City Council - workshop

Okay, let's try it again. Welcome to the 2026 Orlando City Council budget workshop today as we begin our annual budget process, which is one of our most important responsibilities as a city government. Our budget is more than just a financial document. It's a statement of our values. It reflects the services we provide, the investments that we make, and the commitments we honor on behalf of the people who call Orlando home. Every dollar we allocate represents a choice about the kind of city we wanna be, the quality of life residents want, and the future that we wanna build together. Over the p

a lot about the fire department and the police department, which shows the general fund positions going down. I think it would be important to show that this is in preparation for that, right? That graph. I think we should show what it would be without it, right? So instead of saying we're going to hire 37, what would we get hired? I think that's important. The alphabetical list, I didn't see public safety on there. Is that because it wouldn't be impacted or because we would prioritize it? When will we start to see a prioritized list of, like these are the most likely things to get cut?

Okay, well clearly public safety is obviously our biggest budget item and probably one of the items that people are most concerned about, one of the most basic functions. So I think we should highlight the impact.

In the future that we've allocated money for when do we start to think about our do we press the gas on those projects to we pump the brakes on those projects.

All right. I think the more specificity we can put to it, people can say, wow, you know, I might have to cut the college park pool back to three days a week, you know, something, or we can't do the renovation or the expansion, or we're not going to, you know, some very specific things for voters to be able to see. And then was there something in the bill, Mayor, about... having to go back to the legislature essentially to ask about how we can operate as a city

What the proposal was, at least when DeSantis was talking about it, was they were going to do some grant funding and the cities would have to come and beg the legislature for whatever grant funding. But that actually doesn't appear on the constitutional amendment. That kind of went away. So right now, if you eliminate the property tax, there is no replacement source.

Do we have so the last few years and a lot of annexation of property do we have any fiscal future revenue dollars of what we would anticipate so we talk about hiring freeze but there can't be a hiring freeze if we're annexing and so do we have. preliminary numbers on what all of the more massive annexations that we've done what those revenues so for example i was just over there the other day rose arts district will be the that community will be built and there's potential for revenue so are we calculating the future for developments that we approved that are already on the way to be able to b

Okay, so I know that communications is working on communicating to the community. I think it's important, you know, Commissioner Chapin, I think it's important that we talk about those things in our communities. For example, as we start building out Sunbridge, there's going to be a park, there's going to be a recreation center, right? And if we're looking at potentially doing a hiring freeze, how will that impact the communities that exist? So I'm going to say this, and I'm not going to say it publicly. Minority communities always struggle the most, period, right? Because there aren't necessar

You know, I reflected over the weekend. Let's say this carries out to its end that could come, which is homesteaded properties pay zero property tax, right? So all the land that we annexed that is in Commissioner Keene's district, why would we permit any single family homes out there? They're not going to pay their way or services, I mean, if you were doing the fiscally responsible thing, you would allow only multifamily to go in out there versus what we know the developers want to do, which is single family homes out there. But I bet that decision is going to be made in communities all over t

So I don't know if this is an actual question for you, but maybe we can find out. I know with Save Our Homes, we're limited to 3%. So on page two, we say that the non-homestead property assessment increase will go from 10 down to 5. is how big of an impact is that has it been over 5 every year for the last 10 years or have we kept that is the property assessor kept that assessment down below that number no i mean in some cases it's been over five percent you know i mean in some cases it's maxed out at ten percent it's been it's been a variation of it

Yes, so if I mean. A non homesteaded property that might sell to somebody for you know $400,000 more than what it's listed at. It's going to get more than a 5% or 10% jump. Currently, so sometimes it is and sometimes it is a big jump, but they're making sure that it won't go more than that ever.

BOTTOM LINE IS WE HAVE A BIG JOB OF EDUCATING, NOT ADVOCATING, ADVOCATE ON YOUR PRIVATE TIME, BUT EDUCATING PUBLIC AS TO WHAT THE AMENDMENT WOULD DO. HOW ABOUT WE SEGUE INTO THIS YEAR'S BUDGET?

Mayor, I do have one more question. Do we know if anyone has filed an appeal to repeal it with the judge and where we are with it? Because I've heard that because the referendum currently has multiple items in it and by law it's only supposed to have one. Does anyone know where we are in that process?

Our transportation- Quick question on that, I'm sorry, Mayor, is that okay? The pavement rehab. I'm going to get back to this on my questions. $8 million. What do you think we need?

And my point is that as well as stormwater, as well as Sidewalks as well as tree trimming as well as park benches and I'll get back to it on my questions because I've got a few Commissioner rose you want in right?

Yes. I wanted to stay right here. So what I don't see on here are We added a massive amount of red light cameras. Um, I don't see that anywhere highlighted here and where those projects are going because a majority of them did end up in district 5 and so as we talk about like rehab and at this that's going to be a key component that I didn't see highlighted here the additional cameras that we've added across the city I didn't see that highlighted anywhere at all in this this presentation because that was one of the key components when I asked a question when we approved it last year was that I

Okay, thank you questions comments. Let's start with Mister Burns.

All right. Thank you mayor and thank you for that presentation and kudos to our to the team because this is a very dynamic budget process. So so thank you all for that. I did have a question there was a mention of costs associated with overtime. I think about 18.3 million. Do we know what departments or areas are really driving that overtime. And the reason why I ask that, because we have reduction in personnel, but I'm interested to see what will that further reduction increase more of the overtime.

Yeah, because I think that's something we have we have to look at because we do show you know a reduction increases in some areas, but if in on the back and we're now paying you know how overtime we may have to kind of just that thinking so thank you for that.

But I'll just add, Commissioner Bursa, what you have to think about is, and I'll give an example. If there's a 911 call, a police officer and a firefighter can't leave the scene. So overtime is a must. Then if officers or firefighters get hurt, then somebody has to pick up their time. So it's better to have the money in the budget and let's monitor filling the positions because the more positions we can get filled, which I think collectively we all need to be working on making sure we're encouraging our communities to become police officer and firefighters, the more we can fill our positions a

I wasn't saying that we shouldn't have it. I was just... Wanting us to really look at the impact of having not having been fully staffed and the impact on because I know we have to have you know the overtime, but I wanted to make sure that we're not not filling positions within is driving a higher overtime than would have been budgeted if we had we were staffed correctly.

Slide number 11, which shows despite that we haven't increased millage, obviously the value of the property has gone up. And I think this is the slide that has given the proponents of property tax reform the most ammunition. And math is not my strong suit, so the fact that The taxes is at 100% increase in the last 10 years, and inflation is more like 35% over the same period. And the mayor pointed out, and we point out all the time, that our general revenue doesn't even cover public safety, which is a good zinger. I feel like we need to come up with a better way to explain this slide. And I wa

But also, I think that's an impact reflective of the growth of the city. you know so it's so it's not like you know because that military has stayed the same but think those increases are really driven by how will the city is doing so. We want to show that we're doing well, but also I agree we want to make sure that people recognize that that increases not because we've raised taxes.

It's just and that it's not it's based on the value, but we've had we've been fortunate that that are we have a growing community and the value of one home last year's a 100,000 of the Valley if it sells a value goes up we enjoy that or 500 new houses are built.

The construction which you said this year was about a 3rd of the growth is that average.

So police officers, I mean, public safety. I mean, we've hired way more than the, that's not been an average 2, 3%. We've gone way up and above on, well.

Well, those are the type of things I'm looking for to help explain that argument that I think the property tax proponents are using, that our revenues, despite having not raised taxes, are growing at a much faster rate than everything else. CRA sun setting. What happens when that happens? Does it go away?

It goes away. The money does not go away, but the money will go directly into the general fund of the county and the city.

And it won't grow anymore, the incremental?

The CRA won't, but the TIF will continue, hopefully.

David's shaking his head. It's 13 years, I think.

I'm sorry, I thought it was closer than that, but. OK, I also think that. creating a wish list, a waiting list, a priority list of things that we still can't even touch with our budget. I mean, the massive stormwater needs that we have, the massive repavement things that we need. I mean, again, if people are complaining that, you know, our budget is growing at a faster rate or there's a need for property tax, I think we need to be able to inform them of the calls we all get every day about things that we really don't have the money to address. So just just a thought. Thank you.

Which commissioner there are simple things back in 0809. We had this similar situation caused by the economy, not by Tallahassee, but simple things like cutting the grass in our parks and on the sides of roads. And resurfacing roads and sidewalks and things of that nature. Okay, Commissioner Keene.

Just a quick question. So on capital improvement program by department, that's a mix of general fund as well as other funds, right?

Well, and just going back to some earlier comments here, I think it's kind of important to highlight where that money comes from. Because as we heard, we don't have enough money to pave the streets. or repave the streets, right? And that is coming from general fund, right? As opposed to sanitary sewers, which is coming from the enterprise fund. So breaking them out, I mean, we could easily say that we're, you know, $30 million a year in repaving and we're underwater every year and we're not getting any better. The backlog continues to grow. And that's out of the general fund.

I JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO THE ENTIRE FINANCE TEAM. SO WE WERE ASKING SOME HARD QUESTIONS, BUT THANK YOU ALL FROM THE ENTIRE BUSINESSES FINANCE OFFICE FOR ALL THE HARD WORK YOU DO. THANK YOU ALL FOR ALL THE HARD WORK THAT YOU DO KEEPING US IN LINE. SO I WANTED TO SAY THAT PUBLICLY.

Okay, I will take note, Commissioner Chapin, and I don't want to give any meaningful substance or validity to the Doge efforts or the CFO's efforts, but they did make note that the city of Orlando, if you were using the formula of inflation and population growth, was the closest local government to being exactly on track with that. So we were the best of the worst, according to them. So you can take that for what it's worth. So Jason, Jose, the entire finance team, thank you for the great work that you've done in putting together this. Commissioners, thank you for your thoughtful comments. You