Town Commission - workshop

weird okay all right so uh it is 704 um august 26 2026 we are town hall for the second of two meetings today this is the budget workshop um uh if the town it is 704 if the town clerk could call the roll okay mayor allison dennington here vice mayor terry cronin here commissioner anna butler here commissioner tim reed here commissioner sherry corey here town manager amy smith here finance manager jennifer kerr here

Fire Chief Gavin Brown. Here. Police Chief Tim Zander. Here. Building Assistant Steve Freeman. Here. Public Works Director Tom Davis. Here. Town Attorney Ryan Knight is joining us via Teams, and Town Clerk Sid Jones is also present.

Okay. We will stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, I will read the, we'll have a moment of silence. Okay, I will read the civility pledge. The commission and the town staff of the town of Melbourne Beach pledged to conduct all public discourse in a civil manner. The mayor and all members of the commission will treat one another with courtesy and respect and ask the public to do the same towards the commission, each other and towards staff. We will be respectful of one another even when we disagree. We will direct all comments toward the issues and we will avoid personal attacks. So before we get to that, we will open up public comment to anything that is not on the agenda. After that, we do have the budget on the agenda. However, if we don't vote on anything, which we cannot vote because it is a workshop, then we don't have public comment on that item. So I believe we should let people comment on the budget since it is not something we would be voting on. Otherwise, they're prohibited from commenting during general public comment, but then prohibited from commenting on the budget since we don't have a vote. So if the commission is okay with that.

Why don't you just let them comment after we talk about the budget?

Okay, so because that, you know, yeah, because you know what happens, like, yeah, what happens is you can't comment on the thing on the item, but okay. All right, so we will allow people to comment before we adjourn on the budget itself, even though we're not, we won't be having a vote because it's workshop. So confine, wait for the comment period then. We will not adjourn until allowing a comment period, but we'll go ahead and start. Okay.

I'm going to motion to adjourn at 9 because I've got to be somewhere.

Yeah, I think we, I mean, there were some, I think we ought to let people comment, but if you want to make them late. Does anyone have anything to comment on the budget right now? Well, seeing none, okay, maybe it won't be an issue. I will turn it over to Ms. Marie Smith. Oh, and before I do that, there are five walk-on document edition updates that I'm going to kind of make them in an order that that way it will make sense. The first walk-on document is a two-page document. All of these will be uploaded to the website and they are on the public table. One of them, it's not, it's a two-page document. It is not titled, but it has a number of corrections that have been made and it kind of outlines. So if you're looking online, would you like to, yeah.

I was going to explain all that, so I didn't know if you wanted to wait until after, or I could do it now.

Okay, I'll get through the, just say what they are, that way we get through it, and then I will let you, if you want to explain. So there is a, walk-on one is a two-page document, which finance will explain in a minute. And then I labeled these, so then walk-on, walk-on, Walk-on two and walk-on three are basically they match the packet, they sort of match the packet but they are corrections which are explained by walk-on one and they're two different documents because one is the rollback rate and one is the 4.6 rate. Walk-on three is another document that is paginated with, okay, good, paginated, with 30 pages. It's not titled, but Mrs. Kerr will also explain that. It has, I guess, the corrected figures from walk-on two and three.

It's the comparison that you requested. Yeah, perfect. That's what it is.

It's the walk-on corrected figures that are walk-ons number three. 2 and 3 but side by side with 4.6 millage plus the rollback and then walk on 5 is a document I created it basically explains some objections that I have had related to our non-compliance with chapter 15 parallel columns and and there's been several meetings back and forth and there has been discussion and willingness, I believe, to fix these or discuss it, but they haven't been included. So these are sort of my public objections for the record. There's a cover page and then there are Seven attachments, each of which is described on the very first page. And then these have all been shared with the manager over the last couple weeks, so she's had them. So that is on the public table, too. It's 83 pages. It's paginated and exhibited.

I need a moment with someone to come up and get all of this squared. Do you wanna take a minute break? Yes, yes.

Thank you. Okay, we're gonna take just a short recess just because these, it does get confusing when you have multiple ones and new ones. We'll take a recess, and then we will let the finance manager for the record kind of explain what these are. Actually, do you want to do that now on the record? Then we can recess, and we can...

I'll just leave my papers in order, so just hang on. I kind of followed... Yeah.

After the recess, we'll go to you, Ms. Kerr. Oh, no. We'll wait for the clerk. All right. We're back on the record. We're just going to wait for the clerk. She'll roll call us in. And then, Ms. Kerr, I'll turn it over to you so that you can explain to the public what some of these are. Okay. Could you roll call us in, town clerk?

Okay. Mayor Allison Dennington. Here. Vice Mayor Terry Cronin. Here. Commissioner Anna Butler. Here. Commissioner Tim Reed. Here. Commissioner Sherry Corey. Here. Town Manager Amory Smith.

Here.

finance manager Jennifer Kerr here fire chief Gavin Brown here police chief Tim Zander there building assistant Steve Freeman here public works director Tom Davis here town attorney Ryan Knight is joining us via teams and town clerk Sid Jones is also present okay I'm gonna turn it over to the finance director to kind of explain these walk-on documents for the record and for the public walk on one

It's just that two page. Yeah. And this is from that thing that I sent that. Correct.

The first walk on one that the mayor explained, that is a list of questions she had, as well as a list of errors or incorrect typing or incorrect calculations, you can call it whatever you like, that was corrected and thank you, I appreciate that. So I did make those corrections and then there is the new copy of the 4.6 millage budget as well as the rollback budget that reflects those changes and i separated them because i felt it made it easier to to go through than having them all in one two-sided going together so that's why they're separated and then the last thing is a comparison of both budgets in like just on each sheet like showing the legislative department this is what 4.6 is this is what rollback is and they're next to each other just so it's more clear you could you could see it that way instead of flipping through all the different pages

Thank you. And walk-on two is the one that's the 4.6. It doesn't say 4.6 at the top, but when you look at the other one, you can identify it, and that one's walk-on three. It does say the rollback. So if y'all are looking at these, you're trying to figure out which, find the one that says rollback. So that one I labeled walk-on three. Okay, and then walk-on four is that new side-by-side. and that way if anybody were looking at the original packet two versus these new they'd be able to go oh they would also have the correct right and then we did make copies for the table and the town clerk will be posting them as well and I do appreciate you looking at all of that I know that it had to do with just the complexity of the two so I appreciate you making those and looking at that because 100 thank you I appreciate that um so then walk on five is it is some other things but we people could read that and we can discuss it but it has to do with a specific couple objections but objection related to 15.4 of our town code parallel columns requirement so and to be fair it's we've all it's never been brought up before but it has been brought up this you know now so okay Now I will turn it over.

Good evening again, commissioners and mayor. So thank you very much, Ms. Kerr, for explaining everything. We have over, since Friday, we've been getting a number of correspondence with the mayor's corrections and edits and things, and there were some good corrections that we, things we missed. So when you're doing it week to week, your eyes get glazed over. So I apologize about getting this to you now, But we literally have been working on this all week to get, you know, update the corrections. The mayor is right about section 15 for that. There are some columns that have been missing. You guys have been missing this for like almost a decade now so that you've not passed the budget. But our town attorney, Ryan, has joined us because he was going to pine and explain what are the things we need to to provide on that budget.

And real quick, I do wanna point out that for the town going forward, this is something that is possible to be fixed because it's not in the charter, it's in the ordinances. So if we decided we didn't wanna do this, y'all can amend that chapter 15, those various ordinance provisions. to change them, to remove some of these things that aren't gonna be required by the upcoming statute, because the upcoming statute will actually require a bunch more, but Chapter 15 does require some other things that aren't required. It's amendable by ordinance, but it's in our ordinance, so it's not just ignorable or amendable without amending the ordinance. So, let the town attorney talk, but, yeah. Do you want to address that now, Mr. Knight?

I can. So Marie asked me to take a look. First of all, are you able to hear me?

Yeah. Yes.

Okay. So Marie did ask me to take a look at the specific requirements of section 15-4 of the town code. I went through that. As I was going through that, I sort of made my own columns of what would be required for the anticipated revenues and for the proposed expenditures. which is outlined in that section of the code. The section of the code would require for the recommended budget to have the audited 2025 fiscal year numbers there to compare against the 2026 approved budget. The 2026 received revenues to date and the expenditures to date And then the 2026 anticipated revenues or expenditures to be spent or received up until October 1st. The last column would be what the 2027 proposed budget is. So it's a little bit different than what you have before you. My understanding is those columns are going to be added. to the budget for you to compare with and in order to make it so we're strictly having the sections that 15-4 of the code requires for the recommended budget.

Okay, and for anybody who wants to, if y'all wanna look, if you'll look at this walk on five, we'll be on the website, on page 15, it kind of is a demonstration of what these additional columns would look like, it cites to the thing. So if anybody's like, what are they talking about? They could look at an example, page 15.

of the okay so okay all right all right so so they will they are being worked on and they yeah so next week yes for next week uh when we vote when we go to the budget hearing they will be on there as will be the budget message so you will have all that together and it should be according to the current ordinances

May I ask a question? Yes, please. The numbers were there, the information was there, but it was not correctly formatted, is that correct, or am I not understanding this?

No, there are additional information. There are additional, okay, thank you. So like last year, for instance, we have to show last year's what we budgeted, and then up to this point, how much we've spent, and how much we anticipate left. So there's two extra columns we've gotta add.

A couple more layers, okay.

Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah.

If I may.

So monthly we have how much is spent in our commission paperwork. So every month... we know percentage-wise what we've budgeted and what we've spent. So those numbers just have to be put in this as well. So we've already been doing it, which doesn't that meet our code, Ryan, that we've been doing it every month? But it's not in the budget. But it is the budget.

have the numbers you do get those every month but if you look at the code in section 15-4 it does specifically say for the recommended budget these columns have to be included in there so even though you already have the information monthly the code says essentially you have to have it in one place for

not the finance report. OK, thank you.

I mean, the good news is we're getting close to the end anyway. So you'll you know, you have this in the estimated part that you have to estimate will be a bit easier because we're almost at the end. Whereas in May it would have been harder. But so.

OK, so anyways, I just wanted to let you know that next week your budget document will look a little bit different because we did check with town attorney. Mayor had pointed out that we needed to add these additional columns. So Just wanted to do that. I'm not gonna go through a whole budget presentation. I just wanted to present a few items that people have commented on, because this is our third budget workshop. We've really just come down to the point where, you know, We've got to decide because next week is our first budget hearing. We've got to decide whether we just want to keep the flat millage rate at 4.6 mils or whether we're going to go back to the rollback rate because we will not have four votes and that because you don't agree on the budget and that rollback rate is 4.3987. So with THREE VOTES, YOU CAN PASS THE BUDGET AT 4.3987, WHICH IS ROLLBACK RATE. IF YOU WANTED TO KEEP FLAT, WHICH IS WHAT WE RECOMMENDED, IT'S GOING TO BE THE 4.6. THE DIFFERENCE IS A LITTLE BIT OVER $141,000 IS WHAT THE DIFFERENCE IS. BUT AS YOU CAN SEE, THERE WILL BE THINGS IN HERE THAT WE CAN GO THROUGH THAT WE WON'T BE ABLE TO FUND, YOU KNOW, IF WE GO BACK WITH THE ROLLBACK RATE. all right so i was asked to update the pie charts uh with the current budgets here so this is at the flat millage rate what everything looks like as far as expenditures you know you see that you still have about a little under 60 000 for storm water there you know general government is going to be a little bit higher because there is $100,000 in there for the elevator repair. So I'm just going to mention that. Next slide. 4.3, you're going to see that the general government has dropped for other reasons too, but the elevator repair has been taken out. we zeroed out stormwater, not from fund 141. That's a non-advalorum assessment, so that fund will remain untouched, but the other stormwater fund, 341, we would not be able to contribute to that. And that's some of the major differences. Also, there had been some comments tossed back and forth about cost of living and about wage adjustments. And, you know, we had proposed modest wage increase for all our employees. And it started with, and those wage increases are cost of living plus merit, just a little something extra for people to live. And so I just wanted to present that at the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the consumer price index that we use or that Social Security uses, the index is at 3.4% for the seasonal adjustments. We won't get the official 2027 COLA percentage until October 14th, so that's after we pass our budget. So we have to basically base it on what we have right now. I pulled this chart right off from Bureau Labor Statistics, and I just wanted you to see. So this is like a 12 years table percentage of change in the CPI for the same urban consumers. I know it's a little bit small, but you have it there. Some of the costs rising are like food is up 3.4%. I'm sorry, all items are up 3.4%, which is what you saw, the 3.4%. Food is up 3%. Gasoline is up 24.6%. Fuel oil, 39.1%. Electricity, 4.2. That's our ACs there. And then, of course, shelter, 3.2. Medical care services, 2.7. So there's some significant jumps in just some of the basic stuff that people are consuming, you know, for just everyday life. And this is the latest statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And like I mentioned a couple times earlier, our budget is based on the best estimates that we have available to make our budget looking future forward. Next one.

They also put out data that's more specific to this region that's different than that. And the numbers are lower than what you cited. So it's more specific to the region we live in here.

Like the southeast? Could you give her the name? I think you brought it up last year.

I've provided the information to her previously. And then the other part of that is that if you don't really, I don't think, my position is you don't really just look at what the last month's number was. You're talking about the cost of living over the course of the year. It's really kind of like the median or the average of what those would be over the year. So I agree, which I believe is to be is around the last time I looked was about. 2.7%. So and then if you wanted to add on top of that, I think 1% is is reasonable. We're also, if you're looking, you have a chart here comparing us through Bavard County. Is that coming up next?

No, that was on the memo. I don't think it's in here, is it? Or is it just in the packet? I think it's in the packet.

Yeah, so I'll just talk about it. That's what I'm talking. Yeah, if you look at the beachside communities, you're proposing the highest increase. And the average for Beachside is like three and a quarter percent.

If you look at all of Brevard County and you look at all of the towns, we are pretty much right in the, we are at the median and at 4.25. And we're right in the middle. So I wanted to though, because we only have about what, 28 employees, right? I wanted to explain to you what this means to them. And I wanted to especially talk about the officers because We were talking about giving them a $3,000 increase so that they can stay competitive. All right, we just got the health insurance quotes. They're going up 14%, but I wanted you to understand what that means for our employees. So these are just three officers that, you know, they have kids, they have young kids. You see their current health insurance costs. You see their fiscal year, 27 insurance costs. The raise, all of them would be 3,000, that flat $3,000 raise. And the difference in the cost of insurance you can see for each one. The first one, 1,505.64. His raise is just a slight over 2%.

I mean, that's all he's gonna get after he makes up for the difference in health insurance. The second officer, Their insurance difference is $1,440.36.

That's going to be slightly over 3%. All right, and none of these are keeping up with the cost of living.

The last one, their raise is equivalent to 3.16.

They're going to pay $12.90 more. From the figures I saw, right now they're estimating that the cost of living nationally is going to be anywhere from, I think, 3.2 to 3.7%. So 4.25 is not out of range if you're adding a little bit of merit to what folks are gonna get. And on top of it, they're gonna get 14% more increase in their health insurance, so that's gonna be taken away. So I just wanted to point out to you that it's very poignant to people who aren't making a ton of money, you know, that and who have little kids that this is something that's really going to hit their pocket. And so the $3,000 for police officers really is reasonable.

I would like to point out, there's two projections in my 83-page walk-on document, attachment three and then attachment four. Attachment four is a 20-page document related to the last three years of town data, specifically from our budgets, and then it pulls every single Excel document of records from the FDLE, you can get them online, for every police department in the state, For the last three years, it has all of their PD, like what is it required to be a PD? It also has things like, and then of course has the local Brevard County, but it also has things like not just salary, but it has how much overtime is allowed, comp time and those things. And if you actually look at those reported figures for the last three years, as well as now, and you compare those, Indian Harbor Beach satellite, like Beachside, the Beachside ones and Indy Atlantic, We're giving double in days of compensation and all of these other things than every one of the beachside towns. But the compensation, there's only ever been talk about compensation, but those figures are not included. So I would encourage people to look at that 20-page, it's got a bunch of charts and figures. Even when we did that large bump-up raise in the past, the $5,000, the other city that had, in Oliver-Bavard, that had the highest paid income officers, West Melbourne, they actually had the highest turnover. So just paying a ton more doesn't actually affect turnover. You never actually had a problem with the vacancy rate. We bumped it up. But every $10,000 that you pay in compensation is $12,000 I mean, I have the figure in here, but it's like $12,393 in actual cost to the town. So each one of these bump-ups and the raises, it's actually, for every dollar, it's actually $1.30. there's a reserve projection which is attachment three that has about six different scenarios but under all of those scenarios we start tapping into our reserves and get below four months and then two months at various different dates depending on a bunch of circumstances but even under the best case scenario we start our reserves start downfalling and it that part is directly tied to the compensation increases historically that we've been making and then their collateral impact so even if the property tax assessment does not pass sometime in 2024 or 26 like we're going to start going into our reserves in 2036 we're going to get down into four months of reserves just based on our current spending So that's if the amendment doesn't pass based on our current spending expenditures, and it's related to these compensation. We've added police officers with the fire, and then these bump-ups, and then these excessive 4% raises. So I would encourage people to look at those figures. They're in the 83-page document. They're attachment 3 and 4.

So can she continue?

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I have not had a chance really to comb through the document. I got it about two hours ago.

So I've sent these to you over the last three. No, no, no.

I just got it at 520. You mentioned that earlier today.

Separately. Go ahead.

Okay. So I've not been able to comb through it. What I did see attachment for the data that was cherry picked was from 2023, which was before Chief Zander was here. So it's a little bit.

It was all three years.

That's not what your charts say, but then it's a little bit skewed and then it's a little bit misleading. I would also say that looking at some of the analysis that you did, you kept the millage rate at 4.6%. which if you're saying things are going off the cliff, what that really strongly shows is that we need to raise the millage rate. We have the lowest millage rate of any full service town in Brevard County, and we have the highest property values. So there is capacity to raise the millage rate so that we don't fall off a cliff, all right? So that's just something that I wanted to mention just in the brief look at what I saw, but I would be happy to look at it a little bit more closer and discuss it with you as well. Anyways, going back to this is I wanted to just show you what the real time effect is on some of our officers. Chief Zander, I don't know if you have anything else you wanted to add or you want to reserve comment now?

About the raises. The raises in this seven-page document that we just got maybe an hour ago, it's a lot of good information if you trust ChatGPT to print something up for you and compare you to everything in the state of Florida. We can't compare ourselves to everything in the state of Florida. We compete against other agencies in this county, and that's what we have to compare ourselves to. So, yes, we may be the smallest agency in Beaver County, and I think that we've been respectable of our requests. I think we've been understanding that we are the smallest agency in the county. And at no time have we ever asked to be the highest paid, the middle paid, whatever the case may be. We've always said we accept to be the lowest paid in the county. But we just want that gap to be reasonable because we have to compete against the same officers. And just some notes real quick, if you don't mind, boss.

Yes, please.

From this 87 page document that we just got an hour and a half ago. We hired the most. On one of these pages, it talks about how we hired the most in the county. Well, we hired the most because we had the most vacancies at the time, comparative to our agency. We had to hire more because people were leaving, because we were training them and they were leaving and going other places because of higher pay, better benefits, and so on and so forth. um higher pay doesn't mean retention you're absolutely right there's a bunch of different things that go into that culture how you treat your people things that they have to put up with inside the job inside the town so a lot of it goes into that but let me tell you pay does it is a factor it may not be the factor but it is a factor we've done a great job in this agency trying to uh come back from where we were from years ago. And we have a stupid chart here that just shows you all the yellow and red from the years before we gave the raises. This is when we gave the raises. So those times there were times where we were the least paid in the county by far. And that was my first year here. And that's why we asked for that $7,200 raise I think we got in 2024, because that's where we were. So we had all of these vacancies, which someone said, well, you only have 10%. Hey, listen, when you're a small agency, 10% is a lot. If I miss one person from the road, that's now one person that's working by themselves. Or I had to fill it with overtime. Then my overtime goes up. So it definitely has a domino effect. But here is where the raises were given in 2024. This has been since then. Green. For months and months and months and months and months.

Could you move over that way? Because I don't think the camera shows where you're standing.

So we've had, I'm just guessing, two years plus of no vacancies. Because of culture, I agree. Because we're doing a lot of things good, and we're changing things, and we're training people, and we're doing the right thing that we should be doing for our people. But you know what? We're paying them well, too. We're paying them for what they do compared to other agencies. I'm not competing with Palm Bay. I'm not competing with Melbourne, the sheriff's office. Even when we're trying to compete, we're still the lowest paid in the county. We're okay with that as long as that… That's all that we ask for. So yes, two years ago, we got a $7,200 raise. Last year, we got a 3% raise. That hurt us because other agencies were getting 5%, 6%, 7%, 8% during last year. So when we gained a little bit in 2024, we lost a little bit in 2025. We're just asking to stay within that gap. That's all we're asking. So to say that money doesn't matter, I think that completely tells you that that's wrong. uh it is a huge effect especially like that slide that boss showed where it talks about health insurance and things like that that's that's real right i have a sergeant that has uh a couple kids and uh he pays more in health insurance than i've ever paid probably in a year it's absolutely absurd and a year and a half ago coco beach was the lowest paid in the county they're not anymore so that information on here is not correct But outside of that, the reason why they were okay with that for a little bit was because they had fantastic health insurance. Fantastic health insurance. And the city paid a lot more than any other city in the county for health insurance. And the officers and the staff there were willing to take that little bit of a pay decrease because they were getting crazy health insurance. Obviously, we know our health insurance is terrible here. So that's not anything that we can even compete with or even begin to compete with when we have 28, 27 employees. Some of the other things that were in this 87-page document that we just got an hour and a half ago. Paid leave. Yeah, you know what? Paid leave's great. It's fantastic. We do have a lot of paid leave on the books, and I have officers that lose their paid leave because they can't use it. Because if I have a certain manning where I don't want people to work alone for officer safety... And I have one person that's already out, and they want to take a vacation. They can't take that vacation during that time. So that comes down to a manning issue. But having that time in the books is fantastic. But if we can't use it, what good is it?

Wait, so you're saying that they lose it, and they can never, ever be compensated for it? Or does it accrue that they can be compensated for it?

There's a top, where as soon as they accrue to get to that top, they can't accrue it anymore, and then they lose it. I would like to see the specifics on that. It's in our policy.

Well, I believe that our comp time comparison, lots of discrepancies. Noted by the auditors that we weren't following it.

Full-time comparison on this page, lots of discrepancies obviously there. We don't have take-home cars. We have a quasi take-home car program. They only get it on the days that they work. They don't have it seven days a week, whatever the case may be. Really quick, it's reported- Most of the other agencies have it in the county. I think there's Indylandics going to it now. Indian Harbor Beach is the only one that's like us where they only allow it during your work period. So Monday through Thursday, Monday through Wednesday, whatever the case may be. Tuition assistance, yep, we have it unless it runs out of the budget. We have a little bit that's set aside in our budget each year for that. But if I have two officers that are going to college, they're competing for that same money. And once the money's spent, the money's spent. So I don't have the money to just do reimbursement for all officers like most agencies do. We don't have a peer support group program. We do have a wellness program, but not a peer support group program. So like I said, you can tell that this is AI. It pulls from stuff that isn't really all that accurate.

It pulls from what you reported to this FDLE, literally.

A lot of it said we have a raise faster than others because we were the furthest— We had to raise our pay more than others for a great period of time, 19.2%, because we were so far behind. And that was, thank God for that commission back then, helped us get that $7,200 raise that got us out of the far far basement i mean just just think about it that was two years ago 42 500 i think was the starting pay uh then now we have agencies in the county that are are going to get 63 000 this year so if we wouldn't have got that we would be 20 000 below a starting pay of other people that we have to compare with inside or compete with inside this county i mean that's just crazy i mean some of you that had that had had businesses worked in hr obviously some of you hasn't haven't where you haven't had to recruit people train people and and hire people um a couple other things boss so forgive me i just got a couple notes here um seems like you have had a chance to review it Yeah, just in the last 10 minutes, um, we have Paris agencies. Our roster is full because we continue to keep our agency competitive and pay. That's why, like I pointed out a couple seconds ago, uh, we have compared to, uh, w we have to pay people compared to what's getting paid in this county. Like I stated a couple minutes ago as well, we're still the lowest, but that is what it is. Um, Recruitments have never, okay, so there was something on here about how we've lowered our standards. No, we haven't, we've never lowered our standards. There's certain things that we do have some policies on as far as tattoos go and things like that. It's not to say you can't have tattoos. I'm not sure where that came from. That wasn't sent to FDLE. The tattoos, it depends on what it is, right? If you have a swastika on your arm, we're not gonna hire you, right? But if you have a I love my mom on your arm, we're gonna hire you. That's not a big deal, right? So that's not very, very accurate either. There was some other things down there about a physical fitness level. No, there's the same physical fitness level that everybody has to go through when they go to the academy. So if someone comes into this academy and wants to get hired, they have to go through that. So we've never lowered that. It's always been the same since since God was taken the throne. and i think that's it education requirement okay so the educational requirement it also states in here that we have educational requirements now that we didn't have before that's not accurate um our corporals you don't have to have an educational requirement there's not a requirement that you have to have your associates or your bachelor's sergeants that's not it the only one we changed was the deputy chief And that was two years ago when we added that position into our PD. When we said that we're gonna make a deputy chief position, that's somebody that's gonna eventually one day hopefully take my position. And in that aspect, you're gonna need a degree. So we added that for that one. And I believe it was just an associate's degree at that or 60 credits. So that wasn't all that accurate either. But that is pretty much my notes boss that I just gave it a quick look over.

I'd like to address those really quick to explain. The data, and it is cited in here, is pulled directly from the FDLE website. The FDLE does a survey every year on a number of things. Every one of those surveys is on their website. You can pull 2025 and 2024, as well as the prior years. You go into the archive for 2023 and back. Everything in that is pulled from those Excel spreadsheets. which is stuff that every police department, including you, Chief Zander, would have reported to FDLE because that stuff gets reported from the agencies. Now, it is true that if you look at the way that those documents are, one of them is PD requirements. And so it's a separate spreadsheet per year. So 2024, and it has a number of questions. One of those questions may be whether you have any minimum requirements or, you know, college degree it may be that for most of our positions we don't but for one position we do but but whatever you reported to the state is what is on there so you may have reported yes because maybe we have one position that requires it but you portray in this report that that's that that that's holding up requirement that now we have a educational requirement and that's just not the case so you're

you're taking a little bit of information and you're blowing it up to what you want.

I'm taking the information that you reported to FDLE and that's publicly available and it specifically states so people could go and look at that. There isn't a thing on there where you can say yes for one position or two but no for the other. It's just a yes or no. So yes, but that information is like the main information relates to other things which are explained in there. But you know i mean it's pulled directly from the information that you and other agencies reported for each year 2023 2024 2025 for the various list things uh as to coco beach coco beach and a bunch of other cities and this has always been my thing but that we don't have we don't have um a union or a contract but a lot of these other cities do I recall talking to the Cocoa Beach mayor because they were renegotiating their police contract, as were other cities in past years, and it happens every year. But they renegotiate those contracts. They set a price for it. It's a three-year contract. So what happens, though, is... If we don't have vacancy issue or a problem to solve, but we arbitrarily say in one year, bump up the starting salary $5,000, then guess what? It's a cycle of increases that we are feeding because next year, when whichever city is negotiating their contract, like say, Coco, they look at who does everyone else pay, and they're gonna look at, oh, well, we now, instead of being 42, we were bumped up to 50. So then the next year, when you come back to us and say, we're the lowest by this much, but if we only bump up when it's really supported by the data itself as well as the data on other compensation issues like time off because those have never been given to us you didn't give us that information but it's available and we are very generous on a lot of other issues but that's not being reported instead what it does recommend and it does say that if you were going to look around like a 1 000 bump up would possibly be appropriate this year, not the 3,000. But instead, what we could do is say, we're gonna treat it like other cities where they negotiate every three years and every three years we will look at it globally. Because if we don't, if we keep doing this every year, we are literally increasing the numbers that we're gonna look against the next year because all of those cities that are renegotiating are gonna have higher numbers. And I believe that that's something that you very well probably do know when you ask for that $5,000 bump up because it bumps everything else up. If we hadn't done that bump up, the very next year, That $5,000 increase wouldn't have been baked into the data. So we are just feeding increases without requiring basic data to support whether it's actually needed based on real data.

So the bump-ups that I request are based on what they're asking for this year. And I can't control what other agencies do or don't do, what they negotiate and don't negotiate. The end of the line is I have to compete with them eventually, whether it's today or tomorrow, this year or next year. Um, and at the end of the day, if, uh, if, if, if they're getting, if they're negotiating a three-year contract in a 6% raise per year, and we don't even keep up with that, then yes, the gap does get lower. And I hate to say it for someone that's never had a business or ran a business. Um, that's the price of doing business. You have to pay people and you're going to be, uh, competing with other businesses of the same kind year after year after year. Exactly.

Okay, but it is your job as the department over the people that would get the raises to try to advocate and make a case for the highest increase that you could get for them.

That's not true. And that is what— That is not true at all, man, because here's the thing.

If I was advocating for that— Excuse me, you're interrupting me.

If I was advocating for that, I would ask for a $60,000 starting pay so we could—

We'll be there next year.

But we're not doing that. You're right because they're going to be at $68,000. I mean, that's just the price of doing business. If you want a police department, if you want a town, you have to pay for it. It's not free. It's not free and you can't do it the cheapest possible because then you're going to get employees that... are equivalent to that pay. And that's the last thing I want for the police department.

In 2030 or at the latest 2036, when the town goes bankrupt and we don't have a fire department or a police department, I'm gonna come to the meeting, I'm gonna say, it's been a long time, but I told y'all so.

Can I ask what does it cost if a new employee comes in in your department? What is that additional cost besides salary?

A lot of that depends because some of the equipment we may be able to use again, some we may not be able to use again. So it really depends on a lot of different things. But you're looking at anywhere between $75,000 for the overtime, for the training that it takes, the hiring the person, going through the entire hiring process, the recruiting of them, outfitting them with all the equipment that they need, and that type of thing. So you're looking at $75,000 to $100,000 depending.

So we're paying somebody maybe $5,000 a year. But if they are not happy with their pay, it will end up costing us a minimum of $75,000 to replace that person.

that's absolutely correct and and the thing is is that we've been able to retain our people because we've done some right things with some past commissions we've been able to uh increase the starting pay although we're either last or second last in the county we've been able to change the culture we've been able to get them training the last thing i want to do is is do all that and then say bye bye to them because now they go to melbourne or they go to rockledge or they go to wherever because the starting pay there is going to be 15 000 more than what a three-year officer gets here we're not trying to give 15 we're only trying to give absolutely yeah no no we're not trying to get five we're just trying to get three this year three that's it yeah so the starting pay is there the pay scale is something that i am looking at for next year um but this year it's just primarily to just raise the starting pay to get us uh i think we're gonna that's gonna put us at uh 54 and i want to say the highest in the county this year depending on a couple other negotiations that are currently going on now, I think they're looking at between 59 and 61. So if that's the case, our gap will be like seven, eight grand. That's fantastic.

So let's take this further. Marie, what does it cost for a staff person to replace them in our in our office? in your office, what does it? Can you give certain numbers or? What would it cost to replace somebody? Just kind of a rough estimate compared to what amount of money we're increasing our staff

Well, it depends on the position. You know, you replace the town manager, and you had to pay for a recruiter, and I don't know how much those costs were, but you know, it was fairly significant with that.

It was $40,000 to replace the town manager's position.

Right, so that was... $30,000. Okay, whatever it may be. But you also have work that's not being done that then has to be caught up. You have a lot of other things that maybe are not dollar amounts, but it's other things that you have to do that you then put on other staff. Then they have overtime requirements. So there's a lot of other things that go into that. I don't think I'm prepared tonight to give you a dollar figure, but I, I think average is usually about, I think across the nation is somewhere like between 60 to 100, depending on what the job is. But that's common, and it's ubiquitous across the country.

Thank you. Anybody else? Speak freely.

A man Mary you've done an incredible amount of work here and I'm not really comfortable commenting on all this all this work at this point and you know I wonder if we could look restrict our comments to the package that we received so we you know I know all of us prepared and went through this budget and I know there's some changes that you made which I think is pretty cool. Right. But I I'm not prepared to talk on 81 pages.

No, I know. I know. I mean, I'm not going to restrict myself if something comes up, but I absolutely respect and understand it. Just the way it came about and I put it together was because of a bunch of some discussions behind the scenes where some things have been brought up particularly the parallel columns which was the most important thing and the feeling that we were getting so close to the end and i and i wasn't sure if it was ever going to be addressed because there was a response as to well we'll see what the commission whether they want to include it and i was like okay i need to create a record that notifies people that object without it maybe that'll push it forward i'm glad it did because now it does look like having created this and sent it the town attorney did get involved because i never involved you don't want to have any charges i've just been working with the manager um and sending some stuff um so i guess the question i may not have sent every one of these to you so well the question i have for you is i mean there's a lot there's a lot of information we have to digest it obviously but when we started this budget process you said you're not going to vote for the budget that's how you started it

If these changes and improvements are made, are you open to voting for this? Because I think we have to think about, are we going to do the rollback? Are we going to keep the millage the same? You know, what's the feeling? We can't talk, the public doesn't know this, but we can't, we're restricted from talking to each other. So the only time we really get to talk to each other is up here, and sometimes it's not always nice. you know but you know we should we should have an idea this is the most important thing we do as a commission is pass this budget are you uh are you intimating that with improvements you would you would you would vote for it because you said very clearly you wouldn't yeah i mean i can't vote for a budget that doesn't meet our mandatory minimum requirement so i'll be happy to see

when the next version comes out so that means there's a chance and no and then after that like for example the compensation one it does say at the end like this is what i would be willing to do it's a scale back so if we were to if you were to go back to the rollback rate right and those numbers

and then well we don't need your vote for the rollback right all right just just to put that out there we have to go over it but to go back to just keep things as they were i mean we need your vote or commissioner reed's vote right and the point is do are we going to put the staff our our manager and the finance director through all of this if we just know now that you're not going to vote we're not going to have enough votes so then if that's the case let's move along and look at the rollback and

Yeah, I think we need to be at the rollback. Yeah, I mean.

So to answer Vice Mayor's question is you would not vote for the proposed?

I would not vote for 4.6 under any circumstances whatsoever.

But keeping it the same. 4.6. To keep it the same.

I would not vote for 4.6 or probably anything anywhere close to it. The rollback rate I would vote for?

You would.

Possibly, once we have the rollback rate and all the figures and stuff, if we were to go over something slightly over that for some school. We don't need your vote.

We don't need your vote for that.

We're asking about the proposal. No, but to go anything over. We're asking about the proposal. No, anything over the rollback rate, you would need a fourth vote. So what I'm saying is you don't need my vote for the rollback. There is a chance that if we had all of the stuff and there was some small amount over the rollback rate that was tied to something specific, that that's where there might be some play. But it would require those specifics. But I would not vote for the 4.6 under any circumstances.

What about you, Commissioner Reed?

Well, first off, you're speaking as if you know how one is voting, that you have a tabulation of what you think the vote is already, which I find surprising.

The mayor said it. No, I didn't. Twice. You said it twice. You said it twice. In previous meetings.

I'm not talking about the mayor. I'm saying he... He said it about you, not him.

I've never spoke for him. No, no, no, I didn't say that. You said about you, and that's what the vice mayor just stated.

She certainly...

She certainly said that she wouldn't vote for the budget. She did. And she said it several times.

I'm not denying that. I heard her say that, too.

And he's asking you. He's going to ask me. He's going to ask you.

But you were speaking in terms of that you knew how the rest of the commission was going to vote. I have no idea. But I know that we only need three. The way you were speaking was that you did. We only need three votes.

OK. We only need three votes to do. So we don't need the mayor's vote.

I know what the vote requirement is for the rollback. I understand what that is. So how do you feel? How do you feel?

HOW DO I FEEL ABOUT WHAT? THE BUDGET. ARE YOU IN SUPPORT OF THE ROLLBACK OR ARE YOU WORKING THROUGH THIS AND YOU THINK YOU COULD KEEP IT THE SAME OR DO YOU WANT TO INCREASE THE MILLAGE RATE? WHERE DO YOU STAND?

I'VE VOICED MY THINGS THAT I'M NOT IN FAVOR OF IN THE BUDGET. IF YOU, LET'S TALK ABOUT ROLLBACK FOR A SECOND. SO WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT FOR ROLLBACK IS THIS IS WHAT AFFECTS THE ADVALORUM REVENUE. AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE 4.6 AND GOING BACK TO THE ROLLBACK RATE IS A TOTAL OF $140 SOME DOLLARS, I THINK, IN ADVALORUM TAX. SO I KIND OF BELIEVE THAT, YOU KNOW, We could make up that $140,000. So if we make up that $140,000 in revenue, then we could essentially do the same budget that's presented at 4.6 at the rollback rate, correct? Are you following me?

I don't. Say that again.

So the rollback rate only that we're talking about only the ad valorem revenue that we get. So at 4.6 rate, you get a certain amount at rollback rate, you get a lesser amount through the tax. Well, that difference is about 140 some thousand dollars. All right. So if we were able to somehow, get that $140,000 of revenue, if we were able to generate that. We could essentially have the same budget, the same 4.6 budget, but only have the tax people at the rollback rate.

Do you have thoughts on where we get that one from?

Yeah, I do. I have a couple thoughts on it. So I think in the parking money, I think we have that money. I think we have that money, and we could re...

The parking money that goes for the parks?

The parking money that is locked up in those two special funds. And outside of what is... Do you want to share what you're mumbling? OUTSIDER, AFTER THOSE YOU ALLOCATE TO WHATEVER EXPENSES, THERE'S STILL EXTRA REVENUE THAT IS GENERATED AND TRAPPED IN THOSE FUNDS. IF WE UNTRAP THAT MONEY, I'M TRYING TO BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THE WORDS I USE BECAUSE I'M GETTING IN TROUBLE, BUT THE week that money could be added to the general fund and we could I think we could easily we could make up that a hundred and forty one thousand dollar difference we also have a pending we have this five hundred and eighty some thousand dollars of FEMA money outstanding that is Hopefully close. And we could budget some portion of that as revenue to make up the difference.

And question that that amount is not actually being currently carried. on our like as uh so so that there's a 500 000 amount that we are entitled to or applied to fema but because of what it's not being carried as a as a revenue or income anywhere so it's not showing up but it's not our revenue until we have it we don't have it okay but we could put it as a revenue that we believe we will get how long we've been waiting

It's on page 54.

Yeah, and why it shows up on page 54, I don't understand.

Because I haven't deleted it from there. It was just a number that was put in by the prior town manager and it can be removed. It's not reflected in our actual revenues because it's not money that we have. And I'm assuming, it's my guess, don't quote me on it, Irma happened in 2018.

17 correct 17. okay we're going on nine years yeah okay um so it's yeah but there's a bunch of cities who just recently got their irma money okay so we it's like that one is a weird one but that money is you know so if we we we could potentially put that in our revenue and say we do expect to get it it would be nice Because right now, it showed up before, but it's never actually been calculated. Say we didn't put in our revenue. Say that we file the paperwork and we actually get it. It would be $500,000 of revenue that we had never recorded that would go in our revenue, but...

if we get it because all the stuff has been sent to them and they are reviewing it that was my last communication with them recently they don't tell me exactly what they're reviewing they just say they're reviewing it if we do get it we can always do a budget amendment to include it once we get the money yeah but essentially we'd be if that happened we would basically have 500 in revenue

that we had never counted in. So that's in addition to the parking funds, that is an additional. Yes.

You said it three times now. So YEAH, SO I MEAN, BUT I THINK THAT'S, THAT WOULD BE, WE COULD DO A LOT WITH THAT MONEY HERE IN TOWN, AS WELL AS BOLSTER OUR RESERVES SOME AS WELL. YEAH. BUT I THINK THAT THE PARKING MONEY COULD MAKE UP THAT GAP

So keep it at a rollback rate and then move the parking money into the general fund?

That's already been done if you look at the budgets. The last workshop Commissioner Reed and Commissioner Quary had mentioned that and that's what we did.

You have numbers in there. It's not the, I don't think it's the total amount. It doesn't zero it out.

No, it's not 100. No, we didn't take all the parking money out. No, we took out what you guys recommended.

So I haven't seen, had an opportunity to see the rollback look at it yet. But I got to believe it's pretty close. I mean, the way you have it right now, the way you have transferred all those parking salary costs into like fund 172, basically it shows like at the end of the year, the fund is down to like $20,000. So then the following year, it's gonna be upside down. It's it's unsustainable to do that. It'll get you through one year, but then it's unsustainable You then you're back then you will be in the general fund for sure to to do even the things that you were trying to get covered with money outside of Salaries, yeah, that's understandable.

We we did what you guys recommended that we are doing what the Commission recommended Yeah, yeah, because I never I never recommended that I I

My position has always been that we don't do that, that we don't be using it for salaries like we have been. My point was I wasn't following the logic that was being used to do that. It seemed random.

I'd like to address that. I was on the commission, it was when Adam Meyer was on the commission, when Chief Zander requested that we add additional officer. At the time, they wanted two officers. Instead, this whole can we afford it, is this even necessary was discussed with the five commissioners that included Adam Meyer at that time, my first year, and I believe that the vote was only for one and only because we found the money from parking but if it hadn't come from parking I don't believe that that addition of an officer that we had never had in the whole history of the town would have been approved but then as far as the fire that I believe that part of it is funded from the parking but again those positions for fire that was that whole fiasco and there was going to be a referendum about asking the public if they wanted to you know, continue with the fund, not take from reserves. But he is right that, you know, if it just goes into the general fund, it's going to really kind of have to anyway because of the way it's being depleted. But if it just goes into the general, it makes up for it. I forgot the other thing I was going to say, but we'll come back to it.

I MEAN, I'VE GONE AND REVIEWED THE OTHER MUNICIPALITIES' BUDGETS, PROPOSED BUDGETS, AND THEIR PAST BUDGETS, AND THAT DO HAVE PARKING MONEY. SO IN SATELLITE BEACH, FOR THE INSTANCE, THAT THEY, IN THEIR PARKING FUND, THEY ALLOCATE SOME MONEY FOR IMPROVEMENTS OR WHATEVER THAT THEY'RE GOING TO DO IN THAT PARK OR THAT PARKING AREA THAT SERVED THE serves that parking area and then they, whatever is not budgeted to be spent in that year, it goes into the general fund. And Cocoa Beach does the same, very similar thing.

I remember what I was gonna say. When we get the updated budget the next time, and it does include all these parallel columns, I mean, like if there's those parallel columns on the parking revenue, because it'll be what we budgeted, what we thought we were gonna get for those two areas, what have we gotten so far what do we estimate left to get because those actual because the parking you know it does kind of vary and we have in the we have raised the rates which then we like two different times or whatever but it um it caused our at like after the budget it caused our actual what we're getting to be fairly more than what we budgeted for because of the mid-year raise so like we know that there's money in the parking that we could put you know what left over but even those estimated projections even though we're close to the end of the year like those numbers i don't know but they might be more than we think like more than we budget for so i'm just trying to get like the temperature of the room and i feel like uh commissioner uh

Green and the mayor are saying that they're there in support of the rollback rate, but with some possible moving of some funds. I'd love to hear what commissioner Corey commissioner Butler had think about this because if everybody's moving towards the rollback and I think we've accomplished something in this workshop.

I am not in support of going to the rollback. I think that the town itself will suffer. I think that the staff will suffer. I think it sends a message to the staff that They'll be fine, it's fine. They're here, they're not leaving. There are things that it will hurt and we don't know what's gonna happen with the taxes and I think we all kind of can guess what's gonna happen and I don't prefer the idea of we're taking money, we did that last year when we took all the money from all the different places and put it in the storm water and fire and it got messy and I think there were issues long term for that. I respect and agree with what the manager and the department heads in particular the finance director have put into this and I the reasoning and rationale for it is solid it's nothing nefarious or that we're gonna go gotcha you you're hiding this it's it's that that mentality I think just has to

really stop and I trust what you're doing this is your expertise and That's that's the way I will vote My turn Well Seventy five thousand dollars was taken out of the parking fund and put into the general fund But what I'd like to point out is that the rollback, if you look at page 52, there is no money, period, for stormwater. The actual total expenses for stormwater for last year and it's a lot more than zero, and it's a lot more than what the parking funds make. So you're talking about nothing for stormwater, which is one of the biggest issues with the residents. Yes, that bond may get passed, but it might not get passed. If that bond in November is not passed, There is zero in the budget for stormwater. And that's one of the biggest subjects of people that have been coming into these meetings begging us to take care of is the stormwater. So that's number one.

I'm not sure that's 100% correct.

I'm sorry, I have the floor. There's nothing in here also to fix the elevator in the building. I don't even know if that's legal. Our fire chief could address that. I don't know that it's legal to have an unoperable elevator in a municipal or a government building because it does not meet ADA. How can you have no money in the budget for elevator that is in dire need of repair and have just spent all that money to fix the second floor and what, now nobody can get up to it in an elevator? I don't think that's legal. Our attorney and our fire chief can point that out whether or not I'm correct, but I think it's a big issue. The other thing is, is that What's going to happen? We're going to magically get this $500,000 after over a decade, and you want to put that number in the budget for false hope? I think that's irresponsible. If we get that money, it would be like when we got the ARPA funds. It would be a blessing. And we could use that for whatever, stormwater, whatever. You can't rely on the government's money that hasn't shown up for over 10 years. And then let's also talk about the money that we've wasted. How about the money that we've wasted on having to let's take our building department. We had a building department with a building official that was open 20, seven days a week, literally, and that person left because of toxic work environment, and that building department had all of a sudden, before he left, was in the green. It was paying for itself. Now we have a building department that has a building inspector two days a week, and it's in the red. It's in the red. We have to pay for that out of the general fund now. That's cost a lot of money. We've lost employees. The employees that we have lost have cost the town money in replacing them with someone else, and we've had to pay them the benefits upon their exit. That's money that's gone. Basin 10, that's going to be over a million dollars. We don't have a million dollars. We don't even have $100,000 in this budget for the rollback rate to fix that basin. I just find it that the police department, you're being concerned about a $5,000 police department per employee increase does not supersede all the other things that we're going to lose because you disagree with the 4.6. It doesn't mathematically make sense. You can't take $5,000 per person police officer and say that that computes to restricting and not having any money for stormwater and the cost that it's going to take to replace a police officer, you talk about 2030, it would take $5,000 increments longer than 2030 to replace a police officer just because we are not competitive by $5,000. It doesn't compute. Now we also have a fire department that is for the first time going to be sufficient. We're going to be able to have more life support systems in place. And we're very blessed that we're maintaining that in the budget because we have to have fire safety and we have to have police. but it seems like that's what's under attack. And it doesn't make sense to me because you've got to protect the community and you've got to make sure that those people are at least decently paid. And we have to be able to attract people that we want, not people that we are going to underpay and that we may necessarily not want. We have to protect our community, our citizens, our roads, and our stormwater. That's part of our job. And a 4.6, which is exactly what we had last year, is not too much money to ask for. And you're hanging, losing all of this because you disagree with the police department and you've come up with this that we haven't even had a chance to read as your reasoning.

You're not supposed to address the issues and not any individual commissioner. I'm addressing your... You have repeatedly said you?

Yes, I have.

Address the issues.

You have repeatedly said that you're not going to vote for this budget.

Point of order. Do not address me or Tim or anyone else.

Then why did you bring... Address the issues, ma'am. Why did you put this up here?

We're going to take a recess so that she can control herself. We are recessed.

Point of order. Point of order is rejected. I would like a vote. I would like a vote on the point of order.

So the point of order is loss of quorum. Not loss of quorum, but loss of decorum. Loss of decorum.

We're recessed. We can't talk.

We can vote on whether.

No, a recess is not votable. We're recessed.

I'll tell you what it is. Point of order, you pulled the point of order. You raise it promptly at the moment the breach occurs.

You are illegally having, I'm not going to engage. Ryan can speak, but we are recessed.

If you call point of order, there's a system that you have to do.

Recessed. Look it up. Marie, is Ryan around? Go ahead.

I'm still here.

You could get on the phone with the vice mayor. No, we're not on the record. We're recessed. So if you're going to speak to the vice mayor, just call him on the phone. Y'all can talk. We're recessed for 10 minutes.

We don't have time for 10 minutes. We're stopping at 9.

That's fine.

How is this productive?

It is not.

Perhaps we should.

Yeah, I can walk.

Mayor, let's reconvene the meeting. Let us proceed.

All right, we're back on the record. We took a recess because of the repeated failure and violation of our rules about decorum, and Commissioner Corey continued arguing and addressing comments not to the issue, so I will remind you again, Commissioner Corey, address the issues, discuss the issues, do not address your comments at other commissioners. That is the rule that we passed, and you repeatedly violated it, so that is what caused us to have to recess so we are back on i hope you can behave address the issues could the clerk please call roll mayor allison dennington here go i i'd like to address but i i would like to ask engine um uh also that that so we can raise the taxes to this we won't have money for stormwater not putting it in storm that in your packages over the years folks

And one of the bones of contention by some members have always been, I'm not an engineer.

I depend on what small towns do.

And in one of those packages, I even went so far as to put the FDOT standards to measure those and said, hey guys, this is how I came up with this road and that road. Pointing fingers or can't but Commission just never we just never accepted that for whatever we never made a commitment to that And so we did do marriages in defense. I think as far as that we did the best we could and I think we have offered a product maybe not But we didn't want to spend that money, you know, I

I don't have a problem that you're not an engineer. I think you have a lot of institutional knowledge, and I think that you do know about stormwater. So I think that that's not an issue for me. I also think that the new manager has improved a lot of sort of upgrading, like modernizing our technology. I think she's even gotten you some fairly inexpensive software that's going to help with that going forward. I think that if you'd ever been given that before, that assistance... THAT WE WOULDN'T BE IN THAT PROBLEM. BUT WE DO HAVE A GAP OR WHATEVER. SO I DON'T MEAN TO BLAME YOU. NO, NO, NO. IT'S JUST FRUSTRATING. I THINK THAT THERE IS SOME, BUT I ALSO THINK YOU'RE BUSY. IT HAS TO DO WITH A LOT OF HATS AND BEING BUSY. IT'S ALWAYS BEEN MANAGEMENT'S JOB.

I'D LIKE TO GET THROUGH A COUPLE MORE COMMENTS.

I KNOW, BUT I WANT TO DISPEL THAT I'M NOT TRYING TO CRITICIZE YOU.

NO, NO, NO. I JUST WANT YOU TO BE AWARE THAT

We just want to make sure it's something that's defendable and not something that the next year somebody's gonna come in poke holes and and that's also has to do with the integrity of the town Okay, yeah, I just on this subject point out that in the rollback with the rollback rate there is no money for paving and milling Right am I reading that correctly what what page are you on 17 I

That's actually what's saying transfer to that's the 4.6 budget Does it say roll back at the top or not?

It says roll back But 17 also, I'm looking at the rollback one 17 Well, there's two columns one has zero so it's confusing Okay, roll back

Commissioner read you'll like this one. It is corrected the fiscal year 27 28 29 and all of the 52s were removed in the rollback chart on page 17 in the 4.6 chart. I did not do that It's the same thing I just didn't it's yeah, it's just saying that I

So under the 4.6 budget, these should be zero too? Pardon me? So under the 4.6 budget, these should be zero too?

Well, the 52 this year is zero. Yeah. 52, that'll be a decision for next year. I mean, leaving the 52 there.

Yeah, but basically, so your point, because it's in there, is actually wrong because this one is just not corrected matched up.

I don't think so, because if you look at page 17 on the rollback, it has zeros from fiscal year 27 all the way through fiscal year 31. Whereas on page 17 on the 4.6, it has zero for fiscal year 27, and then it goes 52, 52, 52, 52. Go ahead.

That's correct. Yeah, they both are like that. And it could be either or, whatever decision you guys would like to do.

Well, anything projected 28, 29, 30 should be the same on both of these or zero, because you're basically

Correct, and it could be either or. If you guys want the 52 there, we can put it on both. I can remove it on both. It's perfectly.

We need anything past or future that is not fiscal 27 under either 4.6 or the rollback. They need to be the same.

Correct. They do. That is correct. I'm saying we can put it either way, or we can change the number and make it completely different. You guys let me know. That was my doing. One of them I put zeros, one I didn't put zeros. That was my doing, correct.

But I think the manager's point was is that if we did the rollback, that the monies to be set aside for the next year's budget is gonna be very minimal.

Well, on that point. After and after and after. I'd like to ask, on the old and the new versions, strangely, If you look at the 4.6, which is the town is taking in more revenue versus the rollback rate, taking in 142,000 less in revenue. But then if you look at what the town intends to spend under the 4.6 expenditures versus the rollback rate expenditures, if you look at some things, projected expenses, they don't match, which there are particular categories where that's intentional. but some don't make sense because 4.6 budget, legal expenses, you have like $10,000 less. You're gonna spend less on lawyers, just the town attorney, under the 4.6 budget in 2027 you're gonna spend 10,000 more under the rollback budget. That doesn't make sense. Under the rollback budget for 2027, we're gonna spend $10,000 more for the planner than we are under the 4.6 so again like i don't i don't think those are right i don't if they are like if they are then that's right there that's 20 000 that are over expensed on the rollback budget but so or they're under expensed on the 4.6 budget but i know other things you may like under the rollback budget we're going to spend less here but those don't make sense so so

That number can be changed on either one. It's not that it's right or it's wrong. It's just an amount of money that is being spent in that location that is not being spent in another location. So that's how a budget works.

But who made the decision to say if we take in more revenue and tax people more at 4.6, We don't think we will need as much, and we will spend $10,000 less on that one line item for town attorney, and we will spend $10,000 less on planning, but if we take in less money for these exact same line items, we're gonna actually spend more of it, because for planner and a town attorney, those are kind of the same either way. If anything, you would say, well, maybe we're gonna cut back a little bit on planner or town attorney, but I actually don't think, I think those would be ones that would be the same, so in a way, if those are mistakes or some kind of intentional choices, but that nobody pulls out, then you're kind of like, well, oh, well, that's $20,000.

It's not a mistake. It's a number that was in 4.6 budget when you guys looked at it. Commissioner Corey had mentioned that should this be more because the, what is it? I can't think of the name, cap. So now the building department is using the planner more. So when I did the rollback, because this was an extra budget that I had to do,

You updated that one, but not the other.

I updated that one and not the 4.6. So these are numbers that we can put in places and we can take away from other places, but it's up to you guys what you guys want to do with those numbers.

But again, so that makes sense because you updated. So if we update the other one, the 4.6... together on those two things that commissioner quarry because when commissioner quarry was talking about that we never had the rollback it was only a 4.6 budget correct and so she requested let's bump that up so what you did was then it was like okay there was a request to bump it up But you didn't bump it up on the 4.6 budget, which is the one that we did. And for some reason it was like, oh, I bumped it up on the new one.

Just a lot of pages that I'm doing. And we can go ahead and correct that if that's where you would like that to be. Or we could, if you guys go with rollback and you say, you know what? We don't want to spend that much there. Then we can change that as well.

Let's hope our legal fees go down. I was trying to figure out if it was a deliberate choice made by the manager for a specific reason between the budgets. It does sound to me it was a bit of an error.

It's not an error. It's just a choice.

It wasn't a choice that was reflected to the 4.6 budget to which the discussion had attached. Okay.

So I wonder if we as a commission could give guidance to our staff, you know, are we going to consider the 4.6 and the rollback? Are we going to consider both these budgets? If so, that's important that we say it now for our September meeting. If not, if we're just going to do the rollback, and I know two of the commission said that they would support the rollback with some added benefits in there of added changes perhaps they could share those changes with us before the September meeting but I do think that we should give them guidance are we going to just stick with the rollback are we going to consider both budgets.

I mean, basically our next meeting is the actual required first hearing. We know we have three votes. You know you have three votes? You would have votes to pass the rollback. That next published one should have that. And if we had to make changes or were going to make changes, we could. But, I mean, yeah. We don't know that. That's what it should be, have the rollback rate. Plus, we need a consistent document. One document at the rollback rate, discussion can go from there, but we have no time. That'd be my preference.

Is that your feeling too, Commissioner Reed? I don't want to say on the question what you're asking me. So are we asking the staff to present two budgets to us at our meeting in September?

I was just handed the rollback one here, so I haven't really looked at it in detail. I expressed my view earlier that the... But I think we can do, there's a way to go to the rollback and still do everything you want to do in 4.6.

So I would recommend to the staff that they present the rollback to us in September. And then we work on it from the commission at that level. I'm disappointed in that. However, if that's the way it goes, that's the way it goes.

Okay, but by the way, the rollback rate was in the packet too. Yeah, it was. They both were in there.

You had provided it prior. There were so many errors. I mean, it was practically impossible to look at those. And I know that y'all did the, because you separated the two late Friday, but I mean, it's... Vice Mayor, I understand your...

Your statement, I'm very disappointed. I'm not in favor of that. But I know we have to vote. It's very disappointing.

For what it's worth. I wish I hadn't voted on the increase last year. we'd be an even we'd be even a worse rollback rate if i had yeah motion to adjourn yes please second all in favor say aye aye did we did we allow public comment we did say we were going to do that mrs stark i see you are you wanting i believe we said we were going to did you want to come up no okay all right all in favor say aye aye aye aye okay all