City Commission - Regular Meeting

I don't think we're, oh, now we're on. Are you on now?

Here. Thank you very much. Okay. This is the budget workshop meeting. We're opening up to public comments to start. If there are any members of the public wishing to address the commission on the budget matters, please come to the lectern, give your name and zip code for the record. You will each have three minutes. Seeing none, no throngs running to the front, public comment will be closed. Follow-up regarding the fiscal year of the 2026-2027 proposed budget considerations. Mr. Moore, you said you wanted to add some opening remarks.

I appreciate the city managers and the city's position. You have your job. We have our job, which is to give direction. Yes, sir. I will say that one of the reasons that I thought this would be important for us all is that each one of us, you know, we all speak to you about what we would like to see and all the cuts we want to have, but nobody really knows what the others think. Because maybe Commissioner Malika has a great idea, but I don't know what it is. She shared it with you, but you don't share it with me because she shared it with you because you're not allowed. No, sir. Same with Comm

But anyway, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Dakowitz now for your...

sir can i ask a quick question when you use the the word for attrition am i getting the definition right from my past that's when people leave we don't replace them right away and and and we absorb some savings that way it doesn't mean we're eliminating positions no no no that's correct we're talking about from a budgeting perspective that's what i thought historically yeah

Okay. Was every department different or did you, the attrition is three to four months in every department? I think it goes by the department.

So it depends on the department. It's by department. Got it.

Well, it was question time anyway, so there you go.

Go ahead, yes. I'm hoping we're going to have a discussion now about what we've just seen.

So, and thank you, Mr. Moore. I met with Mr. Moore yesterday, and I asked for these additional slides to be. to be put in there, so thank you. So this is at the anticipated, this is at these, considering the millage of 6.437.

I'm just going to, I want to, before we get started, you know, you talk about Palm Beach Gardens, and I've spent a lot of time looking at Palm Beach Gardens. Okay. You know, similar population and all that other kind of stuff. In almost every single category, they have fewer people working in there.

Can you go to that slide? Can we look at the slides while you're talking?

I'm just talking generally speaking in terms of they have 20% fewer employees. And that's across the board, by the way. They have 10 or 12 fewer uniformed police officers, for example. They've got fewer fire people. And I understand the dynamics are different in the town because they have more gated communities. So I understand a lot of the distinctions. But city employees, they have about a good 20% to 25% fewer city employees.

I understand what we're trying to get to. And in fact, in 2012, when I sat in that chair where Commissioner Mollick is, Palm Beach Gardens instituted online submissions in the planning and zoning department for zoning applications. And I brought it up at that point to do. And we finally got around to starting to do it some 14 years later. So I understand Palm Beach Gardens has been ahead of us for a long time certainly in the in the technology area I think we're frankly a better run city but that's just my own view but I do worry when we talk about attrition I do worry that you know we are we'

I'm agreeing. Okay? Nobody's disagreeing with you.

See, my view is I don't think we should be raising the millage. And I've made that point. And everyone says, oh, we have to do it because we had that rollback. Untrue. Untrue. I've looked at statistics about the increase in the percentage of the property value increases for all these other places. And ours outpaced them. So by our rollback, really only brought us back to where the others were in terms of their increases. So when you look at what the percentage of the property value increase was in Delray for that same period, we really did great. I mean, we were a bubble. We did great. We did

May I just comment in this realm? When we look at our population, though, everybody says, oh, you know, you've got so much more money coming in and your population hasn't increased. That's not at all true. Yeah, you see a 6% increase. But when you look at the census, the census only calculates people who are permanent residents here. What you really need to look at is the development in the number of housing units that have come in to talk about the needs. And we're talking like there's thousands of them.

I would love to discuss housing units. Like over 3,000. I've actually had this conversation with the city about the number of housing units. Everybody's always saying, oh, we've got all this increased housing and all this. No, we have the actual percentage of increased housing is much less than you think. People are taking four-unit buildings and they're building two. They're taking two lots, they're building one.

We've got all those apartments that are on Congress. There's over 1,000 units in a couple of years approved and developed. Disagree with you totally.

Those are people using our roads, using our police. You'll get your chance. you get your chance mr mayor respectfully i've looked at all those things and i and we i understand your argument i understand your argument and i do understand that a police department needs to have a complement to be able to have not just the 67 000 people that are here full-time residents as we would say you have to account for the 105 000 that are really here because you have all those people that are down here seasonally I understand all that too. I've calculated. We have been a lot of figuring out what all the nu

Well, give them to us. Let's work on the numbers.

I want to hear from everybody else about what, because all I keep hearing is we have to raise our millage.

Okay, let's get to the conversation then. Without any effort to try to. Let's just get to the meat of it, because talking theoretically about cutting, it's all great, but let's get to the cuts. I have some if you want me to lay them out.

Because they did not have the increase in the base property values. And I've got all those. I mean, that analysis has been done. But they did. They actually did. To put the city of Pompano Beach, the city of Miramar, and the city as comparables is ridiculous.

Why? Why do we reduce our military? Because we had exploding tax values. Increase in our tax base. We had exploding compared to everybody else around us.

We eclipsed every single one by sometimes several digits. We eclipsed every single one, with the possible exception of Palm Beach Gardens. because only because they had the PGA and other things that were building in those big developments. But other than that, we eclipsed the property values for Boynton, percentage-wise, based on our population of things, not total numbers, because Boynton's always going to be bigger than us. But if you look at Boca's increase in valuation from one year to the next, that percentage was much less than the appreciations in Delray.

They have way more commercial property tax revenue. Boca has way more commercial property tax revenue than we do. We can't keep on arguing these numbers line together.

You're talking over each other truly hard.

I'm trying to finish, but if I can finish, you'll get your turn. So I understand the point. All I'm saying is that we are not paying enough attention to try to figure out ways to Trim our costs so that we don't have to raise our millage. That's the sum total of what I'm saying. And I believe there are ways to do it. Now, if you'd like to talk about cuts, let's talk about cuts.

I'll do it. And I just would say to you, though, even if... We also have to look at our reserves in this and what we want them to be. And at the end of this budget, you're going down to 18. So even if you cut things out, I would argue it would be better to cut and leave things and allow our reserves to be back up to the 21% where we want them to be, where we agreed. We used to have reserves, when I sat here last time, at 35%. Then they went down to 25%. Now they're below 20%. That should raise flags for people. And look, I think there are cuts. But you have to ask yourself, why are the costs i

You and I have been on the same side on a lot of these issues. On these cost matters. And all I'm trying to do is to get us back.

Okay, let me throw out a couple things. I sat with Mr. Moore and I went.

Seriously, because I don't know what you've said to him.

Listen, I'm going to tell you right now.

He will rightly and correctly. He doesn't say, well, Commissioner Casale suggested it. He doesn't do that. I can't do that. I know that. And I won't. You're obeying the law. That's fine. This is why I want us to know where everybody thinks about it.

Maybe I don't. But I'm expecting others to have great ideas.

It might be an approach that is exactly what I just said even if we make these cuts I still think we leave where we are and we build up our reserves because we are down to 18% where we were at 21 we were at 25 and Just a few years ago. We were at 35. So let me go through a couple So people should understand when you're looking at this budget ten point five four million of it is just for personnel That's pay, COLA, retirement contributions, FICA, insurance, workers' comp, and special pay. So what is left over for us to cut isn't very much. I was speaking with Mr. Moore because, and I said this

Right. You could actually do eight, but you've got to give them the buffer so they're not coming back in front of us. That's correct.

Thank you. I appreciate you taking that.

Thank you. I appreciate you taking that recommendation. So I've endorsed that.

Well, no, you did. I mean, you had two of the, I have these on my, that's great. The overtime was a real, I remember the same conversation. Commissioner Burns.

Yeah, well. The overtime was the only suggestions that I had, but my concern is that if we go with a rollback rate, is it?

No one's talking rollback. I would love to talk about rollback myself.

My understanding is we voted on the maximum rate and that if we don't get a supermajority, it goes to the rollback rate. Is that correct? That's what the city attorney is saying, yes.

You can't do more than 10% of your prior year without a supermajority.

You're not allowed to round up. I think it's a supermajority.

I'm not saying anything. You need the four. That's correct.

No, I'm going back to my original question. So we need a supermajority to get to okay, and if we don't have that, it goes to the rollback rate, correct?

No, it goes to the current. It goes to the rollback.

Okay, so knowing that if we don't come to a consensus on the rate, it goes to the rollback. So my concern is that, is that a sustainable under our financial circumstances that we have right now? And, you know, are we digging ourselves a bigger hole than we're already in? I mean, we're already saying that we're going to go 8.1 million for reserves at the suggested millage. If we go to the rollback, we're looking at a huger amount.

You're making the assumption that there's no millage rate adopted because you don't have to adopt the 6.4. You can adopt the 6.2 or 6.1. That's correct. You can. That is correct. We're making the assumption that we can't come to agreement with any millage rate. And I do believe that there is some number out there that we will all – I mean –

Right, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, my interest is just, you know, based on whatever to maintain an appropriate level of service that we have now. And, you know, okay, I'm good. I'm good. I'm done, Mayor.

Thank you so very much for your input. You're welcome.

I don't have a whole lot of I agree with the $35,000 vehicle that we probably don't need and of course with the overtime although they might need overtime but and and I don't know how much this cutback how much flexibility that allowed those departments or to fill in when needed. I also, I always think of the teen center as a waste of our money. I don't think it's very utilized. I don't know what the summer numbers look like. I don't know what any of the numbers look like. I just know it's not very used. Did you? How'd it go?

Well, let's talk about that. We spent $473,000 on the teen center so that roughly 18 kids could use it at the cost of $35,000 a kid.

Weren't we talking about a Y or somebody coming in and taking over?

We're a number of people that have expressed an interest in trying to take it over, but I got nowhere with it. Thank you for bringing it up.

It's the total cost. I mean, it's owned by the women's club. Women's club. And we rent it. We pay them rent. Not very much. And how much? We pay them rent. How much? We sub-release it from them. Oh, it's not. We don't pay them much.

Sorry, I'm okay. Thank you. I need some water. Until the budget's done.

So it's being utilized by how many students in that programming?

And that's only in the afternoon or summers, right?

Is it staffed during the day when there isn't any activity?

I'm great with staff bouncing to fill in, as long as... We've tried to cross-train and utilize that.

So that $473,000, we're using them elsewhere sometimes. Correct. So that money is going to cover some of our other events.

I just say every time I go by it, there's nothing happening there. Maybe I'm not going by at the right time.

Okay, thank you. Of course. I see where you didn't have any luck last year.

I'm happy to support you. If it's getting use and kids are benefiting from it, then I love it.

Look, the budget's not done yet, so we still have time to make any... I mean, we're not voting on millage tonight. That's next week, so we're going to be...

So far, we've only saved a couple million dollars. I'm just saying.

We saved a couple million dollars. I'm pretty proud of that. I am, too. And I have some thoughts and ideas. Just to Ms. Malika, you had said you want to make sure there's enough of a buffer with the overtime. I did actually... I sat down with Mr. Moore in finance, and I found the number kind of surprising since it had increased substantially from the past years. But I reached out to the chief, and that number will work for the fire. I didn't talk to the police, but our chief is shaking his head, and I think that's good.

I think the overtime was a- Thank you. And then some of the others that were I mean I go ahead and are you I think that's it, but I reserved the right to speak Inject good Commissioner market.

Yeah, you're out. I just want to declare that.

I'll try to let you sit down, Sam. A couple of things on my end. First of all, I think the cuts that Commissioner Casale outlined are the right ones. I saw many of them myself when I was going through the budget. Those are where we should go. I think the challenge that we have sitting up here, and it was somewhat highlighted earlier, is two-thirds of our budget is police and fire, basically. And those are pretty fixed numbers, so it leaves us with about a third of the pie. That's left. So that's one of the challenge that we have and and I would say looking at the budgets myself they they appea

I agree with everything. I mean, it's interesting because my number of saving police was about 500, so you were 300 more than I thought we were going to be able to grab out of them. And I was also at 500 for fire, so we got another 400,000 added to the pot, which is always a good thing. I do think that we need to look at... uh whether we can't have additional savings in in police and fire in terms of number of personnel that we have because i'm seeing that i mean everyone i mean everybody says well you know it affects public safety i don't know if it does or it doesn't i know technology can he

Huh? About 2.5, right? 1.6 and then the, you know. 1.4.

You know, and I mean, we can argue, we each can have a different view of reserves, and I mean, Mr. Dockowitz and I are probably closer to what we think that number is than Commissioner Cassal, but the point is the savings of the actual operating costs is going to be relevant to all of us because i mean look i am very confident that the city manager and mr dakowitz and the department heads you know overestimate their costs and underestimate their revenues which is which is great because their costs come in less and the revenues come in higher so we're always ended up which has been the experien

But I'm saying we also, some of the other things mentioned that I want to make sure you include is, and it was mentioned by Mr. Dock, which is, you know, a delay in the start of some of the projects. You know, there's things we can push back. Which projects, though? We could talk about, you know, delay in acquisitions of new vehicles. There's things we can look at.

Right, that was in my leasing program. If you go back 20%, you save money.

From my standpoint, I am not for keeping the same millage rate. I want to reduce the millage rate. by how much that number i don't know yet um i'd like to keep it where it is if you want to know the truth we can discuss you know the whole con i mean i happen to think that we were over reserved everyone talks about reserves but yeah but we're not like a pizza store that when a storm comes all of a sudden we're out of money i mean the taxes still keep continuing to accrue and and every single time in the prior i've gone through several times uh with this it's not like I mean, you redeploy. The c

GFOA, which talks about two months. You know, we're over two months. That's fine. I think two months actually works fine. I'm actually looking for a meaningful reduction in the millage rate. Because we always will have the ability, we can always raise our reserve. We're at the low end. When I met with the League of Cities some years back, they talked about you're already in the low end because we're allowed, if we had to, we could go to 10 mills and tax everybody and pay for all our debts. They would hate us.

We can no longer do that. If it doesn't pass, correct. But we have the ability to raise money when we need to. So let's talk about trying to Just because my property values go up doesn't mean I should be giving all that benefit to the city. So I'm just trying to find a way to, I don't want to do the 6.4. I mean, I can't get my rollback, but, you know, unless you want to give me my rollback, I'd love my rollback.

Well, I would support holding the line where we are. I would support that. That's what I want to do.

If I may, I'll need to think about that. But this GFOA two months is the baseline starting point. You build from there depending on if you're a coastal community or what have you. Our auditor did a report for us on – the reserves and the suggested balance based on the surrounding communities and all the factors that we should consider as a city ourself was 21%. That was just given us in an audit report. I don't care what they're doing. But you're talking about one community. The study presented a bunch of coastal communities. That's an expert study done for us at request That's adjusted 21%. A

So we can't have both, guys. We can't keep our reserves and then keep the original millage. And I think that when we first got the presentation about the original or last year's millage versus this new increased one, my understanding is that the deficit was $5 million. But then you just said if we go back to the rollback rate, it's also $5 million. I mean, but how about – I kind of remember a presentation – with our budget with the last year's millage rate that our deficit was also 5 million. Is that accurate or am I hallucinating?

Got it. Yeah, because that... Wasn't a wash, right?

No, just like the obvious mutually exclusive goals.

You're looking for direction, and I think we're trying to give you direction.

I gave you the 1.6 originally in that whole list of things. I gave you 1.6 and then the overtime is 1.4. That's $3 million.

What's the debt in that part and what's the where?

I'm just making sure it's not a combination of the two. You're just talking about operating millage.

please i'm just all i'm going to say is that you keep referring back to the fund balance i'm very happy with the fund balance that mr dockwood's you know the percentage that he came up with so if i can i would really would like to drop them all into savings for what people are paying out of their pocket because that is what they feel that is what you know as the as they're paying increased uh insurance every everything everything everything about their daily lives It's gotten more expensive.

What could it be down to without the fund balance, with this fund balance of 17 or 18%?

I'd like to look at it, you know, if we wanted to keep Mr. Dakowitz's recommended fund balance, whether our financial directors...

we are on the same court with respect to what that should be and that's the feedback coming back up externally mr moore may i if you go back and look at the bond rating letters when we got the bonds one of the things that they highlighted in those letters was that our reserve level was high enough to justify that bond rating and i remember what you remember what the the i'm going to put you on the spot here but do you remember

When the city projected, when they gave the information to the bond agencies, what they said that the reserves were going to be? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We came in with, what was it, a 10%, 12%? What was it? I'm trying to remember what the bond thing was. It wasn't. I'd have to go back and find the letter. I have the letter. I mean, I was there kind of when we did it.

I'm just going to tell you that. Well, we could argue that point.

I'll grab my computer right now. Let's work on one at a time.

Let's work on the millage. Let's get our millage determined first. I'm asking. Let's figure out how much we can save. I made a recommendation separate from what we did. You made 6.3501, which is a good start. But I think I'd like to see where we can do.

Here's the problem. May I just one second, Judy? Sure. If we were just going to have a regular calendar year and there was no consideration of what is happening at the state level, then I would say to you, we're in a great position today. Let's kick it down a little. But we are facing unprecedented uncertainty, and I think it's irresponsible Just this small tweaking, we should be celebrating. Going below that at this point is not a good idea. And here's what we can do. Somehow we can figure it out. If we can find savings, if this doesn't go through, maybe we go back and we reassess some of the

Maybe next year. Yes. I mean, I've absolutely, you know, I've spoken about this thing. Right. So let's be fiscally responsible to our taxpayers. Look, as I said, I'm just trying to tweak it as best I can. And we are... We're getting there.

We're not suggesting going below the 18%. No, we're not.

No, it's probably going to be higher than that. I have two questions, please. I'm sorry?

I have two questions. None of it's going to lower the millage or the reserves. My questions are, Mr. Dockwood, you mentioned that we're better prepared at a higher millage rate should the November thing happen. Why?

We've never really done it. We haven't done a 10% increase. And I don't want to.

My second question, unrelated to our own millage, does the library have any ability? I thought they did have an ability that they could, in fact, tax a certain millage. Do they have that ability?

The millage rate tied to a library is .5411.

I don't know what .5411 translates into dollars. You could tell me that. Probably you'd have to look it up. So I guess my point is. We could take that off our payroll.

And our donation to them makes good sense then. Just saying.

No, I'm not making that a judgment, whether it's a good or bad thing. There may be a time when we have to, at our own operating budget, be able to have more money on our own operating budget. And under the statute, we are allowed to let the library essentially be paid for by the county, which also does include salaries. Their .5411 includes payment of salaries and things such as that for the library personnel. That's what they do. But it would become part of the Palm Beach County Library.

So aside from being part of the county, they don't have any ability to? Yeah, you're correct. Okay, got it. Thank you. I love having our own library.

Okay, here we are. The bond rating letter says our very strong reserves, which have averaged more than 30% of expenses over the past three years. Right, so now we're at 18.

When we made the application for the bond rating, that's the letter you want to look at, what the base number was.

No, I'm looking at their letter that they gave when they gave us the rating and their explanation as to why. Both Moody and S&P said it was because our hefty reserves at 30%. That's two years later, we're at 18. So, come on.

I'm sure in Mr. Markert's experience, certainly in mine in doing finance, the auditors, you cannot give them enough reserves. They just love having reserves.

That was from 2024 to 18. That was the battle constantly with the examiners. Well, you've got to do this. Okay, fine.

But those reserves, we can't forget this. Those reserves are not bad things. I'm not saying they're bad. They're throwing off 7%, 8% interest.

One of the things we're trying to do is retain our flexibility. I acknowledge that we are in a quagmire at this time, a political quagmire at this point. We are. And I, look, you may be right. It's not political, it's financial. I know I stand alone in thinking it's not going to pass.

I know. And try to keep our flexibility.

Listen, we've just got to make a decision here. If you want to think on it, my feeling is we found savings. I almost think because we don't know what we're doing, we stay where we're at and we build our reserves up. And if somehow we have large savings at the end, We figure out a way to filter it if this doesn't go through back to our taxpayers, either some reduction on their utilities or something like that. There's ways we can do this, but I think we're very irresponsible at this point to not consider the tremendous loss of finances that we could see in the very near future for our taxpayers

I absolutely acknowledge it. It's just we're differing as to how much money we need to operate. That's where I'm at, Mr. Moore, so you understand.

Well, or the 6.4660. That includes the... Waiting for my colleagues. Yes, the 6.4371.

Well, can I just ask you, what do you want to cut?

I don't want to be disrespectful, Mayor, but how do you want to pay for all the things you voted for that we have to pay for in the upcoming fiscal year?

No, it is your job. You're voting for these things.

Over $10 million of the increase is just for our employees at the current level.

That is the cost of their- Well, we can argue about the current level then.

So then make suggestions. You can't sit up here and keep on saying you want it lower. If you don't have suggestions, you keep voting for these raises. You voted for all the increases. You voted for the police contract, which, as we noticed in the CRA, was a 23% increase to the budget, staying at the same level of employees. No, you didn't. You voted for it, Mr. No, go back and watch.

Oh, no, no. No, no, no, you voted for it. The ministerial part after was approved by the commission I voted for. Oh, yes. Stop. Please don't make the nuance.

Can't keep voting for the things that cost us money and then not pay for them up here.

I just have one. I think, and I know this is a workshop, and we're going to come back in a week or so on this. In a week. If there are cuts that we're contemplating, I want to have a reckoning of what those cuts are.

I know you can only go down to a certain level, but I want to see the cuts that are sawing through the bone. And your department heads are going to know what those are.

Commissioner Cassell, are you still at the 6.437? Yes.

Yes. Yeah. I think it's responsible. And I think we have to consider that possibility. You're at the 6.3501?

I'm actually at the current one of 6.1 something. But, I mean, I'm willing to – to look at a higher number as we try to address the cost. So I came into this with trying to make sure that we could reduce what was being proposed. We've already got a $2 million give or take reduction. Which is a great start. I mean, do I think that there's more that we can tweak during this? I mean, at this point, I think

Mayor, I've gone through this document four times line by line.

I appreciate your comments, but I'd like to have mine too. So you've asked me for my view. That's my view. I mean, right now, I'm not at the 6.4. I'm closer to the 6.3. So I'm going to see whether we can tweak it a little further. But I think that we should proceed based on the savings that have been identified tonight. And you should come back. I think Commissioner Markert is correct. We'd like to see it on paper, see what the true impact is so that we can look at all the numbers ourselves. Because we don't have them in front of us, so we're all talking hypothetically based on what

So what numbers are we giving him to give us numbers on?

Well, I mean, I think he's going to come back. He's going to propose a budget of 6.3501. Okay. Although I'm going to try to look farther to see if I can dig deeper to see if we can get any other savings that have not been identified tonight. That's all I'm saying.

And I said earlier that I'm okay with holding where we are. As Commissioner Cassell said, we have to pay the bill, so I'm willing to go with the 6.350. One. Yes, I'm willing to go there.

The only other thing I'd throw in is it's okay if we come in under budget, by the way. I always loved that when I was running big companies. We've done that a lot. Just because we've got a budget of X doesn't mean we've got to spend it. Along the way, if we can find savings and throw those as a surplus at the bottom line. Henry will start smiling again. No, we've done a good job doing that. We've done that.

That's part of the practice. Several departments did that, so yeah. That's correct. That's happening.

Are we good? Are we done? May I summarize then, based on what I'm hearing?

I'm gonna say that I'm happy with the understand analysis that was done by the by the by our finance director and I'd like to dedicate the reductions to saving saving the taxpayers money otherwise I Yes. Otherwise, we're fine. Come back for something.

Yeah. I like it. Thank you. Wait, before we close, let's thank the chief for this shirt. I'm honored. I'll be honored to wear it to the gym. Yes, it's in your cubby. Wait a minute, what's going on here? You have to check your mail. You all have a shirt.

We had to cut the t-shirts. Sorry, I haven't been in the office.