Town Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening, everyone. We'll call to order the town commission work session for the budget for July 28th, 2020.

Commissioner Keller?

Here.

Vice Mayor Satterfield is absent and watching over Zoom. Mayor Taylor?

I'm here.

Commissioner Motley?

Present.

Commissioner McMillan?

Present. All right, good deal. You said Commissioner Satterfield's on Zoom?

Yes, not participating by Zoom, he's watching, yes.

And if we need to go, okay.

All right, so let's start, Gabby, with the 2026-2027 fiscal year, this is the second budget work session.

Kathy, you might say you can't hear. You got it. It's on now.

Hello? Why'd you delay like that?

Turn it off. Turn that thing off.

Okay, so as we mentioned, tonight's our second budget workshop for the upcoming 2026-2027 budget. In this budget session, we're going to be focusing on the enterprise fund, impact fees, and capital improvements. We'll also cover the changes to the general fund since the last budget workshop. So the purpose is to present to the town commission, a summary of the preliminary budget numbers for the enterprise fund, also known as the water fund, the impact fee fund and cover the five-year capital improvement project or budget. Here's our budget principles. When creating this budget, we wanted to ensure that we maintained a structurally balanced budget while prioritizing essential services as best as we could. We also wanted to preserve the town's financial stability and ensure transparency in all budget decisions. A general outline of how we will be proceeding tonight. So we'll start off with the changes to the general fund first, then we'll go into the enterprise, then impact fees, capital improvements, and then upcoming dates and requested action. We do need to make. a motion in the next commission meeting. So the one after because we have to approve the tentative millage rate and we have to approve the tentative and final hearing dates. So you'll see that as the last slide, but you guys don't make any decisions until we that's on the consent agenda.

Yes, I just wanted to in case you see it, you want to pull it off and make it separate or you want to keep it on consent agenda?

No, it needs to be into that meeting. So but we can do it first if we can just get it out of the way. Okay, so we're gonna begin with the changes to the general fund. So since the last workshop meeting, our taxable values have changed Not for the better. They actually decreased. So the Orange County Property Appraiser finalized their taxable values on the DR-420. The DR-420 is a certification of taxable value required under the Florida Administrative Code. It's part of the Florida's truth and millage or trim process, which ensures transparency on how local taxing authorities set property tax millages. Unfortunately, they overestimated the town's value by 11 million back in June. So we had to reconfigure the ad valorem numbers due to the decrease. This also caused a shift for the fiscal year 2028 and 2029 projections that I had previously presented. It's kind of small to see, but right here, this is the original number. So this is the letter that they sent us. So originally, They said that our property value was $1,037,422,455. And the new number provided is right here. So this is the, let me see if I can move you. This is the official 420 form. So this number right here is the new updated number. So it's the real property with the personal property added together, this becomes this. So I reached out to the property appraiser. I was a little confused because when I was redoing this, it didn't match up to my original calculations and it's basic math. So I was like, hey, that's not adding up. And they were like, well, as you should know, it's only an estimate. So you shouldn't have taken that for face value. Um, unfortunately it's never been overestimated by that much. It's usually only ever been by like a million or two. Um, so this was kind of a big hit to our, our bottom line. So, um, the, the new number is 1,026,267,670. So there you go. Um, The more changes to the general fund. So since our last meeting, a police vehicle was totaled. It was set to be paid off in fiscal year 2027. And we will have to see if we need to replace it. Chief is looking at options, but there's a possibility that we may have to take on another car payment in fiscal year 2027. We are getting a grant that is going to give us a truck from FDLE. It should be coming soon. And then I believe there's a possibility we might be getting two cars from another agency. That one's not set in stone yet. With those three cars, we may not need to get another car. But we don't know yet. So because the other agencies hasn't been set in stone yet, it's just kind of up in the air right now. So there is a possibility. I will know closer to the final budget meeting if that number needs to go up. So it would go up in the police auto lease jail code. Yes, Commissioner.

So we don't have that included in these numbers yet?

No, no. So what's in there right now is 50,000, I believe. Let me look. Yeah, it's $50,000. So that covers the current cars that we have on lease or that we make payments to. It does not include an additional car to that. If that does need to change, then I will increase that particular number. You do see in fiscal year 27 and 29 on that GL code that it does decrease. That's because one, that car was supposed to come off, plus an additional car is supposed to come off. And then another car is supposed to come off in the following. So, and there's a slight, a very small slight buffer in there, just very tiny. We've also added overtime into the personnel costs so that you might have seen that that increased. We added overtime to the public works department, to the police department, and I believe into the administrative department just for events because that's where their salaries comes out of. So that got included as well as taxes went up and retirement went up for those respective departments. Um, Southern Oaks, um, paving that came back higher. We discussed that at the last commission meeting. Um, it originally had $180,000 budgeted in that line item, but now it's been increased to 220. Um, John now the previous public works director, he had asked for 220 to include a contingency in there in case something had happened. So we just went ahead and put that in there. Um, was also brought to our attention that the abandonment of the oacs septic tank needs to occur in this upcoming fiscal year so 40 000 has been added to the budget for that as well and 30 000 for the hvac for this building that we're in um according to scott it's almost 20 years old if not over 20 years old maybe not i might be over exaggerating but He did say that it is significantly old and it needs to be replaced. I don't know if this building is 20 years old, but it is. Okay. So then, yeah. So his assessment is right. So we do need to replace it. So he's budgeted 30,000 or he asked for 30,000 and I put that in there. So, yeah. He has asked for it in the last two years, and it's gotten pushed. I don't think we can continue to push it. So if we do need to make cuts, I don't think it should be that one. And then since our property values decreased, So did our fire rescue by approximately $122,000. That helped offset these three additions. But then we added $115,000 for studies. So for a fire fee assessment and then a stormwater assessment, those would be non-advalorum assessments. So that also got added. And then when all of those changes, unfortunately, the budget and with the decrease in ad valorem, it wasn't a deficit. I had previously stated that the budget was balanced without their use of reserves. That has since changed. We are in a deficit of almost $200,000. So in order to make it balanced, I had to pull from reserves. So I pulled $300,000 to offset it and to leave a little bit of a contingency in case something else happens. miraculously pull you know pops up that we need to fund for um so that leaves us with a new contingency of 111 000 i know you guys see 94 some change i have since made a change since you've been given this so that's why i have it a little bit higher so we made a cut to something else So we will look a little bit closer to the revenues in the general fund. Right now, the revenues that I have projected are still looking to be close to that. So like all the other sales tax, half cent sales tax, CST, all of that is still looking like it's going to be what I originally projected. So I can't really up those numbers because I don't want to over inflate the budget. So I'll keep an eye on it as the weeks go by. And if I can increase those, then I will. But as of right now, I have to leave it with the 300,000 in reserves, unless you guys have any cuts that you guys want to make. Moving on. So these were the original tables that I had shown in the first. budget workshop. So this was the old one and then this is the new one. So as you can see, I changed the ad valorem numbers. Everything else stayed the same though, with the exception of the reserves. So the difference between fiscal year 27 from the old to the new did go up by 300,000 here, but it's not up by much. It's literally up by 200,000, 230,000. And then these went down. So this went from 10.388 to 10.317 and then 9561 to 9490.

And that reflects if Amendment 3.

Yes. So this right here, this is current year that we're about to go into. So this is what we're considering year one. This is year two. So this reflects $150,000 homestead exemption. And then year three reflects the $250,000 homestead exemption. Same thing with the expenditures. So this was last budget workshop's little graph that I had put in. It's kind of small, but you can see the deficit right here. So if Amendment 3 goes through, if all is said and done, all of our expenditures versus our revenues, we would be in a deficit of $255,000. With the new information that we have, we're looking at a deficit of $352,000. And then year three with the $250,000 exemption, it was at $595,000, but now we're looking at $694,000. So almost $100,000 increase in deficit. Okay, moving on to the enterprise fund. Oh, does anybody, do you guys have any questions about the general fund right now? Well, just on what I just gave you, like, do you have any questions we can, I can answer them at the end or do you have any questions right now? Yeah, sure. Okay. So enterprise. So the enterprise fund this fiscal year has been budgeted at 10.94 million. 3,414,000 is operating. So this is what's actually going to run the enterprise fund. 7.5 is grants. So this is untouchable money. So this, we can't use this to operate salaries or anything like that. So this technically doesn't exist. After everything is said and done, after all of the revenues and the expenditures are accounted for, we have a remaining balance of $142,000 to play with. This is not just all the money that's left in Water Fund. This is just what's left in this budget. We do a zero-based budget. So every dollar is accounted for. The remaining $142,000 will go to any additions to the budget that may happen from now until the final budget hearing. But if nothing changes, then it'll just go into what's called the contingency GL code, and it'll be available for any unexpected expenses throughout the year.

Or it'll help offset the budget at the end of the fiscal year.

Here's a revenue breakdown. The Enterprise Fund is a self-supporting government fund that operates like a business. So it generates revenues primarily through charges and fees for goods and services. For the town, that's through water, wastewater, and garbage. As you can see out of that 10.9 that I mentioned before, 31% is for charges and for services, so 3.3. And then the rest of the graph is those grants. So if this didn't exist, then 100% would be for charges for services. There's no other money that funds the enterprise fund. It's strictly the revenue that is generated through the water accounts that the town has. so overall it the revenue so this right here this 3.3 that went up about six percent from last fiscal year um which is not a lot considering it's only about 180 000. um we are doing a water rate study to see if we need to increase our rates to bring in more revenue for the town just because we are The graph is starting to come too close. So we're not bringing enough in than what we're spending in the enterprise fund. So we need to do a water rate study to see if we need to increase our rates to help pay for the water services and the sewer services. We also need to do one because if we're going to do another water plant, we can pledge some of those revenue sources to that so that we don't have to take on debt. Some of the expenditure highlights, the department was tasked with trying to implement a 10% reduction on non-contracted expenses, just like they were in the general fund. So most line items do reflect a 10% decrease from the prior fiscal year. We also budgeted 42,000 for utility repair experts, or URE, to operate our current water plant. So our longtime water plant operator, Brad, resigned or retired, I'm not sure which one, but he's just no longer with us. So now we need somebody to operate it for us. So right now, until we can fill that position, URE's stepped up, so we've had to budget 42,000 for them. And then we budgeted 25,000 for our water supply work plan update. That's required for us to do. And then we also budgeted 72,000 for SCADA upgrades. So this is for the water plant that we currently have. Originally it was budgeted at $40,000, but we actually got the quotes back and it came back at $72,000, so we had to increase that. And then $30,000 for the water rate study that I mentioned before. Raftelis normally does our water rate study, so they quoted that to us, so we budgeted that. Employee salaries, it also reflects a 3% COLA just like it did in the general fund. So all of our employees in the town, I'm not sure about the school, I think they will as well, but at least town employees will be receiving a 3% COLA as of right now. The budget also includes 100% of the health insurance paid, just like the general fund does. It still is at a 9.5% increase. We are still waiting for our rates to come back. We did get our preliminary numbers. They did come back a little high. We told them to go back to the drawing board. So we're waiting for those numbers to come back to us. Once we have those numbers and we will share it with you guys. But right now, everything is still up in the air. So I don't really have a concrete answer for you. But as of right now, we're still holding strong at a nine and a half percent increase. So. Moving on to the impact fee budget. So the impact fee budget currently is at 4.2 million. We have 2.4 budgeted for projects. We have the remaining 1.7 in reserve. So that's leftover for anything that might come up, but that's all that's left in impact fees. So the overall impact fee balance decreased by $900,000. That's just due to different projects coming through. So we have been using our impact fees. But once you use them, that's it. That's all we got. And growth is still coming through, but homes are not being built as much. So all we're kind of relying is on commercial. But this may not increase that. right now we've only budgeted for 20 new homes um and that's that's kind of like a high number because last year we budgeted for 35 i think and we didn't even i don't think we hit that so We're estimating an additional $313,000 coming into impact fees. I'm not sure if that will happen. Hopefully it does. Hopefully more comes in because commercial will come on, but we're not sure yet. So this is all speculation. I have no idea. Impact fees are very hard to budget. But the balance, this 4.2... It did go up in water, wastewater and administrative because those impact fees actually did go up with our impact fee study. So we did see an increase to that. But we did see a decrease in parks and rec, law enforcement, transportation and fire protection because a lot of the projects ended up coming out of those those jails. So the $900,000 is to these. So this year we have a couple projects budgeted. Water did complete some projects, and then we added an extra $150,000 for the northwest loop design water plant. So we originally had $500,000 budgeted. We've decreased that to $450,000. Parks and Rec, the pavilion, that's for the nature preserves. We've cut 60,000 out. We originally had 30, then we increased it to 50. Now we're at 60 just because of inflation. But unfortunately, not unfortunately, This is an agreement that we have with the Nature Preserve once they receive those two acres of Briley Farms. So the town will be putting in the pavilion for them. So we have cut this money out for them for that. But we have it written so that it doesn't get used in another project. Sadler Park phase two reduced by 180. Law enforcement, we have 10,000 for new officer laptops and equipment. Transportation, this overall decreased just because a lot of the projects that were in there from last fiscal year or the one that we're about to complete finished up and the projects ended up being a little bit less. Sidewalk improvements increased by 125 to include a canal bridge. And then fire protection, more hydrant upgrades, and then we're including additional water line work. So we increase that to 75. We normally put in 50,000, anywhere from 25 to 50,000, but we increased it to 75 for fiscal year 27. Okay, moving on to capital improvements. So capital improvements are improvements to the town that we do due to growth. We can use impact fees on it. We can use reserves, operating, all those type of things. They increase value to the town. They extend useful life to certain things that we already have. So It's good to keep this updated based on the needs of the town. And we like to project it five years out. And every budget time we either edit it based on what did get completed, or we, if we can't complete it in that fiscal year, then we move it to the next fiscal year, you know, pending funding. So right now this covers fiscal year, 26, 27 to 30, 31. However, this entire list is all dependent on Amendment 3. So if that does pass, we may not be able to do any of the projects on this list unless we either secure funding through grants or we're able to slowly allocate some money to it. As of right now, we have 4,500 listed for IT equipment. So a lot of our laptops that we have are coming up to their useful life. So we need to upgrade it. We've been doing it in small batches. So we have another 4,500 to replace some more. And then the 130,000 comprehensive plan update, this is coming out of the general fund right now out of the planning fee GL code. So you might've seen like a huge increase in consulting services out of the planning and zoning. That's what that's for. So we're required to do this every 10 years. So we need to do this. Projects funded through grants and impact fees for parks and rec. So those are all listed. Transportation, one of the capital improvements that we have coming out of general fund is for the Southern Oaks neighborhood. The other ones are all funded out of impact fees if it's possible. Same thing with water and wastewater. They're all funded through the utility impact or grants. The majority of it is coming out through grants, though. We have about four grants in the water department. That's $7.5 million. 4 million of it is for alternative water. And then 3.5 is for the new septic to sewer project. Parker was able to secure those funds for us. So we have that listed in there. Hopefully that starts soon. And then... We have 450 slated that the town is required for the alternative water. That's just coming out of impact fees right now for the construction happened. So the 4 million that we have in grants is for construction only. This is the town has to pay for all the design and everything. um and then police cjs upgrades are going to be funded through general fund unless they're able to be funded out of impact fees if not then it'll just be equipment that gets ended out of the impact fees and then for the school they need to do new kitchen equipment but that will be funded out of their general fund not the towns so out of their operating So this is a breakdown of everything that's listed. You can see the five-year, you know, you know, production. I'm not going to go through every single project. It will be here until tomorrow. And I also don't, this is not my scope. This is Parker's scope. So if you have a question about a particular project, please refer to Mike Parker on that. Okay, so as of right now, we have a total of $34 million in improvements for the next five years. Like I said, that's all dependent on Amendment 3. And if we do have money, even if Amendment 3 doesn't pass, the town still has to have money in order to fund these things. Okay, that is the end of my presentation. I can open it up to public comment now and any questions, and then I can bring it back to you guys. That sound good?

Okay, cool.

Yeah, public comment. Ed, do you want to come up and say anything?

Ed Kulikowski, 51 Vandermeer Street. Apologize for my tardiness tonight. As I came in, you were saying that our real estate has gone down. How can that be possible when everyone's values seem to be going up?

So the property appraiser does a preliminary number based on what they have versus what is coming online essentially for us. So they came up with that number on their own. I'm assuming through actuarial different types of formulas or something. But they originally gave us that number, which is what I based it off of when I think I have a slide.

Let me see. Cause there's a,

There's like a process. There's like a little life cycle, essentially, of when the property appraiser does their stuff.

Just so you know, the number that she used the first time, was a number that was given to her by the property appraisers and it was a like she said a preliminary number that said this is what it is probably going to be and then uh what was it gabby maybe two weeks ago she got an email saying oh no sorry made a mistake your number is this it's 11 million dollar difference is there any disputing that based on that significant difference

Is there any way to dispute it based on that significant difference? There's nothing we can go back and say, listen, you guys...

No, because they said that it was an estimate to begin with. So I can't take it for face value. So my the issue that I have with that is that in the letter, it says this information is provided to assist you in your budget planning. So you would think that it was somewhat accurate number. Um, but, and then, like I said, in the years past, I went through it and it was never off by that much. It is always an estimate. It might come in a little bit higher. It might come in a little less, but it's never come. It's never been $11 million off. So I don't know if, I don't know what happened.

And just real quick, if you look at that number of what the tangible personal property is for the town, you're at $1 billion. They gave you $1 billion, $37 million, $422 million, $485 million, or $55 million. And now that new number is $11 million less than that, right?

Mm-hmm.

So you're at $1.2 billion.

I mean, in a larger municipality, 11 million might not have been that much, but for us, that hurts. True.

So, according to the tax roll cycle, so when I went to my FGFOA conference, there was three different, there was a taxing authority there, so it was another water, and then it was a property appraiser, and then it was the city of Kissimmee. And so they talked about how they do the trim process. According to the property appraiser, the tax roll cycle, January 1 is the date of the value. And then March 1st is the exemption deadline. And then June 1st is their best estimates. And then July 1st is when they actually put those estimates to paper. So they estimate everything until July 1st. And July 1st is when they actually get that concrete number. And then the towns and cities and villages have to go in there and put their millage rate in there so that they can calculate that. And then that's when they send out their trim notices to the residents to say, hey, this is what your preliminary trim notice is going to be. And that happens in mid-August. I think they just had the values and the exemptions, but nothing was concrete until after June. Once they probably, maybe some stragglers came through. I'm sure they have an influx of homestead properties coming through now. So maybe they didn't take those into account when they originally gave us those taxable values.

I'm not sure. I don't know.

I don't work for the property appraiser, but all I know is that it's 11 million less and I had to adjust the budget.

Ed, did that help out? Yep. Anybody else? Okay. So that was a public hearing then and bring it back to you. Commissioner Keller, do you want to lead off?

I have a few things on my list. So some of these are kind of statements and reiterating some things. Some of this, Gabby and I chatted a little bit beforehand, but I think One of the important things to note is that a lease did, the town manager did have the departments do their budget with a 10% reduction. And this is all prior to us being potentially impacted by the homestead exemption thing. So again, this is kind of a statement, but we've decreased our budget by 10%. We're not even being hit by the potential ramifications of the homestead exemption. and we're still needing $300,000 from our reserves. Again, I chatted with Gabby just before the meeting because I am not a fan of us balancing our budget with reserves. We talked about the fact that I think when the fire thing happened a couple years ago, that was an unexpected thing. It was an appropriate thing to use reserves at that point in time. I don't think it's an appropriate thing at this point, especially because we're not even being hit by Homestead yet. So if we're having to fund with reserves and then the Homestead thing goes through, we're... going to be in trouble so um you know some other things of note is you know the southern oaks project is forty thousand dollars more than it was originally going to be i'll be honest knowing what i know now i would probably have not said we needed to move forward with paving vic because we don't have that fifty thousand dollars to do that um so one of the other things that is in the budget that gabby and i talked about a little bit this is something i've also talked to elise about there's a hundred thousand dollars for a land purchase which i understand is some arrangement we have with the developer of oakland trails that we may be able to purchase some And I know, Parker, you've given us a lot of information on that. And Elise has told me that obviously it wouldn't happen unless we could buy it for this $100,000. But to me, $100,000 right now is $100,000. And I would say that unless you can give me some really good reason why we need this land, we don't have $100,000 to spend if we're pulling $300,000 out of our reserves. So that is something I definitely would like to look at. I don't know if you want to share any more. I've been given all the information, and I understand that, you know, if it's a deal for us to get it. But if we don't have $100,000, we don't have $100,000.

Well, I can tell you that it's a remnant from the development when they – did the development, we made them give us a large piece of land for the roundabout. So once it was constructed and the new right-of-ways were put in place, it left fragments, three fragments of their property. And the abandonment of the old right-of-ways will give them one large parcel. It's like 1.2 acres, I think, something like that. And we... So we have to abandon the old right-of-ways. We have to, you know, we still need to do that. And so we were thinking that we could probably secure that property. Right now, the immediate need, I would say, would be a hurricane debris site. We do not have a good site for debris management. If you recall a couple of years ago, we had the vacant property across the highway that we leased, you know, for a time being. But we don't have any place for that. So that would be, you know, a good site. It could be used as a something for the water and sewer or possibly a large park area or of transportation related. It could become a transportation like, what do you want to call it, a point in between Orange County and Lake County for bus service. There's a lot of reasons that we looked at that. So we're going to give it our best effort to get them to sell it to us for $100,000.

So is it something that, as you called it, remnant land, is it something that we don't buy it this year? It could potentially be something we look at buying from them the next year? Or, I mean, it's not land, it's remnant land and it's not really, is it something that they could sell to someone else? Yes.

Okay.

And again, I know from my conversation with Elise is we're just hoping that they'll sell it to us for $100,000. There's nothing that if they could sell it to somebody else for more, they may.

That's correct. Okay. The land is crisscrossed with numerous utilities. Those are going to stay. It would be hard to put a large building on it, but you could put some things.

I still think it's something that we just under the certain financial constraints we have, it's something that we have to really make sure that it's a necessity. And again, looking through the budget, as I talked to Elise before and I talked to Gabby, $1,000 here, $1,000 there doesn't really help us. You've got to find things. If it's not $10,000 or $15,000 or more and multiple opportunities, there's not a way to find a lot of money. So that's one that just really stuck out with me. The other one, which is one I hate, to have to do, but I know that it's a potential thing is the employee insurance and having the employees participate.

We pay 100% right now.

I mean, I hate to do that to our employees, but again, it may, sounding like if the increase is as significant as it is, we may have to look at that. Again, I hate to do that to our employees, but it may just be something that we have to look at. And then lastly, you know, the assessment studies. I hate to see us spend that money, but again, in light of what is potentially coming down the road in November, I mean, obviously, if things don't happen and, you know, if the property tax... thing doesn't happen that goes away as well you know because we won't have to do that but if that does happen we need those assessment studies because we're going to have to find other ways for money and that's going to mean assessing our residents additional fees for fire and water right what it was fire and yes um i think the the my understanding is that even if amendment three

doesn't happen. We are still looking at other ways to fund fire. So that's been on the drawing board since we got hit with the original increase. But unfortunately, our code does not allow for any additional assessments. So I believe we're trying to work on that right now so that we can can do some assessments, non-advalorum assessments. It would not fund the fire rescue 100%. That would be impossible to do. I think a COE is trying to do it and it would cost like, I don't know, like $2,000 per resident and that just defeats the entire purpose. But we would hope that if we are able to do a fire assessment, it would be a small number or even a medium number that would could help offset that 2.5 million that we're getting hit by them. Because if it continues to get assessed by our property values, we'll never come out of it. Because if it continues to go the way that it is, as Mr. Kulikowski said, everyone's property value is going up. So in turn, our fire risk is just going to continue to go up. So we need to look at alternative ways. And if that is by doing it as a fire assessment, even if it's like $100 or $200, I don't know what it would be, but that would help offset it some. I don't know what the process would be. Again, that's not my background.

I understand that, and I think that, again, whether the homestead thing happens or not, that's something that we're looking at, but I think it's an important time, again, to say that if the homestead exemption property Homestead exemption thing goes through on the ballot in November. I know personally, my homeowner's taxes are not bad. I personally think they're reasonable for what we have in our town. My concern, and I've expressed concerns about this again, is that I'll end up paying more because we may have to charge fees that are more expensive. You know, and I think that that's a reality a lot of people need to look at that are saying, oh, you know, they're just trying to scare us and this and the other. I mean, you know, I know there's a lot of entities that are coming out, you know, on why this is going to be a problem. But I just, again, want everyone to be educated and make sure that they understand what they're voting for. And again, we've got a small group of people here. Hopefully there's more watching at home and hopefully they're reading everything and educating themselves but thanks gabby i know you work really hard on this and i know it's a lot and i know most of my stuff has been statements and not necessarily questions but obviously the hundred thousand dollar for the land purchase is something that i would ask the everybody on the commission to consider on whether that's something that we need to look at um you know making an adjustment on or if it's even something that we can afford but sure that's all the things i have so thank you thank you mr motley

So back to the fire assessment situation, I know that we saw a decrease this year due to the lower taxable values. And I know Elise had sent some public records requests trying to gain a little additional knowledge as to how those numbers are calculated. Because while we see a decrease here, it could be another exponential increase next year. Have we gauged any information back from the actual calculation of the value um related to that fund and is it directly related to the town of oakland's taxable values or is it kind of like spread apart in the county i don't just want to know i'll let the mayor answer this

So what I understand is it's calculated on the values of the land that's here, and there's an agreement in place that's 95%. But the option they gave us last year or this year was you can either A, go with what your taxable values are, or if they're lower, you can go with orange counties. So right now, so this year it was 2.24 and it's gonna go up to 2.46. And that's based on the valuations of Oakland's property or Orange County's property are going out. That's the ones that we would use.

I mean, it would be ridiculous not to use it.

I know Elise has made the public records requests. I can tell you that over the last year, 10 years, the fire calls that have happened here have not increased. They remain the same. It's an unfortunate thing, but Yeah, I think Elise is still pushing that in trying to get that documentation. Now, we did ask them what is the breakout for this particular fire station here, and the response back was, we do not break out our individual fire stations. I find that hard to believe. So that's the response they got back. that, but I know she's getting information in that's coming in. It is a big hit. It's the largest hit.

Well, and again, it's based on values. I mean, a house doesn't get any bigger just because the value goes up. It doesn't take more to put a fire out in that house. It's a strange way to calculate that fee.

And that's the argument. There's got to be a different way to... Affing services. There's got to be a different way to calculate how it goes. And unfortunately, if it continues on, there's some point in time where you hit a threshold. and you're not able to do it, or getting up to that threshold. And it goes back to what Commissioner Keller said on non-advalorant fees. And that is something that we will seriously take a look at because you cannot continue to keep using reserves to offset the cost of the fire department. And it's unfortunate, but that is something that we have to start looking at very, very carefully. And as Gabby said, there's language being drafted for that. And every municipality that I have talked to, especially in West Orange County, they're all looking at that same type of deal. I hope that answers some of your questions.

It did. And then my second inquiry is going to be directed toward Chief Eason with regard to the police vehicle replacement. Um, I know that we have one car that should be arriving soon and you know, others coming off of the lease as it stands. What is the need with the potential versus the replacement?

So we're looking at when a car comes off of the lease, it's five years old.

So there's some issues that we run into there as far as maintenance fees and things like that. That's what we're looking at is the price that we're paying for vehicles that have come off our lease to be repaired or maintained has increased exponentially. That's something we don't see when they're in their first five years. of uh of use so that's that's one of the issues to address your first point the car that's supposed to be coming in is here we're waiting on the windows to be tinted when the windows are tinted we send it to the decal place they'll have it decaled in two to three days so it should be here within the next seven to ten days In service, which means the officer who's going to receive that would his car would get passed down his cars is a little healthier a little better shape so it'll get passed down to somebody who's driving one that's not in as good condition. i've discussed with gabby over the past couple days, the need the actual true need for a another car will be going down. We won't need one as much as what we've been like a year ago when we took the donations from Claremont PD. The. what we have to watch is just through routine usage or like what just happened with this one that's in your packet. A citizen hit our car unexpected and totaled it. And we owed 7,000, or no, we owed 5,000, and they're giving us 7,000 or something like that. Or we owed 2,000, something like that. It was a $5,000 difference.

No, you don't have those right.

But that's the issue is... It's more scope is based off of the unknown more than the need. The need has gone down. I can honestly tell her, which we talked about this week, we don't need another car right now. That's why we didn't budget for it. But the unexpected is the unknown is what we don't know. We do have to plan for the unknown so we're not stuck with an officer that can't patrol the streets.

Thank you, Commissioner McMullen.

You did a great job. I'm not going to repeat anything. I think you did a great job. You cut in every place you can. And I'm always, whether I meet with you guys personally or just in general, looking at ways how we can bring in more top-line growth. So I'm just focusing on, as much as possible, working with Elise and Mike Parker to try to bring in some grants. Because as Commissioner Keller mentioned, some of the logic items hopefully we can, you know, get some grants to take care of some of the, you know, some of the needs, even, you know, with the police department, you know, they're getting in grants to cover some of those, you know, big ticket items. So, and I know Mike Parker is back and forth between his roles, but he and I speak via email and, you know, he's on some additional lists that we've kind of worked together. So I'm just, you know, hoping, you know, just hopeful that we can maximize some of these additional dollars to come in, Because we're growing, and as we grow, the police department is going to grow. Every department is going to grow. So if we can get these infrastructure things going and review some of these costs that you already have cut and try to figure out how we're going to do all the things that we need, we can't stop. You know, I know we're all concerned about, you know, the cost, but, you know, we can't stop. We have to figure out how to balance. And so I would say great job. And like I mentioned, my focus is trying to figure out how can we work on the top line growth, you know, do it in a way that is physically sound and making sure we're staying out of trouble. But great job. Great job.

Agreed. Yes.

Thanks, Gabby. Again, to echo, yes, great job. One of the bright things I think that we have going for us a little bit here, just to put a little bit of positive spin on it, is the commercial development that's coming in. We've seen some large projects that are hitting now that are in the development stage and about to break ground. So hopefully in the next couple of years, we'll start seeing the benefits of that development, the commercial development in the end. That I think will help us out a lot on that. That's probably the only positive thing I can say right now. A couple of questions, Gabby, and I asked Gabby these a little earlier, but just so everybody knows. So Gabby, we talked about the reserves after the withdrawal. What was our reserve number, do you recall? Trying to put everything in perspective for numbers.

So according to the auditors who presented at the last commission meeting in July, um, they mentioned that the 2025. So as of September 30th of 2025, our reserves were 4,073,741, which equated to about 40% of our expenditures. Um, That's about six months, five to six months. If we were to pull the $300,000, that would bring us down to $3.7 million, which would bring us down to about 33%, which would be about four months worth of expenditures. One month, yeah. Yeah, because they figured that our expenditures per month is about $970,000.

As far as operating with no money was brought in, would...

Correct. So yeah, so the understanding is that if no other money were to come into the town, so if the world were to shut down, again, as we did a couple years ago, then we would have enough money in our reserves to operate it for four months, which in the grand scheme of things was not a lot of money. Not a lot of time.

Not a lot of time.

But it would help offset for us to figure something out. I mean, everything moves slowly in government, so four months isn't very much.

Yes, I know that person. Being here, slow. I will say also, it's my opinion that Public Works, and I know that they've slashed a lot in Public Works, and I think they've slashed as much as they can in Public Works. I would not slash anymore because... The reason for that is when you let something go unmaintained for a while, it's going to cost you more in the long run to put it all back together. So I don't know if there's really much anything else you could slash on the maintenance side of the public works and stuff.

Yeah, they're kind of at their end. We can't really cut any more from Public Works. They had some wish lists, but we really couldn't bring any of it on to the budget. Yeah.

I think I agree with everybody. I think everybody does is the capital improvements based on what movement three is going to bring to us. Capital improvements would have to be probably judged on a basis at some point in time. This is a great list. It's wonderful, but you know, see where we're at at that point in time.

Yes.

And I, I have heard that education on amendment three is getting out there and There are some sentiments maybe that it's, you know, people are starting to understand what happens. And I know the town in Elise is going to set up workshops for the public to kind of talk about the, you know, here's what to expect. Here's what can happen and stuff. So that will be good. But other than that, thank you. Anybody else? All right.

That's it. Do you guys have?

In the next.

yeah um do you guys have any any additions or deletions from the previous budget workshop that you guys have for me i did not gabby okay no additions no addition totally none none okay good okay yeah thank you guys all right we'll reconvene at seven

Guys, you got the, you got the, okay.

All right, we're late, but it's okay. All right, let's, good evening, everyone, again, and thanks for hanging around. Let's, we'll call to order the town commission meeting for July 28th, 2026. If everybody could please stand for the pledge, remain standing.

Thank you.

Come to you as humble as we can. We're in our budget season.

We need to watch over.

Come alongside us. Lean on you for all of this.

All right, good evening, Kathy.

Yes, good evening. Commissioner Keller.

Here.

Vice Mayor Satterfield is absent and is watching on Zoom. Commissioner McMullen.

Present.

Mayor Taylor, Commissioner Motley. Present.

Okay, guys, first item on the list is the consent agenda. We're going to pull item B, which is the approval of tentative budget millage rate and public budget public hearing dates. We'll do that after the consent agenda. So what we're looking at tonight then is item A, approval of the July 14, 2026 Town Commission regular meeting minutes and the approval of the OCS special magistrate process for school year 2026-2027. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, we'll entertain a motion.

I move that we accept items A and C of the consent agenda, specifically the approval of the July 14, 2026 regular meeting minutes, as well as approval of the OCPS special magistrate process for 2627.

Second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Okay. Moving on. What do you want to call this, Kathy? Just we need an approval of the tenant budget millage rate and budget public hearing dates, Gabby. Is that correct?

Yes. So we just finished our budget workshop. The general fund budget was balanced using the current millage rate, which is 6.7. That's the same millage that we put on our DR 420. So I need you guys to either tell me, yes, you approve it or no, you don't approve it. You all have to approve it. And then we need to also approve the tentative budget hearing date as well as the final budget hearing date, which it's September 9th and then September 22nd. So I need those to be approved as well.

Okay, so three items.

Three items, please.

Keeping the millage where it's at.

Correct.

Coming meeting dates for the budget. Yep. Is that correct?

Nope.

Questions or concerns from anybody?

Yeah, so we're not approving a tentative budget.

No.

I guess I'm open to discussion about the millage rate. I mean, we don't have a balanced budget unless we pull $300,000 out of our reserves. So do we have to go with 6.7 because we've already put it on our form? Is that a final?

No, it's kind of like you are approving that that's our starting base. Essentially. Um, you can, you can change that at any time up until discussion. We will, um, at the tentative budget hearing, I will present to you what the, what the tentative budget is based on a 6.7 millage. Um, a couple years ago, that is where you all decided to raise the millage. Um, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I don't recommend you changing it that close because it only gives the town and the Department of Revenue and the property appraisers a very short window. So if you are planning on doing that, I would suggest you start thinking about it and then I can hold another meeting or you can individually email me what your thoughts are. But as of right now, I do need the 6.7 to proceed forward with the process of trim. So if you'd want to change it, that's fine, but.

The next thing that we're final is the meetings at this point.

Correct. Those are non-negotiable. Yeah.

Proving to keep those. And then if we do need, do we, if we do find a need to improve the millage rate, we can still do that. Although it's not ideal, but. Correct.

Yes.

Just wanted to make sure I had full understanding.

Yes. Okay, so any other questions?

Nope.

Okay, so if none, I would like to make a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve the millage rate and the budget hearing date.

We're going to do one at a time.

Oh, okay. So I... We'll make a motion to approve the tentative millage rate of 6.7. Okay, motion made. Second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Great.

Make a motion. Anybody want to make a motion on the hearing date?

I'll move that we approve the budget public hearing dates of September 9th and September 22nd as stated.

second second all in favor all right all right okay that's it thank you so much great thank you gabby okay moving on to uh public forum and this is uh anybody in the audience like to address anything that wasn't on the agenda tonight it's a very short agenda meeting uh anyone out there All right. So we'll close the public forum and bring it back here. And Elise, vacation. I don't know if anybody had anything for her. No? I checked with her this morning. She's nothing. Everything's good. Okay, great. Thank you.

I have no report.

Nothing? Nothing. Nothing? Okay. Ashley?

No report.

Okay. Mike? Well, you may have noticed... We're not going to get out of here that early. You may have noticed we started the intersection improvements at Mackey and Winters Landing last week. That's moving along fine. A little traffic detours in that, but I think everybody's gotten used to it. The septic to sewer project, the one for Briley Avenue and all of those little side streets, you know, Daniels, Nixon, all of those, West Vic, Spear Avenue, and that. We are at 60% design right now, and we hope to have it ready to bid like in December. So that's coming fast. We began the design of the new water plant. It's just in its infancy, but it's moving along well. and last but not least the uh dirt road improvements uh last month we did uh about just under a mile of dirt roads and they've been improved with the asphalt millings um and i think in about three weeks we have three more streets uh to do just under a mile so we're rapidly getting those done that's it awesome thanks mike all right chief no report

Andrew, anything from you? No, sir. Abby, you said enough tonight.

Yeah, I mean, I've said plenty, but the school is in the process of doing their audit. I believe they will officially start next week. And then that will have to get presented before September 30th. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks, they'll wrap it up and then we'll be able to present to you the status of the school.

Thank you. Okay, so Commissioner Keller, anything from you tonight?

No, sir. I think I've shared all I needed to share this evening.

I have nothing.

That's a quick one. Okay.

Let's go. All hearts and minds are satisfied. Let's adjourn. It is 7.16 p.m.

Yeah.