Auditor Selection Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay. This is, staff liaison Fowler. It is 11:06AM, and I am calling the Citizens Tax Oversight Committee meeting to order. So going through our agenda, we're gonna do a roll call. As I said, I'm the staff liaison, Tiffany Fowler. Kimberly Redd.

Linda Boutilier. Okay.

Our next item is that we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. Is there any public comment? There is some. Thank you.

Okay. So, item number five on our agenda is approval of minutes. This is agenda item 20 five-two thousand nine hundred sixteen. This is the approval of the minutes for September '28, 2021, 10/18/2021, September 2025, 11/13/2025, and 12/2025. Your second. Does anybody approve it?

Well, I approve. I make a motion to approve the minutes as presented.

I second it. Okay, wonderful. Okay, so now we're on to new business and this is, item number six a is the review of the city Of Northport expenditure three surtax three expenditure report for fiscal year 2024. And so this is the report that I have prepared. So if we wanna go through that

okay. This is where

I'm starting. So the first graph just shows the total revenue that we've created or we've we've generated or we've had through 2010 to 2024 for surtax three. So as you can see, we've had almost 154,000,000 in revenue, which really goes a long way to help us with various capital improvement projects around the city. So the next part is the City of Northport Infrastructure, Surtax three, fiscal year twenty twenty four expenditure report. And this just breaks out the expenditures by different categories and what they were spent during that year for the fiscal year twenty four.

We have a lot of inactive or completed projects on this list. So you can see all the good that we've done through the surtax. So if we

I have some questions. Okay. On the environmental park improvements, what is the status? Do you know? Which project is that? That is project P17EPI.

Okay. Hold on. Let me just make some notes. I do not have exact information on particular projects, but I can get the information. Okay. P 17.

There's a couple of projects that I have questions about

Okay.

That seem to be active but are not there doesn't seem to be any status or Any movement kind

Movement. Of Okay.

Or I don't know what is planned for them. My biggest concern is some of the amenities of Northport seem to be dissolving. And there are a couple of items that have not that are just sitting there and waiting. Dallas White Park, boat launch, the art center that moved, you know, miles and miles away should be brought back to town. This money should be used for those items.

Now what was the other Dallas White? Is there

Dallas White? Oh, watch.

That is the of commission. Is it p 18?

That is it's in the Which

one? Parks. Yeah.

Parks and

rec. Yeah.

If you look at the pie, the big picture of where all the money is going, I feel that the money is not being allocated correctly because there are items that we are losing that are not being repaired or replaced. And then there's big ticket items that the money is being shuffled towards. So I want to know when is the art center coming back? When when is the boat launch gonna be repaired? Is there a project

number for the boat launch?

Or No. It's Dallas White Park maintenance. There's P23DP23?

Okay.

Yeah. P23.

Yeah. It is still active. Okay. So you got a question about that one. And, basically, you're just not seeing movement, you wanna know

why I'm just seeing that a lot of the money is going towards police and fire.

Yeah.

And not enough money is going towards things that directly impact the citizens of Northport.

Yeah. That's like if you see the pie.

Yes. The pie is really goes Solid waste, the water and sewer. These are things we should be concentrating on. The flooding in town, the maintenance of our canals. There's certain things that don't seem to be happening. It commission goes through all of this I know. Through the budget process. I do know that.

And they they prioritize what they think is important in allocating different budget for different things. But yes, as you can see,

the pie Public safety seems excessive compared to the other items.

Yeah. Fire and police, they got the biggest part of that pie, like 47% of the expenditures were for that for last

year Yes.

Or for those two departments. And, but this is what the commission has deemed as more important or, you know but I think for that kind of thing, you need to maybe be more involved in the budgeting process because they do have, like, community workshops and things that maybe you could express your voice more than maybe that's the time Right. Yeah. When they can really just listen to what, you know, you have to say. And they they do try to take in the whole picture, You know, this balancing act of, you know, what they have and then how they can divvy it up kind of thing.

Yeah. But but last year, for 2024, we had $16,328,962 in expenditures. Of those expenditures, dollars 7,700,000.0 was police and fire. And then the second one was transportation with like, 3,400,000.0 with parks coming in third. They they do I think they do kind of prioritize parks, maybe not as much as, you know, we would like.

Well, I would like to see Warm Winderal Springs completed. And and the well, I know that's part of a different pie.

They are they are working on that kind And of they are working on Warmineral Springs. And they couldn't go the full blown Yeah. Big reno that they wanted. But they are making they are doing it now from my understanding that they are doing things. And it does look nice. It's not gonna be that, you know, $2,030,000,000 that was all very but it's gonna be very functional. It's gonna

be more functional for works and rec, which is interesting to me Yes. Is I live off, South Chamberlain. And there is only one park from Cranberry all the way over out East Atwater. That is the only park that we have on our side of town. It's it seems very unfair that all the parks are being concentrated in the Western side of the city.

Now, Cranberry to where? All the

way out east into the roads to nowhere. Yeah.

I see what you're saying. Seems like to me, it seems like a lot of money gets funneled to new stuff and the old people.

That yet are forgotten. And you know legacy legacy Northport is growing by leaps and bounds. There's houses in every loop. There is a lot of tax money coming from the East Side of town Yeah. Which we don't get anything over there. And this needs to change.

I would really get more involved in the budget process because that is the time that you can really make your voice heard to you know, to prioritize.

I I know that you have no control over what the commission

Yes.

Does. So yes. But I did wanna say that I feel that that pie is skewed.

Yes. So going forward

Yeah.

We will move on. So we have looked at our expenditures for '24. We've had 16.3, million in expenditures, and this is a condensed version, on the first report. Then when we flip over that, it's a line by line item of all the accounts and the various charges within those accounts, which then tie to the 16,300,000.0. Yep.

Okay. So, six b is agenda item 25 Dash 790. And this is a review of changes made by the city commission to the infrastructure projects or to the allocation of sales tax proceeds. For the sole purpose of ensuring that all procedural requirements have been followed, we have attached. And this one here is what was included in the adopted budget for twenty three-twenty four. And this shows you what surtax what was the activity in surtax in the different categories.

What page is that on?

It says three zero eight. It's, right after the the condensed right after the report. Listen.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So this is part of the budget process too. And so we wanted to include what had been appropriated to date and what was budgeted. So you can see

And this is again, nothing was appropriated for Dallas White, which is

sad. Yeah. So that was what was budgeted. And then we go through, like, the resolutions periodically throughout the year. Then we have to do a resolution if we want to transfer funds from one project to another, which then goes by resolution.

Our first resolution is RNumber 23DashR76. Okay. And so if you look under surtax fund 306, you see that 4,400,000.0 was given to Fire Station eighty one Rebuild. Then you can see where the money came from. 1,000,000 was from p twenty four PMC, then, warm mineral springs.

What p twenty four PMC? Let me see. That was decreased park maintenance. Oh, okay. Alright. Parked. And then, yeah, decreased warm windows. Where's fire station? Is that the fire station right here, 81? Believe so.

I believe so. It's gone. Mhmm. Totally gone. Okay. So, yeah. Is it being rebuilt? Yes. Okay. So, the next resolution is resolution number 23R87. And in fund 306, there was, reroofing at the police headquarters and then also police vehicles. So the money came from insurance proceeds and fund balance on that one.

Okay.

So it wasn't taken from another project, but it was just from other sources

Mhmm.

To increase for the roof. Then our next one is resolution number 24R10. And this was for the Dallas White Park Maintenance. So it was given, like, almost 1,100,000.0. And then you can see the various other parks that was it was taken from to give to the Dallas White Park maintenance.

Basically, just shuffled between parks.

Yeah. Yeah. For that one. And then our final resolution is resolution number 2024DashRDash17. And, this is for the emergency operation center. So when we're going through an emergency, they'll have this facility.

Questions about that? So prior to that, it was run out of

Out of here, basically.

Right here.

Yeah. Basically, out of here. Yeah.

So now you're going from how many square feet to how many square feet? It's like you're jumping from a room to, like, a Taj Mahal. There's no in between here. Yes. It's like the expenditures seem excessive on that also.

So that is our resolutions. Okay. And now Wish you

could find a happy medium on stuff like that. Yeah. I would say It's just like the police department. You can't just have a normal sized police department or satellite. You have to have a huge expense for the taxpayers. Oh, okay. I'll stop.

Oh, understand what you're saying. So our last agenda item 6C is 20 five-two 791. And this is discussion and possible action regarding approval of the memorandum relative to the review of the City Of Northport sales tax through expenditure reports for fiscal year 'twenty five from the Board to City Commission. And do you have any questions?

I do. Okay. I see this is drafted. I feel like we should be making our own memorandums. I don't think someone else should be writing memorandum for us. I think that we should be able to conduct our own review and write our own memorandum. And I basically don't like the wording on the last part of this. So

And which wording is that?

Based on information provided by staff, all prescribed procedural requirements have been followed by the city commission, and expenditures have been made in accordance to the city's product annual review. And I feel like although all the numbers are in order, I feel that we should be able to write our own memorandum. And we will. And we'll send it over.

So are you saying that you're not going to sign this memorandum today? No. I am not. Okay. So that means we will you will provide a memorandum Yes. And then we will meet again for you to sign it in front of me.

See it. Okay. Or we could have it notarized. Would that be acceptable?

I would have to ask the clerk. Okay.

I mean, instead of bringing everybody all back for this. Okay.

Yeah. So we are not going to sign the memorandum. So then at this point, are we ready to adjourn the meeting? Yes. Do items? Do you have future agenda items? There are no future agenda items listed, no. Public Do we have any public comment? Okay. And it is 11:25AM.

The memorandum has not been signed. They want to come back with their own memorandum to present at a later date. And, 11:26, this meeting is adjourned.