P&z Board - Regular Meeting

Test, test.

Therefore, I'm going to call this workshop of the council to order. Madam Clerk, just for the record, please call the roll.

Good evening. Council Member Fernandez.

Here.

Council Member Cuadra-Garcia.

Here. Here.

Council Member Garcia.

Present.

Council Member Sanchez.

Present.

Council Member Hersberg. Let the record reflect. He's here walking in. Vice Mayor Morera and Mayor Diegues. You have quorum.

Thank you. Everyone, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, which I will lead today. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please remain standing for the invocation led today by the Vice Mayor.

Thank you. Lord, we ask for your guidance as we prepare to embark on this endeavor. We ask for the wisdom to know what is in the best interest of our residents and to plan accordingly for the upcoming fiscal year. We also pray for Dolly Parton, who passed away and was the benefactor of one of our very successful programs here in the town. We pray for her eternal rest. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated.

With that, we are now on public comments. Madam Clerk?

Yes. As I always state, if you're here for public comments, please approach the podium, state your name and address for the record, and we'll give you three minutes to speak. And if you are online, which I see we have some participants online, the only thing you need to do is raise your hand and pressing hashtag number nine, we will allow you to speak. Please, all comments and questions from this public and from the remote attending public should always be directed to the mayor in a very courteous tone and no clapping, applauding, heckling, or any verbal outburst in support of or in opposition to the speaker. Thank you. Again, this is the moment for you to speak in public comments. If you're here in council chambers and you wanna participate, please just approach the podium and state your name and address for the record.

Okay, anyone in chambers wishing to speak? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, anyone online?

Yes, I'm gonna start as I see them. Mr. Abel Fernandez has his hand raised. Good evening, sir. Please unmute yourself.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Town Council, Madam Clerk, town attorney and town manager. My name is Abel Fernandez under Chapter 119. I'd like to talk to you a little bit of a few things. And I've mentioned this before, reference the three minutes that we're only allowed to speak. And with all these items in your agenda, I think that's a disadvantage for the entire community to be limited to that. I have yet to see anyone take any action on that. Let me first start by thanking Council Member Steven Hertzberg that takes the time to always reach out with a formal communication from the town after folks speak. Every time that I've spoken on the record, I receive a follow-up letter from Councilman Hertzberg, and that's the type of council members that we need representing the town, that value our input, even though it may be totally against that of the council that's in there. I sent you an email. last meeting and uh madam clerk was supposed to send to you that email again today and i'd like for you to refer to it our biggest expenses are uh is the police contract with that said uh i think that we we made a failure in renewing this contact through 2029 and through the um the New sheriff that we've had is just added to misery regarding our expenses. If you refer to this, you had to transfer money this year for $165,000 to cover vehicle expenses. What exactly was that? The striping to reflect that it says sheriff department instead of Miami-Dade police? The new five-pointed badges rather than the former badge? I don't know, that's for you to find out. But I spoke last year and we keep on repeating these conversations regarding the police contract. And Councilman Angelo Garcia also spoke about this. I'm not sure if you have in your contract a formula to explain how you pay out the leave when people retire. You'd have two individuals that just are about to retire, a sergeant and an officer, or a deputy as the new word is. And they may have worked someplace else for 25 years, then come to the town, and then we're charged with their payout on their hours. If it's $600,000, $700,000, $1 million because it's sick leave, holiday, annual, all those items are carried forward. Are we paying for that? Or do we have a formula that you subtract that? The other 25 years that they serve someplace else, we're not carrying that expense. That I'm asking you as the folks that are supposed to be handling our budget. And with 51 cents of every dollar going to the police budget, I think that's more important than any other item here tonight. Councilman Angelo Garcia brought up once that maybe we should be bringing rookie officers. And I tend to agree with that.

Number one is we're paying for, I'm sorry, excuse me, Mr. Mayor? No, the clock ran, but I'm just saying I'm giving you 10 additional seconds to conclude your remarks, sir.

Okay, so that was the three minutes, including the time that I addressed the welcoming. Okay, got it. So with it said, Mr. Mayor, we need to look at the expenses. This isn't being anti-police or defund the police. This is about the money that we put in our pockets, period. I would also like to ask for you to opine, Mr. Mayor, if I am allowed to return if there is no other speakers for another three minutes, because this has never been clarified other than the three minutes per conversation. Thank you.

OK, I mean, I'll go ahead and make a motion since you're the only speaker to give you an additional three minutes. But you've spoken here many times before. You know our rules. You know that the welcome or any any other part of the of the speaker's remarks are counted toward the time limit. So just bear that in mind for the future. But again, you should know that already. But with that, my motion is to grant Mr. Fernandez a second minutes. It's been seconded by Councilman Fernandez. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. You guys have it.

Sir, you have an additional three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. What I'm trying to get to back to this is not that I overrun the three minutes, but you know yourself when you used to sit on this side of the room, that three minutes for a big agenda doesn't cover it all. I'm not trying to be difficult here. I'm trying to speak truth to fact on what's happening. And I welcome you to embrace what Councilman Angelo Garcia brought up once regarding officers with less tenure. It's going to cost us less, number one. Number two, look at the formula on the payout. This is a big factor. Because if you retire, as I mentioned, $500,000, whatever we're charged for that, I want to make sure that the Miami-Dade or the Sheriff's Department is only charging us for the percentage of the years that are here. In relation to the money that you're bringing in, I saw the money being brought in from the utilities tax. Keep in mind that Due to global warming, climate change, we're experiencing temperatures never seen before. Our electric bills are much higher, and the 3% that we're charged is based on our total electric bill, not on the kilowatt hours that we consume, but on our total electric bill. That is generating much more additional income. Finally, Mr. Mayor, and I disagree with Amendment 3 without a concrete plan, so I'm gonna put that on the record. But with that said, I do believe that Amendment 3 is going to pass solidly. I hope that you take this opportunity with your colleagues tonight to actually start addressing the budget in a manner that looks to possible cuts coming in November when it's approved. Now is the time to exercise what cuts are palatable to this community and show what it would mean rather than just approving a bigger budget with expenses that are later going to have to be trimmed when the homestead exemption is passed. I know that you know what I am talking about, Mr. Mayor. We're, I think, on the same page of this. And I ask that you address this tonight and that be your guiding compass to this meeting. Thank you for your time and extending me to another three minutes. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Fernandez. Madam Clerk, are there any other speakers?

I don't see anyone in my screen. I do have, as well, written public comments. The email that I shared with all of you last week, April 18th, at the regular council meeting, I shared again, Mr. Albert Aguiar, and it is an email, written public comment that I shared earlier with all of you and in regards to the police contract. And that is it. I don't see anyone else on screen.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. With that, we're moving on to Item 5A, which is the Working Budget Workshop, a presentation on all funds. For that, I will turn it over to the manager.

Yes, our budget manager is going to give you a brief presentation, and then we'll go into discussion.

Good evening, mayor counsel. Um, this budget workshop is to prepare us for the budget hearings coming in September. What we will be going over are all the funds within this budget, beginning with the general fund. And for the record, I am Melissa Hernandez, the Chief Budget Officer for the Town of Miami Lakes. What is the general fund? It's the primary operating fund used within the town. Where does the money come from? It primarily comes from ad valorem taxes, state revenue, sharing franchise fees, license and permits, and inter-fund transfers. What can these dollars be used for? It typically supports the operations of the town, such as police, parks and public works. And what are the restrictions? These dollars are mainly flexible. They don't have a lot of restrictions unless guided because of ordinance or grants or a contract. Now the general fund revenues, as you can see in the graph, ad valorem is our main source of revenue. We are projected to receive about 11 million in revenues. And then on our expenditures, the main source of our expenses is our police budget, which you can see is 13 million. Our ad valorem does not cover our police expenses, our public safety expenses. Now, what are the main significant changes from the prior year as compared to our adopted budget? Our ad valorem has increased by 544,000. We do not have a one-time revenue source or a transfer in from our capital fund for MMLOP. We do not have a one-time transfer in in bond interest. This budget, as it did last year, we are deferring the FPL Franchise Fee Surplus Ordinance 1924 to allow for that funding to be in the general pot of the general fund. So we will not be allocating any funds on the expenditure side for infrastructure needs. We did not fund this last year, and it is once again not being funded this year. However, what we are doing is we are utilizing a one-time transfer from fund balance reserve of $431,000. Of that $431,000, we are utilizing $426,000 of it to fund the sinking fund, which was also not fully funded last fiscal year. And then $5,336,000 for some committee events that this council approved at other public hearings. To note, the fund balance reserve, the 431, we're utilizing that because the budget amendment that this council passed in April, this council made the decision to keep 593 in reserve to maintain and fund balance. So from that 593, we're utilizing that 431. the difference that will be available will be only 7,000. Now, when you do the math, 593 minus 431, that doesn't make sense. The difference is about $154,000. That 154, because we must maintain a 15% reserve since our budget changes, it is based on the adopted budget. That is a difference from last year's adopted budget to this year's proposed budget. Seeing that there are no changes. If there's changes, then that amount will change. Now, moving on to the expenses, we benefit that we do not have a $500,000 litigation payment. Last year was the last year that we made the final payment. Our police contract, not the police budget, but the police contract from the sheriff's office has increased by a million dollars. Our health insurance in the last proposal you had, it was at 8%. It is now reduced to 2.5%. That is what the current proposal has. Our liability insurance went out for our... Melissa, before you move on.

Yes, sir. I just want to be clear. Under the health insurance estimate, you see an increase of 2.5%. But our current vendor, Cigna, without making any plan changes, they have agreed to... show a 2.5% increase, but give us a rebate back where it ends up being, for budget purposes, will end up being a flat, a zero increase, 0% increase from year to year. I'm going to continue discussing with them because I'd rather have it, don't give me the credit and just put the premiums at the same as last year, because if not, then next year, the starting point is 2.5% higher. So right now, we're showing 2.5%, but there is a credit And right now, the effect on the budget is a zero increase in health care.

As far as liability insurance, this budget proposal has it as a 10% increase. It just went out to RFP. Right now, I believe it's under the cone of silence. It still hasn't been presented to the manager, but we are hoping that the amount, it will be less than 10%. So that you will, if I have the enough time, I will amend it for the budget hearing. And then this budget also includes a 3% COLA for all staff. And as I mentioned, as part of the revenue section, there will be no FPL franchise fee surplus for infrastructure needs as last year. We also did not fund that. So here you have the adopted and the proposed budget from the prior year. You can see the difference, the variance between each department and the percentage change. Now, for the most part, for example, the office of the mayor, the 3% COLA also affects the 2.5% in health insurance. All of that reflects in the 18,000. The 90,000 that you see in the town clerk has to do with an increase to,

Elections.

Yes, that wasn't what I was going to say, but yes, it has to do with the charter review ballot. But what I was going to say, it has to do with the advertising. Legal advertisement is what we had to increase as well. As far as information technology, you see a quite an increase from from the prior year. Every year we have to we should be renewing our server or one server per year. The amount has gone up, so that's reflected there. Administrative transfers, what you see there, that 744, that is the 426 that we are funding the sinking fund. Keeping in mind, last year we budgeted that at 106. What staff recommends, and it's a recommendation, but it should be much more, what stock recommends at this time is 366. So the 426 is funding the full amount for this fiscal year and partial amount for the prior year that didn't get funded. The non-departmental section, where you see the 372 and there's nothing budgeted, because council took on the decision of leaving some money in fund balance, I did not then have to put money aside in contingency reserve to make up for the difference from one budget to the next. So I didn't have to set any funds aside, and that also includes the senior citizen rebate. Town attorney, that one is pretty self-explanatory. That is the litigation payment that we no longer have. Zoning and code compliance, they're very minor variances, mainly have to do with COLA. Police, as you know, the million dollars, right? School crossing guards, last year, we did not, as part of the budget process, we did not fund the crossing guards out of the general funds. However, what we're doing this year, instead of transferring all the expenses to PTP, we're transferring the revenue into the general funds so that we have a consistent history of every year of what the crossing guards cost. Now, just for clarity, what will be transferred into the general fund is only the actual cost. So if we budget 143 and we do not spend the 143, what will be transferred in is only the amount that we spend on crossing cards. Public Works has a minor variance. Just to note, we did make a minor change and we had our public works manager salary split 50% general fund and 50% stormwater fund because she does deal with that fund a lot.

Yeah. Before you move on from that, I just want to be clear and make sure everybody understands. We did an assessment of a couple of different things. One was this, which we looked at the public works department and some of the salaries in public works are split between general fund and the stormwater fund. Like, for instance, the director is certain people within public works that deal with stormwater issues. Their salaries are split between the stormwater fund and the general fund are our public works manager. She was previously being funded completely out of general fund. We did an assessment. She does a lot of her duties entail overseeing the stormwater items. So we are recommending in this budget to also split her salary half from the stormwater fund and half from the general fund. That's why you'll see that reduction that we got there.

So as you, as I mentioned about the FPL franchise. I'm sorry.

Sorry. Let me get this over with. The other thing that we looked at and we did an assessment was the amount of money that gets paid from different departments into the general fund for the administration of this building. One of those is the building fund. The building fund was paying. And the way we allocated that percentage or that split was based on square footage. But previously the only square footage that was being used to calculate the amount of money from the building fund was inside the 4 corners of the building department. But what we determined and we made a decision and we're recommending is that not only the 4 corners of the building department section, but also for instance, the lobby area, the hallway portion of the bathrooms all of those areas are used for building department functions. so we redistributed the square footage so that a little bit more was going to be coming from the building fund into the general fund to offset some of those expenses here for the building so

So the FPL franchise fee surplus, as you see in the budget, in the second budget hearing, we were able to leave 1,800, but that really did not get funded. As you can see for 26, 27 is at zero. Parks and Recreation, you see a $196,000 increase. That increase is mainly attributed to, we have a new tree trimming cycle that begins and the cost for that has changed. I mentioned the committees. At the June 4th special call meeting, this council decided to have the committees stay flat with the exception of two committees that came before you and requested to have some monies carry forward, which is the $5,336 that you see of an increase. And then the community outreach and engagement, again, like all departments, that is reflected in COLAs and health insurance, but we also increased the 4th of July event. Moving on to special revenue funds. Yes, sir.

Councilman Sanchez has a question.

Yes.

So with regards to this page specifically, 2025-26 adopted budget, why is this budget used instead of the amended budget that shows actual expenses? And I ask that specifically because when I get to the bottom of the total general fund expenditures from the adopted budget to the amended budget, the adopted shows expenditures in the amount of $23,215,000 with 939, but the amended budget is about $1.3 million more at $24,573,000.

I cannot look at what you're looking at because I have the presentation, but to answer your question as an overview, the amended budget includes things like contributions and donations that we do not anticipate, which are then allocated to every committee. And not only that, but what is amended also is what we use in our... April budget amendment. So that is not necessarily how we started the year. It's just money that we had. And this council decided to carry it over and fund things that we did not fully fund at the beginning of the year. That is why I use the adopted budget.

All right, thank you. Councilman Fernandez.

Thank you. I have a question regarding, and I know that even though the funds will be coming from PTP, but we're not going to give the crossing guards a COLA, or is that something that we- It is included.

They're including to have a COLA.

Okay. It's just the number seems, there's no variance. So I thought there was no- Also keep in mind that

the minimum wage amount also increased. So it includes a minimum wage increase, and then the 3% COLA.

Okay.

But it is included in there, sir.

There was a state mandate by a certain time. They had to get up to a certain minimum wage, and now this is the last year that we have to make extra adjustments to their salaries to comply with the minimum wage statute.

OK, perfect. I'm clear on that. The other question I had.

I'm sorry to clarify, though, because you say the adopted is zero and the proposes 143. Last year, we transferred the expenses to PTP. What we're doing is we're transferring the revenue from PTP to the general fund. So the adopted budget shows zero, but it's not zero.

What that does, Councilmember, is from period since the crossing guards have always been funded in the general fund, it allows us to track from period to period as opposed to, you know, up to this year they're here and then they're in a different section of the budget. This is easier to be able to monitor and track from year to year.

Got it. So you're aware the year-end projection is 137, correct?

It's on page seven of the big budget that's on the dais.

Oh, and the final. Okay. All right. Thank you. I'll look at it now. The other question, and I'm pretty sure that it's been answered. I'm just doing the math in my head, and I know what we get paid as a council, and I know that the mayor gets just a little bit more, but it just seems like there's a big difference between what the office of the mayor and council, the budget... needed to fund that and what's it what what what is it all that included aside from the salaries

Can you repeat your question, please?

So just doing the math in my head, I know what we as council members earn.

And like I mentioned, if I may take a stab at it, I think what he's trying to get at is what exactly constitutes operations of the Office of the Mayor and Council. Obviously, it would include my stipend salary, JV's salary. Does it also, for example, the allocation there include money for the proclamations, you know? He wants to know why it's $475 and the council expenditures are much lower as a whole.

So the adopted budget for the current year is 457. The amended budget is 486, which that includes the mayor's gala. Okay, there you go. And then the year in projection is 470, which also includes the mayor's gala. So what is budgeted for next year is 475. That does not include the mayor's gala because we budget that as the monies are received. So once we receive the money, then we budget that amount.

JC, are you on the big budget? Page 8. Page 8.

You have another question, sir? Any other questions regarding general fund?

Councilman Herzberg.

I shared emails with the town manager. I think you responded. Honestly, I'm still a little confused. So remember the carryover amendment where we put money into savings sort of, right? I think that's what our idea was. Is that, remind me, and so we can share the discussions we've had in email, is that money being used to fund the sinking fund? Because I thought we wanted the money to just sort of sit in a separate account, but you're using that money right now for the general fund, correct?

We're recommending that it be used in this year's budget, $431,000 of it. The other 107 or whatever the number was, was used to make sure that to comply with the 15% fund balance requirement. So the 431 is this year's $366,000 allocation to sinking fund. and some of the deficit from last year. Last year, we did not put $366,000 like we should have. We only put $106,000. So we were deficient $260,000 in the sinking fund. We were able to make up some of it with this recommendation. So yes, the amount of money that was excess at the end of the mid-year budget amendment that was kind of left, we're recommending that it be allocated in this budget to be able to fund the sinking fund.

Got it. Confusion's over for me now. I just want to make sure everyone else is aware of where that money is right now in the budget.

Councilman Cuadra Garcia, then Councilman Garcia.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Page 12 of the book, the big one, center of the page. 2024 2025 machinery equipment 18,388 then we next jump to the next year 2025 2026 almost a double increase 42,000 then we go to 2025 2026 again then we go to 2020 then it and then it jumps so why the jump i mean why is it that we need is it new equipment

I think that's a good question for Edmung.

What page are you on, sir?

It's page 12 of the big one that was given to us.

Center of the book.

The big book.

Right here.

He's referencing that machinery and equipment went up from the amended budget. Well, the adopted and amended budget being 42,000 last year to the current proposed budget being 88,120. And I'm assuming that that's because of the partial upgrade of the network infrastructure for 46,120. Correct.

And then the purchase of another server or the purchase of another server.

Is the 46,000 that the server?

No, I apologize. It is what you're saying, the 46 for the upgrade of the network infrastructure.

Okay. At some point or another, I think we do need a monk to kind of clarify what exactly that means. I get that that's not your area.

Oh, wait, she says, but wait, there's more.

She's putting out the Ouija board. Yeah, there.

We did not, correct me if I'm wrong, we did not replace a server last year because of the budget.

I remember it was a discussion item.

I think that there's five or six different servers, and some of which are more important than others in the sense of, for instance, there's one that's dedicated to tracking. That's really important. The one that's dedicated to Munis, that's our financial system. That's really important. Those servers have to be replaced. We did not replace what we should have replaced last year. Now there's one allocated here, one server to be replaced in this budget.

So I'm going to read because I had another council person ask the same question and I replied in writing. So I'm going to just give the explanation. These expenses include annual computers and peripheral refreshments, which is about 10% every year. In other words, we cycle this equipment every 10 years. We have seven servers, which we cycle, replace once a year. The network infrastructure, which includes three major network switches and over 30 access points for our Wi-Fi system, is reaching the end of life. They will no longer be supported nor patched for cybersecurity by the vendor. All this will be replaced for a one-time expense and should have a lifespan of about 7 to 10 years. So what this is saying is that next year we should not have $88,000 in expenses for this.

I'll go ahead and ask the probably stupid question, but is there any portion of this that can be covered by the building department's technology fee? I meant saying, yeah.

Yeah, like for instance, the replacement of all of their technology.

Yeah, like whatever portion of this is pertaining to the building department, I would love it if it could get funded out of there. It is. Okay. Right.

It's double my question. Is it actually doubled?

The expense should not be that amount next year.

Thank you, Ms. Melissa.

But it is a good question, sir. Any other questions regarding general funds?

Councilman Garcia. Thank you, Melissa. Quick question. Could you go over again the amount that you're recommending to be put back into the sinking fund? Is that under administrative transfers or is that under non-departmental?

If you look at this presentation, the previous page, not this one that has all the departments, but the previous page has the amount which shows $431,336 to go to the sinking fund. That's this year's $336,000 allocation plus some of what, not all of it, but some of what we did not put in there last year.

Okay. Now, let me ask you, if we do not, for example, decide the less amount in the 426 as a council, or none at all, are we still at the 15%? I mean, are we still...

So what council decided at the April budget amendment was to, instead of carrying all of the money over, we utilized a portion. What was left over was 593,000. That's what I'm talking about.

Of the 593,000, I utilize 154 of that to meet, to meet the new 15%.

So we, and then after that, well, no, go ahead. Sorry. I'm using two computers. Give me a moment. After that, what's left is 439. Of the 439, we take 426,000, which is for to fund the sinking fund. What we should be funding is 336. We're funding a little bit more because we did not fund it fully in the prior year. And then the two requests from the committees, which is a 5,336. Which then leaves a balance of $7,771.

So as a council, we still have that leeway of how much money we're going to put back into it, into the sinking fund. We could decide to do it all, like you mentioned, or we could decide not to fund it all the way.

That is the council's discretion.

Take that money, lower our military.

But understand that it will come home to roost, right, at some point, because the sinking fund goes to pay for the replacement of needed capital improvements. So at some point, we're going to have something fail, like an AC or a roof or whatever, and we're going to look at the sinking fund, and there's not going to be any money in there.

No, no, I understand that. I understand. We have the ability to decide based on what you just said.

This council has the ability to make whatever decision they feel is right and necessary for this budget. However, the reason that we utilize this money and put it as part of the budget is because it's a one-time capital expense. It is not for operations. Now, when you mention reducing the millage, that would be operations.

Sure.

Now, this is sinking fund. This is just for capital one-time expenses. Now, I didn't want to jump ahead to sinking fund, but since we're here right now, I will take this opportunity. The sinking fund, if we do not fund the 426 and we just leave the amount that is there currently, we have projects on a list of items that need to be replaced every so often. We have a list that our public works director maintains and our parks director and even our CFO, she has a part in that as well. that list, we would then have to defer items that are on that list. But to go back to the sinking fund, if we don't fund the sinking fund this coming year, what will be available at the end of the year is $39,000 in the sinking fund, which means that if something happens, we do not have money readily available to be able to go ahead and fix that. If we were then to decide to keep the money in fund balance reserve and then transfer it to sinking fund if it's needed, that would require two readings from this council. So we would have to wait two months before we can even go ahead and fix any emergency that would arise. So I just leave that information there for you.

Do we have a list of the upcoming projects that need to be... We do, sir, and we can forward that to you. Yeah, I appreciate if you can forward it to the entire council, just to give us some options, just in case.

We have, and we'll also send you, we have a complete list of all of our assets. And we've done an analysis, the asset, the lifespan of the asset, the expected replacement value, what year it's going to be end of life, all of that. It's a complete spreadsheet, and that's how we ended up getting to that $366,000 per year. to make sure that we're properly funded for any replacement.

I appreciate it. Thank you. I have a question.

Before we go to Councilman Sanchez, we're going to go to the vice mayor to complete round one, and then we'll go over to Councilman Sanchez.

Thank you, Mayor. You mentioned when you were going over that slide, actually, the no one time transfer and no one time transfer in from bond interest 86,000. Can you explain to me what exactly the bond interest is? I see the line item on the big budget, which is Interfund Transfer from series 2010 for

That's a subsidy that we get for the construction of Town Hall as part of the Build America program, right?

Of this building.

Yeah, this building. But we built this building with bond money, which was the Build America or whatever. Yes, you're correct. Okay. So actually, to piggyback off of that, why is it that that's not reflecting this year or –

Because there's no interest for us to transfer in this year.

That interest had accumulated over several years. So it was just sitting there and year to year, that money. As we were putting money aside to make the payments, it was accumulating interest. And little by little, it accumulated. So we kind of swept it out of there last year as an opportunity to use it in the general fund.

And again, I will mention it is not best practice to use one time revenues for operations. That's why I mentioned I and that 86000 was a one time revenue for operations.

I thought it was something else. I thought that it was like interest that we were gaining from our investments, which wouldn't necessarily be like that. We were investing in bonds or something. And in that case, it would be ongoing. Right. The interest one time.

But vice mayor, I just didn't understand where it was. All of our cash is commingled, right? even though on paper we know that so much of the cash is from the stormwater fund so much is from the arpa fund so much is from uh uh our general fund all of that cash is commingled and then when we ever whenever we cash out a cd we allocate the interest to those respective funds yep okay that's it that clarifies it councilman sanchez with regards to the new servers since that is a capital improvement shouldn't they be coming out of the sinking fund instead of the general fund the new servers for the 88,000. Those are not because it's a recurring thing. It's not something like a roof that's going to last you, you know, 20 years or 15 years. The servers are not 10 years is a good life, but they're not one of the assets. that are listed on our sheet. So if we stray from using the sinking fund for an asset that's not on our list, then our calculation goes wacky. And then we're not going to have if we use that for the server, we're not going to have it for something else that is on the list down the road. Okay. Yeah, it is something that we're going to reevaluate. But that reevaluation ends up costing us money, right? We're going to relook at the asset list to see if it is complete because there may be things like the servers. I'm not sure if they would qualify to be in there or not, but we're going to look at the asset list to see if the asset list is complete and then do a recalculation if we end up having to add some assets. But that all that will do will that 366, it will drive it up.

Now, with regards to having another server on location, I know there's a lot of solutions out there that are cloud-based that can be very cost-effective and it takes a liability off and it can actually create more real estate within the building. Have we looked at solutions and instead of installing, spending that amount of money on a new server, going to a cloud-based solution?

Yeah, what we do, and I'm not a techie, right? No. We have a lot of our backup because obviously we have our servers, we have all of our information, but a lot of our backup is cloud-based. So that's how we, because for security or safety reasons, you want to make sure that it's all in different locations in case we have a fire here or what have you. So Hermann is not here today. He's the one that can answer that better. And we'll get that answer developed and find out for you and we'll send it to all of you in the next couple of days. Sounds good. Thank you.

Okay, anyone else in the round two? Okay, Councilman Herzberg and Councilman Cuadra-Garcia.

Thank you. I remember asking the question last year, during the budget hearing, I can't find it here. And I'm a little confused, again, back to the contingency number. But I think you said the contingency that we created is being applied. So what is the estimated carry forward from this budget?

So the year-end projection, keep in mind that is a projection. It could be more. It could be less. But right now, it's 483. That is what our year-end projection is.

Right. And the projections have been pretty on point most years, right? I'm just making that point to everybody, that there is a projection of a carry forward of $483,000. And that carry forward projection, because she's very good at her job, has been accurate for the last five to six years. So we're going to make changes, don't get me wrong. But if we approve this budget right now, come March, unless there's some, no, it has to come back to us. We approve this budget right now. Come March and April, we'll be talking about doing the same thing we did. We always do. Keep that in mind. For example, Vice Mayor, I know you want to fund the senior and tax refund. There's numbers there. We've got to take a look.

Regarding the senior citizen rebate, historically, that has been funded at the budget amendment in April. Last year was the first year where it was budgeted in the budget process.

It was about $75,000, $80,000 if I'm not mistaken.

What would be needed for this coming fiscal year would be $85,000.

Yeah. And, uh, and, you know, obviously that, that, uh, carry forward money, the, the mid-year budget amendment has to do with, you know, closing out the prior year's book. So, you know, um, so, but I agree with councilman Herzberg that that's going to be something that, uh, that we can have as a backstop for anything we do. And also it's going to be very important for us to keep an eye on what happens with amendment three, um, and, and whatnot. But with that councilman Guadalupe Garcia.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Basically, page 10, middle of the page, health insurance. There is a significant spike of 90,000. Oh, my calculator here. Give me five seconds here. $90,361,000.

That's a lot of money.

I know that the town manager stated that we're going to get some type of credits.

I'm sorry, sir. What are you looking at?

He's looking at health and life insurance under town administration. Health and life insurance.

Where is the $90,000 that you're referring to?

Well, if you take $221,531 minus 131,017. Let me clarify something for you there.

If you notice the line right underneath it, there's 77,000 in that line item. So when we budget health and life insurance, we budget all of it together. Now, when the year begins, some people opt for the allowance. So that two, if you notice that on the line next to it, that 210, the line underneath it is zero. The $131,000, the line underneath it is $77,000. So if you add the $131,000 and the $77,000, you will be right below the $210,000.

So it's still $77,000 more?

No, it is pretty much right on point. Yeah, the two combined is $209,000, and the budget was $210,000.

So it still went up from 2025 till 2026. It jumped significantly.

Or do I, or my, my calculator is not, uh, the increase in healthcare went up 2.5%, but the Cigna is offering to give us a credit back that would make it a 0% increase.

Okay.

So that's what we have on the table, and that's what we're recommending to move forward. The expenses for that to stay with our current health care plan with no changes to benefits and have a flat premium.

So you're stating it went up 2%? No.

Here it shows an increase of 2.5%, but Cigna, the health insurance company, is going to give us back a credit of almost like $20,000 that will bring that increase from 2.5% to zero. But what I need to have addressed with them is that I don't want to do it that way. I don't want to do it with them increasing the price and then giving me a credit back. I'd rather have them not increase the price because then next year, the starting point is going to be two and a half percent higher. So that's the conversation. So worst case scenario, if they don't agree to that, we're going to have a zero increase with a slightly higher premium, but a credit back to make it zero. That's But ultimately, the impact to the budget is 0% increase in the health insurance premium.

Anyone else on this second round? Okay, with that, you made the change to special revenue funds. Okay, you wanna clarify something?

I do wanna clarify something that goes into special revenue funds. When I mentioned that about the parks and having a new tree cycle, in our special revenue fund, we have a tree ordinance. And last year we received about $149,000 that we utilized that money to be able to fund the tree trimming. Now we don't have that $149,000 coming into this next budget cycle, which is why you see the 196 increase for the new tree trimming cycle. So I wanted to clarify that for the record.

Yeah, that big contribution to the tree fund that came because of the redevelopment of the golf course. So all of the trees that they had to cut down to do their redevelopment, they ended up having to pay in, and that offset a lot of our expenses within the tree fund. This year, obviously, we don't have that large influx of contribution.

Thank you. Matt, you may continue, Madam Budget Director.

Thank you, sir. Now, on to special revenue funds. What is a special revenue fund? I'm not going to go into detail with it here. You have the papers before you so you can see what each one is, but just generally there are funds that are restricted due to whatever developer contribution was made, what was agreed upon on the contract with the developer, developer contribution or state statute or any town ordinance. So these funds are restricted based on those items. Now we have nine special revenue funds with two that have subsections to them here. We have a brief overview of, of each of them. Our developer contribution is 240. It is a carry over from prior year. It's for that has to be used specifically for a large park. We have the tree removal ordinance. As I mentioned, we had one 90. Now we are carrying over 61,000. Our local option gas tax came in lower than the prior year, about 16,000. Our PTP, we do not have a transportation grant or transit grant, should I say, for freebie this coming year. However, our grants department is going to explore that for the following year. They're already in process. That's why you see the negative 279, because that is the grant that we are not receiving now in this fiscal year. PTP 80 has a small variance of 46 in the grand scheme of it.

Those estimates, Melissa, we get from the county, from the... Yes, we get that from the county, from CITT. A lot of these are estimates that we either get from the county or the state.

And those estimates are dynamic, right? They continue to change until we finally pass the final budget, correct? Correct.

We usually receive just one from them. We don't typically receive an update. And the state? For PTP specifically.

Okay.

But other... Others, we... This year has been a bit... compared to other years.

More stable, right? And fewer updates.

I usually receive several estimates. I have only received one estimate for each and it's been now in August. Usually in August I get an update. I don't know if they're just waiting and just providing one. So I don't foresee that they will provide another update for the ones that I have received because usually I get one in July and then another in August. But we've only received August. And it's pretty much the end of the month.

Fair enough.

Mobility fee, the 464 is a carryover of what we have received in the current year. And those funds will be transferred to capital, the transportation capital funds to be utilized for partly for 59th Avenue and partly for a grant match. I don't remember it off the top of my head, but I will let you know. And then we have our impact fees, which we have public safety, road, park improvement, and open space. Public safety, you can see that it's a big jump from 17 to 175. That 175 will be utilized for LPRs within our town. The road impact fees of the 1.8, that is money that we are rebudgeting and carrying over once again. What that is, is we will have a, once we begin the construction project for 59th Avenue, that would be money that would be reimbursed, I'd want to say. And then, yeah.

All of that is for $59,000. Yeah, $1.897. That is an award we got. That's a receivable though, right? We don't actually have the money yet, right? No, we don't have it yet. It's the commitment to give us that money for 59th Avenue, but almost all of those are on a reimbursement basis.

Our parks improvement, if you see we have 24, we have moved all of that money into the parks capital. Our open space, we transferred 205 back in because this council decided to not have a grant match for, I believe it was a linear park. um last fiscal year so we had to transfer that 205 back and then we received some more um open space money so right now it is at 1.9 million uh that is also restricted it can only be used for a new park maybe like part three an open an open area and senior center or senior center yeah just wanted to clarify which could be one in the same Our building department has done a tremendous and wonderful job of making sure that we receive what we go out there to get, and they have increased their budget by a million dollars. Our special taxing districts, as you know, we had to increase a couple of the assessment rates. And then our electric utility tax revenue, that money is used to pay the debt service for this building. And then, are there any questions regarding special revenue funds?

Mayor. Councilman Herzberg. Thank you.

I'm confused on the building department fund. What's the big increase there on? How are we projecting that large of an increase in revenue, I guess, is my question.

I look at the historical and see how it's been trending up.

Okay.

So for fiscal year 23-24, it was 1.3. For 24-25, it was 1.5. And my year end projection is at 1.9. I've budgeted at 1.6 for permit fees.

That number is the balance plus the projected...

So because they haven't been spending... So this is the revenue plus the balance. I mean, it's still 30%. I guess it doesn't really make a difference. Are you projecting revenue to go up 30% on the building fund?

No, so part of that is the carryover of what they did not spend in the current year.

So you're projecting the carryover?

Yes, the carryover is $1.1 million.

Okay, there you go. And that amount has been accumulating... Year after year, little by little.

That's okay. The irony there in that part. Okay, go ahead.

Okay, anyone else before she continues? In case none, you may continue.

Thank you. The debt service fund. As I mentioned, the electric utility tax is utilized to pay for the interest and principal for this building. You can see what the amount would be for this coming year. It's 1.6. This is also restricted and you can see it is in accordance with Town Ordinance 2010-127, Resolution 2010-857, Resolution 2010-855 and the applicable to the bond and note covenants. our capital projects fund. Any questions about that before I move forward?

What's the electric utility tax? Is that different from the franchise fee?

Yes. And that amount, if I'm not mistaken... you know, when we floated these bonds for this building, they dedicated, so they were special revenues, special obligation bonds, right, instead of general obligation bonds. They dedicated a funding source specifically to pay that off. Once the debt is liquidated for this building, then that electric utility tax, which will continue to come in, will be available for other uses.

Any use?

I'm not sure what the restrictions are. We haven't had them You know, two years.

We're not there yet. It's been a long time since this building was built.

I guess it's still, is it 15 years long?

So it matures, I believe, in 2040. So we have a while.

Never mind. Don't start licking your chops just yet.

You may not be sitting up here at that time, or you will not be. Any other questions regarding that service fund?

Councilman Cuadra Garcia.

Mr. Mayor, I don't know if I'm in the right timing so I could talk about my last item, which is the letter that Mr. Aguirre sent in on page 15. Am I on the right topic or...

Or do I need to be allowed to ask whatever questions you would like about the budget? But we're not there yet, is my understanding, correct? Well, we're past that. That was general fund. He's talking. You're right. So now would be a good time to ask about it. But he's asking about the police budget and he's referring to Mr. Aguirre's email that the clerk made reference to earlier.

I have not read the email, sir.

Why don't you go ahead and... Can I read it to the records? I wouldn't read the whole thing. I would just summarize it just for her benefit. What it is that he's asking for.

Thank you. Okay. I respectfully... request that the town council provide a clear and detailed explanation of the significant growth in the town's public safety budget. For the fiscal year ending September 30, 2022, total public safety expenditure was $10,605,030. The newly proposed budget is 13,228,577, an increase of 2,628,047, or nearly 25% I MEAN, SO I'LL READ THE LAST ONE. DURING THE LAST YEAR BUDGET PROCESS, RESIDENTS WERE TOLD THAT THERE WOULD BE A ONE-TIME, ONE-TIME INCREASE, WHICH IS ON PAGE 15. INCREASE OF APPROXIMATELY $800,000. was necessary because other previous a provision in the pot in the police contract in the increase was truly a one-time expense why does the proposed budget now include an additional increase of almost one million dollars more question mark please explain explain the specific reasons for this year's increase and identify which portion of the recruiting and which of any one-time expense. Now this bottom line is what's going on here. So if we look on page 15 on the very bottom, page year 2025, we are at $11,130,000. comma 129, and all the way on 2027, we went to 13,044,192. That is a 25% increase. If he's, huh? But still, I could see 3%, you know, 5%, 10%. So my question, so I can end my question, so basically...

Normally staff negotiates the contract and when you finish I'll give five minutes to explain exactly how that happens and then we bring the negotiated contract here for the council to consider.

talking very, very dramatically again. The gentleman even clearly states that he

Before you answer, let me actually kind of summarize what he's saying, and also I think just add my own contribution so you could just answer it all in one. If we have a police contract, sheriff's contract, no offense, and it expires when? 29, I think?

29.

Yeah. I understand that there's year-over-year increases, obviously, in a contract based on certain formulas, but shouldn't these numbers be more predictable? earlier on, that we can determine, hey, these years are certain benchmark years under this contract, and we can start planning for ahead of time, you know, because I do recall exactly, oh, he's gone, what Councilman Cuadra Garcia was referencing about last year, we said something along the lines of, hey, yeah, there's a reason for this $800,000 increase, you know, but that's this year, and then now we're seeing a million dollar increase, so he's not wrong there, and But again, if we have a contract in theory, we should be able to calculate these things way in advance based on whatever formulas or rubrics are in that contract. So I haven't really had a chance to look at that contract and maybe that's going to be my next stop. But yeah, I just want to add that on before you start.

The way we pay for law enforcement services is we pay. actuals, right? So if you have Officer Brian Morera and Officer Brian Morera's hourly rate is $20 an hour, we pay $20 an hour, plus his health care, plus his contributions to FICA and all those things, right? We do not pay 21, 22, we don't pay extra. We pay whatever Officer Brian Morera's hourly rate and personnel services, right? That's the lion's share of the contract, right? So we pay actuals. The only thing extra is there are some categories, right? So we pay our fair share of some of the overhead for the department. For instance, training, right? They have a training bureau. they and what they do is there's a cost to running that training bureau and let's say they have 3 000 officers in the entire department and we have 50 we pay 50 out of 3 000 as far as a percent of the cost of the training bureau we do the same with professional compliance which is like their internal affairs and those kind of things we do the same with all of those things if you look at the spreadsheet there's probably I don't remember. I haven't seen it in a while. Maybe about half a dozen to eight categories. There's a couple that don't apply to us. Right. So we do not pay for because one of their categories is facilities. We do not pay for that one. That's a zero for us because we provide the town provides the facilities for our officers. So we pay. our fair share of the overhead of the administrative fee, and we pay actuals for the officers. Right. So if we were to negotiate, what we would end up having to do is ask the sheriff and say, Officer Brian Moreira's hourly rate is $20, but but give it to us at $18 so we can reduce the impact. Now, that's that's how it happens, right? The majority of the changes, well, not a majority, 100% of the changes are based on collective bargaining agreement, right? We have an incredible relationship with the sheriff's office. We benefit from the fact that they have all of the resources in the world. They have top, you know, world class homicide dogs, helicopters. We all of that. Right. We enjoy that as a community. We have access to that. plus terrific officers, the best in the best in the business. And the only thing that is a drawback to our current relationship with the sheriff's office is that we do not get a say in collective bargaining. Right. The collective bargaining is between the union and the sheriff's office. Right. So that's really everything else is is is positive. The only drawback is we don't get a say, but we we have to rely on the sheriff's office doing you know, proper, fair negotiations with the union because they they're paying to they're paying for the majority of the officers. Right. And so it's coming out of their their pocketbook. So that's the way the situation is. We pay actuals for the officers that are assigned to us. And the concept that let's just fill it all up with junior officers. I think we've had this conversation before. practically from somebody who's been in public safety for 33 years. It is it is absolutely unmanageable, right? I don't want a department full of rookies because there's value to the experience that these guys have. So the the ideal mix is having some rookies some middle career guys, and some veteran guys, right? And that mix is what leads to the reduction in crime that we've seen here over the years, and that is the best way of providing law enforcement services.

Can I rebuttal, sir?

So we all know how big of a supporter I am of our law enforcement, but is it fair to say that Last year, the initial, I'll never forget, and I've told this to you, Mr. Manager, the initial budget increase came to us while we were in day-to-day in Tallahassee at 1.2. It was able to be negotiated down to $800,000 because of a one-time collective bargaining agreement. But considering this increase at an average of across the board of 7.01% year over year, Have you negotiated, along with the other two municipalities, Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay, that also contract with the Sheriff's Department for a lower cost? Are they also paying a 7.01% increase across the board?

Yeah. Before, the three contracts were different. And we had different expiration dates and everything. And the last time, not this last time, the previous time, I was here maybe a couple years here. We, the three cities, got together. And we aligned all three agreements to be exactly the same and have the same term. So, yes, the answer to your question is all three contracts are identical and they pay the same, obviously, for different numbers of officers. Right. They they have some of them. I think Palmetto Bay has fewer. Cutler Bay has more.

So I'm just looking at the percentages.

Right, right, right. So they're experiencing the same thing that that we are. OK. Now, the one thing that we have more flexibility And more say over is the amount of overtime, right? We dictate, but this council has said that it has proven to be effective. The special details, the traffic details, the burglary details that those have all contributed and played a major role in helping us get our crime rate down. So those, there's more flexibility, right? There's some things that we cannot do. Like we have some portion of the overtime, which is there for and to ensure that we have minimum staffing. So we have no less than five officers on duty at any one time. Right. There's also money in there for officers who have to go to court, for officers who have to go to training. Some of those are must haves, right? There are some things that are, you know, to your decision, which is the the special details and those kinds of things that we have more flexibility. But Those are the decisions that has been made in the past and they've proven to be effective. Okay.

Yeah, because I'm just, I'm looking at this. And for example, on patrol services, the second line item on that budget is an increase on salaries at 7.57%. When right now we're looking at COLA increase and things like that of 3.4%, 3 to 3.4%. So, you know, like I said before, I completely respect our office and everything like that. But we also have to keep, you know, fiscally responsible actions while we're up here. Overtime is going up by 7.14% year over year. A mobile phone is going up by 7.78%. This is a smaller amount. The police copier costs are going up by 16.67%. It's $500 difference, but it's still 16%. LPR maintenance, just other things that are going up by more than double what the CPI is calling for. So that's why, you know, with the collective bargaining agreement, how often does a collective bargaining agreement expire or the terms in there?

Every three years.

Every three years.

By state law, public collective bargaining agreements can be no longer than three years. So it could be three years or less.

So if last year we did, based on the new collective bargaining agreement, that increase of $800,000, I think I need a better explanation as to why we're going up by that 7% if it's still the same collective bargaining agreement.

I'm not intimately familiar with the PBA's collective bargaining agreement, but I believe that they had a COLA that they were given at the end of last fiscal year. So this is the first fiscal year that they had it. But then they also had a major... What was the name of that... Everybody in the entire state got this allocation. I forgot, you've told me what the name of that.

Yeah, so that increase was statewide in reference to like a law enforcement increase for the entire state. So that was separate from the collective bargain agreement.

Right. And what was the name of the...

I have it on my notes. Okay, no worries.

But it was something that was implemented?

Yeah, but it was implemented statewide. It's not something that was part of our collective bargaining agreement. And I think it was a 3.5% increase coupled with the COLA.

And if I'm not mistaken, you told me that they are now in negotiations, that the collective bargaining agreement is close to expiring, so the new one would be effective in October.

Yeah, so they're starting negotiations now for the new CBA.

And remember, a lot of times, they don't get them negotiated by the expiration date. So then they go into what's referred to in collective bargaining as the status quo period. So the existing contract just continues until they can negotiate a renewal... But then if they negotiate a renewal, many times they have retroactive payments. Let's say it takes them, October 1st should have been the start of the new one. Let's say if it takes them until January or February to negotiate a renewal, then they'll say 3% or 2% retroactive back to October. So then they'll get lump sum payments and then continue with the new numbers.

So I guess my follow-up question to that is, that amount that now the state added on, I'm assuming it's through state statute.

Yeah, from my understanding, it was. Yeah, because that was also part of like the FHP increases. So it all trickled down across the state.

From FHP down to municipalities. Correct. Is there anything within that statute where they can reimburse the municipalities that they're affecting?

I don't know that. We'll find out. We'll ask the question.

Right.

And so we'll ask them.

We'll send the answer to all of you. Because it's very easy to say we want you to pay them more, but we need more funds in order to do that. you know like they're putting their hands in our pockets that's not the position of this talk about unfunded mandates right right so i mean they want to if they mandate it hopefully there's something within that statute that says the funds can come out of this fund at a state level hopefully so i'm just looking at that solution all right yeah mr chair can i finish my rebuttal and i won't speak anymore

Well, wait, if it was, according to the vice mayor, it was my understanding that Councilman Sanchez had the floor, then we were going to go to Councilman Garcia and then Cuadra. Okay, Councilman Cuadra-Garcia.

Okay, so basically, two things, and I'll wrap it up. So basically, one of the residents just texted me and said, hey, remind them that from 2026 to 2027 and 26, they said one time, a one time million dollars. That's it. And then here we come back in 2027, another $800,000 while we were sleeping. That can't happen. So I'm just going to pretty much give you my two sentences. My recommendation is we always say, oh, let's do a study to do a study. Let's get money to do this. I don't know, and it might work. very well be that our mayor and our manager are both experts in contracts. They can go and negotiate this contract and maybe get something much, much better. I think that you should give it a shot or not hire somebody that can negotiate this contract if it's available, if it can be done. That's my recommendation.

Okay, thank you. So in my rebuttal to that, right, I would like to remind that resident who I assume is watching that I would be shocked if I made that comment that it was a one-time increase, right? We were talking about a one-time final payment in the PISI settlement. And obviously anybody who has followed these proceedings for any significant amount of time knows that it is never a one-time increase, right? There have been increased. The size of the increase is what has changed. Now, I also want to rebut the point that you were making. And look, I have no problem. Just like Councilman Garcia asked us last year, you know, with asking them about, you know, renegotiating the contract. But at the end of the day, it's two to tango. Right. That doesn't require some expertize in contract law. It's just common sense. Right. So the reality and, you know, clearly I know people make it overly easy to say, oh, we just need to negotiate a better deal. But that completely ignores that we're also dealing with a government agency. We're not dealing business to business type contracts or anything like that. And it almost when people just throw that out there like that, oh, if we just negotiate a better deal, it makes it sound like if we could just wave a wand or, you know, do some Jedi mind trick on them to go ahead and start, you know, doing what we want them to. Right. It's it's not that easy. But again, just like last year, I have no problem going with the manager or working with the manager to try to, you know, see what savings we can accumulate. Obviously, we're always going to want to have savings for our residents. But we also need to be realistic that it's, you know, I appreciate that. the compliments that you believe of my skill and the manager skill when it comes to contract negotiation. I appreciate the vote of confidence that you and that resident have. But, you know, I just want you all to be realistic. Right. You know, and and, you know, and not try to make it seem again like it's just that easy. It's not. But I will go ahead and, you know, make the ask as always and see what we can do. And keep in mind that ideally, if we were to ever finally fund the police study. Right. That that we have talked about. Right. That will give us firm numbers of what it would take to start up our own police department. Getting those hard numbers would actually a put to bed once and for all, whether it's It's better to stay where we're at now or to at some point transition to our own department and or in the alternative also give us hard numbers from which we can then negotiate. Otherwise, you know, just saying, oh, there's a better deal we can make out of there. You know, by negotiating this contract, we have no leverage, in my opinion. Right. You know, so just bear that in mind. And you want to say something? I don't remember. Ed, do you remember the price of that study? It was like $100,000 or something like that?

I don't remember, but I can look it up.

It was six figures.

I don't think we ever... We never put out an RFP or whatever. I think that we kind of looked around for other municipalities that may have done similar studies and then kind of tried to get a ballpark.

I remember it being about, you know, about one hundred thousand or so, you know, at least some kind of six figures. It was not cheap. Right. And that's why it keeps getting pushed down in favor of other municipalities. tangible priorities that we can do right now and because we're ultimately happy with the service that we're receiving. So no, don't worry, I'm going to go back to you. But, you know, I just want to have a comprehensive answer because it's easy for people to go out there and say, just negotiate a better deal, just negotiate a better deal. But it almost seems as if they're completely unaware of what that actually entails so i just wanted to clarify that so you know obviously as you know right in contract negotiations if you're really going to press your advantage you need some kind of you know uh leverage right without that you know you're really not going to get very far so And, you know, ultimately, any government entity is not going to necessarily... I'm not saying that other groups don't negotiate in good faith, but ultimately, they're going to look after their own bottom lines, right? But go ahead.

And I agree with you 100%. We have a Rolls-Royce police department. I agree with... Not Ferrari, not Bentley Rolls-Royce. I believe it. It's excellent.

Okay, can you tell us why you say that? Because I've watched...

Metro Dade transit from years before you were born to the president. I've always admired their service.

I think I was born with Metro Dade. Actually, you're right. It was when we went from Metro Dade to Miami-Dade County. But I was definitely alive by the time we went to Miami-Dade County. You were a baby. Yes, I was.

So basically, yes, excellent police department. But what I recommend is that both of you Try to negotiate that contract.

That's like we always do. Just like we always do. And I think that's a compliment to you, Major, that you guys are the Rolls Royce and you guys provide Rolls Royce service. So thank you.

It may not just interject one last thing I don't believe that the increases that we're seeing are aberrations right for sure to councilman councilmember Sanchez's question we the color Bay and Palmetto Bay who also contract with the sheriff's office are seeing similar increases but what I'm going to do is I'm going to survey. the other cities in Miami-Dade County to see, to get an idea of what has been the increases in their police budgets year over year and see if there is some correlation with the increases that we've experienced. Now, obviously in recruitment, in collective bargaining, Every department, right, tries to be competitive. Their competition, the sheriff's office competition is City of Miami, City of Hialeah, Coral Gables, Miami Beach. Those other departments are who they're competing with for quality candidates, right? So I would venture to say that other departments, especially the big guys, right, the big ones, the ones I just rattled off, we're probably seeing similar increases, especially post-COVID, where everything has gone up.

Well first councilman Herzberg I saw had his hand up and then we'll go to councilman Sanchez.

Thank you, Mayor. My question on the police budget is, first of all, Rolls-Royces costs a lot of money, right? So that's just an unfortunate reality of the situation. But also, I just want to know exactly where, I'm sure the Sheriff's Office has a budget for Miami Lake Station. I just want to see exactly line items, what's increasing. I assume it's salaries. And we want to know.

You asked for it, and I think we sent that to you.

We emailed that to you, sir. Oh, I didn't. Okay, I didn't see it yet. So maybe we should share with everybody.

But the same thing that we sent you, we'll share with everybody else that has an explanation of some of the key points and why the increase. And it's really more detailed than even this. It goes really down to the minute line by line exactly how.

And that came from the sheriff's office? Yes, sir. Okay, perfect. So I didn't see it. I'll look at it. But I would want to know specifically the other two contract cities. Honestly, there's so many variables from all of the other cities. I get it. It's good to poll them, but I would really want to see the other two contract cities and then compare it to... the sheriff's overall budget and see if our sheriff's budget is going higher than their overall budget what's what's different what's changing is it i mean i do believe there is a point of making sure we don't have too many senior officers right i'm sure some districts have a lot more juniors than others and things like that uh but i also don't think it should all be juniors it has to be a middle ground 100 and i i don't want to speak for the major but from what i've seen i think that they have a blend of the different uh officers in different stages of their career okay so i'll i'll take a look at that excel but yeah it would be good to share with everybody so that's where the real details are at my understanding is the only thing you could potentially really Negotiate isn't there like an admin fee or something? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and the admin fee is built from the bottom up is built from zero, right? So they have, like I explained a little bit ago, they have those different categories and we're only paying for our fair share. So we're only paying for the number of sworn officers. Let's just round it off to 50. That's 50 out of 3000 that that percentage of whatever the training cost, the Professional Compliance Bureau, all of those things, we're only paying for our fair share of those administrative areas.

And the last question on the budget, I have heard multiple residents ask this question before. I don't remember. Maybe you don't have the answer right now, but an answer I think we all do want. For example, when an officer retires and they have 500 days of sick leave, Are we paying that, or is it spread out?

That question, I'm not 100% sure, but I'll verify and I'll send it to you on whether there's some kind of a split or wherever he leaves on his last day, that's the district that pays it. I don't know the answer to that, but I'll find out.

Okay, I think that's an important, just a distinction. It's not an event that happens all the time, but it's something to think about.

Remember that that'll also work in reverse, right? So somebody who spent 10 years here and then goes off to the airport, gets promoted, goes off to homicide, goes to other places the day that that person retires, then they're going to look back to us for 10 years, right?

So I think that it would all balance out over time.

So either way that it happens, I think that it'll balance out.

If you'll indulge me, Councilman Sanchez, before we go to you, Major, can you come up a second just to kind of address that point that Mr. Aguiar had and that Councilman Herzberg just discussed with respect to officer seniority and the blend that you have in the department? Would you say that you have a blend? Do you prioritize senior officers?

No, okay, so to be completely, completely fair, we do have it. He is 100% correct. I do have a very, very vast blend. We have guys here that have a tenure of two years, and I also have guys here that have 20 years. It's not many that are in the drop. It's probably like three. So for the most part, everybody is kind of like somewhat, let's say the average is somewhere in the middle ground for tenure. I do agree with him. I mean... And having, you know, spread seniority is very important. You know what I'm saying? It's kind of like you don't really want the blind leading the blind in essence, right? So that's why it is important to have tenure, have middle ground, and have junior guys because obviously you want to cultivate the best. And additionally... something that we are privy to that a lot of other districts aren't. Other districts, guys come out of the academy and you get sent where you get sent. As opposed to here, we have the luxury of being able to handpick the officers that we have here, which in essence, that's exactly why you have your Rolls Royce of a police department here as an agency to be able to help and do what we do here. We don't bring problems into the town, We bring excellent, excellent deputies. You know, that's exactly why you get the service that you get is because of that.

Thank you. Councilman Herzberg, while I have him up here, and since you were the one kind of going down that line of questioning, was there anything else, any follow up that you want to ask him?

No, I mean, he answered it. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a little bit more seniority than average. I wouldn't, but I think that's why is that a bad thing, right? Other than the cost.

I mean, for the most part, to be honest with you, as of late, a lot of the guys, the most recent officer we have is just off probation with like a year and a half. So I... We're also limited to obviously the people who interview obviously and then we try to make the best decisions, but we also try to be fiscal responsible as well. And again, I mean, a lot of it depends on what their resumes are, how well they do in the interview process and what they bring to the table. You know, obviously this last officer deputy that we brought in obviously has 20 plus years of experience in the county and parks, which. For us, it was a great shift for us to be able to bring her in. So, I mean, again, we try to do the very, very best in reference to the type of officers and deputies that we pick to come here. They are handpicked. But, again, I'm not only looking for 20-plus-year guys. You know what I'm saying? I mean, 20-plus-year guys also bring their good and their bad as well.

Thank you very much, Major. Councilman Sanchez?

Major, don't leave just yet. With regards to overtime, is it a flat rate no matter what rank they are? So does somebody that has two years in the department?

No, it's based off their salary. So if they make $20 an hour, they're getting time and a half. And if they make $40 an hour, it's time and a half on that. There's no flat fee for that.

Is it the same for off-duty assignments?

off-duty assignments is something completely separate. And off-duty assignments don't get paid by the town.

Okay. Now, I do have two follow-up questions. Thank you, Major, for the information. Gentlemen, I found the statute that the town manager was referring to, if you want to write it down. It's Florida Statute 943.22, Salary Incentive Program for Full-Time Officers. Just to have it in your back pocket. Now... The reason I requested to speak again was to what the manager, um, pointed to about comparing us to other municipalities, like city of Miami city of last week. Um, you know, we had the great privilege of attending the dealership of the year awards ceremony for Miami lakes automall and a gentleman that happened to be there was, um, highly police chief George. I spoke with him for a few minutes and I congratulated him on what I've read is a historic pay increase for the police officers of the city of Hialeah. He laughed a little bit and told me, we are trying to catch up to bridge the gap for Hialeah police officers versus what the county offers. So by his response, it tells me that county deputies make much more than municipal deputies. So I just want to make sure that that is kept in the back of my mind that the significant increase that they had this year was just to catch them up.

I can tell you that Police or law enforcement, similar to fire, Hialeah is the exception. And I don't want to speak ill, that's a fact. Hialeah, both police and fire, they hire people, they train them, they get them experience, and then people go on. But the county is one stopping place. City of Miami, Coral Gables, Miami Beach. Those are the heavy hitters. But then you're competing, right, with all those heavy hitters for quality candidates.

And that's why I only mentioned City of Hialeah. They're the outlier. Right.

The county's not the island. They're competitive with the other big boys in town.

To be completely honest, there was an interview recently with the sheriff. I don't know if any of you guys have seen it with one of the commissioners from the county. We're actually technically underpaid compared to like City of Miami and even other sheriff's department. And again, I don't want to speak out of turn, but, you know, that is also very important. Hialeah did, I think, is somewhere in the ballpark range of 20 to 30% increase. I'm not exactly sure what the gap is for us compared to other departments, obviously, and other agencies. But we are losing deputies as well to other departments and other agencies like the beach, the city. uh, Palm Beach, we, we are losing them in the droves as well. So in essence to, as an agency, we are trying to keep, um, you know, obviously up to par with a lot of other agencies and not lose good officers. Cause the same thing that's like what he just explained, we bring them in, we hire them, we train them and we lose them. Uh, you know, obviously that's a big part of it too. So.

Okay. Yeah. That's all I wanted to mention. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No problem. Councilman Cuadra Garcia.

Thank you.

And I'm going to close with this one. I told you I'd close the last time, but this is the closing. Basically, just food for thought. I know that one of your road patrol officers on bike just retired and you have one left, right?

No, I mean, we have one that retired, but the other ones are being replaced.

My recommendation is I think that we should bring a motorbike. Have you ever thought of bringing a motorbike?

The thing is that the department doesn't have motorbikes.

No? We had actually one.

Motorcycles or motorbikes? I call them motorbike.

Motorcycle. Harley officer. Don't you guys call them motorbike? No.

To be honest with you, I can tell you residents, for whatever reason, they buy into the stereotype that motorcycle officers are worse than our normal deputies. So I don't know how that would go. I know it's a stereotype, but I hear it all the time.

I mean, the truth of the matter is that it should, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think there's also an increase in that as well. because the deputies not only obviously are going to have a vehicle assigned to them, but then they also have a motorcycle assigned to them. So now you're paying an extra vehicle, maintenance, gas, all the other trainings, those things add up as well.

In South Florida with the weather, those motormen probably half the time end up in their car instead of on motorcycles anyway. So that's when I first got here in 2019, we actually had, I think, two motormen. And then we transitioned away from that and created the traffic detail. Yeah. So there are officers that are trained, you know, to mostly their main focus. Obviously, they can do anything, but their main focus is traffic. But they they work out of a car instead of a motorcycle.

OK, thank you.

All right. Anything else? Oh, yeah. Anything else? No, no. Well, thank you for that. All right. Madam budget director, you may continue at long last.

We're almost done guys. So now we move on to the capital projects fund. And it is dedicated to the acquisition, construction and improvement of major capital assets and infrastructure. The money comes from grants, any restricted funds, maybe like mobility fee or impact fees or any money that's already been or a developer contribution or any money that has been there from interest income would be utilized to be able to fund any of these capital projects. We have four capital project funds. Our facilities and equipment improvement fund you see that there was a zero budget for last year and there's 12,500 for this year that amount is a carry over. It that that project specifically is for the led lighting of town hall. The transportation improvement, you see an increase mainly due to PTP funds being transferred in, mobility fee being transferred in, any interest income that we may have acquired in the current fiscal year. And then the rest is just a carryover of the ongoing projects that are happening at the moment. The same goes for parks improvement. and our infrastructure sinking fund as i mentioned earlier in this presentation um the budget is 837 because we have a 426 000 transfer in to the actual fund finally oh are there any questions regarding the capital projects funds you may continue Finally, we have our enterprise funds. And our enterprise funds consist of the stormwater utility, the bond, ARPA, and our facilities maintenance fund, our internal service fund. These are proprietary funds and they operate like a business. And it's usually through fees that are charged by a user. So our stormwater utility fund This year in our stormwater utility fund, we also have capital projects within the stormwater utility. So the reason that you see such a variance in the increase is because we have grants that we are going to receive in the stormwater utility funds. Our stormwater bonds and ARPA, we're coming to a close. And then our internal service funds, we have a very slight variance of $1,000. Any questions?

Yes, Mr. Vice Mayor. No. Any questions on this on the enterprise funds?

One question. The stormwater bond. When does I mean, it's only 2021. I guess I just want to understand the dates of when these things are paid off. Or is there opportunity to pay these bonds off with excess money from the stormwater fees?

Say that again?

Two questions. One, does the bond mature, I guess, when the payments are expected to be over? And then are these bonds, are you allowed to prepay them?

I think it was like a 20, KU, 20-something years, the repayment schedule? 51? 2051.

Okay. The 30-year bond. Okay, got it.

And as far as projects, Omar, correct me if I'm wrong, projects, they're both almost done, ARPA and the stormwater bond projects, right? That's correct. Okay.

Anything else? All right. Well, thank you very much. Great job. The time is now 8, 11 p.m. There being no further business, we are now adjourned.

And thank you madam budget director for your hard work.

Yes.

By the way she gave up open house for her kid for to be here.

Okay, so it was still, y'all brought me that money.