget. We've been asking for it up until we got the 2026 budget, right? But either way, at this point, the one other thing that I would like to continue to ask for, since I've been coming to these meetings, we have the conversations about what we need to spend money on. And I understand that we have to spend money on things, but I have yet to be at any meeting where we have a conversation where we talk about how can we bring revenue into our village. We never discuss revenue generation. We pretend it's something that we can't do or we dismiss it like it's an impossibility. And then we run to the race to the bottom about why we don't have money for things and why we have to cut all of the amenities for the residents. We don't talk about revenue generation ever. And so I'm just wondering at any of these conversations around our village finances if we can have one discussion. with any ideas about how we can generate revenue in the village and include that in these conversations to see if there are other places where we can generate money to put into our budget.

Thank you. Anyone else good and welcome?

Ashley Lucio.

I just want to say that I spent many years in corporate in highly regulated financial services firms, working with CFOs, CEOs, annual reports, quarterly reporting for Wall Street. even in those corporations where we were generating some of them up to a trillion dollars a year okay we had times where we had to tighten the belt we had years where we had to say no to things like training to things like excessive office supplies that could be shared across departments you know to things like I don't know, a $2.29 million budget and increasing police staff, doubling it over a period of what, five years? Things like that, right? So I think there's a lot of room on this budget for you all to say no. Say we can't do that this year. We've got a really bad economic situation that's getting worse. Maybe not for people who are still working or maybe have their own businesses, but trust me, it's coming. It's gonna get even worse. This is the year you guys want to tighten your belt. And like the CFO was saying, he had a very good idea. You want to pay down that deficit, right? But you have $130,000 surplus. But you're talking about a full-time arborist for $80,000, things like that. You guys have to really, really balance the budget and really think about the expenditures in a much more thoughtful way. So I just want you to consider that. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come up here tonight and kind of, because I know I've said some pointed things to you tonight, but it's not my intention. But I think that I'm very sensitive about that because I very clearly explained to you kind of what the economic situation is. I mean, I know we have a lot of people moving in that have a lot of money, but that is not the case for everyone in this town. So it's very painful for me to see that I have to keep dipping into my pocket and I'm getting no services. There's no facilities in this town. There's no benefit to be paying taxes that are this high, as high as Miami Shores. So please consider tightening your belt. And just because you have the money, just because you have a surplus doesn't mean you have to spend it. Think about your reserves. Think about future planning. Like Charlie said, I did like his idea about the property acquisition. There's a lot of potential there. I don't think that amount is going to get us where we need within 100 years to buy something, but still, it's a start. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I will say for the record, no one ever needs to apologize to me for words. I have exceptionally thick skin, and I tend to not take things personally, believe it or not.

Thank you. Anybody else good and welfare? Hearing none, good and welfare are closing. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Moved by Vice Mayor Martin. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Second by Councilperson Erbong. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Hearing none. The Village of Elbertau first budget hearing for fiscal year 2026-2027 is adjourned at 1041 p.m.

Everyone in the audience, if you want to meet with me tonight, I'll take everyone out for a free drink, pay my treat. Anyone wants to talk, is this a long meeting to go through? It is a very difficult time to spend during a budget. Please let me know if you want me to come meet with you tonight.

What's going on?