Village Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening again. Today is Monday, July 20th, 2026. We're starting a little bit late, 7.14 p.m. This is our budget workshop. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll?

Mayor Karen Cunningham.

Present.

Vice Mayor Mark Merritzer. Present. Council Member Patrick Fiore.

Present.

Council Member Steve Cody.

Here.

Council Member Marsha Mattson.

Here.

Quorum is met.

Thank you. And we had invocation just a short time ago, so we'll let that roll over into our budget workshop. If everybody could please stand. And Director Carmona, can you lead us in the pledge?

To the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,

Wonderful. At this time, we'll take requests, petitions, and public comments. And this will be the only time for requests, petitions, and public comments. So if you're going to speak, that would be awesome to do it now.

Eric Tolberg, 7884 Southwest 179 Terrace. The Southwest 87th Avenue Bridge is open. The project was done despite the objections of many in Palmetto Bay. There are sidewalks on both sides of Southwest 87th Avenue through Palmetto Bay from Southwest 184th Street to Southwest 141st Street, where it enters US 1. Except on the west side of Southwest 141st Street from to Southwest 144th Street. Increased traffic due to Bridge A opening will make those three blocks very dangerous for pedestrians. We need to construct 970 foot of sidewalk in that section and over three blocks. The total cost will be about $35,000. Since the bridge was put in by Miami-Dade County and it is their road, they should pay for it. So I think we need to put it in our budget, but let's see if we can get the money from Miami-Dade County. Also, the Woods Park is 8.7 acres we got from Miami-Dade County, south of 168th Street from Southwest 88th Avenue to Southwest 88th Court. One of the requirements is for us to build a path across the park. This can be accomplished by building a six foot wide, 325 foot long sidewalk across the south side of the woods. Cost would be about $15,000. Portions of the north and southeast side of the woods have been cleared of exotic vegetation and planted as pine rockland. The sidewalk can be joined in the future with sidewalks along Southwest 88th Avenue and 88th Court, making a loop that will at least travel around the park and open it to Perrine Elementary. We also need to have about $30,000 to $50,000 in the budget for sidewalk repair. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

My name is . One of the things is that as I came in, I guess I missed some of the special council meeting. You guys were talking about having a checkbook through our manager. I think our manager is one of the honest managers I've seen. I think one of the greatest managers, not only being honest, seeing you doing an amazing job in our village. And, you know, I trust being a resident of Palmetto Bay, I trust. our village manager for many reasons. Another thing is, one of the items that I'd like to see for the budget is having a safety board and make sure that our sheriff's office, the one that patrols the Palmetto Bay, be covered. And I think that should take, I know a lot of people like parks, and I like parks too, but if I go to a park, I don't want to get robbed. And my thing is, I think the better way more money should be spent on our sheriff's office, make sure that Our village is one of the safest. You know, I feel safe. I would honestly go at 2 o'clock in the morning, walk to the bank with no problem. That's how safe I feel. If I need to cash out, I won't drive. I would actually walk to the bank because I feel safe because I know that Sheriff's Department, as a resident, have my back. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

Inc. 7740. Oh, sorry. That's not my name. Lasalle, Chinkachip. I live at 7740 Southwest 177th Street. I'm here to speak in regards to the military and hope that in the budget consideration that you all vote unanimously for increasing because we need the services that the village will be providing and all of the things that our directors are going to be talking about definitely needs to be paid for. So that's primarily what I would like for the council to consider.

Thank you so much. With that, do we have any comments by form? Okay. With that, I'll go ahead and close the budget. I'm so sorry, the public comments. And I'll turn it over to the village manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Madam Mayor, members of the council, and for the community of Palmetto Bay, I've actually got three different presentations that we're going to do here this evening. You've already got my main presentation that was published with the agenda. I'm also going to go over the results of the survey that we did. We closed it just a couple hours ago. I tallied up all the numbers and I've got hard copies that Carla is going to distribute here to the council. So I'll very briefly go over the survey and just broadly view the survey as you would public comment. I'm not making any claim that it is a scientific survey, but I think when you see the demographics of who answered it, I think you'll be able to put in perspective the results of the particular survey. And then finally, we're going to have our stormwater rate study presentation that will follow my main presentation and that'll go over the results of the rate study that Reftelos did, and they briefed a little bit about it a week ago at the Cal. So, Olga, if you could please put my computer up here. For members of the village council, for the public, there are some copies up here available if you want to follow along on hard copy. So very briefly, we had a total of 167 folks who answered the survey quite a bit less than we did last year. I think the timing of it was a little off this year. We did it in July. Tends to be a lot of people out of town and many are just busy with summer activities. We'll try and regroup, do a different survey based on input that I get here from the council, and we'll do a different survey prior to the main budget hearing in September. when folks are back, kids are back at school, and so on. But just right up front, you see 98% of the people who answered the survey said they are property owners in the village. How long have you lived or worked in Palmetto Bay? By far, the largest number, almost 36%, have lived here 31 or more years. The second largest cohort lived here 16 to 30 years. So together, those long-term residents represent about 60% of the respondents on this survey. Again, I think if you look at it, they tend to be our most engaged residents, both in community meetings, in public comment, in providing input. So I think This is actually a very relevant response that we're going to get here this evening. No surprise, looking at age group, 65 and older represents 41.3%. 55 to 64 represents another 25.7%. So together, nearly 70% of the respondents are 55 and older. I hope to get more of a... middle-aged demographic the next time we go out particularly families with school-aged children would be important to capture their their their answers to these type of very important questions as we ask residents how how important are the following village services to you the answers were police protection, public safety, canal and waterways, patrolling, traffic enforcement, park maintenance hours, neighborhood beautification, community events, stormwater drainage, tree canopy, urban forestry, and finally capital improvements. Here are the answers. No surprise, public safety far and away came in number one. Number two, Again, no surprise for all of us in the business here. Stormwater and drainage improvements, a very strong number two. Followed by capital improvements, park maintenance, tree canopy, all come in pretty high, as does traffic enforcement. No surprises really on any of those. So when they're asked to rank the most important budget priorities from one through four, Number one, police. Number two, park. Number three, neighborhood beautification. And number four, special events and community programming. Here's kind of the most important question of the entire survey. The village's current tax rate, 2.3018 mils, does not fully cover the cost of current services, primarily due to rising public safety costs, a rate of 2.69 mils, would fully fund operations for a home with a median taxable value of $394,000. The difference is approximately $152 per year or $12.67 per month. What statement best reflects your view? 34% say I support raising to 2.69. 34.7, that is one resident more, would prefer keeping the rate at or near 2.3018. 21.5% say I would support a modest increase, but not 2.69. And finally, I'm unsure comes in number fourth at just under 10%. Here are the raw numbers to those answers that I just said. But again, if you look at... If you look at the demographic of who answered it, I think this puts in perspective, and I think the village council kind of gets, again, if you view this as public comment, I think you get a pretty good data point from this particular survey. Question nine, we educate the community that we did need to modestly draw on our reserve this current budget year. And what I'm going to propose for budget year 27, we will continue to draw on our reserves to fund the full cost of services. So we ask people what they think of that. Here are the answers in numbers. By far, well, not by far, but by three points, the village should prioritize restoring reserves, even if it requires a rate increase. just under that at 28%, the reserve reduction is acceptable in the short term. And those residents who chose that do not think services should be cut or rates increased. And then finally, at just under 30%, the residents who selected that would prefer service reductions over a millage rate increases. We talk a lot about in our budget hearings and budget workshops that only 13 cents of every dollar that a resident pays in property taxes actually goes to Palmetto Bay. The other 87% is paid to other agencies, mainly other Miami-Dade County agencies. And the question is, how much does that change what you feel about all of this? And the answer is not much. Moving on. When you consider the long-term value of your home, how important is it that the village continue to invest in public safety, infrastructure, high-quality community amenities such as parks? No surprise, almost 60% said extremely important. Another nearly 25% said moderately important. Slightly important, 13.17%. And five residents actually said not important. Question number 12, we tee up the November ballot measure that would increase the homestead exemption. And we asked residents to select what approach they would support. 43.7 said they would increase the millage rate. They would support increasing the millage rate to offset the loss. 30.5% said they would reduce, they would support reducing village services. 35.9% said they would support drawing down a reserve fund. Only 18.5% would support zoning changes that would increase density. And then finally, 40.7%, a much larger number than I expected, would support new user fees for specific programs. And again, when you look at the demographic that answered this survey, I think it puts a lot of these responses in context. I did tee up, and I have proposed it just conceptually, that one response to an increase in homestead exemption would be to increase the amount of commercial properties in the village that are not subject to the increase in homestead exemption. And in this particular question, we asked if people would support increasing density in the island district of the downtown, which is that area that lies between the northbound and the southbound lanes of US 1 within the downtown zoning district of Palmetto Bay. Didn't get a lot of support. In fact, the largest response, 38.32, is strongly opposed. Another 10.18 is somewhat opposed. 26.9, somewhat support. And 12.57, strongly support. I'm not going to go into, you know, if you did select somewhat support with conditions, what would you What would you like to see in terms of restrictions? Because I think that answer itself kindly or largely settled that question. So getting back to responses to the increase in homestead exemption, what combination of approaches would you most support to maintain services while managing fiscal pressure? And we asked them to rank from one through four, one being the most preferred, four being the least preferred. Number one was raise the millage rate to fully cover expenses. Two was allow higher density development. I'm sorry. Two was, I'm sorry. The number one answer was reduce expenses by reducing services, followed by raise the millage rate, then draw from reserves, and then finally allow higher density development. And with that, I will be happy to answer any questions or entertain comments and recommendations from the village council before I tee up my main brief.

Any comments on the survey itself? My only comment would be if you could, thank you for the information, and you'll be reopening the survey. I did a quick video today inviting people to take the survey. Several people reached out and said, but it closed.

Yes, ma'am. We will reopen the survey. We are reopening the survey.

Okay. It will be reopened tomorrow. How's that? Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

We will have it reopened.

Thank you. Is there anything else? Are we ready for, all right. I think we're ready for your presentation.

Okay, if you could, there you go. So let me start off with, based on the discussion and the vote for the maximum millage rate, the finance director and I got together and we looked at what we thought would be possible and what we could achieve in terms of what support for what millage we'd be able to get from the village council. So we have built a draft fiscal year 27 budget around a 2.35 millage rate. So what that does is it requires a four-fifth majority vote. With the changes in the trim legislation from the most recent session of the legislature, a simple majority of village council can only approve the rollback rate, which this coming budget year is 2.1802. So anything above that requires a four-fifth majority. To get anything above a 2.3982 to be specific, would require a unanimous vote. So again, if you look at where we are here in fiscal 27 and where Director Chin and I and the other department directors are building the budget is right here at 2.35. That represents, you can see how much of an increase that is over the rollback rate of 2.18. it's important to point out that 2.35 is still considerably lower than the structural target rate of 2.69, which we did pass as our maximum rate for the years. So what does 2.35 mean for the median taxable homeowner at $394,000? Well, this current year, 2.3018 mils, that would translate to an annual tax bill to the village of Palmetto Bay of $907.56. With a proposed 2.35 millage, that would be roughly a $19 increase at $926 per year. If you look at the structural target at 2.69 mils, that would represent an annual tax payment to the Village Palmetto Bay for the median priced home of just over $1,000, $1,060. So again, 2.35 compared to our current village of 2.30 represents about $19 additional per year. How do we fit in at 2.35? Here's Village Palmetto Bay at 2.35 The village of Pinecrest is at 2.50. The town of Cutler Bay is at 2.84. So at 2.35, the village of Palmetto Bay maintains the same position we have been in largely for the past five years. There are a number of cities and towns who are lower than Palmetto Bay. Most of those cities and towns, like Aventura, Sunny Isles, They're very unique communities within Miami-Dade County that have a very high percentage of commercial properties. How do we balance the budget if we actually go with a 2.35 millage when I briefed earlier that the actual structural rate is 2.69? Well, to start with, Our fiscal year 25 ending balance was 14.72 million. We budgeted and we assumed it would be 14.35. So we came in nearly $400,000 higher in our ending budget balance for fiscal year 25. So we started fiscal 26 with a much higher fund balance than we expected. Now let's look at my middle box here. Throughout two quarters now, or I'm sorry, three quarters of fiscal 26, we are currently running a $1.1 million surplus over the budgeted amount. And that includes all the expenses. That includes all of those litigation, expenses that were unbudgeted. So if the fiscal year ended today, the village would be in a surplus of 1.1 million. You add those together and we project that we will end our current fiscal year with about a 12.27 million fund balance. Very healthy. The Government Finance Officer Association recommends a 90-day fund balance. This puts us above a six-month fund balance. So well over twice the recommended fund balance from the GFOA. This is one of the reasons why the Village has maintained a AAA bond credit rating from Standard & Poor is a high fund balance. So what I'm proposing here with a 2.35 millage is to use some of the surplus that we're generating this year to next year, and we will still end fiscal 27. This is the budget year that we're talking about, fiscal 27. We will still end with an $11.2 million fund balance. So again, if you look at what we're proposing here and what we're building our budget around, and I'm interested in hearing your comments and questions from the Village Council. We're looking at total budgeted revenues for fiscal 27 at $23.7 million. That represents about a 4.6% increase over our fiscal 26 budget. We're looking at total expenditures of $24.52 million and that represents about an 8.1% increase over our fiscal 26 budget. How do we close that gap? Well, we close it with about $805,000 from the surplus that we're creating this year. That gap plus about 250,000 in Coral Reef Park capital projects, which, by the way, that'll be the only capital project that I'm going to propose for fiscal 27, and that will be to replace the wood fencing around Coral Reef Park, which is in a constant state of deterioration. We're going to replace all of it with the new composite fencing that you can see on the northern border of the park. So what's the risk here? Well, you're using fund balance to pay for recurring costs. That's always a risky position to be in. But in the case of budget year 27, we had a couple of very favorable occurrences, a higher ending fund balance for fiscal 25, as well as very large $1.1 million fiscal 26 surplus. I'd also like to point out that our litigation reserve in our fiscal 27 budget is similarly reduced to zero as it has been for this budget year. So again, by transferring the $805,000 from fund balance from our surplus that we are generating this year, we can cover all the expenses that we need to cover for fiscal 27. The big risk is going to come from the ballot measure That could expand the homestead exemption and let's talk a little bit more about that. Because just the general risk of using your fund balance to pay for recurring costs is there any year. But this particular year, we're also looking at the voters getting a say on whether or not they want to increase the homestead exemption. I've seen two polls lately, and in both of those polls, over a 60% majority of likely voters expressed a desire to pass that ballot amendment. So if that polling holds up, we very likely could be looking at a passage of the amendment that would affect not fiscal year 27, but fiscal year 28. And in fiscal year 28, that would represent by our calculation about 2.5 million dollars in general fund loss in year one. In year two, the homestead exemption would increase to $250,000, and this number would be $4 million in year two. So fiscal 28, the hit to the general fund would be $2.5 million. In fiscal 29, the hit to the general fund would be $4 million. So you can see the increase, and that really does kind of frame the risk of of using fund balance to pay for recurring costs. We can do it. Again, if HDR 1F passes, then we really need to reevaluate where the village needs to go in terms of reducing service levels, expanding user fees, raising millages, There's a whole host of potential actions that the village can take, and I think just that one data point from the survey gave you what one group of people thought, and there will certainly be many others between now and the time that the village has to take actions. There's been a lot of talk about what causes kind of the structural imbalance we're in. We're very simply, our public safety budget is increasing generally on an annual basis much larger than the revenue sources do. And I want to be very clear, and I know I've said it before, but the budget numbers we get from the Sheriff's Office, both the Major and I get it from their finance department. The Major and Major Guerra before Major Rodriguez have been exceptionally conservative in how they actually execute the budget. And we would not be in the position we are in now with the surplus that we have without the budget execution of Major Rodriguez and his team. But the budget numbers are given to us, and as we plan our budget for the year, we have to use those numbers. So you can see, year on year, we're looking at about a 7.3% increase in the police budget. General government, as the village council knows, these are generally all the contracts and expenses that support two or more departments. These are things like utility costs, fuel costs, copier contracts, all of those type of expenses that support the inner workings of government. Planning and zoning, we had a much lower budgeted amount A year ago for planning and zoning, as we had outsourced much of the planning and zoning department, we have since brought that all in-house. So this number looks much bigger than it actually is. This reflects the total amount of planning and zoning that last year was divvied up among general government as well as planning and zoning. Facilities maintenance, we've increased the amount of money we're spending on facility maintenance just based on having additional buildings or additional responsibilities such as the building at Coral Reef Park. Village attorney, there's been quite a bit of discussion already this evening about the village attorney That percentage looks very large, but the actual rate in fiscal 26 is actually about 1.1 million when you include all of the costs together in the village attorney's line-up. So $126,000 within context is actually not that much of an increase in the village attorney budget. There's been a lot of discussion about police And I know a lot of residents feel that maybe if we had our own police department, that these numbers, we would have greater control. In fact, I think I even heard that this evening, that we should have our own police department. We'd have greater control over the cost. In years past, I did a deep dive on our police budget. If you could put my computer back up, please. I ended... that I'm going to go back to my presentation. I just want to very briefly talk about the Palmetto Bay Municipal District compared to the Pinecrest Police Department. And I'm not making any statement as to which one is better, as to what city has the better approach. I'm not making a value judgment here. I'm just talking about numbers. and the people who think, and for good reason, they think that if we had our own police department, we would have greater control and we'd be able to do it for much less than we currently are. And I'm here to tell you that is just not the case. And I'm going to use Pinecrest as a good example here. And again, not to throw shade on Pinecrest, but just to show that the deal that we have with a Miami-Dade County Sheriff is a good deal for the taxpayers. And that's not even getting into the competency of these two departments, which I will leave that discussion for another date. Here's our projected bottom line budget, if you look at my rightmost column, for the Palmetto Bay Municipal District, $12,773,000. Where does the village or yeah, where's the village of Palmetto or of Pinecrest fallout? Their fiscal year 27 police budget is $16.385 million with an additional cost of many of their vehicles that are not contained in this budget. So what does that additional, you know, $3.6 million, nearly $4 million, what does that buy the village of Pinecrest? Here are the authorized positions, rightmost column. This is their current budget year, and it hasn't changed in fiscal year 27. They have a total of 34, in my bottom row here, they have 34 sworn police officers, another three detectives, for a total of 37 positions. sworn police officers. What does the village of Palmetto Bay have? 37 sworn police officers. Going back to Pinecrest, where do we differ? Well, we differ in overhead. Specifically, chief of police, deputy chief, three captains. The village of Palmetto Bay has one major, one lieutenant. The village of Pinecrest has nine sergeants, three of whom are involved in training and administration. The village of Palmetto Bay has six sergeants, one of whom is involved in training and administration. Here's where a lot of the overhead is. All the civilian personnel that support dispatch, that support record keeping, you've got administrative aides, you've got a victim service coordinator, you have HR, three traffic enforcement officers, part-time, and four crossing guards. Well, we have the crossing guards as well. There are a total of 79 employees in the village of Pinecrest, and they have the same exact number of police officers on the street that we have. In the military, we call this a tooth-to-tail ratio, and the village of Palmetto Bay has a far leaner tooth-to-tail ratio than Pinecrest. Again, not to throw shade on them, we are able to leverage, if you look at all these civilians, we are able to leverage the Miami-Dade County Sheriff's Office that provide dispatch and all of these other important functions that the village of Pinecrest has to have full-time employees do we have a total of four civilians and they have far more and that's what the difference is it's not in again if you look at what we used to call in the marine corps the trigger pullers you've got 37 there and we've got 37 here so i just want to put that number in perspective for people who think that we would have greater control and we would be able to do it cheaper. And I would respectfully submit that we have not only an excellent deal, but we have by far a much more capable police department or sheriff's municipal district here. Okay, so to summarize for fiscal year 27, what we were looking at in total budgeted revenue is about $23.7 million. The largest source, ad valorem taxes, at $11.6 million, followed by utility service taxes, intergovernmental revenue, that's mainly the sales tax, our franchise fees, charges for services, the communications tax, and then much smaller revenue sources. I know fines when we were talking about traffic and e-bike fines came up, our total budgeted number for fines is $172,000 for the year. So again, if you look at what really matters in the Village of Palmetto Bay, you've got your largest revenue sources, property taxes, utility taxes, sales taxes, franchise fees, and charges for services. Where does the money go? By far, police department or the sheriff's municipal district. Parks and recreation comes in next. General government, again, they are all those type of contracts and requirements that support two or more departments in the village. And here you can see the remaining village departments, planning and zoning, HR, facilities, maintenance, finance, the manager, the clerk, the attorney, IT, and then finally the village council. Here are some very useful metrics. This is a change from the slide that is in the published brief. I updated these numbers with fiscal 27 numbers. I had mistakenly kept fiscal 26 numbers in the presentation that is in your agenda package. So if you look at police services, the Village of Palmetto Bay spends just over $507 per resident on police. National average is $100 less per person, 407. Parks and Rec Village spends nearly $155 per resident on parks and rec. The national average is $93. So if you look at the village council, the village clerk, the village manager, finance, HR, communications, information technology, if you add up all of those departments, kind of the administrative overhead of running the village, that totals about 12.7% of the general fund budget or about $125 per resident. So if you look at standards in terms of how lean is an organization, the Village of Palmetto Bay runs a very lean governmental organization. If you look back over the years, the Village has had an enormous five-year run on capital, about $32 million total from fiscal year 22 through fiscal year 26. With the millage rate that we're looking at potentially for fiscal 27, I've already spoken about we're only going to bring forward one project, $250,000 for that composite fence railing around Coral Reef Park. Again, that perimeter fencing. If you look back, here are some more details on our five-year capital spending plan. Again, about $32 million total. Single largest category was parks and rec, nearly $16 million. Second largest, stormwater clocking in at just over $9 million. You can see the details here. Transportation at $2.7 million. Facilities and infrastructure at $1.7 million. We had quite a few water projects at 1.1 million, and then you can see the remainders. How was it funded? We did leverage most of our 12 million in ARPA funding. Most of that 12 million was leveraged on those capital investments. We did benefit from both federal, state, and local grants and fees. And then our general fund surpluses, and that's why it's important to generate a surplus every year, our general fund surpluses filled in the balance, and we were able to really fund a remarkable five-year spending plan. And with that, Madam Mayor, I'm happy with my department directors here and the sheriff's major to answer any questions you may have.

Wonderful. Let's start questions. Vice Mayor?

Yeah, I saw that our only capital project for the following fiscal year is going to be the replacement fence at Coral Reef Park. My understanding is that we have over $600,000 in park impact fees available. Is that correct?

It's probably going to end up being quite a bit less. I think we'll probably end up at about $250,000. in our fund balance. Director Chin, parking pack fee. You have the current balance and we know we have some expenditures coming out of there.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council. Yes, Manager. Roughly about $200,000 to $300,000 from where we're at.

So probably around 250 or so, you think?

Yeah, combined.

Okay, combined.

Of the two impacts.

Okay.

And is that park fence project being funded by our fund balance or the park impact space?

By the fund balance.

Got it. I guess one of the questions I'd pose to council is given that we have about $250,000 worth of park impact fees available, I personally walk through Coral Reef Park quite a bit. Maybe one of the projects that we consider as a capital project from that park impact fee to get an estimate on would be to redo some of the bathrooms that we have especially over by the baseball field those are quite old and I think could use some updating and then also some of the other areas as well if I believe we have two bathrooms that are along the pads and then we have the one at the cafe and then we have one at the rec center so I'd love to have a conversation to see if we can potentially use some of that parking back speed balance to redo some of those bathrooms because again they're kind of old

If I may manage. Impact fees can only use to add to your existing facilities you can't repair or replace.

Got it. What about being able to use it for, I guess the other thing I would use it for then is the woods. Are we able to use the park impact fees for woods improvements then? It's new. Anything that's new. I mean, by definition, I feel like it would probably be a new improvement if we're working on the woods, so. um i i'm wondering then i'd pose this to the council then perhaps allocating some of that money i know some residents want to go a little bit slower with the woods perhaps we can allocate a portion of that for some additional work this coming year um into the woods from that park impact speed balance so i'll pose that to the council thank you my only question uh i what is the uh budget for the woods this year because i thought we were going to take like a

I don't want to call it a cooling off period, but a growing period, because we just did a lot of planting, so then what's next?

No, that's actually, well, not a cooling off, but yes, we're going to take a year to maintain the existing plantings that they've done, let them grow in and mature a little bit for a year. I think we have 40,000, what did we... think we put forty thousand against it and the parks director and the finance director are agreeing with that number I'm pretty sure it was forty four zero that we put against it I was just wondering because it doesn't sound like there's gonna be I mean maybe a year from now no I'm not

I'm not debunking your wanting to add additional funds to it, but it sounds like that would be for maybe the year after.

Yes, ma'am. And actually, our contractor, IRC, recommended we give everything a year, let it grow in, establish itself. They have provided us a scope for phase two, and our intention also over this next year is to seek... grant funding opportunities so that we'd be able to offset some of that cost for Phase 2.

Thank you. I see a lot of notes over here. Do you have a lot of questions? You have some questions? Okay, comments. Anyone else with questions?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. In addition to the woods, Mr. Manager, so the path, is that for next year or is that for this year? No, that'll be this year. The path is still for this year. Yes, sir. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you. Quick question. One of the things I learned a long time ago in this capacity was if I didn't make sure it was in the budget, it may not be in the budget. So just a couple of thoughts here. And I don't know where my colleagues are. But first, a quick question. Our AAA bond rating... You know, there's 411 cities in the state of Florida. I think, is it 12 or 15 of them? 12. And proudly, we are one of those cities that holds a AAA bond rating, which I don't think we talk about that enough because that really speaks to fiscal responsibility. How is that AAA bond rating, if at all, going to be affected by this particular budget or things that may be occurring like homestead exemption reform?

Well, I think we're going to end up, regardless of what the village council wants to do in terms of millage, we're going to end up better than we forecast. And some of the criteria that go into that rating are things like your overall debt level, which has been steadily decreasing every year. your fund balance, which is actually going to end up better than we forecast. So, I mean, I can't predict what the rating agency is going to do, but I do believe that if anything, regardless of challenges we have to make the numbers all work, we're still going to end up in a better position than we had forecast. both in terms of debt level, fund balance, and the things that really matter to the rating agency.

That's good news, and I don't believe that you can't predict because you have predicted for the last five years, every time we've done a budget, you actually have predicted in some ways what the future holds. So I don't know if you've got some kind of crystal ball going on, but I appreciate that. So just a couple of things, and this is really just seeing if, if my colleagues are interested in making sure of what direction we want to take. The first was in speaking with the PTA presidents from all five of our schools that are associated with our compact, and then also speaking with our education advisory board members separately because they weren't able to meet at some point, so I couldn't get an official opinion from them. I wondered if there was the possibility, and I don't really want to micromanage this, but that we set aside something like $12,500 from this coming budget and then figure out, let the Education Advisory Board or work with the manager or their liaison to come back with a way of fund distribution for those schools. Maybe it's for a project. And the example I would use would be we had a school come before us, the Southwood Middle School, come before us for their robotics. I know Vice Mayor and I had dialogue with several of the parents and unfortunately I wasn't able to make that particular meeting but gratefully the council passed for that you know some dollars to go towards a sponsorship this would be essentially $2,500 if you broke it if it gets broken down like that way $2,500 per school that are a part of our compact so that includes Palmetto Senior High and and you know you all could come up you all being being we could we all or the next council y'all or the education advisory board come up with some way of figuring out how we could disperse those dedicated funds to good projects going on in the schools that's one thought and then the other thing that we talked about at the first uh budget workshop and uh again i don't know and vice mayor you might have some ideas on this uh how we want to approach this uh but we talked a little bit about the ibus and and the freebie obviously to the general public those are services that we provide out of our CITT funds. So we did make a commitment to the parents that had come out several months back that as we start going through this budget cycle, we'd have some conversation with them. I really haven't been able to tell them anything because I don't know what direction the council wants to take. So do we want to host a small meeting for them to discuss? What are our... My goodness, I'm so sorry. And it's not the hour. It's only five minutes after eight. What are our intentions as it relates to the IBUS? And I know we have the four freebies, so things to think about. But as it relates to the 12,500, I wondered if there was some temperature to go ahead and at least put it in the budget. We don't have to make a decision on the what. and the mechanics of it all, but just that money would be set aside for that. And if I could make a motion, I would.

What would the motion be?

To set aside in the budget $12,500 for the public schools that are a part of our Education Advisory Board compact and allow the Education Advisory Board to come up with a process for dispensing the funds.

Just to remind us, it's a workshop, so we can't make any motions or take any actions. You can discuss it. You can get a consensus that you all might support or not. Thank you.

Thanks for that. All right. Yeah, sorry. Well, I would like to do that. Okay. I got two others, I think. I don't think Councilman Matson was known. And Councilman McFarland. So, thank you. And then the IBUS, I don't know how you want to approach that, Mr. Manager. I mean, at some point we have to have discussion.

Well, we're going to do a presentation. We had hoped to have it tonight, but unfortunately, Freebie had been working on some other items for us. But based on a recommendation from the Vice Mayor, we went back to Freebie, requested that they give us a proposal to run the I-bus as it is, we're not going to make changes to it, but run the I-bus as is, and that would get us around having to do the capital expenditure for two new I-buses, which is really what the kind of the long pole in the tent, so to speak, is both of those I-buses are aging out and need to be replaced either this year, and if you remember, we've had a number of times where one or more has been out of commission due to maintenance problems. So contracting with Freebee to run the current IBUS route, interesting. I don't want to scare anyone, but we'll throw it out there. They're also going to give us a proposal to do it without a driver. So we may not be ready for it. Culturally, we may not be ready for the year 2026, but it's coming. So we should have both of those quotes for you, vice mayors.

Is there a presentation that's going to, I know it's not happening tonight, but are we doing a separate presentation coming up?

As soon as I get it from Freebie, I'm going to forward it to the village council so you have it. But the next opportunity would be the September budget hearing. But I'll send it to you as soon as I get it, and that way you already know what you want to do. And as long as you don't cross-communicate, just tell me what you think. That may be our option, to be very honest.

Vice Mayor?

Yeah, I'll just say, um, I haven't seen the freebie offer, but my preference would be that if we were to contract out that service, given the budget situation that we're in, I'd like to potentially see us do a full on open RFP to see if anyone would come back. Um, and essentially we just compare what the proposals that we get are. Um, my understanding is that freebies more specialized with point to point service. i do know that they have operated in the past the fixed route but i know that there's a lot of other companies out there that can do fixed route i know there's especially in miami-dade county there's at least like three that i know can do this so in my opinion whatever presents us the best proposal should win here i'm not married to any any single one of them so i'll just float that idea to the council if there's consensus for that yeah i i think it's an interesting concept

But is that a mm-hmm, like mm-hmm, mm-hmm, or mm, mm?

More along the lines of a ah.

It's really just that we can't, since we can't do motions, the manager's just looking for some direction, so I hear you saying yes, okay, and you're saying mm-hmm, yes. Yes.

New counsel.

Unfortunately, we'll be gone, but we've got to make a decision on whether the buses, the trains are going to run on time or not. That's fine. Okay, so there you go. And then last, if I could, so I did have the opportunity to meet with each one of the directors, and thank you all. It was my last time in this capacity meeting with you all to discuss budget, and I hope you heard my heartfelt message, which was thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do for the village. What always is apparent to me is how much each one of you actually loves, even if you don't live here, loves the village of Palmetto Bay and really wants to do right by the residents here. And each one of the, you would be very happy, each one of them did not ask for anything. They explained to me projects, because my question was, is there any project that you're concerned with that won't be funded? I did not hear. I think they've expressed to you the projects that are most important. The only thing, and this was not an ask, this was really a thought of mine after meeting with Director Carmona, that we perhaps keep i know we you your proposal is to remove some full-time folks creating part-time positions but my preference even if it's not filled immediately would be to keep a full-time park supervisor position if i'm getting that correct from our dialogue earlier today and perhaps one PSA position. Again, I know it looks a little messier when you've got those positions there and they're not filled and you've done the right thing trying to clean up each one of the positions that we haven't filled for whatever the reason, for whatever the reason. But as I start looking, and the Vice Mayor actually brought this up, which was part of my... my thinking process was as it relates to our beautiful rec center over at Coral Reef and just wanting to make sure that we've got when the time is right to that spot available. It's much harder to put in a spot after you've made decisions. I'm sorry, I won't look at you, Fannie. I'm not going to look. It's much harder to put in positions after We've made a decision rather than making a decision to leave those positions. And then at mid-year review, which there will be other individuals here to help in that capacity, maybe at that point you decide to fill it or maybe beforehand things are going well and you say, hey, let's start plugging this position in. So I don't know what everyone else's thoughts are, but we are the Village of Parks, and we've got a lot of beautiful parks. We've got another one onboarding at some point. And I'm sorry for the rest that I'm not recommending more people. I think everybody needs more people. But I also think the parks is a pretty big component, second biggest chunk of our pie. So that would be, I don't know how everyone else feels about it.

Well, I'd point out also, Mayor, we've got Veterans Park that, you know, 18 months from now, we'll have our initial capability and it'll be open. So I have no issue. We'll keep the positions. I think we have at least one full-time supervisor. I think we have one or more PSAs. I forget. I'll get with Director Carmona. and Director Cadival, and we'll figure it out. But we can keep those positions. At some point, we are going to need to fill them. So it probably is a better idea just to keep the position on the book, and that way we just need to fund it.

I would like to do that. Thank you. All right. I know you've got comments. Are there other comments? All right. Why don't you kick us off?

Okay. All right. I feel like I'm in an alternative reality here in terms of what's coming down the pike with this reduction, property tax reduction. But before I get into that, let me just say that on a really, really common sense level, like a family, the families had a pretty good run It's spent pretty much what it's wanted to. We had a tremendous gift, what I call almost like if we were a family, it would be like an inheritance or winning the lottery. We got $12.4 million from the federal government, and that bought a lot of stuff, paid for a lot of stuff, including hiring staff and giving staff increases, putting money into the pickleball center. A lot of stuff. Stormwater. I was making a list today. There are so many things that we spent or bought from that. However, it's gone. We spent it. And now we're coming up against a situation where we don't have enough money. And I appreciate the manager. He's trying to keep the family afloat here with what they want, and I appreciate it. However, we are now, realistically, we are taking our savings, which is in budget speak called reserves, we're taking our savings to pay for our recurring expenses. And that's bad. That's really bad news. That is, what I'm saying is, how much money we spend, we're now having to draw on savings to pay for it. And that's heading down a really bad path. I know in my family and when I was growing up, we didn't do that. We cut back expenses. We cut back what we were spending. And considering property tax reduction is probably coming down the pike, we should really plan on what we're going to be cutting because things are going to be seriously in trouble. But just for this year, we don't know what's going to happen in November, so just for this budget year, We need to start reducing our spending just for this year so we don't tap into our savings. Why not cut our spending? I haven't heard about that tonight. We're just talking about, well, keeping the spending going. Well, why not cut the spending? Because we don't want to dip into our savings. In my family, you know, we wouldn't buy a car or we wouldn't take a big trip or we wouldn't eat out every week or something like that. I mean, these are things that we have to be responsible about our money and not dip into savings, go into debt. So I have some suggestions. about what can be done. I'm not going to make any suggestions about spending money because I think we should not be spending money. I think we should be cutting. So we definitely have to look at cutting these recurring expenses. And for that, I just recommend that have each department recommend a certain percentage cut that would make up for our deficit so we don't have to dip into savings. So we can all work together to come up with cuts that then would balance our budget. We can ask Councilman Cody to pledge to stop filing lawsuits or to settle lawsuits.

Councilwoman?

We can settle the Luxcom lawsuit. That's taking up half a million a year. Councilwoman?

I don't think we should be discussing matters of litigation and settling.

We can negotiate the police contract. I mean, again, on a really simple level, when I need work done and I go out for estimates, and if the contract is presented to me, well, I negotiate the contract. So why not negotiate it? I mean, it's like everything is fixed. That's what it reminds me of. It's like an alternative reality. Our spending is fixed. The police budget's fixed, park's fixed, so then we have to figure out how to pay for it. But I don't look at it like that. I mean, a budget can be negotiated. Can our user fees be adjusted? That would be some way. Well, can we stop, can we look at fee waivers? I mean, it's a small amount of money, but still can we look at that? Everything counts. When a boat has a leak or it has many leaks, you try to fix all of them. You know, a little leak can become a big leak. Spending on public relations and marketing. I mean, do we need to do that much that we're doing now? All right. So to me, the rational thing, the responsible thing is to start cutting. and not keep spending. Now, for the last four years, I have voted against raising taxes by raising the millage. And I'm going to vote against it again this year, because to me, we are not being responsible stewards of the taxpayers' money. And I don't want our taxpayers, our property owners, to have to pay for continued spending in which we have to dip into our savings to pay for it. So thank you.

Do you want to correct? I was going to correct some of the comments that were made.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you again. Not to be argumentative, but what I've presented has zero for litigation reserve. So that would be the big item, respectfully, Dr. Madsen, that you proposed. And I've already zeroed that out. It frequently comes up on various Facebook posts about communications and marketing. And respectfully, we don't spend that much. I have a full-time PIO. I have a part-time videographer and a part-time social media specialist. That's it. You're not going to balance. You can get rid of all of that. And you're not going to do much. The other items, the fee waivers, if the Village Council wants to repeal the fee waiver ordinance, then I believe you should if that's what you want to do. If not, the cost of that, I mean, respectfully, is trivial. The actual cost is trivial. So with that, thank you, Mayor. Can I respond to that, please?

Sure.

Okay. To zero out litigation is not realistic because we are increasing our litigation expenses every year to zero them out in the budget.

How can you do that?

This is a huge expense, and it's zero in the budget? I looked at your chart. I thought, well, maybe you know something I don't know, like we're not going to have any more lawsuits or we're going to settle. But to zero out doesn't make any sense.

It's one of our biggest expenses. Yes, ma'am. And not to be argumentative, but I'm following the practice that this council adopted for this budget year, where you took the litigation reserve and therefore all litigation expenses out of the budget and made a decision that you would fund those out of fund balance, and if we needed to do a mid-year review and recapitalize our litigation reserve line item, we would do that. Thankfully, this year, we've under-executed the budget, and we entered the year with a higher fund balance than we forecast, so we have been able to not only pay all the litigation expenses, but all of what we expect that we haven't yet received for the remainder of the fiscal year, we should be able to cover all of those this year. So I've just continued that into the next budget year.

Vice Mayor.

yeah so a couple things um actually a question um and then followed by i guess some more comments um the question that i have is i see that the i guess deficit or fund balance withdrawal was 800 000 this coming fiscal year it seems like we're going to be ending up with a under execution of about a million ish i mean i don't want to hold you to it but that's the ballpark in the event next year we under execute and we're at that same i guess area would that essentially cover that 800 000 if we under execute yes that was okay that's my only that's one question the other question i have is taking some inspiration from the county they've done some not so smart things lately but they've also done some pretty smart things One of the smarter things that was done is that they actually hired a third-party consultant to come in, and what they did is instead of paying them outright a fee, they split some of the savings that they identified. So, for example, the county hired in early 2025 when they were also staring at the edge of a fiscal cliff, and they're about to face a much worse one this coming year. But nonetheless, they reached out to McKinsey and split essentially... whatever they would find, they would split with McKinsey. And they actually found over $160 million in savings with just the Jackson Health System alone. I don't know what that could look like here in Palmetto Bay if we can get a similar deal, but I think it would be worthwhile to explore maybe having a third-party consultant come in and advise us to see if there's ways we can identify efficiencies and also just have a more leaner even more lean and more structurally balanced government long term and just see if we can identify those savings so i want to put that on the table see if there's consensus from council on that and perhaps even having i know that on thursday we have an executive session perhaps if the manager is willing put on an rfp see what comes back and Even if it's not done for this budget cycle, perhaps next budget cycle, we can have that available and make some more informed decisions as a council.

Thank you. Other comments? Council Member Cody?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I am surprised that I witnessed this evening from the councilwoman a road to Damascus moment from her. She tells us that, and my colleague knows what that means, that we need to cut back on spending money. Well, over the years that I've been on the council with you, Councilwoman, you have put forward a number of projects, not through the budget process, but just because you thought that they were a good thing to do. Like, we'll reimburse you for adopting a pet. We'll reimburse you for emergency pet expenses. Wasn't in the budget, but you thought it was a good idea. Things like, and believe me, somebody who uses a shower chair, I understand the importance of grab bars, but that wasn't in the budget as well. What I would like the manager to do is to give us a list of items, the million orchids, that the councilwoman has put forward in the last budget, or post last budget, and let's make sure that we eliminate all of those programs. Because if you say we can't afford things, we can't afford what you have not put through the budget. So I'm glad to see that you're all for not spending money, but I will support you in withdrawing those. Do take umbrage at your comment about lawsuits. If you want me to promise not to file any lawsuits, I will ask you not to do something as foolish as trying to delegate out from the council to the Charter Revision Commission or other entities the legislative power that this body has. And the same for that is what the gentleman to my right did with regard to deciding that an exercise of free speech must be punished. So if the two of you would decide not to do that and make that promise, perhaps I'll come forward with a promise to you, Councilwoman, as well. But that's all I have. I frankly think that we should put the amount of money a reserve for litigation in the budget, rather than just paying it on a catch-as-catch-can basis.

So, thank you, Madam Mayor. One moment, Vice Mayor. Mr. Durney?

Yes, I just wanted, there was one thing that Nick and I had talked about, and I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention, because we talked about cutting expenses. One of the things we talked about, at least in legal, is there's a mechanism called cost recovery where for certain development projects, right now, for whatever reason, the village has never utilized it, but it allows the village to shift the costs of certain development analysis and development-related legal review and other non-legal review projects. to the developer. So we talked about also implementing that, and that would hopefully, you know, would shift some of the expenses from the village to the developer. I know we do it in Cutler Bay. We do it in Pinecrest. It's been effective, and we don't usually do it at the same rate because obviously these are private clients, but they'd be private entities, not government entities, but I'm happy to do it at whatever rate we charge in Cutler Bay would be consistent with the two cities, so. if that's something that the village is open to. I mean, those were some avenues that we've tried to see, because we see the issues here too. So we're trying to brainstorm and I wish I could say this was creative, but it's in the code, so it's not all.

Is that something you need policy for?

I would say if the consensus, I'll look to see if we need a formal vote, which obviously we wouldn't be able to take tonight, but if the consensus amongst the council is that you'd like for us to do something like that, we'll look and see if we need a formal vote of the council, and we can bring it back if we do. But if the majority of you are open to it, I think it's an effective way to to shift some of the costs.

That's great. Is everyone open to that? I see a thumbs up, then yes, and okay, and yeah.

Could I respond to the council's, Councilman Cody's comments?

Sure, can I?

Okay.

Go ahead and respond.

Please, let me just do it before I forget. Okay, so just in terms of what I propose, I'm very proud of it. They're such tiny amounts of money, it makes fee waivers look tiny, truly. So far, from what I can calculate that's been on the manager's checkbook, you've cost the village about $54,000 in your lawsuits or ethics complaint, the ethics complaint you filed against me. My programs are no more than $5,000 each, and they haven't even begun to be spent. I don't know, just a handful of people have adopted a pet. I mean, it's a pittance compared to what bill you're running up.

Also,

The other thing I'd like to say is that I accept, and all the other council members accept council decisions, but you file lawsuits when you disagree with a council decision. When you do something stupid and illegal, yeah. Point of order.

Yeah, thank you. That's all I have to say. Just accept council decisions. It's our legislative process. We're done with the back and forth. Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

yeah I was just gonna say I mean I came prepared tonight with some ideas and suggestions and I just shared some of them but I would just say to the folks watching at home I feel like this is part of the underlying challenge that we have with the village of Palmetto Bay's council which is that instead of having productive conversations everything has to be personal in your face called stupid and I just think that we're better than this and I would just hope that as the night goes on instead of just pointing fingers look and i agree this a lot of the decisions that we made i disagree with i mean i can point to the three million dollar pickleball i can point to uh lobbyist contracts i can point to all of that but that's not the most productive way of handling tonight because the way we need to handle this is this is an 800 000 fiscal crunch and by the sounds of it there's a couple of ways we can get out of it but to me it's just i wish we could have more productive conversation instead of just this attitude of, in my view, nastiness. So I just want to put that on record, and that was just seen fully tonight, and I'm very disappointed. Thank you.

Okay. Well, that's the way a couple people roll, so that's all we can do. They have the right to speak. They do have the right to speak. Okay. Council Member Fiore, you've been awful quiet.

Yeah, 100 days. Yes.

I want a hundred ideas for every day.

Thank you, madam mayor. Yeah, I would say, you know, with all, I joke about that, but I really think it is incumbent upon this council. Basically we have one job between now and November and that's to keep the ship of state afloat as best we can in the best interests of the residents and turn it over to three new people. Um, I listened to a lot of what was said. I could say this about the lawsuits. If it's in the best interests of the village to settle these before we're done in November, depending on what our legal advice is from all sides on everything, that's one big way of eliminating a lot of this deficit. But I really think what the manager did was very professional as far as it is to get us to November. Because after November, I leave Mr. Cody and Merwitzer here to... to deal with issues of state going forward. So I really think that's our main issue. Our main, I'm sorry, not issue, our main job is to keep this ship of city rather than state, not just afloat, but to do the best we can to give the people the services they deserve at the minimal cost, knowing there's events beyond our control on election day.

that's all i have madam mayor thank you thank you all right is there more yep i mean i propose the consultant i'm just wondering if there's appetite for on council for that not for me no thank you for the recommendation um okay sir we have another presentation is that right yes And you guys have sat there so patiently. Are you enjoying yourselves? I want you to be happy. Can they come up to present? Great.

Yes, ma'am, they can. And Director Torres, too, if you could come up, introduce the team here. And I'll be, I have your presentation on my computer. Just tell me when to advance or go back, okay? Okay.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. I'm proud today to have Raftelis here. They had presented, part of their team had presented some of the background of what we were reviewing, how we were coming up with our stormwater fee assessment. Tonight we're going to talk specifically about the rates. I know everybody was concerned. Many of you had questions about what's the rate, what's the number. You wanted that information, so hopefully we plan on sharing that tonight and give you more detail. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to our team of Raftelis.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Dio. Good evening. I'm Joe Williams from Raftelis, Vice President. And with me, I'm Kristen Townsend, Consultant. And I'm going to turn it over to her in a minute to do most of the presentation. But just to highlight, you know, this is our first engagement with the village. So we really appreciate you all working with us. We're working through Kimley Horn, who I know does a lot of work with you all. and really the highlight that i just want to bring to the table in the beginning is you haven't done rate adjustments for your stormwater enterprise fund in several years we'll talk about that and recently the expenditures of the department for keeping up with ongoing drainage needs and completing some of the master plan projects that were identified in the 2020 master plan You've fallen behind on the revenues to keep up with operating the stormwater system. So we're here to present to you the options moving forward, kind of highlight the need. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Tristan. She'll walk you through it and show you some of the numbers. And then we're happy to answer any questions as well.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council. Thanks for your time. I'm going to walk you through the presentation. Perfect.

Next slide, please.

So I'll just take you through the agenda, just laying out what we'll be talking through tonight. So we're gonna first talk about the background and the study objectives. We'll talk about the revenue requirements, which are all the various costs that are needed to be recovered. We'll talk through the revenue sufficiency, which is how sufficient are your rates to recover those identified costs. Go through a quick summary of the findings, and then we'll call time for questions. Next slide, please. Next slide. So just want to talk about the background. So you all do own and operate your own stormwater system. You serve about 8,000 customers. You do have a stormwater rate in place right now. It's a monthly fee of $5 per equivalent residential unit or ERU. That's about what the single family residential customer is going to be paying every month. That rate has been in place since 2020 and prior to that the rate was $4 and that was in place since 2006. So It's been pretty level for a good amount of time. You all are currently working with Kimley Horne on a stormwater master plan as well. Next slide, please. So just to walk you through the objectives for our rate study, we were tasked to do a five-year revenue sufficiency analysis. So we start with the current fiscal year as our base or test year, and then we tack on the following five years. So the forecast period covers fiscal year 2026 through fiscal year 2031. We look at your operating expenses, your debt service, your capital improvement plan, and the funding strategy for those. We are gonna be recommending some rate adjustments to help support those identified revenue requirements and your reserve needs, and then also presenting findings, and we'll have a summary report prepared as well. Next slide, please.

Next slide.

So we're going to start with our operating expenses and existing debt service. So we did rely on your existing fiscal year 2026 budget for our projection. We look at all the different line items there, so your salaries, benefits, supplies, maintenance, things like that, and escalate those by various factors into the future to come up with our future year projections. We did look at your historical expenditures, compare those to your prior year budgets and just looked at the execution rate on that. You guys do tend to spend less than what you budget, which is very typical, but we did just want to account for that, and so we did make a minor adjustment on the starting point for fiscal year 2026, so that does carry through into the future years. We did also assume in fiscal year 2031 a new vac truck and stormwater crew out there. That's going to help. you be able to do a little bit more maintenance, clear the pipes a little bit more and things like that. So just help improve your services. And so you can see on the right, the operating expenses, that's that dark blue kind of chunk of these bars, how that's increasing. And you can see that a little bit increase there in 2031 as well. You also do have existing debt service. You all pay a portion of the Miami-Dade County stormwater bonds to them. Those bonds help install drainage in the village. Um, so it's about 108,000 annually that you all pay to them, um, and principal and interest in that is going to mature in 2029. So you can see on the chart here on the right, that kind of lighter blue teal color, that's your existing debt. And you can see that in the final two years of the forecast, it does, um, go away then. Um, so just on average, um, your operating maintenance expenses are increasing about 5.2%, um, annually in this forecast. Next slide, please. So next piece is the capital improvement program. So we do have about 6.9 million in capital projects assumed in our forecast period. That does include your localized drainage improvements that you all budget annually at about 300,000 per year. We do escalate that about 3.5% going into the future just to maintain inflation and things like that. It also includes two other sub-basin drainage projects as well that were identified in the 2020 master plan. So that's what we have in this kind of five to six year window. We are assuming some funding from rate revenues or cash That's for those local drainage improvements. And then we also are assuming some debt funding for those other two projects that I mentioned. There are going to be some additional capital expenses beyond the forecast period. Those are also projects that were in the prior master plan. But since you all are working on updating that with Kimley Horan, that capital plan is going to be refined. So you can kind of revisit that in the future as well.

Next slide, please.

This is just laying out the different projects that are included there. So It's the two sub-basin drainage, sub-basin number 43 and number 11, and then those local drainage improvements. And those project costs there on the right are for the kind of forecast period that we're operating in the 2026 through 2031. We are assuming some SRF loan funding for those two drainage sub-basins. Those are state revolving fund loans. They're low interest loans that are offered through the state DEP. Next slide, please. We do want to share our assumptions regarding those loans with you all. So both of those projects are roughly $2.5 million for project funding. The term length would be 20 years. We're assuming a 2% interest rate, and that results in an annual debt service of about $150,000 per year. We think the debt service is going to help minimize your rate impact, to help smooth out the funding, and so we kind of feel that's appropriate as well, given these are going to be longer-life assets as well. Next slide, please. Okay, so for our revenue sufficiency, we'll kind of just take a look right at the rates, and then I'll kind of tell you how we landed on those. So right now, your existing rate per ERU is $5. We're proposing that you increase the rate to $8.50 in this upcoming fiscal year. And then the years following that, increase to nine, 10, 11, and 13 per ERU, and that's a per monthly rate. Next slide, please. So this kind of chart here helps lay out how we arrived on those adjustments. So each of the different kind of boxes that stack up represent the costs that we just walked through. So the operating expenses, the existing and proposed debt service and the cash funded capital or those local drainage improvements. So you can see how those stack up. There's a dark black blue line kind of cutting through the operating expenses that you can see it's pretty steady, yep, right there. You can see that that does not cover your operating expenses. Those are your revenues at your existing rates right now. So we are operating at a deficiency. So that is something that we would suggest be corrected. The proposed rates that we just showed you are what the rates would look like at this kind of purple dashed line. And so you can see those hug really tightly with those identified costs. We're not really generating much of a surplus at all. or just recovering those exact identified costs. So being really tight on that there. Next slide, please. So for our cash balances, so this chart here shows kind of what your ending cash balances would be at the end of each fiscal year. We are kind of aiming to be around $1 million each year roughly, kind of on average here. You can see that on this kind of yellow-orange dashed line on the chart. The blue represents what your operating reserve balance would be in the stormwater fund. So the cash reserves remain in line above your target, which is good. The reserves are going to allow you to have flexibility in funding any unanticipated expenses that could come up, any emergencies if you guys experience a storm or something and you have repairs that need to come up, that's helpful for that. And also any additional capital projects that could be identified in the master plan or be outside of this forecast window. Next slide, please. So we did a local comparison with some peer communities as well. We want to see kind of where you land relative to them. So you can see you guys are at the $5 and that, yep, right there on the chart. kind of toward the lower end on rates. With the $8.50 rate adjustment for fiscal year 2027, you're right in the middle of the pack. You're not really out of line with what your peers are doing. And one important thing to note is that we're comparing with other communities at today's rate. So they also have funding needs. They also are likely going to have improvements, operating increases as well. Nobody's immune to inflation, so their rates are likely gonna go up in the future as well. And so those rates could increase and you could be kind of lower in the future relative to them potentially. Next slide, please. So in summary, your existing revenues are not sufficient to recover the operating expenses and existing debt service right now. we would propose that you consider use of SRF funding for your capital projects to help minimize rate impacts and smooth out the funding for those capital projects. We did identify a rate plan. We would recommend adopting two years of adjustments to help address your operating deficiency. And as your stormwater master plan is underway and those capital projects get refined into the future, you could revisit the plan and see what's appropriate, what path you want to take after a couple of years.

And with that, We can take any questions. Thank you. Vice Mayor, then Council Member Cody.

Thank you. So I remember at the Committee of the Whole presentation, there was also a urban forestry program that was also presented. I was wondering if you also have those rates available tonight.

Yes, we did look at those rates. I'll let Joe answer the question for you. Thank you.

So basically, for any of the rates that we showed on the going from $5 to $8.50 to $10, for the basic program that you all discussed last week, if you add about $1.50 starting in 2027 in each year throughout, that's our projection of covering the basic program. And if you add about $3 to $3.50 to each of those rates for the advanced program, would be where you end up. So in the last year for the advanced program, we showed $13. The advanced program would be about $16.50. The basic program would be about $14.50 at the end.

Makes sense. The next question I have is with the vac truck, why is it recommended to have the vac truck in fiscal year 31 instead of earlier in the process?

That was something that materialized during the discussion of, I believe, that urban forestry green infrastructure program. and the team working with staff had identified that as a later need as part of the program. I mean, does the manager have anything to add regarding the back truck and the needs on that or?

Nothing really to add. We wanted to, basically that would be about 10 years since we bought the original truck and that would get us closer to our goal about being able to do the entire village. Right now, realistically, with the one truck, we can't do the entire village. So we're kind of just projecting it out. We didn't want to bring it in the first year because it would just drive up the rate so much more.

My next question is about the capital assumptions. I see a couple projects on there. I'm assuming those are currently in our current plan for our master plan. I'm assuming once Kimley Horn completes their plan, will there be new projects identified as well? Likely.

Again, these are carryover from the last plan. We didn't obviously do all of the subbasins. There was more than eight subbasins. We couldn't do all eight in that five-year period. So this is kind of rolling over, and they may identify more potential projects, yes.

Got it. Thank you. We'll just note real quick on those projects. You have been very successful in recent years with grants for funding stormwater projects. You don't have any secured at the moment, so we had a program to fund them with village funds and opportunities. If you get grants, that would free up a little bit of cash under these rates to potentially do other things or do the back trips to your factories. Whatever the council wishes to send anybody.

Thank you. Council Member Cody?

Thank you. On the second item on the summary slide, it said consider SRF funding for capital plan. What does SRF stand for?

So SRF is a state revolving fund program that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection administers. And really what the state does is they offer low interest subsidized rate loans to municipalities that go through the process. There's a period of submitting applications, they do reviews twice a year, and they have funding set aside for different communities who apply in different types of projects. And I believe you'd be under the clean water infrastructure loans. And again, they have very subsidized interest rates. As of a few years ago, they were even doing some 0% interest rates. They've started to creep up a little bit, but they're well below market. They're 20-year loans, so pretty well below those 30-year loans that typically are from a revenue bond. Very advantageous funding for the village to consider if the grants don't continue to materialize like they have.

Thank you. Other questions? Vice Mayor?

I also know that the EPA has some clean water funds as well. Is that a separate program from the EPA's grant program, or is it combined?

EPA, it'd be hard to say. They do funnel a lot of things through the state SRF program, ultimately. But I don't specialize in grants. But I do know that they try to go through the state programs that are existing when they can. But there are other things like WIFIA loans, which are typically for larger scale projects. Yeah, there are other opportunities, but a lot of times they try to funnel them to the state. Thank you.

Thank you. Anything else? All right. Comments? Councilman? No? Yep. Go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, I mentioned this during the Committee of the Whole workshop. This is a program I'm incredibly passionate about, mainly because the investments that we make in this program are going to directly impact my generation and the generations to come in Palmetto Bay. Cost of infrastructure is not getting any cheaper. It only goes up in cost. So as we're having the conversation about the stormwater rate, I would like to at least have some discussion about our urban tree canopy program. I mean, I don't know if you all have been outside today. It's not very pleasant to be outside at this time of year and trees make it just a little bit better. And it's also, whatever investment that we put into trees as a community, we get that back in property values as well quite a bit. And part of the reason why Pinecrest is a little bit more valuable than us in terms of their real estate market is because they have a fully developed tree canopy. and the investments that we can make as a village into that are critically important. And to me, I'm willing to support whatever rate we need to essentially fully fund these programs because, again, passive infrastructure doesn't get cheaper, and this is an incredibly important program for our village to adopt. So I'd just like to know where the council's at on the trees specifically. So thank you.

As Council Member Cody?

I have a question. When we set the rate for this program, Is there any supermajority requirement, or can we do that based on a simple majority?

No, I don't know. I think it's a majority, but I will double-check, unless the Raftalis people know off the top of their head. I've never had that question asked of me, and I think it's always just been unanimous when I've dealt with it in other places.

Utility... Utility user fees typically do not have any super majority requirements like impact fees.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Fiore.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. You know, usually in years past, I would tell my colleagues here to be very pragmatic. Yeah, how about $7? Don't ask where it comes from. But I try to find a consensus. But I agree with the Vice Mayor in this case. I think we have, as what I just stated earlier, We kind of have a duty. It's a infrastructure. I know when the job is done and Dio can say this, the residents are very happy when it's finished. So I would, if that's the rate, that's fine with me. Thank you, Madam Mayor. That's all I have.

Thank you. And as I mentioned to you, Mr. Manager, and to my colleagues at the Committee of the Whole, my goal is to make sure the rate is set. How, what programming goes into it is important. whether we're doing premium, I don't remember if that's what you called it, or basic or parts of premium, all the basic stuff and parts of premium, I would actually be so bold as to make a recommendation of taking the maximum of what you all have brought, which is $13. That would be something that I would support. I think this is, we kind of, And I was on the council when we raised it from three to five. And, you know, there was a lot of what you saw this evening, it was the exact same thing then. You know, a lot of back and forth and discussion and not wanting to charge the maximum. My goal, as I have stated previously, is to leave the village in the best financial health, even given the uncertainty of the time. So I see the vice mayor nodding for 13. I want to give you a little bit of happiness, Mr. Manager. I see Councilmember Cody saying the same thing. I don't know where my colleague here is.

Maybe you mistook my remarks earlier.

I got excited, and I just went with it.

Well, don't get excited. I just said the rate of 850 was okay. So I'm good with the 850. Is that what you recommended? For the first year, 850. Okay. Well, there's only one year. There's no year for me.

100 days. 100 days. 100 days. That's it.

So, no, I'm good with that number, 850. Thanks.

You know, there's this thing when you get elected, everyone writes about what they're going to do in the first 100 days. Well, we're going to act what we're going to do in the last 100 days, and hopefully it'll be good stuff. I think you've got three individuals at the very least. I don't know what Councilwoman Mattson... Okay.

Well, I supported the last stormwater fee increase. I think there's infrastructure... controlling flooding, protecting residents' property and homes. I've always been for that. I mean, I'm all into the environmental aspects of our village, and this is a stormwater tax that will protect every home. So, yes. And I would also like to include the tree aspect of it as well, because That's such an important aspect of stormwater and flooding. It really is. And you came up with a terrific program, and I'm ready to support it. So yeah, to me, this is one of those things like police services, infrastructure. Those are the basic job of government, in my opinion.

so if I heard you correctly you didn't mention the number 13 but I could feel the vibe of 13 is that okay so you've got four individuals that have said they would support 13 uh just let it just reminding you of that that's all thank you for the presentation thank you deal okay is there uh is there anything else Um, vice mayor question.

Yeah. I mean, with the 13 specifically, I mean, are we going to do the program or are we just going to go straight to 13? Cause I think specifically with trees, I mean, the earlier plant them, the better. Um, so if there's willingness on the council to go to 13, I'm more than willing, as long as the trees are in there. And I think it's a critically important thing. And I would just point out that our stormwater ordinance would just need a small update, um, to authorize the expenditure for trees. If the council is willing to do that, I'll bring that on the same meeting as well. And for the full program that I presented at the Cal, I'm happy to just punt that to December. So I just wanted to see if there's consensus for me to bring that.

Why December, Mark? Why? Why December? Why?

For the program itself, that's the new council. I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. Yeah. So I think that's a yes. All right. Anything else? Okay. Is there a motion to adjourn? Or are there more comments? There's a motion to adjourn. Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. Good night, Palmetto Bay. Directors, thank you so much.