Public - workshop

You ready to get started? Okay, I can't see anyone in the audience. This is an unusual experience, but I'm calling to order the... budgetary workshop number five for july 16th at 4 30 p.m we're going to start with an opening prayer led by city attorney nevin zerman elder of first presbyterian church and the pledge of allegiance led by commissioner brian granger please rise there we go now i can see everybody i have no idea if you've heard me or not

Awesome. I'm going to pass it over to City Manager Hayes.

What is admin? I see that wasn't in the right. Yeah.

I was just going to ask the question, does it make sense to bring their administrative arm over to here to reduce overhead costs?

I'm just saying the proximity that's here.

Us advertising for these critical positions, because of the impact on the service level that it's creating, I think to Robbie's point, what would be helpful is maybe on this 1st of all I. Operations wise trash, they've always done an amazing job. I love our trash people. I often compliment them as the most well run operation in all of the city. No offense to every other department, but they're, they do a fantastic job. Maybe why don't we start with the conversation of just seeing a line item detail of what's in that admin calls from this past year. So, let's just take a look at it. Okay, all r

I was going to try to keep it simple by just looking at trash and their overhead number is actually really low comparatively to every other department we've looked at thus far. So I think if they're probably the leanest of the bunch, but it would be good to kind of just see. Because I don't even know that I understand everything that gets tagged to admin. So that would just clarify.

Yeah, it is. I mean, frankly, these guys can't take any days off. They can't miss anything. They can never be sick.

Well, I can get it to you. It was considerably...

is there any are these guys ever a part of an evaluation process on equipment and vehicles that we choose i mean these guys have got to work on them i assume that they know which ones are bad yes ones are good yeah they will they will provide input to our purchasing department on what vehicles are easier to maintain So, I think last time we talked about doing an evaluation of all city vehicles, I would love to see the comments of our equipment maintenance personnel as part of that report. Okay. So that we can include the guys that actually maintain it on what vehicles are worth keeping. What w

So I hope things are you're asking for the capital request. Would you say that is to improve working conditions? And would that also be a factor along with pay? Yes. Why it's challenging to get absolutely.

Would you say that the emergency repairs are going down in terms of, oops, there's water coming out of the ground or sewage backing up into a home.

So, we talked last year when we talked about the, and I know this, this project has gone way longer than what any of us thought that it should. But Jan was kind enough to supply us with what that 26.97% represented in revenue. Of water loss, and that was a 1.4Million dollar number that she laid on us. So I think this kind of communicates that most of our water loss was coming from meters. Not working. Is what it appears to me is that kind of what you guys are are seeing.

So you're saying we're not billing... this this amount more so our water loss went from twenty six percent down to eight and we're not we're not paying the county for for wholesale water that we're not building retail rates correct that is correct yeah are we seeing our our water billing of what usage is in the city is that getting billed more I would have to refer to this because that would tell me that it's the water meter.

So meters, and I'm bringing this from the standpoint of meters are our number 1 priority inside of this. And yes, and to let me go back 5 years ago, when we started this rate study, we did a rate study when meters weren't working. And so everything that we relied on for the last 5 years, and our rate study didn't have a, there was a significant number of meters that were not working. And so it is vital, like, to me, I cannot support doing another rate study unless this metering issue is done.

So I funded three rounds of this. The board has funded three rounds of meter replacements. What else are you going to ask for it?

So I would like to see a comprehensive. So. It's not been very well communicated. Maybe everyone else understood this and I was just ignorant to it, but I thought we were going to be done with the metering April of last year. And so it sounds like there's something more catastrophic than even what we've discussed that is continuing to snowball, which does make sense because we continue to get residents that reach out to us about estimated billing billing that's off. Billing that's only from a day, all of these other things. So we, we need to understand exactly what it takes to complete this to

You're asking for 1.2 million from the infrastructure surtax.

So, before we, before we take any further action, I would personally like to see you guys discuss with the county on what meter usage they're using and what they're doing for the residential meters. They have obviously, you guys are aware we've been in discussions and had conversations about potentially taking over their retail service area. So it would make sense to try to see is there is there a system that makes sense for both happy to do that. So, um. Until that point, what we need, I guess staff to understand is be kind to our residents and understand that when they get a bill and they're

I mean, what I mean by that, oftentimes it's, it's well, maybe you have a leak, maybe you have this, maybe you have that. I mean, it sounds like we've got enough known issues within our system that it's probably save everybody time and money to resolve it move forward. We need to replace me to replace a meter.

Would we then need next year for the infrastructure surtax to be used to keep up with the wave?

Yeah, sorry. Does the memo that you have, Jared, you can make me larger on the screen. Does the memo also include the cost analysis between the two different products, the one that you can replace the battery pack out of?

I'm wondering on these residents. So it's about 300 and something dollars from what I understand. To replace a meter, how long does it take us to recoup? That sounds like it's a long time. To recoup to recoup the cost of actually making this repair. It sounds like it may take us. 2 years of residential water usage to recoup 300 something understood.

the question is how much it's being under and how much it's being underestimated i mean if it's minus one times two from this if it's just if it's a thousand gallons you know a month or whatever it is it may not be it may be inconsequential is what i'm trying to say i'm not talking about commercial users that use 10 20 30 100 000 gallons i'm talking about just an average you know two bedroom one bath house $300 is a big expense. I mean, I don't know. I think that you guys should really look at the numbers with this because $2 and whatever million, that's a lot of money to hit on the utility sy

Is there a reason why we're not using the loan to do these projects and then awaiting reimbursement?

I have like three or four at this point. I'd really like to see us... I spent months of my life researching grease traps because of the city a few years ago. Very thankful for that. I want to see our grease trap fog ordinance move into recommending... and incentivizing hydro mechanical grease traps they're smaller they're more efficient they don't have to store as much because they're just better at processing the liquids and you know the and I have not I'm not aware of how we currently handle inspections but oftentimes municipalities will do the grease police and they just show up and they su

Correct. The storage capacity should be on the owner, not the city. The city's created a term called drain capacity. just drain function unit where they how many plates of food do you serve and how many hours you're open and try to predict your capacity it's on the business owner if we stop by and it's full you get a fine period so and we would be on the more of a hey here's a recommendation but you can do what you want yeah i mean i agree i put in grease traps as well and it's weird that traffic counts are involved in our grease trap calculations

How many cars that go by a business doesn't affect how much grease they have? Okay. Depends on the car.

Yeah, I believe Miami-Dade has some of the highest standards for grease traps, and they're all HGIs for various reasons.

I love it. And the department's gotten much better to work with than when we opened history class in 2018. It was a nightmare.

So, I want to make sure that I'm understanding this budgets based upon our, our water and sewer bills. Is that correct? Okay. So there's 23% is going into just maintaining billing and admin.

What do you want to know? Yeah, like this, so 6320, you said billing and customer service. How is water usage?

So, how do I know what we're actually utilizing to actually administrate the system? Like customer service, like, how much are we spending on customers?

So how much do we pay our customer service reps?

Yeah. What I'm asking is actually a different question than what Robbie's asking. I'm asking because, I mean, historically, we've had trouble keeping... Customer service agents in our utilities department and so I just want to know how much we're investing into them, but I can't see that because you'd rather see it split out. No different.

Yeah, that would be helpful. And why I'm asking is not to, I mean, at first glance, it looks like we're spending 23% of the overall water budget to actually administrate the water system, which would be the highest administration cost of any system I've ever heard of. But what you're explaining makes sense. I just don't know how that's billing and customer service. It seems like to me that should be something different, like water charges.

So $5.8 million of this number is associated with just water costs. That would be helpful to see that separately, because now I actually feel like we're under-investing in our actual customer service elementary. This is a summary.

10. 10 for 500. Correct. And that's the full wrap.

The lab employee is going to caution more. Oh, yeah.

Well, no wonder why I get complaints that somebody's unhappy on the other end of the line. I'm just saying.

i would like to see us take some time and and granted i'm not asking for this before we move move forward to the next thing but this is a not sustainable system like when when we are investing that amount into the people they're actually we are your customer support right now for your water system and i don't know if anybody can relate to that but that's what it feels like to me i think it's a great idea i think we should do a rate like a study to figure out how much

folks are leaving the city to go to other places for better pay and I've heard that from from this department heard it from other departments as well I think I think we're seeing as a trend in the positions that are open and this is not any one department it is those that are the boots on the ground the ones that are day-to-day You know, doing grunt work is where it's most difficult for us to retain. And so I think there should be focus on that specific piece because there is. Yeah, that's that's going to be a challenge.

Yeah, and I mean other options too. I mean we're talking about retail service for the county. Maybe there's some better system of doing it than what we're doing it now. But if I did the math on that, you know, as far as what your administration is, it would be, I don't think it's a percent. I mean, I think it's less than that. And I mean...

The city recently, a few years ago, went through a salary study, correct? And it was at that time that we implemented the step increases grades and step in 2021.

So is there a reduced number of people becoming electricians? Is that part of the problem? That is.

That's right. That's a cross-trained employee. And we provided the CDL training in-house, correct?

uh with the positions and happy to take a look at the customer service but thank you for that reminder because where i was going with that was that time marches on yes and so um we whereas where we were in five years ago um if we are not able to keep our salaries up we're losing the plan the plan was part of the plan was to each year as we adjust um our in duke

That's the first year we have not done that.

And I have two questions. Are we actually, have we collected this amount, or is it still in dispute? No, that's what y'all approved at the last commission meeting.

So that's actually collected. So that's not including the disputed amounts with AT&T? Correct. So once that's resolved, it should be more than that. Correct. Yes. That was what I wanted to point out. And we have the rest. no not much nothing we haven't even sent a letter yet

Correct. Thank you. Everyone else has been paying.

Cut off days on Thursday. It's just peculiar to me. We've got one vendor that's not paying. Cables. We've got all these issues that we seem to have with telecom, so hopefully we can get a little better relationship working together.

We're the only one that has a wastewater treatment plant close by.

Tiny man. Hey, so I didn't know if I didn't bring this up. I didn't know if I was going to bring this up previously when we talked about CNG. This was a conversation I had with staff earlier. I'm going to kind of mix the two points along with this slide. We have a very complicated organization in general, in my personal opinion. And just picking on CNG, you know, none of us, I don't think it was our idea to do CNG. But, you know, I see all these cost savings of CNG and we see this slide of revenue. And if CNG is such an amazing thing and we're just the smartest people in the world, how come wa

Yeah, I would suggest us sending a simple email letter every six months to anyone who could, every fleet, Bay District schools, just reminding them that we have this station. It's ready for them. Whenever you're making equipment purchase, consider CNG. We're happy to discuss refilling costs, all this stuff. Because if it's such a great thing for us, surely everyone else would notice that as well. All right.

Okay. So go back to the previous one. So based on the numbers, we have 23 kids in this facility. Why wouldn't they just use the playground at the rec right there?

Why wouldn't we just use the playground or add to the playground facility? at the MLK Rec where everyone can use it all the time, even a basketball court. Why wouldn't we have, like, to me, or is there no fence? I mean, is this facility open to the public as well? No.

Okay, they can't use the playground across the street or across the parking lot?

So that means they're elementary school age. Yes, elementary school. And just as in the school district, what it requires for elementary school children is additional requirements.

So this is where we diverge. Basically, Friends of ASAP has how much money?

Pretty specific. I felt like it was very specific. I was here at that point in time that we've got kids that are in an apartment over on the hill. And so I'm partnering with One Positive Place. The money was supposed to be put together to be able to stand up their own facility that's over there. That's what I felt like, and I think that's what the nonprofit understood.

So, yeah, that's that's where we are 1 positive place now has received the monies to build. They're been in limbo waiting on the city to give direction and there's questions among. I guess the commission about the future of ASAP and so we need to, we need to I do not intend to just.

Burn through every dollar that we have when I really do believe that there's an important part of programming is taking place through this program. It needs to be in a self sustaining way and and just planning for 5 years that we're just going to burn through all the money that Michael Johnson stolen and that the city happened to recruit. It doesn't seem like a very good plan to me and.

And that is no defense. It's no insult to anybody that works in the program or anything else like that. It is a fact of the matter. Yes, there is enough money inside of Friends of ASAP. To say solvent for this year, but unless there are private donations, unless there are something else that's coming. All we're essentially going to do is we're just going to burn through all the resources. We haven't been able to get grants now we can write for grants. Because they're at a time out, so the, well, they're not out of time out, but the city is taking ownership of writing. Right?

And that's not true. There are multiple nonprofits in our community that offer more hours than currently what we offer that are self-sustaining. We can make those changes.

How about that? I think we're in agreement is in putting it into the program, or whatever is stood up in the program. Where we're in disagreement is just using it for operating costs every year. Until it runs out of money. Like that's where we disagree.

So I think the virtual workshop will be good. And I agree with Robbie about having it in person because this is a very personal thing to have. I agree.

So my only questions were like on your allocations for this year, Sheila, what do you intend to use administration dollar wise in your budget from our ship allocation?

How much of that are you budgeting towards admin? So that's 100,000 to 10,000? Yeah. So it's 30-something thousand. How much of CBDG are you planning? 20%.

So you're just going to draw down from the reserves. So the rest of it would be covered. And what is that delta that we'll pull down just from reserves to cover?

We just went through that. The rental. Okay. 10% of that. Yeah. She's answering the questions. Yeah, the 15%. I'm sorry. I was just slowing there. My bad.

Can you can you provide us with this budget and allocation so that we know exactly so there's two million in SP? How much of that are you drawing down for staffing?

Yes. But what I'm asking for specifically is if we're utilizing a reserve fund, like, I'd like to know.

So what I'm trying to say specifically, there is no axe to grind with this department, Sheila. You're surviving off of your reserves and there comes a point in time that your reserves will not allow you to sustain. and where we're at as a city, I don't know how we keep finding ways to keep filling the gap. Being very creative, I appreciate the creativity, but every time we draw off of the reserves, that's one less project that we can do too.

So, I guess I just need to see how much is so that's fine. There's 2 million dollars sitting into account for that could be used for. Virtually any community block development purpose. How much are we taking out to fund salaries?

No, we can reinvest it into doing other objectives, yes.

That's all good information for the workshop.

No, just do it in the conference room and stream it.

Didn't the board just say it was to be in person?

We're clarifying. What about the Glenwood Community Center as a location?

What I'm trying to say, what's the difference? We can still offer it virtually. Yeah, we can still offer it virtually. We're just in the room together. You just stream all of us while we're there. Is that not able to be done? I think that's what Laney does.

We can stream, but not stream. That's a notice issue.

This is that Commissioner Lucas's request Jonathan

So thank you. This historical perspective, I think we all needed to hear that and to be reminded. One of the key concerns for me as a service delivery from the city is that we are providing these services for the hardest to reach and most vulnerable in our community. Historically, we are still dealing with the vestiges of government decisions and laws years past. And we're still working to address those. And these programs in our housing and community services department do a great job of that. Given that it's 2026 and where we are now, does that mean we don't need to revisit, look at how we'r

They're like, what in the world, guys? Thank you.

The important thing to remember about that, too, right now we're paying interest-only payments. Whatever's long-term is principal and interest. So just because we pay off half doesn't mean the payments go down.

I just want to say before, I just want to say to, uh, Ms. Michelle Bryant and the, uh, senior living folks who came out tonight. Thank you for being a part of this process.

Thank you, ma'am. Just want to say, Mr. Hayes, we did on our drive by two weeks ago. We were on your block. I do a tour of the ward. And so we'll have someone following up to look at that. All right. Someone else. Yes, ma'am.