Town Commission - Regular Meeting

5:30. Um, uh, you just gave us your Could you tell me again? Mr. Jones now. Okay. Uh, our town, um, our, uh, deputy town clerk, Mr. Jones. Jones. Yes. Okay. Sorry. Um, will, uh, call the, um, the role. All right. Mayor Allison Dennington, here. Vice Mayor Terry Cronin, here. Commissioner Anna Butler here. Commissioner Tim Reid here. Commissioner Sher Corey here. Town Manager Marie Smith here. Building official Jeff Parsons here. Building assistant Steve Freeman here. Finance manager Jennifer Kerr here. Fire Chief Gavin Brown here. And interim town clerk Sid Jones is also present. All right. And we will stand and say the pledge of allegiance.

I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, we will have a moment of silence. All right. Are we ready? Okay. Uh, I'll say the civil civility pledge. Uh, the commission and the staff of the town of Melbourne Beach pledged to conduct all public discourse in a civil manner. The mayor and all members of the commission will treat one another with courtesy and respect and will ask the public to do the same towards the commission, towards each other and towards staff. We will be respectful of one another even when we disagree. We will direct all comments toward the issues and we will avoid personal attacks. Okay, with that said, I will open it up to public comment for anything that is not on the agenda. Um, and then we will get to the uh the items on the agenda which are the budget. But

anything not on the agenda, if anyone would like to come up and speak, now's your chance. Okay, we will close general public comment and get right to business. Item A will be uh town manager, Miss Smith, uh page three of the packet. I turn it over to you. Yeah, we can. Is it possible to to turn one of the camera? Can we do we have one of the cameras on this while?

Okay. I mean, I think honestly if if we had I don't know if it's possible. I don't know if you could turn this one all the way because they don't people don't need to see us when but they might want to see the manager when she's giving the presentation but I don't know. So the um it's the one that normally faces the audience. Okay. Oh, okay.

Okay. While Mr. I just wanted to set the table here with our budget discussion. I know sometimes you get the budget and it's a bunch of columns and numbers and we wanted to um not just me but our staff here. We wanted to have a discussion with you about what you feel are the priorities for the town and for the residents of the town and also let you know some of the challenges and some of the things that we also are experiencing so that we can have a good conversation and so that the next time we present to you budget you know we'll have a really good understanding of where we all are with this. So it might be a little different than what um you had before as far as a start but this is really a good conversation going for for all of us. Um, and as you can see,

thank you. Oh, there we go.

And as you can see, we have um a lot of the uh department heads here. Um, Chief Xander will be meeting with you separately about his budget items, and I know he has contacted you to make individual appointments. So, um, he's not here today, but, uh, um, staff was very eager to be here to have this conversation and listen in. Um, so with with that, uh, Sid, if you could flip to the next slide. So, when we look at a lot of the items, I want really wanted to start with, you know, u three tradeoffs, the three things that are interconnected and they call it the triple constraint because if you want one thing, it means something else is going to compromise. They also call so the three areas are you know your scope which is basically your services um or if it's a project how much of a project how much of a road do you want to pave you know if you're going to pave two roads that type of thing that's your scope uh the second thing is the costs where is the money going to come from it's going to be from the millillage rate you know fee assessments um anything that you use to fund your scope and then finally is the time how long is it going to take to complete that project or or program some things, you know, it's going to be an ongoing thing, so it doesn't matter as much, but some things you really like, you know, maybe storm water pipes, you want to get them done sooner than later. Next one. So, here's where the trade-offs come in. Um, and I just kind of put three of them up there really quick. So, if you want something done quickly and you want it done inexpensively, you are probably going to give up on quality, you know, and so that's something you need to do um know know about. Um, if it's fast and cheap, you know, you're going to have less quality or your scope's going to be very shrunk and small. Um, next thing is if you want it fast and you want high quality, you're going to pay for that, right? And everyone knows that from experience. It's going to be very expensive. Um, and then finally, if you want something that's inexpensive but still high quality, it's going to take a longer time because you've got to phase that out. So, I just want you to

consider consider those things. Again, it's called a triple constraint. Um, we use it in project management um, and in budgeting. So, it's something just for a lot of these items as you think about, you know, are we going to fund this all at once? Are we going to fund this maybe in phases or so? Um, and that's a balance that we have to do, you know, and you all would know best what, you know, our residents want. And so, you know, I'm going to present now some some things and these are not, you know, completely complete of everything that you may want to fund, but I'm going to bring up some of the ideas that I've heard over the past three months that people have brought up and also our staff here has heard from. So, why don't we get started? So, here's just a general snapshot of our budget. You know, almost 5.3 million dollars. We have about two and a half in reserves and our middleage rates uh 4.6. So revenue, we have about 5.3 in in revenue coming in. Um and that's all the old numbers. So I'm going to start with infrastructure improvement. Um our budget this year we have 52,000 for infrastructure. Um and in previous years we've had um more than double that. I think uh 23 was 115,000. And this is for um this is not for new roads. This is just to do maintenance on the roads. Um you all probably know just when we repaved uh you know Riverview it was about a million dollars or so. Um 52,000 is a pothole repair you know 115,000. So I just you know want you to think about the order of magnitude of that. You know do we want to pave roads or do we just want to to fill the potholes right? um public works, there's a number of different things that have been pushed back. Uh the elevator for instance in the building uh needs to be updated and we need to make sure that it is up to code. So um that's one thing

that we um have put off that needs to that's coming up. Uh there's impending roof repairs to the town hall. They're leaks. Um I talked to uh the public works director. We may not need to replace the whole roof, but we definitely need to uh short it up so that we don't have the leaks. Uh uh Reichman U Park though the bathrooms, we probably need to replace those roofs. Uh so that's going to be uh another cost over there. I think they have the um you know the sunlight that comes through. So um you're going to have to we're going to have to look at what that cost is going to be because it is leaking and uh it is going to it is in need of repair. um you know the playground equipment we have to budget for that that may be something that we budget over a few years it's not something that we need to replace all at once but it is something that we need to make sure that we are thinking about you to make sure that uh you know the it's quality and that it's safe you know with the u you know sea air and with the heat um you know the equipment even though it's you know very very hard plastic compounds it it still does need to be replaced after a number of years and then there's other equipment equipment, smaller equipment for public works such as uh pumps like when the streets start flooding or so. Um I talked to the chief Brown and uh he said that our pump our pump with the fire department uh you know is no longer working. So we are going to have to probably buy a new pump. Um now and I noticed in the town ordinance that it requires a capital improvement program, anything that's 10,000 or more and has a life of five years or more. And uh so we we need to discuss some of these things um that you know where we want to put our money. Um I talked to uh uh the town planner. He said and to Ryan um our town attorney and he says that our comprehensive plan does need to be updated and that could be done with amendments, but we definitely need to do that. So we're going to have to put

money aside for that in planning. Um we need to pri prioritize the road segments, you know, if you wish to do more than just filling potholes. Uh I mentioned as I mentioned the town hall, there are some structures that need to be um you know renovated and uh repaired. Um as well as the fire station uh the park equipment as I mentioned. Um I didn't did not mention this yet, but the Ocean Park Pavilion, they need replacement. Um I talked they're at the end of life. I talked to again the public works director went down there. They said we have patched as much as we could and they really just need to be replaced. The structures need to be replaced. And then um another big one is the storm the storm water basin improvements. Um and then there's something that comes up every so often that is a surprise and it is it is more often than every so and I'll give you an example. Last week u there was part of the road that collapsed in at 6 and oak uh and it was due to a corroding uh metal pipe there. Uh what had happened is that the contractors they were supposed to remove the pipe or or they were supposed to fill it with concrete. And as you can see in that first picture there, I don't know if you could see to the right of the picture, it looks like they did fill it partially with concrete and then the rest of the pipe they did not. And that part of the pipe just caved in and the road was starting to cave in and somebody's front end of their car could have fallen in there. So we were able to get the contractors out there very quickly um to pave the road and that's a picture there to the right. But those kinds of things happen, you know, that's probably a 20 $30,000 repair that we had to do and it was an emergency. So, um, you know, under the the ordinances I'm allowed to approve that if it's an emergency repair and, um, you know, we we have to look at that in the budget. Um, and we have we found places where we can take that out from, but this was something that's not budgeted for. So we do have some money

there um you know for maintenance and for these kinds of things but it's something that we have to make sure we have enough of you know if we want to do do other kinds of projects as well. Next slide. So storm water improvement um we had the uh workshop with basin 10 the analysis as you know um and uh and the upshot of it was that um we are you know they recommended that we uh increase the size of the main trunk line uh out of oak and maybe add inlets upstream and uh start uh TVing the the pipes. Um there's also the the we can't forget Melby, but the uh requirements to put up uh grates or ballards on certain outflow pipes. Uh Tom Davis uh had uh talked to uh uh Florida wildlife and we've gotten a list of priorities. Um you know, with the Rotary Club has tried to raise some funds for us for that as well. Um and we really appreciate that, but that that's there. We we will still need more for that. Um, that's something maybe we can do in phases. You know, the pipes that probably are going to like the one Melaby was trapped in and the ones that are that are completely submerged for most of the year, those are the ones that we're going to hit first. And uh, Florida Wildlife has already put kind of a a prioritization list for us. So, we just need to put some pricing to it as as we see fit. Um, and then the storm water master plan, and I'm calling it a master plan, but it's a it's a plan on, you know, what we want to fix. um you know in 2014 was the last time we did a comprehensive master plan for storm water and it really needs to be updated. Um so the pricing of obviously is going to be different. That was 12 years ago. Um and you know we talked about basin 10 but there are a lot of areas too where we're um seeing a lot of issues and so

you know uh we really need somebody a professional to kind of prioritize it. So that might be something else that you want to consider because storm water keeps keeps being a perpetual theme that keeps coming up. Um so some of the things maybe we want to discuss. We can discuss it, you know, I can stop and we discuss them as we go or um we can discuss it at the end, but I just put some questions up here for you like what level of storm water funding do you think would be sustainable each year? you know, um should we have an assessment um collected by nonadvalorum method? I know that Commissioner Reid had uh mentioned maybe looking at that um how are we going to prioritize the improvements um you know and uh um you know looking at some of the save our Indian River Lagoon funds that uh you you'll see a presentation at the next regular town meeting. um you know swailes and exfiltration are are ways that we can uh gain some funding for um for such programs um including uh included in that because it reduces nitrates into the Indian River Lagoon. Um so that might be something else that maybe we want to kind of step up. It's kind of had mixed reviews and I think it's been a little bit dor dormant for a while but maybe that might be something we want to do is they're looking to um you know put that tax that halfcent tax back on the ballot. Um so as you know uh the town resolution that you did earlier this year year 20262 it does preserve our ability for collecting nonadvalorum assessments for this fiscal year. So that may be something that you want to think about. Okay. Um, firefighters. I um, you know, we know that the the volunteer firefighter model is declining as our population is aging and and the population is also changing. You know, a

lot of folks have tech jobs or work from home jobs and and they may not feel that volunteering for the firefighting for the firefighters department is is a priority. So, they're just, you know, different needs. We also are seeing, you know, people with young kids Uh so that's why you all had approved for uh three new firefighter positions that were created. Um and through that that budget increased uh to 734,738 um from about $400,000. Uh we didn't get any grants. So we need a long-term funding plan uh for um financing this. Um, you know, we do have a new dispatch contract that combines our police and fire under the county and uh I believe Chief Brown that it's 25,000 over the next three years if I'm correct. I think it is. Yes, he says yes. So that's some stability that we know for the next three years and we can budget that money in. Um so that that's actually a plus there. But uh you know we need to think about what funding options do we want to use non-advalorum uh advalorum with the millillage increase um and then we of course are going to continue the hybrid model as long as we can with the volunteer and the paid firefighters. So um that will continue and that's going to be the base but we still need to have a dedicated stream of funding for the three firefighters. Um I did want to mention that we did put out the RFP for the non-advalorum um you know recommendations and that will be up till June 5th. Um that is out there as well as the uh RFP for the grant writer. Um as well as the RFP for the planner. So those three RFPs are out there. Um they're due Jul J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J June 5th and we actually added a button sid added a button to the front page so you can find those RFPs very easily and I have gotten uh one or two calls about the grant

writer position. So um I know people are finding it. Okay. Um health insurance, this is a big issue to the folks that you see here. Um so because of the expiration of the ACA tax credits um we're seeing double digit increases like 20 to 40% along u in Bvard County alone. Um so we know the health insurance costs are going to rise significantly as they did. They rose I think what 15 to 20% last year. Yeah they rose they were quite big. Um so we need to evaluate our plan options. We're a small town. Um, and also the other thing is maybe the employer contribution level. Um, we're doing some research right now. I have um sent an email out to all the town managers in Bvard County to ask them what plans they're on, if they're pulling in efforts. Um, we're going to see what what we can get and Jenny is helping me with that um to see if there's any other better options, but everyone is telling us that they're seeing the same things. Friday we have a town manager meeting. I'm going to definitely hit up everybody for that. Um, but I wanted to give you examples of what it is with this health insurance. So, um, an employee, these are all true examples. An employee went to urgent care for a sinus infection and found the co-pay was $90 and if the person didn't have insurance, it would have been $100 that, you know, on our insurance. Um, before surgery, another employee went to surgery. uh she had to have some urine analysis done and um had to do it at the hospital because that's where the surgery was. So couldn't go to one of the uh Quest labs and because that employee did not go to uh Quest Lab, the employee had to pay $220 just for a

urine test. Um, and then lastly, this we have an employee. He had who has a young family and he pays uh $700 per paycheck. Um, he's not one of our higher paid people. Um, last year we got a raise and um the raise did not cover the increase in the health insurance. So that employee actually had a decrease in their paycheck because the insurance costs went up higher than the than the uh raise that we gave them. So um these are all real people, real examples. Um there's a whole lot more but um I have brought it up I think you know I think with the first or second meeting where I told you the code enforcement officer we had for a very short time quit because he said I I can't afford to work here because the insurance um so these are very real issues. Um, and I know people don't want to hear about raises, but I think health insurance is something that most people can get behind and say this is a this is a real need, you know, and we we've got to make sure that employees at least have that to take care of their health, the health of their loved ones. So, I just want to bring this up as an issue and um, you know, Jenny and I are going to do more research on that and hopefully bring you some proposals, but I just wanted to put that on the board there. Um I have uh our building department official here, Jeff Parson's joining us today along with Steve Freeman, the the building assessment. Um but we know that so the right now the the building department budget is about 233,000. Um and uh this fee schedule was adopted in 2024. We're going to have to change that fee schedule for a number of reasons. There's two pieces of legislation, HB 399 and HB 803 that was just signed this past weekend um that

are are going to um really change the way we look at how we how we um put fees on on permits. Uh it does not allow us anymore to put a percentage of the project as the fee. It's about the time and um materials basically to uh you know assess the permits. Um so we're going to have to benchmark it with comparable municipalities. Um and then we have some we've already had Jeff take a look at you know updating the fees and um Jeff maybe you can talk to this a little more especially the last bullet point if you could please.

Yeah go ahead. Okay. So, um the fees, just to to back up a little bit and and look at House Bill 803, what it has mandated that we do um as a jurisdiction, and this is a this is an issue, just so you know, you're not alone. Um this is across the entire state, that valuation is no longer allowed to be used to determine a building permit fee. Now, one of the advantages of using valuation was it allowed us to um uh basically uh have an a natural increase as inflation goes up. So, we're going to lose that ability. So, we have to look moving to next week's budget before we can actually determine uh or next year's budget before we can determine how much we need to charge for building permits this time around. But um the the the first issue is it comes down to uh if we can't use valuation then how do we do it? And um I've come up with as simple as a fee schedule as I can come up with. Um I'm sure that there are a few things on here which I have missed. I'm still working on it. So if anybody has any suggestions, please throw them up. Say, "Oh, what if I do this or what if I do that?" So, um I I I'll spare you the details of running through what everything is, but essentially um so like remodel single family homes and stuff like that would be based on a square footage um uh amount. So 20 25 cents a square foot um to cover the administrative side. Um and to cover for permits that don't use square footage. For example, pools we can do per gallon, roofs per square, windows per unit. Um that way we can capture enough to cover our administrative costs. Now we have to demonstrate that those are real costs. So, um, what we've done is we've gone

through the budget and we're Steve and I are working on putting together, um, right now, uh, out of that $232,000, how much of that has to come has to come from this side of the administrative fee for the building permit? and we're working on that using um uh last year's budget and the year before to try to make a comparison. Um that so that's that side of it. The other side of it is uh the inspection and plan review side. And what we're looking to do on there is to put an a a real cost estimate into um how much a building uh uh inspection costs. And from what we've put together, um, between what CAP charges or if you had another private, you know, uh, contractor in here, um, you're looking at roughly, um, about $125 roughly, um, per inspection. So, it's going to increase what the inspection line item looks like, but it's going to decrease the other because they have to be real costs involved. So, historically, we have a very expensive home going in, they're going to pay a a tremendous amount more for their building permit than somebody that has a modest home going in. And it has to do with the valuation even though the homes may be the same size. But, we're not allowed to do that anymore. So, we have to be able to recapture those that revenue from somewhere. And um this appears to be the the best way to go about it. That's what most other jurisdictions are doing. I still have my ears, you know, to the to the road uh trying to um you know, get any additional information I can find. Um as far as plan review goes in House Bill

803, um it's it's very clear that the uh legislators have put the equal value on um inspections as it does for plan review. So trying to determine plan review costs is something that the state took care of us took care of for us. So we don't have to worry about that. So that that's at least one little thing off our shoulders. Uh if I'm getting into too much detail here, I I apologize. I'm sorry. Um but the the the purpose of this is to be able to talk with you guys, look at the numbers, see where you feel comfortable. Um I mean, we have to do it. We don't have a choice, but tweaking the numbers and getting them in where it it's palatable for somebody to come to get a a building permit, although it's going to be increased, but it's it's something that it um we're we're statutoily required to do. Um

Oh, yeah. I I do have a question about it. Um or a couple and I'll I'll say them and let you tackle what you can or take whatever under advisement, but um so I definitely and thank you for doing this work. I think we've needed this for a while. kind of said that that I that we think we need to. We interviewed some of the building officials said we needed to um and especially with all the tax stuff going on, we need to anyway. You know, this is a source of of funding and it's a program that supposed to pay for itself. So, um the days of grabbing from general fun over

Yeah. Um, uh, can we know that we have to under a state law that was passed before and I know that the legislature has been steadily going every year towards like with the building department stuff and um, I know kind of what they I talked to some of the legislators have been pushing really heavy on this this last time of what they want to do really and are going to try again. Um, but we were required to allow sort of online and electronic. So like you have to have it. You can't make people do it. So people can still bring documents in, right? Um, but you have to you have to allow u they have to be able to submit electronically if they want to online submitts and we do that now.

Um, but I know a lot of cities have gone to strictly all electronic submitts. And um is it because I think that when I I don't know what percentage though of our submitts are hand in but I get it. We're a small town or close and people might like to just run and hand it in but I do think it increases sort of the administrative cost of staff. It takes extra time. I I would agree with that.

So I was curious are are we are would we what are your thoughts on whether it would become more efficient just as a whole if we went to an all electronic system? Are we even able to would it save time? I know you don't know, you know, but so like the front office person or the clerk or different all the different people that engage with someone that comes in to hand something in, then what do they have to do? They have to go scan it in. But if it was all electronic, it might take some workload off some other people and you'd have all the documents, you know. Uh, and another question I have though is um, can we when we're trying to figure out how much to charge, say, you know, it's we're figuring this out, but if we go instead of being conserved on the low end, maybe we go on the higher end, but we refund back if it's not actually you if it's not is there is there a possibility for that because then it is tied to the actual cost, you know, of what you did to get the project um, across. Last question is AI and utilizing for some there are some types of building projects and things that I think that we I would love it if we could go to an instant permitting program using AI. There are it's happening in a bunch of states. There are some pilot programs. I've brought it up before since I've been here. We could get in free with a it's a it's a it's a cal California company. they've got contracts with several states and they want to get into Florida and um and I think things like fence permits we we do a lot of fence permits in town it's very conducive to an AI program that could get all your electronic stuff even doing some of the um inspections as well. What are your thoughts on that and um anyway

well I'll start with that one. Okay. um because that is such a big topic and I I will say um upfront here that uh I personally I love AI and I I use it daily but it's a tool it's not the answer and unfortunately um even when I do plan reviews uh via AI there's a lot of things that AI does not and cannot account for. Yeah. Um, well, this particular one that I'm talking about, it actually over time learns your own system and gets a lot better very quickly

and and I love the idea of it. I do. Um, and would that make things easier? I I believe it would. However, I don't believe at this point that DBPR has allowed the use of AI for an official plan review. I think at this point it still requires uh human eyes. Okay.

So, but I do love the idea. But I would be interested to know just if you possibly could for future reference like what percentage of our yearly like how many fence permits do we do a year and are there any other types of permits that might be conducive to something like that if we were just going to look into it and and see because I do think any the more that we can make faster and more efficient um and sort of maybe take off of of the building you know official then I I do think it net eventually helps us and and I think this is where the legislature is going anyway has been going to sort of you know they like a lot faster and if you don't get it done it's automatically approved. So um but anyway

I I do agree with you. I think that's where it's headed. Um as far as um a viable program that's usable in Florida. I just don't know that we're there yet. Um but if if we could be the pilot program for the state of Florida, great. Well, I do think Altoont Springs is doing some of it. So that might be somebody that we might want to talk to. So there are some limited um plan reviews that um seem to do well. Yeah. Um so for example uh an HVAC change out. So you're changing out your air handler. Um really the only thing we look for that when we do the plan review is to ensure that they have the AHRI certificate and that it's current. AI can do that very easily.

Um so and and like you said a fence permit. Um the issues that I have with um fence though is every single zoning district within Melbourne Beach is different on what they allow for fences. Yeah. But you plug in the you plug in the rules and it reads, you know, so what happens if an applicant puts in the wrong zoning for their property and then they you know it's easy for them to say after their fence is done, oh well, I didn't know. Yeah. So, that's that's one of the drawbacks. Um, well, I didn't want to take too much time. I just kind of I did want to sort of raise it. Maybe I'd be able to talk to you about it later, but can I ask? Absolutely. Yes, please go ahead.

Um, so the way that you're going to try to figure this out, how are you going to present the commission the numbers and so that we can look at the way that you're figuring it out? So we can look at the numbers and how it's going to compile and and form the building department and the fe and the fee schedule. Are you going to give that to us in advance of the budget? I am. I am. Yeah.

Okay. So is the goal because we've been um for a while we were not in the red but now we are in the red. So is the goal to keep us out of the red? Is that how you're going to structure everything so that it is completely taken care of the costs associated?

So, the goal is not just to get the town out of the red, but to get that one year of revenue um set aside so that when we do have an extreme event, whether it be a hurricane or or what have you, um that we have the funds in the building department to be able to sustain ourselves. Um so, that's that is the ultimate goal. Um, and we can have uh I believe it's four years. I'm not sure. Um, a budget in the bank. Um, so it might be one year. I'm not I don't I don't remember. Excuse me, mayor. Um, yeah. No, I know you can keep at least one year. So, so

are you going to put into that calculation also um emergency like to have someone here quickly if we have an emergency as far as storm wind damage and things of that nature? You got that already. That you got that with us? Yeah, but you're going to keep that in your new Okay. Thank you. Y that that is one of the benefits of going through a contract uh uh provider for a building official and your inspectors. If something happens to me tonight on my way home, well, guess what? You'll have somebody new by Friday.

So, yeah. So, I mean, unfortunately, you know, I mean, there there's there's cons that go along with it as well. Um, but there certainly are some pros. So, we want to make sure you take advantage of those. So, is this going to be something that's going to be throughout your company for everyone that you represent or is this going to be a tailored program for Melbourne Beach? This is tailored for Melbourne Beach. Okay. Um, why would Commissioner Commissioner Corey because Go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry.

No, I was going to say that we are going to uh bring this to the commission um earlier. We don't have to wait for the budget season. So, we can bring this as soon as uh June if we maybe hurry the May meeting, which is May 21st. Um, you know, I talked to Jeff about this that this was a priority for us to review. So, if we don't have it by May, we'll have it definitely by the June meeting. Okay. And it's not required to be implemented until January 1st. However, we can implement it sooner, you know. So, just something to keep in mind. And I am so sorry I didn't mean

No, I'm done. But, uh, yeah, I off of what Commissioner Corey was saying. I mean, we're this is not a we're not in a unique situation. All municipalities in Florida are looking at this. So I the idea that we're doing a custom solution is seems odd to me that I mean you have multiple clients. It seems like in the state the way that the guideline is laid out the you would be doing it the same way in all municipalities to to fit the guideline.

It'll be similar but it each municipality is different in the type of inspections or excuse me the type of permits that they get. the so a coastal community is going to have significantly more roof permits than an interior community. Um a a community that but a permit well one to one that's the same. A roof permit is a roof permit. It's a bigger roof, a smaller roof. If you do 100 roofs or you do 20 roofs, it that doesn't really factor in. It doesn't seem like well so you take that into conjunction with um here let's say we do I think we did last year we did what 61 roof permits I think

um the first half of the quarter 2025

okay so that number there um you go to a larger jurisdiction and they might have 3,000 and the administrative fees don't need to be spread across 58 inspection or permits they have to they can be spread across 3,000. So that keeps the administrative fees very very low. So depending on on on how your jurisdiction is set up and um uh the focus of the of the permits that they do that has to be spread out equally amongst all the permits um in a proportionate manner um that is again and I'll use this word that is palatable to those applicants that wish to get a building permit which is going to be the tough sale because prices are going to go up because we're going to lose our ability to draw from those very expensive projects.

So that's what I'm I'm trying to understand what you're saying there. You're saying what I see is the permit cost is tied to how much time it takes to to process the permit.

And and when you're talking about and I'm going to factor in square footage that that seems like what they're trying to exclude from it. It's more like how long does it take you you're you're to process the permit and actually just you know whatever it's a whether you're doing a piece of paper or electronically there's some overhead burden associated with turning the crank to pro to crank out a permit and you assign a cost to that. I would love to be able to say we can spend $75 on every single permit and just hand them out to everybody, but we can't because our budget, we're constrained by a budget. We have a a certain amount of money that we need to generate in order to meet that budget. And if it's not spread out

that I'm kind you're confusing me again there. I mean, we're not we're not trying to I mean, we're not He did make a good Yeah. point. the the cost is what it's going to cost to produce it, right? They're not they're not trying it doesn't seem like they're concerned about what how much it costs us to run a building department. You know, it's just if so if we have five people in the building department and it takes one person two hours to produce process a permit, it's based on one person working for two hours and whatever overhead is on top of them

for just being an employee. That's the cost. And it does they don't that doesn't mean that they don't care that you have eight other employees in the in the building department that that then you then the town is left to pick up those expenses that are not covered that by the building permit or the Yeah. Right. by the permit.

Can I ask it maybe a different way? I thought the same thing as Commissioner Reid that shifting it to per square foot. It is almost kind of like because you're sort of you're it still is going by the size and the size of the house often determines the cost. So it's um it seems to me like so it it the size of the house could be really big, but it still only requires I'm just giving an example like four inspections or whatever and it's for the same types of things. whereas that you maybe have a 2,000 square foot house, but it still has to have five inspections. So, but if it's because it's so much bigger, it this one requires eight inspections, but this one's only going to require five. Like, I don't like I do worry that that the per square foot or per gallon is really just the same thing. Okay.

Um because I don't know how many inspections or how much work, you know, each one. But here's why c I've kind of not why can't we do a sort of deposit and pay as you go system where we can't tell you how much the permit's going to cost. We we're whatever our costs are, we're going to charge against your deposit and if you have to refill it, you refill it and at the end if you know like that's that's it's that's our cost. Are we not allowed to do that? Does anyone in the state do that? Not that I'm aware of. that I mean it seems to me that is a because if if you're really good you're on top of it every time the building inspector asks for something your people get it to them there's you know there's no delay you're you know or a lot of times we have people that you know they may not exactly know what they're doing or they may get the wrong information there's a lot of back and forth costs a bunch of your time it it costs more but that incentivizes people to be on top of it and not drag it out and the people that drag it out it's going to cost them more but can we not do that

I would love that approach and that would that would be a question for an attorney. Yeah. I'm not aware of it being done anywhere.

Okay. Now to but to go back to what the discussion that we were having um if you have a 5,000 foot home that requires 19 inspections or you have a 1500T home that requires 19 inspections to say that the 5,000T home is going to have a $6,000 permit and the $1,500 home is going to have the same amount That's not very palatable for the guy that's building the cheaper homes. The that's not going to be accepted by people that are going out to get building permits and are having to pay these really really high amounts for smaller projects. The the higher dollar projects are the ones where um the resources are spent. It's where the U building department uses more time and essentially money.

I I don't think I was trying to say that that the the 5,000 square foot roof and the thousand square foot reef costs permit cost the same. I think it's how long it takes us to produce that permit. So if the 5,000 foot permit and determining how many inspections and everything takes to figure that out, that drives how much the permit is going to be. So, if it's a simpler thousand square foot roof and it's going to be two inspections, you know, it doesn't take as long for the building department to issue come formulate that and issue the permit. So then it's just it's basically instead of the fee schedule of a roof is $200 for a permit or whatever or it's it's more like it's $200 an hour of building department time and then then based then you what you're doing is saying yeah for a 10,000 square foot house or 10,000 foot roof then yeah it's probably going to take us five hours so it's five times

in reality it doesn't I would think I would think the type of roof that you have and the number of points and gables and things and tie downs that's more tie downs you have to check. It's really insignificant then than than than it then but it's still factored on how long it takes to do to generate the permit. So I if and then that's a cost of you know that's a a cost of having the employee their and their Yeah. the cost they have in the employee, their salary, their benefits, the the the the overhead of being, you know, their desk, their chair, their the lights that in their office, the computer that they use.

The intent the the intent of this fee schedule is to take the inspection and the plan review and essentially pass on those costs of of what the the true costs how it should be always,

right? and the admin side. If you take what our budget is, how much it costs us to operate the building department, and then you divide that out through the permits to find a way to amicably give it to assign those fees to each permit is is the task that I'm trying to achieve. And if there's a better way than square footage, I would love to hear it. Do you think that our overhead costs in the building department that are not necessarily tied to like the building department sort of the you know do are proportionally higher than maybe and I would imagine that they would be because just economies of scale says that they would be right like if you've got a really big city they could maybe have five or 10 employees in their building department but the economies of scale mean you know where like whereas if a really small city you still got to have one of this, one of this, and one of this, but you're not even always you, you know, like do you think that it is sort there's some overhead costs that are disproportionately large in the building department, which we can't necessarily help because of we're not, you know, but that maybe we could cut down or

I don't know that you can cut them down. Um, at this point, I honestly Steve probably needs an assistant. Yeah. Um, but uh, you know, I mean, what it costs I mean I mean I hate to use the cliche, but what it costs is what it costs. Yeah. Well, And so you get to large building departments, for example, you go to the count. I have to disagree on that. You always have to be willing to look at it, you know? I mean, but I think we should move on. Yeah.

Okay. Well, there's a couple other quick points I'd like to I wanted to bring up, things that I wanted to make sure that were on here. Um, one of which, and I'm curious of your opinions, please. Um like uh Commissioner Reid was saying, there are and what you were saying, there are uh certain applicants that use a lot more resources than others. Um in particular, our owner builders um owner contractors and we can via this statute, we are allowed to charge a premium for those that are doing um owner builder. So I am I would recommend somewhere between um 10 to 20%. Um because even that will not cover the additional resources that are spent on those owner builders as a whole.

Yeah, I worry about an equal protection issue on that. But if we're tying it to the actual cost then perhaps but you know I I mean if you're just saying we're going to charge you more if you're owner builder that worries me. But I I mean I I I see you and I do think we need to raise the fees all the way across the board, but when you start singling it out a certain you know I mean it's not like it's a protected class but there is a sort of I mean you know well they are responsible for knowing knowing the code and they're responsible for being a contractor. Yeah. And if they don't and nobody goes to goes and learns how to become a contractor when they build their own house or do their own addition. So where do they get their information? They come in the bill department. Yeah. and hit you on Steve's ear for two hours a day.

See, but I think that's where we really need to sort of be like, look, you know, this is like, can we not cut them off and and then just like or deny, you know, it's like, sorry, you're going to have to re like because that's the if if we're holding everyone's hand, we're going to keep holding everyone's hand, but it's going to it's takes the time up, which we're not. Oh, we try. That's why we're in the red. How do we fix that? Like you get X number of minutes, but you got to have all your stuff ready otherwise it gets nine. you got to repay another fee for that. I mean, that is the way that we're supposed to technically do it, but are we not? I get it that that's a hard place to have to be the person that says that, but

So, what do you do when when one when a person comes in and asks one simple question and leaves? So, you charge them a fee. I mean, it's it's a it's a tough tough way to figure out how to do that. So, yes. I mean, and then they don't come in and then if you have it in your Yeah. If you have it written in your and that's what it is, then you do you follow, you know, if it's not written in there, then you can't. So, and I'm fine with adding that in there. I think that's great.

I I will say that um having sat in a few planning and zoning meetings and Steve can attest um a lot of times people who are the owner builders, they don't get it right the first time or second time. And it it does frustrate the planning and zoning board because and the and the people building the owners because they have to come back multiple times to the board. But um Steve, I don't know maybe you can talk about what kind of permits we get mostly and you know where you spend your time um you know with these these folks and then maybe also talk about the stop work orders and you know putting teeth into that. Do you want to address the stop work orders first?

Sure. So it was the last item on my list. Um so stop work orders currently in Melbourne Beach have no in quotes there teeth. They don't mean anything. So, we go give somebody a stop work order and they say, "Oh, whatever." And they just keep working. There's nothing we can do. I know. I thought we can, but I mean, that's Yeah. So, you're saying there's no ordinance behind the stop work order that has some kind of um penalty. Correct. Description.

Correct. So, what I would propose that we put it right in the building fee schedule. Um you get hit with a stop work order. It's an automatic $250 fee. And then after 10 days, if you've not rectified the situation, then it's an additional $50 a day. Well, I think you might have a bit of a problem with that because we got to stop work at her one time for some windows that it was between the contractor and I mean and we we were like we're not like this is a contractor doing the window, you know, but so we weren't doing any I mean we already had a permit like we had a permit and we weren't and I wasn't involved in it as my husband and um and the contractor called he was like I'm sorry there was some other another thing I was supposed to bring in. I got it brought in. it's not a problem. But um I

always if they keep working after they get the stop order, that's where you have the teeth. I don't know that you can find somebody for it before, unless it's really egregious where it's a I do think that there are some due process issues. You essentially need to go to the special magistrate unless we circumvent special magistrate. Huh? What's that? said, "Unless we circumvent the special magistrate and put the fine on it immediately and then the special magistrate can either abate it." I guess if somebody contests, they could contest it. You'd have to But what you're saying is to put it in the paperwork. Yeah. So that it's it's preempt proactively. Exactly. And we can speak to an attorney about that on Exactly. Yeah.

So that we are not making ourselves liable. And that's a great idea in my opinion. Thank you. Next. So perfect. All you Steve,

I had one last one last thought though here. The um between these two um bills, the 399 and the this 803 that came out, my my sense is that the uh our revenue stream was going to decline um and and not be uh growing and just overall that that the G that the revenue stream was going to be significantly suppressed as a result of those two bills. I don't think so. I hope not. Um I think it's going to be complicated mess working through all of their legal jargon, but I I don't believe that it's going to significantly slow down construction.

So, I'm going to go circle back then again then. This is not a unique thing. This affects all every everybody in Florida. Um, and you're a part of as a building official, you're part of some greater organization, professional organization or whatever. They must be gearing up with this with a kind of uniform approach that they would to be recommending to to use. I don't I the idea that every municipality is going out to try to figure it out without some fundamental guidelines to to to from the building, you know, professionals, building officials to

So, I I can tell you this. I've spoken to several other building officials um specifically about this um other town managers, mayors, and the responses that I'm getting, I'll be honest with you, are um little less than great. Um they're like, "Yeah, well, we'll deal with it in the fall." And I I think that's a mistake.

Um but that there's there's a very relaxed attitude towards getting things changed. Oh yeah, we we'll get to it when we get to it. Okay. So, there's not a lot of work being done for it. However, the builders builder building officials association of Florida, um Boof, um they've not released anything official yet. Um I don't know that they're going to there are some uh workshops that are up and coming uh specifically regarding this and other changes that have been made uh because there are some other very large significant impactful changes that are being um uh sent out from the state that we have to change in the building department. This is it's not just the fee schedule. So um I will absolutely bring everything that I get from there. I'll definitely bring it back without a doubt.

Thank you. Quick, one more question. the the H those HB. Are those the home hardening ones like like putting storm doors on storm windows? They also took away you we can't require permits for those anymore either. I know it's not a huge revenue source, but we do do a lot of those. Wasn't that one of the bills as well that if people go to if they don't um they don't have window storm windows, but they go to replace their storm their windows, put storm windows in, local governments can't require permits for those anymore. that that I think you can submit your info, but I know that that was one of the bill and I thought it passed. It was like passed the home hardening one. Maybe it didn't get through on the Senate side, but I thought it passed on the House, but I and but it may be that it's subsumed in the $7,500 one. It could be that, but I I still have It's been a while since

I have a stack this big of Senate bills and House bills that I have to read through still. Um that affect building departments. I've not run across that one yet. I'll I'll find it. It's because I you can search, but I was curious. Oh, and impact fees. That's the other thing, which I know that's not you, but I also think that we probably need to think about impact fees. We might have one more year where we can even do them. They're gonna it's going to go away at some point. Well, we're not talking about that here. No, I know, but when we get to the other part, let's not talk about it then. So, all right, Steve, do you have anything to add since you're here on a day-to-day basis dealing with ARC?

Um, just a couple things. the we're on the I guess the precipice of getting online permitting and you were talking about electronic trans uh transmissions of permits. Right now we're doing it via email only and I can say probably safe to say 90% of them are not complete. A lot of my time is spent going back and forth. Once we have that online portal set up for online permitting, this will help immensely with freeing up my time.

Why on earth is that not set up? I somebody that worked here for five years and this was they haven't been here for a year or two. They told me that that through BSNA that online permitting all it it was been available. We've been paying for it as part of our software but it was turned off by the former manager. I'm glad that we're getting it going but I don't understand why it's never been turned on. But you are getting that through the BSNA that's online.

Correct. Come Monday the 18th, where myself, Jeff, and um we're going to have Jacob go through the training. He's going to be kind of my backup um when I'm out to go through the training to implement it and set up everything that makes us compliant with Florida statutes on our website to link that connection when they go somebody comes into the website that they can go to BSNA and do online permitting, pay for it, schedule inspections and everything.

So, I'm sorry, back up. So, somebody comes in through email to do an electronic permit and then somebody our staff is now sitting at a computer typing in this online permit. That's not an online that's not my view of online permitting application. It is the bare minimum required by the state that they do that. So, that is what they consider electronic. Okay. Just trying to make make sure that people understand the clarification there that it's it's it's still a human in the middle doing that.

Absolutely. I take that information and it's the back and forth getting all the documents together via email and then I input it into BSNA. But but we have had the capability in BSNA that we pay over $50,000 for and the staff I was told by a former employee was trained and it's not been used. So you we we you got your point. Let's keep let him finish. Okay. But I mean people might like to know that. Steve, anything else. Um you guys certainly didn't want me to say it on the point with owner builders. Absolutely. A lot of my time is with

the owner builders and it's just they just don't have the experience required if they come in. A lot of times it's the owner builder wanting to pull the permit because they want to expedite the process to get their contractor to the job site. So it's getting them to understand what the process is for permitting. It's the back and forth coming in because they can't find product approvals. No matter what I do, I can't get them to understand in certain aspects of certain permits. It's easy for a fence. It's easy to talk to them. for a shed perhaps is easy as well. But when again the windows and they want to take that project on, it gets more detailed with documents and them not understanding the process.

Well, I think when when you get that system set up, we ought to seriously consider going to an all required online perming. I'm pretty sure CMI has a everything. You cannot put anything bring anything by hand into CMI and I think there's other cities. So, I do think it's allowed, you know, and I think it might help you. I mean, it might streamline a lot. uh duly noted we will um I think do a test run with you know the system set up the way it is for a few months and see if we can do that and with that if that alleviates a lot of pressure off me you were speaking of fence permits and simple things like this HBAC switch outs with the blessing of the building official I can now do those reviews

save the town money not go to review status and stuff like this will then open up it opens up a world of possibilities that we can do to save the town money. Well, I do know we have a really capable technology board that are, you know, if if it's possible, I know that they would be available to research or look into stuff. I mean, to the extent that they can or would. So, I'd hope that you know through the town manager maybe they'd be available to you and so Okay. indeed. Thank you. Thank you. Can I ask one question on the online permitting? So for CAP um you do you have a a permitting pro um avail ability through your services as well right?

We do. Right. So is that an so is that an online service? It is online. So that's a individual a builder logs into your s into your systems fills out a form and then then it's in the system and being processed. Yeah. The review the all of the permitting the um inspection requests the inspection results are all part of all part of the software. Um however where you already had ESNA we didn't really talk about that much. in our first presentation, but it is something. Thank you. It it is something that is available.

Okay. So So that's an option that you could be cap could take on the elect the electronic self-p permitting. Okay. Except for the payment because I think that was when we talked about you wouldn't handle the payment part. So we would still need to have electronic payments. Correct. And I was just about We do I believe still have that through BSNA anyway. So we could set that up so that they run the electronics through you, but we set up specifically for a payment system that can run through BSA where they can make electronic payments online. Okay.

Yeah. And if that worked, I mean, if it were a module in BSNA that we could cut back on the cost. I don't know if it's just part of the basic package of what we have or what, but I know you were going to maybe look into that. So I know you've have a gajillion things, so on your plate. Okay. All right, everybody. Are we ready to go on to the next? Yes, we're almost done. All right.

All right. Next one. All right. There there were additional services as I mentioned. There were three um RFPs we recently put out on the website. Uh you know, we want to maybe um you know, leverage our funds with you know, grant writer uh to see if we can um you know, but this that'll cost something. You know, we'll we're going to get proposals and we'll see how much that will be. Uh same with uh you know somebody who can help us with the non-advalorum fees. Um you know help us with the technical side of it. Um I think the first one we wanted to do was look at fire but also definitely storm water is you know in the mix as well if that's something that you would desire to do. Uh maybe a financial advisor um you know that to look at like guidance for our our non-advalorum or uh bind financing or debt structure. Uh that might be something we want to do. Um and then of course our our storm water plan. Um really really something that I think Tom and his team, you know, they they keep fighting, they keep, you know, fixing fixing different things and then, you know, somewhere else something else collapses or or so. So he can, you know, he can probably give you the lowdown on all of that, too. Next slide. So here's our our next steps, budget calendar. Um, we'll get the property appraiser uh taxable values in June. We will do your draft budget presentation in July. Set a proposed rate. Um, then uh the trim notices go out in August and then September. Please do not leave town. We have uh hearings, public hearings, and then we will vote on the adopting the final millage rate and our budget. Um then we start in October. Uh I do know that there was legislation that uh required each municipality to provide a budget with a 10% reduction um

as an exercise. So I just put that down there at the bottom. I'm I'm aware of it. I don't know where the legislation is. Last I heard is not, you know, had not moved and been signed by the governor. But um you know, that's something we can still do as an exercise. It's not signed by a certain date. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know. Yeah. Yeah. So, I just wanted to put that in there because, you know, we might have to do it anyways. Um, that would start in January. So, uh, we're just going to be prepared.

So, in this calendar, I'm sorry, if the in in the calendar here, where does we need We're talking about doing adorums. When do we um need to do when do those submitts need to be into the county to be take effect in the in the next uh tax year?

Um I'll have to get back to you on that one. I know that the proposals are due June 5th, so we'll have to take a look at it. And I know we talked about, you know, if it does not fit into this budget year, then we would have to do that for next budget year, which is not desirable, but it it may be just depending on how long how long they say they're going to take to be able to provide that information, right? But I'll get back to you on on u specifics like working the timeline backwards. All right. Do you know if they certain things require superjority vote and you know that do you do you would that be something

are you talking about millillage was there some I know they had some bills that changed that even more this year okay could have Okay.

Sorry. Writing it down. Yeah. So, you do I would look into that sooner rather than later to and that's probably that's going to be something you're going to probably want though. Talk to the League of Cities about because they can give you kind of an idea of what which which ones to look at because that's free. They you know, you call them up. They're great. Yes. Um and uh and then any of those that might apply to us then, you know, I guess get with the town attorney or whatever. But I do think that would be really helpful for all of us to know really early on because it may come up, you know.

Okay. I I have a call in with their lobbyists, so with the League of Cities already, so I should be talking to them this week. Thank you very much. All right. So, just uh some key considerations for you. Um we can talk about it now or or um you know, later. Um, but we definitely do need to update the comprehensive plan or amend it. Uh, you know, I don't know if we want to do a full update or we want to just do amendments. Um, I did talk to Ryan. He said, "Yes, we are overdue with that." So, we do need to do that this year. Um, you know, do we want to put together a comprehensive storm water plan or do we want to just uh

So, let's back up for one second. I'm sorry. Um, the comprehensive plan. So, we're we're behind. So I guess is this something we need to do in fiscal year 26 or it needs to be done or does can it be done in fiscal year 27 or later do we know does there Ryan told me that we are behind we should have already done it um are we exposed to some penalties or I suppose yeah is a I don't think I don't think yet but I do think there is a penalty that could come like

it's not a penalty what it is is there are certain things we won't be able to do as a account. So I you know I can ask Ryan to expound on that for you but uh but there it'll be the things you cannot do as opposed to a penalty per se. So my my understanding of doing a comprehensive plan is that's not like something we homegrow uh an update to our I mean we could try to do that I suppose but I don't think that's you have a approach for do that. So, I mean that would bringing in a third party on a contract to go through the comprehensive plan and make recommended updates for us to vote on or something. So, I I agree. Um I know

is that so is that something we're going to carry as a a line item in in the new budget then? Is that is that is that what you're telling us here? Yes, I think I Yeah, we have to do that. Um I've talked to some of the other town managers and uh like I know for instance Indie Atlantic they have hired a planner to update their comprehensive plan. So it is something that just you know you have to do every few years. So can our planner do that work or have we asked he's done it before? Yeah he has done it before. Um as you recall you had asked the interim town manager to put out an RFP for a planner. So we have that that out. I did talk to Well, I think that RFP is just related to the the contract had lapsed and getting the paperwork all

lined up really wasn't I don't think it's necessarily associated with updating the comprehensive plan. Um yeah, I think the plan in the past they've used the same planner but it's under a separate contract and a separate sort of in the planning and zoning but they have used the same one. Well, you don't have to though. I mean you could but I think with somebody's already used to your code they that's what people usually do. they use the person they have under contract or anything else,

right? You usually do that. Um, we can also piggyback off of other towns that are doing comprehensive plans, too, if we like their the planners that are doing their work. Um, so that's the other thing we could do. Um, because they're going to be similar. So, we have a couple of options with that, but we still are going to have to have to put out some funding for that. Um, and I did talk to Mr. Agorin and I told him that that RFP is out there on our RFQ is out there on the website, so he's aware of that. Okay. Um, so again, do we want to do a storm water management plan, uh, capital plan, or do we want to just patch the work as as needed? I showed you the pictures there of some of it. Um, and then what level of storm water and infrastructure funding, you know, do we want

Let's talk about the storm water management plan for a second then. Um, I I

the last plan was done in 2014 is what you you're saying. Um, I've looked at the plan. What I looked at was incomplete, so I I didn't really see the the plan. Um, I think if we're going to try to go to get funding or grant money or loan or or we would need to have some kind of a a plan that uh to uh for people to respond to us. I think they'd want to see, well, what's your plan? That could be like the first question. Um so typically the P plan comes as well as an assessment. It gives you a prioritization and a kind of a a schedule a uh like a GA chart schedule showing prior how much kind of estimating where and how much money keeps to to progress through it. So, and I'm not sure what in terms of our MS4 permit if we're required somehow to maybe keep that plan relatively up to date as well.

Tom knows about the MS4 permit a little bit. Yeah. One year or a separate water, storm water. So, we do the annual review ourselves. We can make those amendments. Ourel for example what we completed where I have the where I have a question is uh for example if I pro if we were to project a project for next year converting the $14 cost that was in those plans to the current day dollar. You know what I'm saying?

You mean 2014 to Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. That that existing 2014 plan is worth for budgeting purposes as as manager and I spoke is pretty much worthless. We're able to convert those values. Not only that, I mean, even the things that we're supposed to have been doing along the way and funding and then using the funds that were being put aside, like a ton of those things haven't even been done and are way past. So, it's like but but it's a huge catchup. Yeah. We commission our five-year audit, Commissioner Reid. That's the big thing. And they they as long as we show

efforts in updating it annually, FD and our five-year audit never gigs us on that, but that is rather vague, but they say 12 months.

Yeah. But on the other flip side, the legislation that they've been putting forth every year has been sort of going towards this like having an inventory of all your storm water every year. We don't have that. So, I mean, I think we really do need to go big on doing a storm water management plan, trying to get grant funding and maybe even bonds, which I hate the idea of borrowing money, but it's the only way we're we're not going to be able to just be doing little projects here and there, never tying them in, and then patching everything. I mean, it's like so Commissioner Reid, what um part was missing from the report because um you know our supervisor Davis is here. Could we could look for it? There was a copy. Turn your mic.

I'm sorry. The um the hard copy that you piece of paper book that you gave me a look at um that says draft on the front page. Um and the part that was missing is the prioritization and the schedule of and cost associated. Okay. So, Mr. Davis, do you think you could help us find that? For example, basin 10 during that review, if you recall, said low priority, the last one we had.

Uh when in fact, we have now identified that it certainly would meet close to the top priority because of the issues. Yeah. And that's that uh that's where we lack. Not only that, because we go peace meal. What happens is I think when you you know we did the big orange project which basically it was like 400,000 it wound up being almost a million by the end. But it then it's like that you you do that project but then it's like it changes even what happens because we don't have a comprehensive plan I think. So I don't know the actual storm water plan.

Yeah. I just added in MS4 because I I just wasn't sure what requirements were there. I I do believe though that if we're going to go out and try to get funding, grants, loans, bonds, whatever, they're they're going to they're pretty much going to want to see what our our plan is. So So yeah, and and the manager and I commissioner, that's I have to reach out to the professionals.

What do they recommend? Can we use the existing as a skeleton or as a template and then update that or do we have to scrap the entire document and start from ground zero? From what I understand the 2014 plan was even all that great or comprehensive or complete to begin with. So I don't know you know. Okay. My opinion is we need a whole plan. But that's just me. You we need a whole plan. Is that my opinion? Yeah. My mine, too. Yeah. All right. we we can maybe get some like back of the napkin cost estimates so we can see you know for budgeting purposes what we we can do with that.

And I was I wasn't here for the workshop but I was really impressed with Haley Ward there. I mean like just even the work product that they had produced I know that it's not like a whole comprehensive plan that was sort of varying but did think that they did a great job and and they found Melby that too.

Um all right so that sounds good. Um so again, how are we going to fund firefighters non-advalorum versus millillage? Uh should we invest in a grant writer once we get those proposals, the non-advelorum finance advisor, you know, um we'll we'll get some numbers for those uh in June and we can we can talk about that. Uh of course the millage rate and then I we wanted to find out from you. Do you have any other priorities or other things that you would like us to look at for budgeting purposes? increases, decreases, anything else that you, you know, that you've heard from from residents or yourself that you would think?

Yeah, I mean, I like decreases across the board and as much as we can put into storm water. I mean, last year when I voted for the, you know, the scaled back couple of positions for fire, I it was very difficult. And I had a conversation right after that with the chief and said basically, I won't ever I won't vote for this again, though. a one and on one time thing because over the next year we need to do a referendum to the voters for this that hasn't happened. So, you know, I I would caution any firefighter who would think about taking one of those jobs because that funding may not be here at least this next budget season. And um you know, we need to go to a referendum. I believe that in 2019 I found out later that the town actually did do an informal survey about changing and having this um paid fire system and it did not get a majority um vote and I think maybe that's why there was such not wanting to go to a referendum but at the end of the day it's in my mind it's a huge cost and I don't know that it's needed and

I think she was asking if there is any other budget recommendation but I'm just saying I I wouldn't be voting for those positions, this budget, you know.

Okay. Um, and that's something I think the commission, you know, you'll we'll have to figure out, right? And different funding strategies as well. Um, but if there's anything else, um, I will tell you that the Save Our Indian River Lagoon, um, at our next town meeting is going to be making a presentation and we'll be bringing a, uh, inter agency agreement that they want us to sign because their halfsent tax is going um, to vote uh, in November. So they're going around asking I had a meeting um uh last week with uh uh Indie Atlantic and the the Save Our Indian River Lagoon folks and uh they were making presentation and I asked them to come to make a presentation to you and about their uh upcoming grant process. So we'll we'll see them later on this month.

All right. Well, think about it if there's anything else. Um you know Mith could I ask a couple questions? Yes, of course. Mr. Butler, did you want to say something? Just one quick. Sorry, you can please. Ladies first. Thank you. Um I did have a couple residents reach out um with concerns about uh legal costs that we may or may not incur and how we're paying in the event that we have to. And um I think it's something that you know I don't know exactly how we address that and but I think it it it does need to be addressed that where would that come from in the event that we would have to okay pay exorbitant amounts that have been incurred. I

mean Jenny I think right now we talked about it would have to come out of reserves. Yeah. right now. And that's concerning to myself and I'm sure most people. What if what if we have a an emergency? What if you know storm season's coming? Yeah, it's concerning. So residents, you asked if there were any things that we've heard from residents and I definitely have heard that recently. Mr. Cronin,

I agree with Commissioner Butler. I've heard from town members asking for a line item about litigation costs. So that's important. I did want to go back in your what a great presentation by the way, Miss Smith. That was fantastic. Really enjoyed it. There was a couple things I was waiting to to to ask you about, but uh one of them was about health insurance. All right. And it seems like a big problem across the board. And I wondered, it seemed like you were hinting that maybe hopefully that you could find some shared resources with other towns, that maybe there's some plan that maybe all the small municipalities of of Bvard County or maybe the county itself that we could Is there any talk or uh of that of some kind of shared shared plan that

not not yet? Um the closest thing we found is that they were using this like um I think it was um satellite and Coco and Cocoa Beach. They were using the same insurance broker that found them a clinic like a shared clinic that they could use to reduce costs. Um but nothing nothing like that. Um we've already looked at Florida League of Cities. Jenny, I know you did the analysis, right? And I don't know if you have anything to say about that or or the other things. We reviewed the plan with the state which turned out to be a bust. be, you know, um I don't even know why they have that office, but um you know, we we have turned over, you know, virtually every rock. Um and so, uh Friday, I'm going to talk to all the managers at the uh Space Coast Managers meeting to see what they're doing. Um and ask them,

you know, if if you know that's something that maybe any of the insurance brokers want to do. Jenny, do you have anything else you want to add? Um the the the shared clinic, I'm I'm not familiar with it, but I have reached out to that group. Um, I'm going to have a phone conversation with them to find out what that entails and you know what all that is through that. I'm not familiar with it. This is the first I've heard about it, but I did immediately reach out to have that conversation. Right on. It seems like a problem that wouldn't just be affecting Melbourne Beach. Oh, correct. It's affecting

every May I interject on this subject? I just came from meeting um the co the South Beach coalition and so I asked them all because there's representatives from satellite Indian Harbor Melbourne Beach I think that was all that was there today but um and I asked them have you considered doing a shared you know to obviously save cost because there would be more people involved um they said huh we really haven't other than this clinic that's up in Coco I believe um to to to address specific needs. And I guess that has been somewhat helpful. Um, and again to your point, they they said we just have brokers and I think that maybe they have the same broker, which is just happen stance and doesn't help with the rates, I'm sure, but they they said they've been they had a uh Indian Harbor, he said that they had a 32% increase last year and that they're looking at a 20 something again this year. So to your point, everybody has the same concern and yeah, wouldn't it be amazing? And they said, "Ask Space Coast League of Cities, but you guys already did obviously." So, um, but could that be something we could do? Why couldn't we

get together and do it as a coalition, right? I've always thought that, but apparently there's a ton of reasons. It has, right? I mean I I but the state itself has a $1 billion budget just this year from like this specific issue and I don't understand why there's not like even through the League of Cities the League of Cities provides like various types of insurance but why there's not a if you take every small city lump them together it's like one big corporation but instead each one has their own and it's insanely expensive and I don't know why someone hasn't fixed this like I I literally don't know why the person I talked to said we need we need lobbyists to go to Tallahassee and fight for us to do that. It's just healthare lobby is the not on the state's view.

But I mean I do think I think maybe the it's these breakpoint costs that that maybe spur it. But somebody is it's a big learning curve on a bunch of things and if they're already trying to cut our fees, it's kind of like let them get drained out. It'll weed out, you know, the hundred on that list that they think shouldn't be cities anymore. Well, that same person that uh Jenny and I spoke to um said that the university system was put into the state health care plan the year before. And so they took took them

and uh so they said you know if you want to get into the state system you know and maybe as like you know small municipalities like 5,000 and under you know population really small ones micro ones like us um you would have to get a lobbyist and you would have to go and talk to different representatives who might sponsor a bill that would put something forward in uh you know for the state legislature. So if you all know anybody who might be interested because you are right there are dozens something we could work on for next year if we worked on it now and we do have powerful of legislators that are in this particular area that that would be something that they might like because if it's you're going to have to have it anyway but it's cutting cost for all the different cities that are their constituents.

Right. You'd have to find the right champion who is on the right committees. Yeah. A special bill for that to allow that. But that is something that could be worked on. Yeah. So, if you all know folks on the right committees and you can find a champion, that would be a great thing to do for a bunch of towns. Uh Hodgers is our um is one of the representatives from this area and he is an I mean he's in insurance and he's on the health like a bunch of the health you know a bunch of committees and anyway might be something to ask him about the county is not an option for our employees can't join county no or well it was paid no the county is not an option it's not a pulled yeah well and they got enough economy they got they're big enough that they have thousands of

they don't have the problem that we have, but all the small cities kind of have the problem. But um I had a question, but I forgot it now. I believe uh Mel Melbourne, the city of Melbourne has a lobbyist, so maybe we can reach out to him. Yeah, you're not going to lobby for us, though.

No, it's it's all it's everybody. I mean, we could get we could maybe get a big conglomeration, some it's something to to talk about, but I think a great direction. I had another question. Uh and this one was for uh Steve. Uh Steve, you know, and and uh and Mr. Parsons, you were talking about the problem with owner builders, and I I I agree with what the mayor said that you don't want to put people in a corner, separate them in some way, but it seems to me like it sounds like you're being consulted quite a bit, like over consulted. And I wonder if you if you had a uh uh like a menu of what you provide to people like when they get a permit you get a certain amount of things but if you want to have consultation that it would cost some money for your time like you could charge them for an hour or two hours and and you're available to them but they do have to pay for that.

You can get a large fry but you have to pay the extra I mean I mean I I I mean I'm a physician. I get this all the time. people want to show me their skin lesions or anything like that right on the on the fly and they want they want free advice and I'm pretty pretty good guy and give them free advice but if it's something important I want them to come into the office. So if it's something that's going to take your time I think you should get paid for your time. Yeah. Yeah. So, if when you're coming up with this plan, I'd love I'd love to have that be a part of it that there's this consultation fee available. Something along I don't know. I don't I haven't completely chewed on it completely, but it sounds like it's something that that might be wonderful. Actually,

you know what I think would be good is I mean, you know, it would could you take just even some recent cases, but take maybe out like some of the specifics, no names, but but be like here for like to give us a couple like here's a best case scenario one and here's a worst case scenario one for this type of like here's here's our three main things that we get a lot of and here's the best case scenario one and kind of the worst case scenario. this is how much time it took and caught like and so this one you're actually it's funded or maybe even like they didn't they they spent more than really even the time it took but this one is like way in the red is that possible just to be able to even give us some kind of sh and it may not be a public presentation either it may be something that but I do think it would help everyone to understand because if we're going to be regulating this it would help us to kind of know

right now I don't want to give you extra or either. I mean, but in our current permit fees, I believe in the planning and zoning aspect of it, there is staff hours. So, we have that set up with the planning and zoning that we can just implement that with the owner builders that come in. Okay.

Okay. And then my my final note was uh Miss Smith, obviously the the the comprehensive plan is a big deal and I think that's something that we should probably call a workshop over, right? and and that we should look over the comprehensive plan, maybe bring the town planner in, go over it, and see if we really need to have a hired consultant or if this is something that we as a commission with our town planner can actually update without too much fuss. I I I went over the comprehensive plan before I ran for office, and it's a very nice document. It's still applicable uh to the way we live now in Melbourne Beach. I don't think it's uh I don't think it's old. Well, the Growth Management Act requires you do a certain number of meetings and stuff. We can't It's not something we don't necessarily have to have the planner, but we do have to have a bunch of public meetings like

I think we should I think we should I think we should and we think we should put it on the calendar so that we get this done and we don't I I think there is a penalty if we don't update it. But I and I say we don't have to have one. I say technically we don't but practically we thousand% do because it's real technical the different the e all the different things that you have to do. Okay. So

all right. All right. I will see where that can fit on the agenda and if it's okay um we may take a little more time than June then to look at uh do some analysis for the updated fees. So we won't we won't bring it in May or June. We'll do a little bit more analysis so that we are ready with some facts for you. Um and I think that will and it'll also um give us a little more time to see what other localities are doing uh as well since it doesn't need to be implemented till January. Um but I think I think uh Mr. Parsons has heard that there is a lot of concern from the commission about uh you know not uh not having the revenue to cover expenses and that's that's something that uh we we don't want at all. Um

before we get any motion to adjourn I know we don't have a vote but I we've had three members of the public that have been sitting here. I we think we need to go to public comment. I I think so I don't want to cut ask a question but yes go ahead. I just want to make sure we don't forget is all. Go ahead. You're up.

Um, in the presentation you said that we needed to decide how we were going to pay for different things, capital improvements, and um, that we need to figure out if we're going to pay for them all at once or if we're going to do it incrementally. We've always set aside money for different improvements, different items that we need to purchase for different departments. Is that not Aren't we already doing what you what you covered in your presentation? And isn't that money like playground equipment? The parking funds are supposed to just pay for everything for the parks. So that amount of money is set aside for equipment every year for or every every quarter or whatever, but at the end of the year, we have a lump sum that goes into just sitting there waiting for the swings to be replaced. So are you saying that money is not sitting there or that we're not doing that or we need to increase that amount? I was a little confused on on how I thought we were and if you look at our at our budget, you see that we've got like out to fiscal year 30 2030 for for funds that are being set aside every year for those improvements

for like roads, storm water or other because I I think we have been doing that. I wasn't asking you. I was asking Okay, I know but I'm still going to speak. I think the problem is we haven't done enough particularly for roads. That was my question is are you saying that we need to increase that or absolutely um

yeah okay so um the money that we have been setting aside like I would take storm water all right um I think residents are each household's charge like 30ome dollars for it for year for the year and the money we have for that is really for maintenance of the current storm water it is not for capital projects cost a lot more and they are time sensitive. Uh we we just will never collect enough money. Um you know, if we're collecting only $35 per household, it will just take care of the maintenance like what I just showed you, you know, something like that. It is never going to take care of paving over the roads in, you know, any any kind of large fashion or, you know, enlarging the pipes or any kind of a larger project like that. And that's something where the bill has come due on a lot of the infrastructure and um you know Tom can tell you we've driven around town you know um and looked at a lot of these things as as they've come up and I've only been here three months and I'm just surprised at at a lot of it and so you know we we've talked to some of the engineers we've talked to the builders and the the neighbors and you know there are just these things springing up more and more. So there is two types of you know there's two types of funding. There is the capital improvements and then there is the fund which you're talking about which is in the budget for maintenance. Uh there are some things though like for instance playground you are saving up money you know each year so that you can pay for something but even the playground money I think there's an order of magnitude. So to replace some of the playground equipment is about a4 million dollars, right?

And people are shocked when I say that. Um, you know, and I ran a large parks and wreck association. That

about 50% is the equipment. The other 50% is making sure it's safety. It's it's putting it professionally in in place and also having, you know, the right type of materials around the playground. So um there is a combined cost there. So people are like, "Oh, it only costs half of that." You know, that's just for the equipment itself. But you have to have it professionally installed because there's a liability issue. So um we we just have to look at the budget and see real numbers for 2026 27 what things cost and figure out where we want to prioritize and and kind of I don't know if we can go back to that slide of um the the three-legged the stool the slide with the stool on there. Okay. So, you know, do we don't ever really want to lower quality, right? But we might, you know, we don't want to lower services for our constituencies, but you know, it's either going to take more time to fund something, you know, or uh you know, or it's, you know, we we increase the cost of it, right? And so that's what those are the decisions you're going to make, right? is, you know, your time, your cost, or your scope. Maybe we just want to do, you know, a certain amount of playground equipment or just, you know, minimal or maybe want smaller equipment, something like that. Um, and those are the kinds of things you want to do. But there's certain things as far as services go, um, you know, living here, I don't think that the town would want us to to reduce the quality of uh because I think we pride ourselves on the quality of life. So that leaves your time and your cost, you know, and that's what we're going to have to figure out, you know, especially for again putting together a robust capital budget. And those are the things um that are in the ordinance that are over $10,000 and have a useful life of over five years.

So, um, do we have anything that is specifically set aside for something specific that could be presented to us? I mean, it's in the budget, right? So, we can look at I mean, let's take playground equipment. We can look at exactly how much money is sitting there for the playground equipment. And so that's what we're going to try to accomplish for storm water to see how much money is actually sitting there for storm water. And then that negative amount after we figure out, hey, it's going to be a half million instead of a quarter of a million, then that negative amount is what we're going to try to strategically figure out on either a yearly basis. I mean, that's how we are always behind.

Yeah. Either that or you're going to have to bond finance. We just paid off the last storm water bond this year. Is that right, Jenny? Or we're paying it off? Paid off this year. Yes. Correct. Yeah. So, you know, we could go out for another bond. Um, but we still need a revenue stream to support the payments to the bonds. So, we may have to like in the Atlantic, they put a millage towards it, you know, one millillage. And that is a revenue stream then you could use as a source to leverage bond financing. So you can get the money up front, do your projects, you know, the next, you know, two, three years, and then continue to pay your bond off the next 10, 15 years with that millage rate. Um, so that might be a structure that you want to consider as well. Um,

would you that you segre like you can only use that money for that bond, correct? Correct. Yeah. And like the way they structured it is that money can only be used to pay off that bond. You can use that money you can use other funds to pay it off earlier. You know, if you see you can't use that money on anything else. That's absolutely correct. That's what we needed. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you there are other ways to financially structure that that we can we can take a look at but we first need to understand as the staff what are the priorities that you do want us to take a look at and what are the things that you do want us to explore how to finance. So that that's the that's why this was been a really wonderful meeting for I think all of us to hear your thoughts on that. Thank you. Storm water that is my priority. Thank you. Okay.

Anything else? Uh, anyone else? Mhm. Go ahead. I had a question and to kind of circle back a little bit. Thank you. Oh, yeah. You're green.

Green is good. So, we we've been and I came here tonight because I need to get your input, all of your input as to how I can structure this that's going to make the board happy. And I So, I I need to get some input from you guys. Um, I get it if you don't like the square footage or maybe some other ideas. Um, but I I would love to brainstorm here and figure some things out. What would you like to see?

I mean, I think that I think that we really need to push people to I think we need getting the the online portal and things set up is I'm so happy that you're doing that. Thank you. Um, you know, I wish we'd had it done sooner, but it, you know, I'm happy better late than never. I think that as soon as the faster that can get set up, the better and the sooner we can get people to really use it, the better. And I think that we my thing would be to try to work towards having everything go through the system. I think it will streamline and make things more efficient which will help our costs. And I think that um are you are you asking about fees structure?

I I would say perhaps we really do hold people accountable. You pay like if you want these meetings, it's you're paying for it. That's what our says. But maybe it's going to get people to maybe stop doing that so much and taking up so much your time. And then also maybe until it's set up. Incentivize maybe give them a small discount if they do do everything electronically through the system instead of these emails and handing them in. That's my sort of I actually love that. So, um I'm going to write it down. In fact, um but uh because it's a carrot and a stick, you're giving them a choice at least or options. So,

if you don't know right off the top of your head, if you have ideas and maybe you could send it through to to me, I can make sure I can get that to Mr. Parsons. I I was actually hoping to see soon what his proposal, his initial proposal was based on his understanding of the legislation and the our workflow, what he thought his proposal was going to be. Um, yeah, that that's what I needed to see. I I agree with that. I think you're the professional

and you know our town and you know you know our residents and what what their needs are and what kind of permitting has been happening and and where the the problems are. So I I think that for you to give us something in writing based on all that experience I think would be very beneficial and and I think we should get it done as soon as possible. And we are definitely efforting towards that. Um I I guess we're not asking for a finished product. I mean initially here it's like a straw man. We're kind of you're outlining the what it looks like and then you can refine it. But I guess so we get some kind of sense of Did we send this over to the council or No,

you told me not to. Okay. Yeah. Um Okay. I I will have that for you and I will get it to um uh either to um the town manager to whoever it is that can disseminate that. Mr. Parsons, Mr. Mr. person. Excuse me, Madam Mayor. Um, I was running some AI while you were sitting while we're sitting here looking at this problem, and they keep uh saying that towns are using mobility fees to offset some of the lost revenue. What What are mobility fees? I don't know the reference in which that would be referring to. Okay. So, you'd have to find a little bit more on Okay, I'm going to look I'm going to look up some more. You know, I'm I'm pretty uh I'm pretty uh uh

ignorant on a lot of this subject, but I but I do think that uh Yeah, challenge a little bit. But but uh I'll send I'll send this to you. All right. About mobility fees.

Mobility fee program. I mean, it has to do it does have to do I think with with bigger cities and with um and I think it's maybe like an impact fee essentially, but um when you get back to us with whatever the draft skeleton of it come, you know, whatever the first stab at it, obviously it's draft. Could you also possibly just in that and maybe somewhere else but give us some numbers like last year or like in a full year a full fiscal year whatever the you know the last full fiscal year plus whatever this park fiscal year had and you know break it out like here's a full fiscal year and then here's the partial we had this x number of fence permits x number of just permit like sort of a breakdown of the types of permits that we had and that they average like like this is how much this type of permit cost. This is the average amount of time if you take all of them. I don't know in the data if there's a way of doing that. I do think that there's hours that are associated with the with the different inspections and things.

If you can't do like run that from the data, but if there's like estimates that you could provide just even here's a range of what they tend to cost like on the low end the this to this like in time. I feel like that would be helpful because it gives us an idea of when we're thinking about how are we going to change this fee structure understanding what the underlying data is of what is done how long it takes. I can certainly do that. Um I can tell you what we have done up to this point is we've taken uh using this fee schedule and the existing fee schedule and we ran scenarios and we just pulled permits at random to see where we would fall. Yeah. And they were uh higher anywhere from would you say maybe 10 to 15% higher. Yes.

Okay. So we so under some of the new we we netted about 10 to 15% more. Correct. Okay. All right. Correct. On average. Yeah. So yeah, because basically you wouldn't want to propose something like, oh, when we ran it, it was less. But okay, that's at least Yeah, that's good to know. And also we um was able to locate where we're losing that money. Oh yeah, that's important. Yeah, that's where we really need to know is where are we losing the money? smaller um the smaller permits like HVAC change outs that still require an inspection um and we're only charging $50 or $75 for you know it doesn't even cover the inspector to go out and do the inspection. Yeah. Let alone the review and all the the administrative paperwork that goes behind it. So those are the ones going to see the biggest increase.

Yeah. Commissioner Cronin, uh mobility fees usually tend to be um some sort of impact fees on transportation. That's a onetime fee that is paid um by the developer to increase the road size, the lanes or uh bike lanes or sidewalks or anything. Um it's when there's a new de it's like an impact fee and it's bigger cities. They said that many towns now are looking to increase those fees to offset the losses that but we don't have that's why I mentioned impact fees. We don't actually have any impact fees and we never have. Yeah.

However, the legislature is taking away the ability to do it. They almost did it this year basically ban on all impact fees. They didn't. So we might want to consider with those ad with the people like that like do an impact fee. Basically it's every time somebody builds. So you know for bigger construction and developments and stuff but even for a brand new house you pay up it's like a $10,000 fee and what it's meant to do is to go into your reserves to pay for storm water and roads and all of that. We've never done it. So it wouldn't go into the building department but you can use part of it. I mean, like, because it goes into your sort of general fund and your reserves because if you have a 2,000 square foot house that then gets built into a 5,000 square foot house with four cars, well, before you had one person on the road and not as much water. Now you got four people on the road and a lot more water. It's like it has an impact.

The impact needs the infrastructure costs, which are, you know, 30, 50 year pipes, but it's really expensive. So, we've never had an impact fee, but we I think we should because it is an amount of revenue and they're going to take it away from us if we don't. So, if we were ever going to do it, and I don't think we make it huge, but we haven't had one. So, anything would be even 5,000. I don't you know, anyway, that's not a bad idea. Thank you. I I'll send you what AI was telling me in this conversation and we can you you can send it out to the commission. Um, but I think it's interesting and and and the mayor is spot on. Yeah. It's really good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay, that's great. Um, do we want to go to some public comment? Yeah.

No, I thought we were gonna have Commissioner Reid was gonna Oh, okay. Because they are both tied together. I feel like we ought to listen. The public has been waiting for quite a like should we go to public because it's we do have two items on the agenda. They may be able, but it's up to y'all. I'm not decide. I mean, um, we do have three people that have been patiently sitting here and they they may want to stay the whole and and speak another time, but they may have some points to bring up, which will I don't know. What do you all think? No problem. Any objection? No objection. Okay, we're going to go to public comment on item A and Okay.

Bruce Larson, 1507 Pine Street. Uh just thank you very much uh Miss Smith for the presentation and for all the all the engagement. That's that's exactly what we should be doing is having robust dialogue. Uh and the building department stuff that brought was brought up earlier. Those are those are two bills. There's another one coming. Two bills that are uh very recent. So, I I don't think that there is a whole lot of how are other people doing it yet because it uh uh HB399, which is the actual one that that restricts your ability to charge on permit fees, uh that was signed about 2 and a half weeks ago, and uh HB399, I'm sorry, HB 803 uh was only signed last week. Uh they do have very different uh features, but they're very much uh uh aligned in what they do. Uh 399, you can't do what? Well, just not meaning to be I think research is needed. You you need to go look at look at what's uh what it says, but uh it says requires this is off the state senate's uh website, requires local governments to charge development permit or development order application fees that reasonably relate to costs associated with the review, processing, and final disposition of applications. So that that's to as to Commissioner Reid was talking about it's the man-hour associated with it or the cost to outsource the function of that. It can't actually be tied to uh the the percentage of a cost of the of the project. That's exactly what it's trying to do away with. Uh it can't be uh for square footage. It can't be for any of that stuff. It's it's very specific that says you have to defend the costs of the function that you're charging for. So it cost two if it's two man hours to process a a a permit then you can bill two man hours. Uh so so I think that that you need to be thinking about that in our in our current model today where

we have a percentage based I think most of you got an email I sent around that's $137,500 that you lose next year in revenue. So it's it's substantial. Uh you have to find some way to replace that. You can't can't do that with square footage or windows. uh that that's a a general fund addition to make the building department and keep going as it is. Uh electronic uh permit requests could absolutely make it more efficient and cost-effective. And that's where 803 comes in. 803 mandates that. So it's not an if or when it and it's not an email. You will have electronic. Now uh 803 sets up a a a state commission that says go find a way and make the prescriptive rules on what you have to do. So we don't know the specifics on what that is yet. Uh but but 399 and 803 uh will substantially change uh the revenue stream for building department uh on storm water. Uh so the Save Our Indian River Lagoon fund uh Bvard County's fund. It's been going on for a decade. Half penny sales tax uh rebate goes back into that fund. Uh has a citizens oversight committee. I sit on that committee and and I'm absolutely com committed to getting Melbourne Beach have money. Without objection, would anyone We don't have a lot of people here. Would you mind uh allowing Mr. Larson to go over?

How much time was that? Give two more minutes for for sure.

Oh, I was just going to say you don't have to have everything you need to know about a project in storm water to go get a grant from soil. Uh the the fund will actually help you define what the specific costs are. What you do have to do is have a commitment to say you are going to be cost sharing and and what's the expectation of it. They do want you to be majority cost share. Uh but you could be in there. So we're the 51 or we're the 60% cost share. Uh and we commit to that. And so that as long as that happens, they also have multi-year funds. So they they they will they have issued grants to many uh organizations in Bvoulevard County for that that have been running on for five, six years now. So they went after a million dollars and they've been burning it down over time. Uh and a lot of that money's not been used. Therefore, that the last part I was going to say on soil roll is that very often uh there are uh unused funds that never will be used and are given back and can be reortioned. So, while all of the 10-year money has now been allocated, every quarter or so, uh funds become available and we vote on what projects uh can be reallocated. So, apply and apply early. Uh it'll help uh judge the backlog of why and justify why it needs to get redone for another 10 years. and it and the money will never go away. So the money that they already have, if it doesn't get used on a project, you can always be applying for it. But once it once it funds stops, you can't make new applications. So uh that's on on Syro. Okay. Uh and the la last comment uh you have significant amounts of gap between uh last year's budget as approved and next year uh without changing anything. You so you're about you know $650,000 is your gap to close right now today. So there are significant amounts of revenue and and cost savings that you need to to be uh envisioning on how you're going to do things differently. It's it's easy one of those things could be very easy to say we're not doing storm water. That would be unpopular and probably not not

awesome. But that is the type of decision you're going to be in. This is not going to be playground equipment uh decisions. This is going to be major, you know, do we save a limb uh type decisions. And that's the beginning.

Thank you. Hi, Susan Stark, 307 Fth Avenue. I want to address an a comment that was made from the podium with regard to um funding paid firefighters in the next budget. Um, to my knowledge, and I I I did ask some of these questions when I first discussed with commissioners last summer, um, no survey or um, straw poll has been, um, approved or done or sent out by the town commission or the town. Um, I believe from my knowledge possibly where the comment came from was that an individual resident did a poll question on Next Door um, asking if people were in favor of paying more money to have paid firefighters. Um, I think the the po the polling sample was extremely small. You can't guarantee who was a resident and who was not. And um I don't think that's an accurate fact to say that a straw poll was done and the majority of the people who responded had a negative um feeling about it because that's not representative of the entire town. And I did ask why a survey wasn't done last year after Chief Brown gave his um after Chief Brown gave his second workshop on the issue. Um, and the answers that I got were, um, nobody could really decide on what the questions were. I think that's I that's what my take of it was. Um, and they weren't sure there was enough time. Um, as far as a referendum, um, I'm not sure you have enough time

for that either, um, with wording and things like that, but, um, I really think it has to be in context. Um, and I did also inquire of commissioners um, throughout this. You know, I got very involved and was very passionate. Um, how many people they heard from who were opposed to the proposal of having paid firefighters and across the board, every commissioner told me they hadn't had any negative comments. So, um, and and there was one effort with a petition that people signed and that was the one thing that was mentioned to me. Um, so I just wanted to put that into context. Um, I'm concerned about funding. Um, but I think that the serve the idea of a survey was kicked down the road last year and here we are in the middle of May with the same time frame running out of time for budget approvals and we're in the same place. So maybe you want to revisit doing an official survey of the residents of the town before that statement is portrayed as being accurate. Thank you.

I'd like to respond because we do get one minute. Um I what I said was that I found through some records that I had from an old public records request years ago. Yeah, it was scattered. It wasn't part of the request, but I got there's a chunk of records I got. I found a bunch of emails in 2019 and an actual poll that Elizabeth Mascarero in the town and and and the chief they they did a poll or we're about to send one out literally on the issue of paid firefighters and I I think they either did it or they decided not to do it and there's some internal emails that talks about well let's maybe don't do it because what if it's not right

approved. So, I don't know if that actually got sent out or whatever or but there was a discussion. There's actually an there's actually a like a draft of this about the paid fire. That was 2019. I'm not I wouldn't believe the next door either. That that was the only thing I could think and I appreciate. I did have a lot of people though talk to me about being opposed to the paid fire. So, um um the the other thing about that is um as a resident of 35 years that surveyor that would would have had to straw poll would have had to go out to residents. I never received one. So it I I don't believe it went out. So people who have lived here that you know also

I mean my thing was when I voted on this last year it was like I'm not I want you voting on again and I had discussions with the chief and I was like this you know because it was said to me that they were afraid to go to a referendum because they were afraid it wouldn't win. Um and also there wasn't enough time. And I said, "Okay, you got a year." Yeah. But you like I hope you're going to be working the next year on getting in like right away. Like not wait until budget's here, but right away getting on the info to get this stuff done so we can put it to referendum. I mean, it was literally like that night or the next and he said yes. And to my nothing has happened. So we're again at that visit where it's probably too late to do a referendum, but I was really clear about how what what I was going to you know, I appreciate that feedback. And although it's not required to have a referendum,

for me it is. I I understand personally, but legally it's not required. Um I would ask you to reconsider maybe doing a survey because I have surveyed personally a lot of people in this town and most of it was positive. Yeah. But the the survey in my mind would have to have the information of like here's what it's literally going to cost you and this is what it's going to mean because in my you know I worry that and that there is the problem. I think the last

it's a workshop. I think that's I think that's the last commission meeting, the last commission. That's the sticky point that they had to address. I you know, maybe Anna or Tim could speak to that. I'm sorry, Commissioner Butler or Commissioner Reid could speak to that, but um I I think it's important to find out how the town feels about it in some formal way. And I just wanted to clarify that there really there was no straw poll that was sent to the residents. That was my point.

Yeah. Yeah. I did. That was it. Yeah. So, if that was what you thought, that wasn't what I was saying. because I was thinking next door. No, very few people go on that platform. So, or consider it relevant. So, thank you. Any other public comment? Okay. All right. We will move to item B and I will turn this over to Commissioner Reid. This is his item. Okay. Floor is yours. You go to page five in your in the package. So the first bullet I bullet I had there was on budget related legislate

budget related legislation. I'm not we're not going to I'm not going to talk about that. We we kind of already hammered that. So if you go down to the middle of the page there it's like the second bullet. It's a storm water adorum tax fund uh 202. And uh this is the uh if you look on your if you go to uh if if you look at your tax bill, it's up here above the line. And that's the uh I'm looking at my tax bill for 2025 and it was like $25, which was less than it was the previous year. And now that this line is not going to be showing up on people's tax bill next year, they will not they will not see that. So just that's the the clarification on that. Um and uh and in fund 202 in your if you have your budget book with you on page um 47 is the is the fund there. That's that. So that that fund is is being closed out in the in there. So and that kind of leads into the the second bullet here is that I mean so that is in a sense a tax uh reduction that that that people were paying have been paying now they are not seeing that tax going forward. Um so the next bullet down is storm water nonavalorm assessment fund 141 and um in the in the very end of that is in the very end of this package is the many pages of the actual resolution for that. Um and basically that is a um $36 per eru per year um that that is going on um tax- wise. And if you look at your tax bill, it's below the line and it's uh stormwater Melbourne Melbourne Beach. And I'm for a single family resident, I'm I'm paying $30 $36. I think pretty much everybody end up basically ends up paying 30 $36 whether it's condo, commercial, um an empty piece of property as well

probably. So all that's detailed out in that that that resolution. And so that initial resolution came out in um 2020 I think. Um so it's 25 going on 20 26 years old and it's never it's always been $36. Um, so I'm I'm that typically ends up being around if you look in your uh if you look in your budget book, it typically ends up being about $55,000 or or so a year in actual revenue to the to the town, which is is uh in my view is is it's not um sufficient to cover the um the expenses we're seeing that we're paying out of that fund. So, the example is over there on this Riverview Lane, we had a single storm water repair done there that cost $60,000. Um so, you you're basically eating up that money with one event. And we we're seeing that we have one or multiple of these repair events come up each year. Um, so I'm I'm suggesting that we increase that um that amount that we're we're charging. Um, the last time we did that, we voted on this in resolution. It was in May last year. Um, that's the resolution's in the back of your package there. That's when we v voted on it and uh we we just basically rubber stamped it the 25th or 26th time. Um, I think that I think in in our May meeting, I I think we should be bringing forward the re an updated resolution that has an updated

amount in there. Um, my my view is that it would I it's I I can see that being doubled or or or tripled. I'd like to see um you know if we could have a data from how much we've been spending in that fund each year over the last five years that'll give us a good picture too. But I that I I believe that number needs to go up. Um I think May is a time frame we have to do the resolution in order to get it processed uh through that's why we it was put in front of us in that time frame. Um,

may I ask a question? I'm not sure he's done yet. Could you? Yeah. No, go ahead. You can ask a question. Are we allowed to change the way it's calculated or is that something that is structured by we we cannot that is Bvard County's calculation. If we change that structure, then we have to hire a tax department to do this to to assess the taxes.

Okay. Thank you. and and I yeah I right so that I don't think I don't think that way we're doing that is right at all but in the short period of time that we have in terms in in terms of getting something in for fiscal year 27 I don't think we want to just roll this the 27th time um and then to follow on I think we need to go have do another non-advalorum assessment to look at going to a um my proposal will be going to a pvious non-pervious kind of um set up but just in for looking at fiscal year 27 we have this and I think we we can through the resolution set that dollar amount

you can increase the amount you just can't change the calculation right yeah you can always increase the amount yes can you can you expand on that you cannot change the calculation but you can increase the amount yes the calc the way the amount is calculated yeah is set by Bvard County okay but but But the dollar amount is not. It's the way you're calculating it. Okay. It's like that $36. We can up that to $100 or something. But there is a sort of Yeah, it's the calculation being used that you have to use that calculation to get the amount you want to charge. Okay. Yeah. But you can up the amount to whatever you want. I I'm like I think we need to triple it

for for for most residential people. The the way the math turns out, it turns out to be about multiplying $36 by one. So is basically how the math typically turns out even for all the all the different cases because we don't have like all of the different things that bigger cities have where they've got like a lot of commercial and different types of industrial order. We don't have that. So it is slightly easier but there is a little difference. So and that's kind of why I was highlighting the fact that that the above the line tax is going to not going to appear. So, so then if this increases from year to year, it it's more of a

in terms of the amount you have to write on your check or, you know, is is is the same. But I'm not saying it has to be the same. I'm I'm just saying we need to I I strongly recommend that we increase that amount and I would consider doubling it the minimum. So, me too. I would say triple.

Yeah. May I may I ask a question? So, if we want to put this for the May meeting, um Mr. Jones, we're going to have to work on this resolution with the town attorney very quickly. We might have to walk it on because the packet is going out tomorrow. Um but towards that end, Commissioner Reid brought up he's like, you know, he wants to increase it. Where do you think there is appetite to increase it to double triple? I mean, what do you all want to do? Something else? I think our current structure really truly is basically funding just yearly maintenance of storm water and not any and that you know it's not even I don't even think we're covering yearly maintenance. No, we're not.

So, and the same thing with the road stuff. I think we're just barely covering yearly maintenance. Not you know. So, I would say triple it or even just go a straight hundred. I mean, it's an even number. So, it's almost triple, but because then it's like you're then you're covering the maintenance, then you're covering, you know, like some buffer to where we can at least do another big project fairly soon because we got a lot of big projects that are just all getting compounded. And, you know, I mean, this is this is just fun. We're talking about fun fun 141. Let's not try to solve the whole storm water. I would say 100 bucks because you are right. We're going to take off that one amount from that that other bond. that's done. So,

um, what what about the other commissioners? Do you have any sense of what So, if we bring it to you, I don't want you to, you know, a resolution. I I want to make sure it's something that you're comfortable with. So, is there is there a chance that we could raise this tax uh in a timelimited period, like say we're going to raise it for the next five years because we've got so much going on. We've got to we've got to really strike out. We've got to make a difference because it's hitting us. But I wouldn't want to have that always at a high level. You vote on it every year. So you could change it next year and lower it. Is that correct? We vote it every year.

Every single year you vote on the storm water assessment role or whatever. And so we've always had it set it and it was it's never been increased for 25 years. But so we we like I we could do it this year, but then next year if you got you guys are like, you know what, we actually didn't need all of that. We've got the thing. You know, we are working on a bigger project. We can cut it back. But I mean the need the need is there. I mean we know this is just what's happening across the infrastructure of our town is like project after project and we're doing these things and we're making improvements and we we can't really afford them. Tom, any any

and what you're in your next year is after we finish one project, you're going to start getting people from other neighborhoods are going to come to you and be like I'm supposed to be you know like why it's flooding my house now. Well, that's that we're going to have priority a priority list in this plan. Terry, as you guys discuss this, I hearken back to our earlier conversation of comparing 2014 costs to 2026. Yeah. And 36 bucks in whatever 2019, Tim, or 2020, whatever we It's all relevant what I'm saying. It's now $100.

Yeah. At least. and and and we are and the mayor pointed out, we all know we're just patchwork. Yeah. Any given day like that 6th Avenue, I mean, and I've got others, we're going to be faced with that and they're both they're going to become more and more frequent because most of our pipe is 50 plus years old and it's corrugated. So, u anything you could do Yeah. would be

well Miss Smith, what just one question more. Um perhaps when we present it, could we present it what what these different values would mean if we were to double it, if we were to triple it, if we were to quintuple it, what was that? What would that value mean? What would the income be to our town? And what would that mean with what we'd be able to do with it? So that we can look at the numbers. I mean, obviously, we could do the math of how many homes there are times 36 and then we could do you're going to generate twice, right? How much did we generate? 55,000. 55,000. So, we got 110,000. Yeah. You're not talking about a huge amount. But the truth is, yeah,

if we if we go over what we even had just for that one repair, well, that basically that's coming out of reserves like general whatever. And so what that means though is it's even less money than if there's an emergency or like funding fire or police or whatever. It's because you then have less money to do that if you're putting money in there. You then that your general, you know, you have that money for the other stuff. But interestingly enough, the manager has already tasked me and I've got those figures. We have not discussed them because we haven't gone to item for item on our prep. I'm recovering as many of the last eight to 10 years unexpected repairs and we'll have a figure on that. That would be great.

And again, yeah, for and that's what she had asked me to get to help present to you guys because at the bare minimum, this amount should at least cover what our yearly repair costs are like. Plus, if I may. Go ahead. I I don't I'm not comfortable with saying it should be $100. What if we say it's $100 and then we still don't have enough money? It's not going to be I would excuse me. I would be more comfortable with some kind some type of well this is what we think it's going to cost and this is why we need maybe it's 110 maybe it's 150 maybe it's

of course

and that way we would have a better reasoning for the residents as to why I mean everybody knows we don't have enough money but as to why we have that dollar amount like I for the life of me don't know why it's $36 $6 because there's nowhere where it says that. So why so why would we want to face well what in the world? Why did you say $100? Well, I don't know. Somebody brought it up. Well, it's not enough. So now I have to pay more. Why didn't you figure that out to begin with? So if we have a surplus, then we could reduce it. But if we come out of the shoot and we're still not enough money, we got egg on our face again. And I think that a a better approach needs to be made than just $100 will do it.

Well, of course that goes without saying. We have to do this really quickly though. So what I was saying was $100 is about three times what it is current and it's an even even number that people can notice and see. But yes, if they can get us some specifics and the better number is $1912, then great. But I'm just spitballing an idea of what I'm I think we need at least three times. That's my thing. you you were here on the commission for I don't know five however many years at that I wonder why you never increased it

when we came up with the with the master plan the problem with the master plan was every time we tried to implement it same with the paving plan every time we tried to implement it there was a little catastrophe so we couldn't put that money towards that that specific master plan that we that we I don't even know what we paid for that master plan but it wasn't free no paid for it and and we couldn't accomplish it because there was all kinds of stuff happening. That's what I'm saying is that it has to be take take a few minutes and let's see if a 100 is correct.

Well, how about this? Um I'm going to work with Tom this week. We'll we'll average what it has been over the past three years because it's more current those numbers, right? because things are deteriorating and we'll see what the average cost is, you know, per year and uh we'll we'll come up with a dollar figure that uh is is close to that and maybe with a 10% increase in built in there. All right? Because usually we put in a little bit of a buffer and then we'll propose that and we will provide you the data behind it so that you do have a defensible um you know defensible number. Okay.

Fantastic. So, when you write the ordinance, are you allowed to put in there an increase, a 10% increase each year? No, no, we're I don't know if we can do that. I don't think we can do that. Resolution. No, it has to be finite. This has to go to Bvard County. Okay. So, there's Oh. Oh, it's on. Okay. There's There's more steps than just bringing you the resolution and saying, "Here, we want to change this number." This goes through Bard County first. Okay. Do they have to approve our number or we just

there's I I spoke with the person who does the tax assessment. Um I had a phone conversation with them and there's there's steps that we have to follow. So I have all that. It's it's a whole process but we can act quickly and get this completed. Thank you. Do you know does it require a special meeting when we pass that resolution for the storm water or can it be just folded into I can't remember but I thought I wasn't sure if it came in it came it was at the regular town. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, is May enough time to meet the requirements to get it in? Um I I don't know. I have to go back and look all at all that. I'm thinking probably July. Yeah. Well, the last one was we want to make sure we do have

last year we did it in May and I think in the previous years it seems like it came the the storm water resolution. Yeah, it's it's May. Oh, that was because of me. I wanted to get it done early just so it was off my but no it could we got to have it to them by July. Okay. All right. So just just it sounds like uh the commission is pretty much on board with this. I just didn't hear Commissioner Butler. Did you have any comments on this? I I agree. I think it's good to have backup and the information um that they're going to provide to us. But you know obviously we need to increase this number. It's been way too long. Okay.

All right. Very good. So then we we can move on for that. Then um the next bullet down here is um special revenue funds fund 172 and uh fund 175. So those are the uh the parking funds um related to Rickman and Ocean Park. Um so those as being special funds that that money is basically uh that's that revenue that's generated through parking and and the other income producing parts of it uh tickets and whatever the um it stays it stays in those those funds. Um uh so my my proposal is that we consider having all that um uh park all that parking all that revenue that typically is accumulating in those funds that we we just we had direct that into the uh the general fund fund 001. Um so basically dissolving the um those two funds all the revenue that they generate past money that's sitting there and that it ends up in the uh back in into the general fund and then then we so that facilitates using that those streams for all all town operations. Now, this this doesn't necessarily mean that that we're eliminating or reducing funding for the parks or reducing any visibility into the amount of um revenue that's collected through the parking. That's all still being that information is still collected and and can be reported reported out. Um so, it's not it's not a uh means we're not funding the park. We we have um we have accounts funds that we could use as basically the everything else. We you outline the um

expenditures that you need to do in in the park. You budget for them. So then those are the budget lines that would appear there. Um and then it's for for playground. It has a capital aspect to it. So then you're you're then you're you're um you're doing the planning there. So I I we feel very strongly that we're going to be very significantly revenue challenged in this new in this new fiscal year. This over 24 and the last two years 24 and 25 that we averaged about 180 grand combined between the two parks in income each year. So that's that's that would that's that that goes a long way towards helping the revenue side of the town. Um and you know in terms of what you're looking at against for asking in in millillage. Um so we're I think we're kind of hampering holding tying our hands a little bit with with these these revenue streams by having the special revenue funds. May I

go ahead?

Um, of course I feel very differently about this. Um, number one, I believe that the ocean park and and the manager can look it up to be sure, but I believe that any of the funds that are paid to um the fund for Ocean Park, they have to be spent for improvements according to um the money that we got to build Ocean park. That money has to be paid back in to Ocean Park Improvements. It can't be, unless I'm mistaken, it can't be taken away from that park improvement. Um, we did get a bond for that and I believe that was one of the terms for that park. So, that's not going to and and please correct me if I'm wrong, that's not going to work for Ocean Park. Um I I I would um I I hear what you're saying.

Excuse me. I'm not done.

Okay. Um, number two is when we we did a actual um survey. In fact, a previous commissioner before he was a commissioner um helped put that survey together and everybody was on board with the fact that people that were not from here that are using our parks and our parking were going to pay to um keep them up to snuff and make sure that the equipment is what the kids need to be safe and that the parks are safe. They weren't safe before we were able to dedicate the parking fund, which I fought for years to get paid parking to begin with, but that was how it got passed was that we were going to use that money strictly for park events and for park maintenance and for the upgrades for the for the equipment. When we first, and Tom was here, when we first tried to figure out how we were going to replace the swings, the people that don't use the parks, i.e. our our senior citizens, they did not want their tax dollars showing up as going towards the parks. And so this took all of that. Oh my gosh, I need I need a new road and they're putting the money in the parks. It it eliminated all of that controversy and it has worked out really well and that money is needed for the parks and it it should stay there and not be mingled somewhere else. In my opinion, I think it's a bad idea and people are going to be upset about it. And keep in mind the residents are not paying for that. This is parking money. They don't pay to park. This is

parking fund money that is going towards making all of our assets improved. When when Tom took over that department, we had signs that were ready to fall over. We had light posts that were falling over in the park because they were rusted and we never had any money to fix them. We don't have that anymore. So, I I think that your idea that well, we're going to put it in the general fund and the accounting is still going to be there. It's not gonna sit well. It doesn't sit well with me as you can see because I'm getting a little bit excited, but it's not gonna fit repetitive with the with the residents. Well, y'all do it to me. It is just getting repetitive. So, well, you're repetitive.

Well, I know. And you guys complain, so I'm trying to move it along. So, anyway, I don't I don't agree with any of it. It needs to stay as it is so that we can properly account for it.

Heard you. And you did make two good points. Question that we probably need to know. Was this an ordinance that established the paid parking? Because if it's an ordinance that established the paid parking, uh, and if the ordinance says that it'll only be used for this, then we have to change it by an ordinance. If it's just a resolution, which I think is what it is, uh, or not even a resolution at all, then you may have had an idea of when you set something up what it was for. And but that can change. Even if it were in an ordinance or resolution, it can change. But if it's not even an ordinance or resolution, that's the original goal. But times have changed. Everything is tight. We have to come up with money. So it, you know, we get you'll vote against it, but it I don't think there is any impediment to us just changing it. But it is something I think the manager will find out.

Okay. Um I don't believe it. It's not in an ordinance. No, I I don't believe it is. So we could just vote literally as part of the budget. We're just going to do it this way. It doesn't require anything else. Bruce was raising his hand. Okay. You want to come on up? Thank you.

Hi, Bruce Larson 157 Pine. Uh yes, again, excellent discussion. That's exactly what you guys need to be doing. Uh this year in uh your Ocean Parking Fund, 80% of it funds police and fire activities. So, uh and it has been doing that for a long time. Uh so that may have actually been the intention when it was started. Uh and and my mother was living here and during that time and how are you going to build a gazebo? Well, that's how we built it is because we dedicated those funds to doing that. Uh but by setting up special revenue funds that that sequester that money and allow you to carry money over yeartoear, that was that was a model to use and it's not necessarily a bad one. uh we are currently not been following that like at all. In in fact uh 100% of the police differential pay comes out of Ocean Parking. An entire police officer comes out of there and $50,000 to the fire department for so the overwhelming majority of the money that's in parking fees actually doesn't go at to the parks at all anymore.

We needed the money, right? Because we because we needed the money. So, we're using it as a general fund already and we have been added the police.

So, I think the way Commissioner Reed is saying is it's revenue to the town. We still have a commitment to fund those park uh facilities uh and we need to find ways to do that, but we are already using that revenue as general fund today. Uh in in Ocean Park, you had cash carried forward last year of $24,000. You put $20,000 into it from the general fund and parking revenue came into it. you then paid out to the police department and the fire department and carry more money over. So if you had a cash balance, why'd you put money in when you were planning on having a surplus? Uh so so we're using it as a general fund. It's just a way to carry over money. When you extrude that across all the special revenue funds that are not legally required to be special revenue funds, you have $135,000 of cash that you could have been using this year and you wouldn't have had to lay people off last year. Uh so so it's a relevant topic. It is something that has to be decided. How to maintain our parks is absolutely a commitment and you can you can do that but you have you have to recommit to that every year just like you're re you are committing every year to take money out of those funds. Uh and that has been deliberately done over the last five years. So

I'll just say for brevity I'm on board with so most of your funds are already being used as general fund funds. Yeah. I ask the finance manager to comment on on that subject and verify or confirm or um last the fiscal year 26 the commission did approve a police salary coming out of it. Right. And the state did say that police and fire salary could be taken out of the park because they patrol the park, they patrol the beaches, they issue tickets, they so they they are doing activi activities in the park. So it is funding the park as well and that's why it was just one police officer

right and also stopping all the vandalism at the bathroom you know which was fantastic fantastic but is it directly related to that park it's directly related to that park being used as a general fund and it would be the amount that you're funding from that park is completely disproportionate I mean if you have 12 police officers and all of the overtime for the entire department and an entire police officer isn't proportionate to policing Ocean Park, but you are allowed to do it and and and you are doing it. It is a general fund resource already. If if I may, we we the the police chief asked for two officers. And that was how we were able to give him one officer

was by paying for through our park. Um so if we if we continue though, you're using it as a general fund already and have been for years. They were policing the park. If we continue on with that model and you look at the way the the the Ocean Park is is operating now, within two years we will have depleted it by by doing what we're doing right now and it'll be negative and we will be having to pull from the um the general fund. Um the writing the the writing is on the wall there. It's already deleted. It's already depleted this year. So um yeah and and

thank you for your time. And as a part of the, you know, the budget balancing exercise we went through, we we did go and pull funds from those two both of those uh uh revenue special revenue funds I believe to transfer into storm water or other areas to to help fund um you know to b average it out. So we we we essentially did raid those those funds which is kind of treating them as general fund. So we're I I understand your your position and it's not I'm trying to clarify this is not an attack on the parks or and a way of to not spend money in the park. Um if anything it's going to help us clarify where and how much we need to spend in the parks, but we need to treat it as a as as a a revenue. You're talking about kind of the color of money. Um and that that's that's kind of not not not important here. the the this provides us with a revenue stream to help throughout town. We're not tying our hands and we and it doesn't reduce us from doing the things in the park that we want to do. It's it's it's you just do them through the the standard budget process of outlaying your expenses and planning and and doing it.

Commissioner Reed, I got a question. Um, Commissioner Corey brought up a point about uh something about Ocean Park is done in relation with the county. Is that correct? Am I Am I wrong? Oh, so the the Ocean Park is owned by the state by the state.

They they own that property. We have some We have a lease with them um that is very old. Um and it's a dollar a year or something to to we lose it from them. Um there's no ex there's no discussion in there of paid parking. So then that that occurred well before paid parking was done. Um I've asked multiple times when paid parking was implemented what what agreement was reached with the state regarding that. I mean and the the the common verbal response you get is everybody who parks there pays there. So, you know, town people, we can park here at Rickman. We don't have to pay up there. You still have to we still have to pay. So, everyone's is treated ego. But there's no documentation that I've seen I've asked repeatedly that outlines any of agreement for that. Nor is there any documentation that I've seen that outlines the the the the the rules governing how the special revenue fund is managed, what those funds are can be used for or can't be used for, what happens to them at the end of the year, what can you do in an emergency situations or whatever. So, typically with special revenue funds are set up, in my understanding, is it's usually done through a resolution or through an an ordinance, which I I don't see that we've we've done. Um, and we I think we just kind of we we stepped on our own foot again here just recently with the with the police department. um when the he got his uh 287g money and we set up a um a revenue fund for that. I think well that that was we should do that. I think we also should have backed it up with um a

resolution or some some formal document that says this is how the money is going to be used in there. A and he had very loose guidance from the from the from the the his supplier for that. It's basically has to be used for equipment or for vehicles and otherwise you can't spend it and that's really so maybe it's just a paragraph that describes that but it's it's it's not and then it just becomes word of mouth tribal knowledge over over the years. So

yeah, my your first year I vividly remember you asking the former manager for that information and have you asked the new manager? I also would like to see that that information. I mean about the parking and that like because wow what if halfway through next budget the state were to come to us and say oh by the way you guys can't do that anymore. I mean we I know it used to drive you crazy that you never really could get an answer to that but we really don't actually know whether it's okay or not. Um and just getting the information. I mean, it's a legit question for a commissioner to ask and say, "Hey, get us the documentation on what is the lease with the state, what are the parameters, and then yet to never get it." We ought to get it. So, if that's possible, um, to refresh that question with the new manager, I also would like to see that because I do think it's something that we should look, you know,

I mean, we we do have the lease. No, the lease does not say it. The conversation of if we're going to pay to park there was a conversation Elizabeth had with the state that if everyone's gonna if we're gonna have paid parking there, everybody has to pay. You can't say residents can't pay. That was a conversation. So I don't it would be good to get that email because the conversation is not enforceable. Better finish. Yeah. I'm just telling you the conversation I was told. I do not have an email. I do not have it because I did not have that conversation. That was the conversation I was told. There is an email from DP that says the salaries could be paid out of there and that was an email given to Commissioner Reid.

See, we here's what happens. Public records are a big issue for this town and not being able to find things and not know and and but it's not even just public records. like if this is a contract issue or something that we may face and you know you have people that come and go um if that was a couple years ago and there was maybe a a conversation on the phone and there is an email but are we when this comes up if it comes up a year or two like five years later are we going to even be able to find those but where if you document those together and put it in something that is trackable then when it comes up you know it might be worth we got we have the point we got the point

might be worth it to reach back out to them and get something in writing So not to detract, so the my my proposal is that we consider, you know, dissolving those funds and taking that revenue directly to the general fund and uh and do the the budgeting for what's needed in the park and and uh and and and allocate the money as as we as it's needed to to do those things. They're not trying to not trying to take anything away from the park. just trying to streamline the the finance part of it and then and show have this money show up on the the general fund in revenue side where it doesn't show up now and and um then that factors in when it comes time to do do millillage.

You got my vote on it? Can I can I make a point? Um, Tom had told me that in Ocean Park we have the pavilions that are falling down and I just want you to remember, right, Tom? You may want to talk about that. Yeah. You may want to talk about the pavilions at Ocean Park. You were saying we can't patch them anymore.

We've patched and patched and that'll be proposed this year. They got to go. We We can't keep them. And there is a real live honest lease and it's become a commissioner core remember it's become a bone of contention over the years people wanting to solicit in the park people wanting to build uh buildings there so it does and you'll find correspondence from previous managers over the years about that I can't quote it verbatim and and whatever but uh we're we're required to maintain maintain said park to the standards that it was constructed and they gave us money.

Yeah, we're we're we're 100% on the hook for maintaining everything up there. So, a hurricane comes in and washes everything out to see it's on us. It's on it's on us. Yeah.

And like uh and I believe commissioner we can we can exceed but in by building for example the carpy pavilion and things like that they they you know but uh There there is. But it those are the major renovations and and and while I've got the floor, what concerns me is hypothetical. If I came before this commission and said, "Guys, I got to rebuild the pavilions. They're really in bad shape." And you're like, "Wow, you're right. But guess what? I'm taking all the money for storm water. Good luck, pal. That's what happened to the parks previously. They every year were easy picking. That commission would sit there and they would go from, "Wow, it's nice to what? Oh, parks. Yeah, we'll get to them." And when I took them over, we took them over, it was a freaking disaster. They were a disgrace. The whole playground was a disgrace. Ocean Park was because they're never wanting to commit money. And my fear is, and I don't disagree as a resident with with Commissioner Reed's idea, that some of those revenues could be spent otherwise, but the other side is I don't want that reaction to exceed to where I get zero money for your parks that our people love and are very important to them. I keep saying we're not trying to take anything away from the park.

You for a budget item and you decide it's not important. You've then said, "Guess what? You got no funds." Well, there's there's a balance. You're afraid that you'll come to us to a public meeting where it's supposed to happen where the public can watch and and see the I'm afraid someone will go berserk and start screaming and hollering at, "Excuse me, I'm speaking, man. Don't be rude. Jesus Christ, Tom. Come on. Please don't let her cuss. Please call her down. I'm asking him for help in point of order. Point of order. Let's be respectful to one another even when we disagree. You're afraid of the public. I mean, let's be respectful. Let's be respectful respectful to one another even when we disagree.

Well, he's the one that all of us. All of us. Let's be respectful to one another even humiliating. You got upset with me when I said ape crap. Remember that night? And you're like, "Make him quit cussing." Well, my lord, I didn't cuss as hard as you did just now. Mayor, please act professional. Please follow Robert's rules for gosh sakes. Come on. Go ahead. Tell us about how you're afraid of the public hearing about what you want to spend money on. You have the floor. Afraid. Listen, I'm I'm going to I'm just going to I'm going to take the gavl for a second. Point of lord. We're going to stop. We're going to stop. We're going to stop. We're going to stop. Madame Mayor, you understand? Let's move on.

I had a comment that I we'll just kind of move the subject a little bit differently. Uh I think uh Commissioner Corey made a very very common sense uh uh point that the town's people particularly the senior citizens don't like to see their taxpayers money going to kids toys and and playground equipment. And I can understand that. I hear that. I hear that from people. They don't like paying for uh the schools when they don't have kids or their their kids are grown and why do we have to keep paying for the schools? These are things that bother taxpayers. They you hear this? This is a way that we have dedicated funds to help the park and maintain the park. I don't know uh that the Rickman Park fund should be uh included in this plan. It sounds to me from what Mr. Larson said that we're already using funds from from the uh Ocean Park for other things, but I don't know that Rick Rickman Park should be on the chopping block in this. So maybe the discussion should be split this at at this point right now. I would vote against it, but but it may be that we're already, you know, the point was made. We're already kind of doing it at Ocean Park.

If I may. Yeah. Do the pavilions in Rickman need to be replaced? No, ma'am. The ones in Okay. But we do need to replace the roof on the bathroom. Yes, ma'am. That'll be a big So, that money is going to be coming out of the park funds. Well, that it would. Yeah, that we're still supposed to do something to the front of this building which would come out of the park funds.

Correct. So, I mean, none of that's going to h none of that in the past happened simply because we had to pay for other things. It was like when we wanted to pave the roads, we would sit there and we would figure out, okay, this is going to be how many miles per year we're going to set aside to money to repave and we were never able to accomplish that because the money went somewhere else even though we had the lists and we had it written down. Okay, let's move on. We've already said that. Okay. Well, I think we hit that one. But you're being repetitive. Come on, let's move on. I think that your ears are closed and you're not listening. So that's why I keep

No, it's okay for you to keep to beat a dead horse, but not okay for me to. I forgot to say. Personally, I am not going to sit through this meeting if it continues in this immature manner. So if it continues, I will be removing myself because I don't want to expose myself to this. I I I would move to close the meeting. If I'd hear a motion, I make a motion to close the meeting. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second to not close the I don't think you close the meeting. You adjourn. Is there a motion to adjurnn? That'd be fine. Okay. Motion, second. All in favor say I. I. All oppose? Nay. All right.