Public - workshop

Let's do it. All right. I'm going to go ahead and call to order this pre-budget workshop for June 11, 2026, at 4 p.m. We're going to start with an opening prayer led by City Attorney Nevin Zimmerman, elder of First Presbyterian Church, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Commissioner Brian Granger. Please rise.

Let us pray. Father, we're just so grateful for today once again that you have allowed us to be living and having life in this community. Grateful for the leadership and for those that have given their time in efforts to bring safe and security and quality of life to Panama City. Bless the deliberations today. All this in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you, David.

You'll join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Let's go ahead and call the roll.

All right. Mayor Branch. Present. Commissioner Hughes is not here. Commissioner Lucas is not here. Commissioner Granger.

I'm here.

Commissioner Street.

I'm here.

Mayor, you have a quorum.

The left side of the table is here. All right. Let's get started with the city manager presentation.

Yes, sir. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Commissioner, staff, those both in person in the community and joining online. Like in March earlier this year, today we're looking at the general fund budget at a very high level. Enterprise funds, special revenue funds, and internal service funds are addressed by rate studies and other fund restrictions outside general fund revenues will be discussed at a later time in the budget process. Next slide. This slide was discussed at the March 31st pre-budget workshop. At that time, a projected shortfall of $4.5 million was expected for the general fund FY27 budget. At the June 9th city commission meeting, staff was directed to present what a $4.5 million reduction in expenses would look like for each general fund department. My staff has performed this exercise, and I want to inform this body that there will be both staff reductions and service reductions, as well as potential service eliminations. Please note that staff has continued to work hard since March to identify savings and gain a clearer revenue picture, which has reduced our projected revenue shortfall to only $2.5 million. Other revenue ideas that we could potentially consider would be reducing the $5,000 cap, sorry, raising the $5,000 cap rather than the merchant fee to $40,000 cap, which would bring an additional $6.2 million plus. $30,000 would bring in an additional $4.6 million plus. A 20K cap would bring in an additional $3.1 million or plus. There's also potentially other revenue sources that we could potentially consider, or we could also reduce staff – reduce expenses by $4.5 million. As a reminder, staff has put forward multiple revenue streams in the past. Managed parking, merchant fee, again, transportation impact fees, right-of-way permit fees. We did implement those this calendar year, and they've been very successful. And then we have the Red Speed implementation, which is ongoing. Next slide. Prior funding philosophy. How did we get here? Funding philosophy since 2020 was in the direction of the commission at that time was to rely less on ad valorem revenue and more on merchant fees, assessments, PCR fees, and transportation impact fees. In 2024, the city commission changed the fire assessment methodology to a demand-based model resulting in reduced revenue. This was a $1.2 million reduction in revenue with no associated recurring revenue. Next slide. Potential reduction in services. General fund considerations. This is if we were to do a $4.5 million reduction in both operating expenses and personnel budgets. We'll go over those in detail on the following slides. These reductions on this slide are from the city manager's office and affect all of the general fund departments. These are not reflected in the departmental reductions. In short, the target for all general fund departments lowers the $4.5 million to $2.474 million. So again, we would unfund 23 positions. We'd be about a 5% reduction in vacant positions across the general fund, saving about $1.2 million. We would remove the destination Panama City contract for $100,000. Remove budget software, about another $100,000. Remove the state lobbyist or pause the state lobbyist for $90,000 savings. Remove the two hired guns contract, which is $36,000. And then later in our presentation, Ms. Waldron can expand on this, but we can look at an early payment potentially of the $150 million short-term loan. which could result in a minimum of $500,000 in interest savings. This would total roughly just a little over $2 million. And, again, prior slide I had mentioned, you know, what raising the cap on the merchant fee would provide. All right, so next slide. So how to address a $4.5 million reduction in expenses. We would unfund a combination of both vacant and occupied funded positions across the general fund, decrease services across all general fund departments, including fire, police, development services, public works, parks and rec, human resources, logistics, which includes purchasing, IT, and facilities maintenance, the city manager's office, and also the city clerk treasurer's office. This would have an impact on both internal and external customer service. an increase in response time and reductions in productivity, and then impacts on the quality of recruitment of employees. The city manager's office and the budget team proportionally allocated the $4.5 million reduction across the departments. Each department director and the chief then responded with their reductions and worked in consultation with our budget team on this exercise. Next slide. So what a potential $4.5 million reduction looks like for each department. And police would result in a 16 staff reduction, which would effectively eliminate an entire shift. This would place the agency below safe minimum staffing levels and bring staffing levels to the same level that we had back in 2006. Reduction in communications, cybersecurity, and required duty equipment. forego essential maintenance and replacement of patrol vehicles, and a reduction in proactive policing and increased response times. Substantial officer and community safety risk reductions would lead to an increase of overtime and vehicle maintenance, and the overtime may be higher than the estimated budget reductions. For fire, $885,000. This would result in seven staff reductions and one station closure. Staffing levels would be at the same level as the 1990s. Panama City Fire Department hasn't been below five stations in our city since 1986, so it would significantly increase response times and reduce coverage reliability, increase dependency on mutual aid with uncertain availability, critically reduce operational capacity, substantial firefighter and community safety risk, and it could have a potential negative impact on our ISO rating and community cost. Just as an FYI, the ISO has scheduled our evaluation for the next calendar year. Next slide, moving into public works. $723,000. Keeping in mind that a significant portion of the public works budget is in the enterprise fund, this is solely looking at the general fund part of the public works department. Engineering, a little over $60,000. Elimination of a staff position. Reduce teams' ability to track grant projects through a single source. Would also hinder oversight of grant funded projects and the ability to apply for future grants. streets maintenance and drainage division, roughly $620,000 would be an elimination of seven staff positions and all temporary labor positions. This would significantly impact the city's ability to maintain critical infrastructure and respond to issues, effectively potholes, utility cuts, drainage issues. This would increase the risk of failure and system deficiencies, potentially causing damage to both public and private property, resulting in an increase in both our claims and litigation. Increase in reliance on contracted services resulted in higher long-term cost, more than double in some instances. Reduce our capacity to monitor flooding and erosion during rain events, placing additional strain on an already burdened teams. No ability to address the current backlog of pending service requests and will result in delays in response times both internally and externally. Would also eliminate travel and training funding in elimination of the CDL training. Specifically, decreased maintenance on sidewalks will certainly increase our risk of claims. Next slide. Parks, culture, and recreation, $501,000. Programming and maintenance, elimination of five staff positions. PCR would now become a provider of facilities only and not program outdoor recreation sports. Outsourcing non-paid to groups and organizations to provide sports. Programming for softball, baseball, flag football, soccer, and football. MLK Junior Rec Center, $42,700. Reduction in equipment and program supplies. Impacts expected to be minimal. The logistics department, purchasing $31,000, suspension of disaster preparedness items, reduction in supplies, travel repairs, professional services, limited availability of flexibility to respond to both the city and departmental support needs. IT, $60,000, limited after hours meeting support available, software funding frozen at current levels. City Hall, $164,000, reduction of staff, limited external customer service, reductions in both supplies, repairs, and contractual services. at the city hall. Continuing with logistics, next slide. Logistics administration, $60,000. Forgo GPS fleet expansion, reduced repairs, professional services and training. Unrealized auto insurance savings and enhanced fleet utilization. Facility maintenance, roughly $70,000. Reduced repairs, professional services, fuel supplies and training. continued deferred maintenance across all city facilities signs and markings would be reduced repairs professional services fuel supplies and training total of 75 5 deferred maintenance and reduced capacity for signage replacement in road striping Next slide. Development Services Department, $98,800. These would be $80,000 out of planning. Comprehensive plan update is $80,000. It's already underway, but no impact because the comp plan update is only needed every seven years. Code compliance, $18,800. Reduction in abatement would slightly reduce the total abatement budget available for FY27 and the ability for the proactive enforcement. City Manager's Office, $190,000. Remove the budget software. Reduce ability to implement program-based budgeting. Pause our state lobbying contract, $90,000. City Manager's Office and City Commission to lobby both state and federal officials ourselves. City Clerk Treasurer's Office, $80,600. Remove the grant account at position. Currently funded, but it is unfilled. Next slide, moving into human resources, roughly $75,000. Elimination of one position, this would bring about a reduction in training and an increased risk of claims, cessation of employee assistance program, decrease in recruiting efforts, engagement time with retirees and current employees, reduction in morale due to the discontinuation of recognition programs, Also, an increase in unemployment costs citywide will negate initial savings. Business services division, reduction of the economic development incentive funding, about $30,000. And then city commission, $36,000, elimination of two hired guns contract for $36,000. So the next slide as we move into our revenues update. And again, the CMO used FY26 revenues. This is how we estimated these revenues. Next slide. We used FY26 revenues with a very conservative adjustment based on historical trends to project FY27 revenues. We now have preliminary values from the property appraiser's offices for ad valorem revenues, which were not available in March, but we're still waiting on the state revenue projections for other revenue sources. Again, because we were very early, our revenue estimates were very conservative. So the revenue picture is now much more clearer than it was at the workshop back at the end of March. Our ad valorem preliminary values have increased by nearly $800,000. Additionally, our insurance consultants have recommended that we change how we currently allocate expenses for both property and auto insurance. Additionally, some of our premiums are less than last year, resulting in a savings to the general fund of nearly $780,000. Additionally, our revenue estimates have increased by $500,000. Total additional revenue and savings is approximately $2 million. The general fund's new shortfall that we project is $2.5 million. As of June 1st, the general fund has 23 vacant positions, representing $1.3 million in salaries, benefits, and pension cost. So what we would do in this scenario is we would unfund 23 open positions, which again would be $1.3 million in savings. These are open positions. Remove the state lobbyist or pause it for $90,000 and have us as the city manager and the elected officials handle that relationship with both our state officials and federal officials. No longer fund the two hired guns contract for $36,000. Remove the destination PC contract for $100,000. remove budget software $100,000, and then we'll be able to reduce the interest on the $150 million loan. We estimate that savings to be a minimum of $500,000. So the savings realized here is roughly $1.6 million. Next slide. So again, we would unfund the 23, which would be about a 5% reduction across the general fund. Sorry, this seems to be repetitive. I've already just went through each one of those. So again, for the $2.5 million reduction, we could implement the same reductions we suggested earlier and make an additional $400,000 in reduction cost across the general fund. So just again, quick timeline for kind of where we are and what we've done. March 31st, we had a pre-budget workshop. June 11th, tonight, we have our pre-budget workshop number two. July 16th, we've marked that as a held right now. It's on all of our calendars for the city commission to have, I guess, a third workshop. That would be with director presentations, as we spoke about Tuesday of this week at the commission meeting. We will set the proposed millage rate during the city commission meeting on Tuesday, July 28. September 8 and September 28 would be both the tentative budget hearing at 5.01 PM for both of those tentative budget hearing on September 8. And then the final budget adoption would be September 28. So you will not be required or asked to vote on the budget. until September of this year so again you will receive a proposed budget from the staff before we ask you to set the tentative millage rate so mr. mayor commissioners those are our presentation for this evening happy to answer any questions comments myself and the team are all available and also the directors are here and are willing and able to answer any questions as you so desire

I'm assuming we'll get a copy of this presentation.

Absolutely. In fact, I thought y'all had one. If someone could print copies for the elected officials ASAP, please, thank you.

So I'll start questions.

Yeah, well, I was just going to say that these conversations are painful. And it's an unusual experience talking about budgets in front of people who you affect. Private business, you tie this behind the scenes. But we're here for these conversations. And thank you for taking action over the past two days

bringing back all these numbers a lot of work so yes i would say so too i mean it's a it's a difficult situation we're in um we've gone through a significant amount of increases in budget over the last i'd say well really since hurricane michael there's still an element that we're in recovery still we still have interest costs that we're carrying through that but i'll get right into a couple questions i have jonathan i'd say like the So I take it your team, you guys have all looked at everything, and when you're presenting your 4.5, those are where you feel like the best areas for us to cut overall. i mean i don't know that they feel that's where they but that's where they would that's where they that's where we would have to be if they had to yeah so that so your entire all your departments have been able to go through pick where they would make those cuts and present those to you guys as options and you guys were able to compile those they helped craft that four and a half million dollar number yes sir so so with that in mind i think a good step in operations moving forward would be communicating to the team in preparation that that is the budget that we will adopt and this additional revenue that is coming in i would leave that to the department presentations for us to use as our discretion on what we would put back in with those rather than just budgeting off of this newfound revenue go ahead and prepare your teams for the cuts and then at the department presentations the Commission can prioritize which things should go back in essentially that's how i would handle it in in private budgetary process it would be hey look this is the worst case scenario we've seen that we also see some hope on the other side of this by july we'll know that every department will be able to present you know what they would like to present and then the commission can prioritize as far as where any additional revenue that we may find, whether that be through revenue projections, whether that be through some type of use fee, whatever it is, that we can then prioritize what would go back in, essentially. So that's kind of my thought.

Yeah, and I want to add that part of the due diligence I'd like to see would be every city is having these exact same conversations across Florida. And we are all in panic over the vote coming up. And so I'd like to see department heads meet with Jonathan and other municipality department heads about things that we can all do together. That may be us providing them services. That may be them providing services to us. That may be consolidating some equipment. I used a really silly analogy of a submarine. I don't want to pick on any departments, but if there was three submarines in the county and we only need one submarine, maybe two of the submarines between these valleys should be sold. And I think an invitation to those conversations would be welcome because other cities are in the exact same spot as us. and they may appreciate that. But I'd also like to include in those meetings, I'd like to see Commissioner Street be there as well, since he is the most knowledgeable up here of our budget, in my opinion, and has a background of finance as well. But I'd be going to all these other municipalities saying, hey, man, we're all in this sort of... Lynn Haven's in it. I mean, everyone's in this. County's in it. We're all in it.

Yeah, and so for us to make these decisions right now without – I know this was all very quick the past couple days.

So I would say this is the start of a conversation, and it should be had with other municipalities and departments and partnerships. You know, we might look at – I only have experience with the Goldman Rattlers, but we may say, hey, we can reduce your park fees if you cut the grass there. We've got to get really creative in this budget cycle to survive it.

And maybe multiple budget cycles. Oh, yeah. If the vote happens on the way. This is the start of it. If people vote, there will be another round of this. And so this is a process that we're building on how we'll tackle this moving forward.

Yeah, and the merchant fee is a fantastic thing that we have, but the state may say, if this vote goes through, they may say, great, we're not going to allot money towards certain things because you already have a merchant fee. And so we're sitting kind of nice right now because with this merchant fee, And we might not be in a year. It might be worse, way worse than we expect. So we'll be all doom and gloom, but that's the reality.

I do want to ask, like I saw there were some departments that weren't on any presentation of cuts list from what I saw from the presentation. Now, I didn't get to review it, so I don't know right in front of me. But were there any departments that were exempt from cuts that didn't have anything up there?

that was not the vote like the built like building services wasn't on there because they have restricted revenue that covers their cost yeah this the rest were all general fund departments

So there was no other general defund department that was not in this presentation again, because we don't have it in front of me. I can't.

And we're fixing that. We've got copies coming. I apologize. Uh, it was general fund departments only that have addressed all general fund departments.

So you read a lot. Um, and it was, yeah, I'm trying to, we don't have in front of us.

That's what the, that's what the ad valorem rate. I mean, the numbers.

Thank you. So did I hear you right when you said that we told you to aim for 4.5 million? But you think that you can, because of revenues increasing, you think that the new target is more likely $2 million?

Well, I wouldn't say that revenue is increasing. I think we said all along that March was kind of early, and now we have a clearer picture as we've got further into the summer. And so now I think we have a better estimate, a better handle on what we think those numbers will actually be.

that's a fair way to word a little bit yeah I mean typically we would give you we would have our first budget workshop you know in July so when we were projecting out revenues in early March it was early so if we were to do a budget workshop today we would be presenting a two and a half million dollar shortfall because we've been working since March to get that number down

So does that 2.5 million today include these cuts, or is that based on the new projection of the 27 budget?

So it's kind of confusing because we were working towards presenting how far we've come since March and working towards closing that gap of the $4.5 million shortfall. And so we were working on presenting you know, where, where we have come and what two and a half million dollars worth of cuts looks like. But then when y'all had a discussion on Tuesday and wanted to, and voted to see what four and a half million dollars worth of cuts would, would look like we had already did that exercise with the departments back in March, whenever we came up with that, with that shortfall. So that's what we have in here is we're showing you what the departments provided to us on. If you had to cut four and a half million dollars out of your budgets, here's what the departments say they would take it from. Um, but then we have also come up with other ideas and that's a general fund considerations, other ideas like, um, freezing current vacancies we have 23 current vacancies in the general fund which would amount to around 1.3 1.2 million dollars um some other things like removing the destination panama state contract which that's for the fireworks and fourth of july and i think y'all know that destination is not wanting to do that next that event next year anyway um so we've come up with some things to total two million dollars But what you also see from the departments are four and a half million dollars worth of cuts if you ask if we had to cut it all from the departments.

So I think what I have just from historical experience, I think what I like about the process and where we're heading now is it actually puts I mean, the bottom line is we're hired to do two things. We're hired to do a budget and we're hired to do policy. There's primary functions of elected leadership. And so I think having the margin for us to be a part of the programming of whatever funding is there is reasonable and it should be that way. And that's part of the issue that I took with, hey, we're just going to go budget this revenue that we found versus allowing us to speak into exactly what those are. And I think to the process that Commissioner Hughes outlaid with the departments coming and presenting to us and letting us know what their needs are, we can be more intentional by what is proposed as what gets funded and what doesn't get funded. Because ultimately, there are decisions and tradeoffs that have to be made. Staff is a massive part of that process. If not, I'd say the bulk of that process. But when it comes down to balancing the budget at the very end, it rests with this board to have to make those choices. And they're not easy. I mean, I don't want to entertain closing a fire station. I really don't. But the reality is funding, plus being able to give people raises, plus being able to do step increases, plus being able to replace equipment. We've cut every capital expenditure out of our budget. We have a minimal amount on reserves. And to the point as been having conversations with the budget office is until we get back to an actual programmatic approach to the budgetary process, we've got to have these difficult conversations. There's no way around it. now i do want to ask one point of clarification so now that we have this in front of us i don't see every department on here so we're saying that if a department's not on here it does not have a general fund budget allocation so like speaking about housing whatever from those perspective we're saying there's no general fund allocations in there and that's why there's no cuts present

is that my understanding i'm asking for a clarification salary only allocation there's only one expense to the general fund budget in terms of housing and it's it's it's the director's salary what i'm asking is i'm asking was every department treated

equally yeah and that's really what i'm asking what i'm understanding from that answer is that looking at the department's general fund they proposed what could be cut from the general fund and so you said building services housing building services has restricted revenue now the city attorney we did not present in here but the city attorney is a general fund expense as well

about the city manager's office it's on here it's on here and the clerk's office facility allocations on here facility like city hall expenditures yes it's included in logistics so so to clarify the understanding is builder services has no general fund allocation so no cuts were presented to builder services correct okay um Housing has general fund allocation, but no cuts were presented to that. Correct. City attorney has general fund allocation, but no cuts were presented to that. Is there anything else?

In terms of that, though, we have a .

I'm just asking for clarification. Sounds like a single item. I'm trying to understand.

For clarification, building services is funded strictly by restricted revenue, so we did not include them in this because their revenue is balanced by their budget regardless. We did not include city attorney because it's just a flat retainer that we've been doing. And we did not include housing because all personnel was included.

There are non-departmental expenses such as animal control or the St. Andrews Mardi Gras. Our contract services with the Bay County EDA, Bay County Transportation, the Martin Theater Utilities. I mean, things that we felt like we don't really have any control over those costs. But there are non-departmental expenses.

But those aren't in departments.

They are. They're in a non-departmental department.

Is there an overseer of the non-departmental? Yes. Who is the overseer of the non-departmental? I mean, it just depends on what it is. The non-director.

It's the city manager's office, right?

Pretty much. I mean, but the Martin Theater is kind of oversaw by PCR, but...

those are just kind of an ancillary actions i will add that your enterprise funds and your inner inner service funds like equipment maintenance utilities environmental science their services those are all driven by rate studies and so those were not included in here as well so to that point is there any great study projected for this year

In our budgetary process.

Rate study or rate increase?

Specifically, any changes to already what we have?

No, not this year. I think our next rate study period is next year. We'd have to do one in 2017.

I'm misunderstanding what you're asking. Are you asking is there a rate increase planned for next year, or is there a rate study proposed for next year?

The rate study. No, I think it's the problem.

I think it's 28 as well.

And if you'll remember, when we had to do the study for the additional $20 million in SRF loans, we did kind of a two-year look ahead in that rate study and actually had our rates going down a little bit, only for two years, so outside of this current rate study period.

Mayor? First, I want to apologize for being late. I thought we started at 4.30, and I was proud of myself for being early, so I apologize. Just to be clear, every department head sitting in here is not making a cut. Not everybody. Only general fund people, and that's right?

Correct. Well, that's what this is based off of.

But everybody participates in the budget. Yeah, but I don't think anybody's in here. In the total budget?

Yeah. Everybody participates in the total budget. But tonight we're just talking about general fund.

Okay. I'm having trouble with, I need Janice to cut, but not Allen and I need Jonathan to cut, but not Brian. But then we all come to work and Janice is lean and Allen's not.

The funds that you're thinking of are guided by the rate studies, which means they have a set budgetary revenue already. So that's not something that we would be looking at cutting. Those are based on the charges for services. What we're looking at is the general fund because it does have variable revenue.

Okay. But all we've done is cut out or recommended things that are high dollar but are pretty helpful. But we can start with not everybody needs a car allowance. We can get rid of that. We can get rid of having a bunch of telephones. There are things that we can start doing at the top and bringing the number down to show. And I don't know how many phones we have. I don't know how many car allowances we have. But every dollar counts when we're trying to make it up. And then we can reevaluate. And every department participates. Let's let it hurt the top first before we start taking away the thing that takes away from the masses. Let's get that into granular because these are pretty much 30,000 foot cuts to get to a $4 million. I get it. Is that possible? Make those types of cuts. Consider those. I don't know if that's too far down.

I would ask the question, is it still necessary? Is a $4.5 million cut still necessary? That's, I think, the question that needs to be asked.

Well, I think it's who is making the decision on where additional revenue should go.

Oh, yeah. No argument there. I'm just saying is that is a $4.5 million cut still necessary when they're showing us that the budget shortfall The potential budget shortfall is 2.5. So why are we adding? I mean, I realize because we asked for this back in March. And this kind of congeals into harder numbers as we approach September. And so that's where this kind of wag, I guess, is. is generated from, but we had $4.5 million that we said in March we want to see, and now they're bringing us a plan that says, you know, really we're looking at two and a half. And as we approach September, that number may even shrink. I'm all for, hey, the exercise and let's see where we can cut. That way if we do get hit because we are facing a potential vote in November that in two years could have a heavy impact to Avaloran taxes. So I'm all for this exercise, and I asked for it. But I guess my, my question still stands is, is 4.5 still the target we need to drive at?

I guess, Josh, can you speak to the process that you said proceeding forward with 4.5, but then later coming back with, okay, here's the adjustment. Yeah.

So on that schedule, we have the departments presenting to us in July at that point in time. Um, from what I understood from our conversations, they would present what needs they have. Well, some of these needs maybe don't cut this. And then we can prioritize from a commission's perspective. Hey, we see we may have more. We have updated projections. Those projections may be higher or lower. We don't know. And so and then we can make a decision on what what cuts we want to see, because in every scenario so far, there are cuts that have to be done or you have to raise taxes. That's that's the only two things. So so So if that is the reality, we know there's going to be cuts or there's going to be a need for revenue. I personally am not. looking to take this climate as a matter of fact staff shouldn't want us to because we go and raise taxes and there's a ballot measure that says get rid of property taxes what do you think people are going to vote for yeah like they're going to vote for yeah fine you just raised my taxes i want like give me my exemption i don't i don't think anybody yeah that's and i think we've been pretty clear with that i think robbie's point too is we'd like to see um

I mean, I think it's easy to present the most painful cuts to try to preserve budget. That's what I would do. I'm firing a whole bunch. But what we really don't want to see is, so if there are small changes that people can make in their department to save lots of little tiny bits of money, I mean, most of business is picking up nickels and dimes is one of my favorites. I have a question to that.

We're talking about cuts, but we're not making decisions around ideas or goals or something to work towards. So I might cut something just to cut it, but if I have a goal, I might not cut that and cut something else or do less of. We don't approach it that way.

It's not prioritization. Right. And that's why I'm saying leave the excess revenue on the side of the commission's table to be able to determine what gets funded, what gets cut, which is our job, truly.

Which is what?

Which is our job.

I thought you said ergo.

Ergo. Right. One of the things, though, I want to say, and I think this is something for all the departments to hear as well, to commissioner jews's point when we see these you know it's it's very typical in a conversation like this to go to these big symbolic cuts from the standpoint but if i know that that there are savings through additional cell phones or or additional just being able to combine purchasing with another entity and save money if i know that there's those things that communicates to me from a board member's perspective that oh like there's there's still more margin there that could be cut that's what that's communicating i don't i don't know that that's fully understood in that um but i want to at least communicate that what we're what at least i'm looking for is not necessarily the big symbolic cut as much as it is a systematic change in how we do spending that would result in larger numbers of savings across And that was why it was so important to me to ensure that every department is doing this because there is nobody that should be excluded from trying to find savings and make us more efficient. Now, I do have a question because I know what you said, but at the same time, I'm still trying to understand, and this is not a pick-on point, but I want to make sure that I'm understanding your presentation correctly. So we're saying that ASAP specifically is fully funded, not out of the general fund.

Correct.

How is that?

They're funded by CDBG, and whatever they're not able to cover at the end of the year has been taken out of the Friends of ASAP. Friends of ASAP or the benefit of ASAP money in the nonprofit.

So has that board been presented with that?

Y'all have approved that.

For this coming year?

My point would be CDBG money can be used for sidewalks.

We haven't presented a budget for CDBG. We've only been talking about general fund.

We don't have to cut the sidewalk team. We just have to shift the money to the sidewalk team.

It is a prioritization. And I hate to say it, but what I'm hearing is, so when I get a budget, I'm going to see numbers for personnel, but then you're telling me there's kind of this other account that we're going to backfill into this account. Is that my understanding?

I don't know. Personnel for what?

for just that program we just mentioned? Like programming.

What, paving?

Paving? No, CBDG.

Yeah.

Well, one of the points was if one of the cuts would be in public works would be a reduction to sidewalk team. And my point, the sidewalk team could be funded with CBG money.

So gentlemen, one thing to understand about HUD and housing and CDBG is where those pots of money come from and what the rules are to use them. And so what perhaps we should be asking for is a presentation on how those funds work and how they're funded, what rules we have to follow, so that we can intelligently make some decisions as opposed to just taking the scissors and cutting. And to your point, Mayor, sidewalks are important, but so are reducing the hazards for the children who are in school and need to do better. Can we look at all of our programs and say, hey, how can we make them more efficient in these budget times? Yes, and absolutely we should. But let's get the information and make informed decisions.

And that's my point, which is these are presented, but we also could shift money and say, okay, well, we could do this, and we could use the money here. And it is limited, but we could shift money. And so that's what I want to see between departments. And maybe it is a, with building services, they are self-funded, but they could shift some of the money. I don't know the nature of how every single budget works, but that's my point is money can be moved in a way that doesn't seem so bloodbath-esque.

Very true. It's there. And a good point to that is builder services can also fund part of facility costs of whatever they occupy. They have the ability to pay rent to specific categories of things. I don't know if that's presented in this budget. I don't know if it's not. So I think excluding things from this process is actually limiting the amount of things that you actually have. To say, OK, because there's a nonprofit and we're going to backfill those things, or to say it's because it's builder services, it's restricted funds, I don't know that we're being creative enough to try to reduce the impact to the things that people feel the most. To be fair, they had two days to work on this.

Yep.

Well, in my mind, and this is what I said on Friday, I said I thought we were really clear, so I'm trying to be extra clear. And I will be fair.

We did this exercise back in March because we were preparing when we were— Give me a swan.

No, I wanted to be fair. These were—

To this point, what has happened is on Tuesday we said emphatically and we voted. We want to see what we were told in March. And so the work that they've done since March, I'm suspecting they put a little bit of it in here, but we don't know what today's version is because we've insisted on March. And I get it. The... The thing I think we need to do is look at where we're going to be in a couple of weeks. But is there an appetite among you guys for a strategic planning session that overall guides city staff? Because now we're working on a strategic plan. That's what you do in private business, correct? You say, this is the direction we're going. Team, let's go there. What we're doing now is a disservice to our staff. because as we change our minds and as we go with our understanding, which, granted, is limited because we're policymakers, not budget managers, I would say let's plan strategy sessions particularly in light of the impending property tax. And I think it's important if we don't agree with that property tax, that we say, whether we agree with it or not, we give the citizenry what it's going to do to our city to begin to have those kinds of frank conversations. Because we've got a short-term, immediate budget to set. We've got a look at the next few years. And what is it going to look like for our city? What are our priorities? How are we going to get there?

So if we have a priorities workshop, I wonder what information we would be able to give to staff that would help them work for more surety with their budget. I don't know. We don't really set, at least in my business, priorities like that, but this is a little bit different. It very much is. So, yeah, I guess I'm curious of what, I mean, I want to be the most helpful person I can. I don't want anyone doing extra work or anything.

you know doing to be hypotheticals right to the budget so would a priorities workshop be helpful and what would be discussed and how yes we did one last year okay you're right but we didn't take those priorities and put them into play really my reason for wanting to hear from the department head there's a lot y'all do a lot of work to get this much I mean way above my pay grade And I'd like to be able to explain, not fully, to the citizen, there's a lot of work because these guys are busting their tail. And I can't do that with good faith without understanding it. And so to your point about knowing what's going on in every department, I think that is a... I don't like that idea at all. We all need to participate. It's a three-legged stool, and the lion's share of those two-thirds is done by the city staff, all of y'all, and a third by us because we have to vote on it and take the heat. But I'd like to take the heat on something that I know a little bit more about from the beginning. And to your point, Commissioner Street, I like that we're starting this early. I don't have any problem with no revenues knowledge yet because it's our expenses that we're sitting here talking about, not revenues.

Mm-hmm.

And so in my world, I budget from the ground up and then worry about what I've got to make. Samantha was very good and told me she said in government, we only get so much money, that's all you get. That's true. But it also, when it shows up, you have an immediate problem. You see your immediate problem. Wearing a snark. We're going there and then trying to figure out

And I appreciate the work from this perspective, but I know there's been things that we've all communicated from the diocese. We're like, hey, I don't know why we spend money on this. And I mean, I feel like I've said that on multiple things like multiple times, but we got presented to cut fireworks. Like, you understand what I'm saying? Like, it doesn't feel like we've got to come up with a better strategy that communicates like, hey, Sure, yeah, fireworks could go away. I mean, I don't know how the citizens are going to react to that.

We're still doing fireworks, just not the big, huge festival. Okay. Sorry, just to clarify. That's good to know.

We still love America. But I think one of the things to keep in mind is, is that each of us can say, I don't think we ought to do this, and I don't think we ought to do that. But until three out of five or four out of five, depending upon what the rule is for the vote, staff doesn't have the direction to do it. That's right.

Can you go to the next slide, please?

And hearing from them gives us that direction.

So that right there. It helps us facilitate it. I'd go back to the first one that had more than that. That's just the $2 million cut.

That's the $2 million cut right there. Yeah. So that's why I asked the question, is 4.5 still the right target? Because anywhere outside of here, we would adjust the target. on what it is we're actually aiming for. Now, I don't disagree that staff needs to have the $4 million one on the shelf, right? Just because that's good for the exercise. It's good to know where you'd rack and stack all the things that you'd offer. Because these are services. These are all services that y'all are providing to the citizens of Panama City. But there's $2 million right there. And

Brian, do reserves matter to you?

They do.

They do matter to me. So I'm saying this has no reflection of reserves in it.

Oh, understood. There's other ways to solve reserves without harming deeply the services that are provided to the citizenry. Such as? Police and fire.

No, what I'm saying is what are your other options on reserves?

Oh, we have a ton of property we could sell and boost up reserves, and I don't have a problem doing that. I do have a problem with selling property to run operations. That's a problem, right? And you said that yourself. That was a problem, and I absolutely agree with you on that. But we've got a lot of different property that we could sell that could boost up reserves if we decide that that's where it goes. And I think that we could do that.

So there's no capital expenditures in any of these budgets. Are you okay with that?

We haven't had capital expenditures in how long?

We bought a fire truck this year.

We had bought some capital through other means.

What did we buy? We did not buy a fire truck.

I'm okay with suspending capital expenditures while we're in a lean mode. Yeah, while we're in recovery mode and lean mode because we don't know what's going to happen in November.

i mean we could say oh yeah we want we want capital expenditure and then november hits and it gets voted in and we go okay we gotta cut that out so we have a we have a budget that's being presented as in balance but it has um under reserves it's not it's not that it has no capital expenditures did we fully fund all step increases and cola raises in your presented budget

This does include the step adjustments, and it includes a 2% COLA. But the CPI for May for the south region, it was 3.9. So it includes a 2% COLA.

And this isn't a budget. This is a swag. This is an educated guess.

I'm just saying, I still think the 4.5 is the number, is what I'm trying to communicate.

I think, to Josh's point, the process that he's pushing for is more of our ability to speak into the budget.

Yeah.

I absolutely support that. Yeah.

This is just revenue in, revenue out to get to zero.

And I'm fine with adding additional workshops where they present more. I'm totally up for that. Me too.

I'll tell you what I like is the next meeting we have and going forward, the staff doesn't sit there and watch us talk for three hours. I want them to participate. I need to learn from them.

Commissioner, we have it proposed for July 16th.

I would love to see us probably before that get into a room and let's talk about what's important to us and what's not important to us and I think what what that may provide is you know and in not not to pick on things but I think that there's a lot of other ways to solve things than some of the ways that we look at it I mean whether it be with sidewalks there's you know specified funding that we probably can use for that is it surtax is it whatever it is to how we handle, are 16 positions being cut in PD something I want to do? No, I don't. And so what are the things that we could partner that might create some savings between other agencies so that we don't have to cut 16 positions? I want to see that kind of dialogue is what I'm looking for. I mean, to kudos to, and I know it's super uncomfortable for Chief Collier to present closing a fire station. That is a bold move to present. But it's also evaluating what are response times and which ones do you do. and wants to keep a high level of service and we've got a station that's less than a mile from another station how much is that really increasing in that maybe it's mutual aid agreements maybe it's automatic aid agreements i don't know what comes from that but i do think that we have to be prepared that regardless of whether or not something gets voted in it doesn't get voted in inflation is going to continue to grow it's going to continue to be a challenge and you're always going to have to be tight with your budget so to think that this is just one year and it's going away we'll go back three years there was no magic solution three years ago we spent reserves and then we spent reserves again then we sold some property well guess what we are at the point where we've gone through these things and everybody's been able to get certain stuff we've gotten great estate appropriations great representation in tallahassee that's helped us get that but The reality is, the reality is, you need to have a budget that has capital expenditures in it, just like every business would. You need to have reserves that are at least on a replenishing category, and you need to be balanced. And I don't think we have to tax our people out of their house and home to do that.

Nor do we need to cut our staff salaries in order to do that. These are the folks that are providing the services to the citizenry, and they told the line with us last year.

These similar conversations are happening even in the private sector. You have restaurant owners in this town that are talking about standing up their own grease trap cleaning service and just sharing a maintenance person. Warehouse space being divided up where there's liquor storage where you can bulk buy more alcohol and store it offsite. All those very similar conversations are happening in the restaurant business because the margins are getting thinner and thinner. And so this is a natural conversation and uncomfortable. range hood cleaning, laundry. People are talking about setting up their own laundry services together so we can cut out cleaning the rugs as often we have our own facilities. So this is a natural progression when the economy's not that great.

I will get as specific as anybody wants to get specific, but the staff presented us something. And so I'm just saying, let's move forward with what they presented. And then let's continue the road of prioritization. And then in the 16th, when staff makes their presentations, we'll have updated budget numbers.

Do we have a copy of each budget in the department?

No, not yet. We will have that before we set the millage rate in the end of July.

And really, if I understand what your process is?

This is in our wheelhouse. But I'd really like a copy of that just so I can see what it is, what priorities I need to think about versus them. And I would like it well before July 16th. It's not possible. I've been asking for it since January.

We would like to present a balanced budget. I'm not worried about that. Okay, so you just want to see what everybody has requested?

Yeah, what is their expense budget?

Okay.

I mean, the revenues are the revenues. Y'all are going to get that. I can't control that, and I'm not trying to control that. I'm just trying to learn.

We're happy to provide that to you now.

We're the only ones that control the revenue.

Well, they're saying proposed coming in revenue.

Yeah. I understand what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would it be helpful to learn on what's currently going on? Because we currently have a budget we're operating on. We currently have expenses. And when we look at what's currently going on, we can see all of these different things.

Could we move forward the director's presentations earlier and have another workshop after their presentation or something? What would be a better? Not the same night. No, no. What would be more, what's a better situation that we can propose where we speak more to the budget, I'm sure the budget's better.

Can I ask a question? On the, what we want on this workshop, is that a priority and does that also mean goals? Does that mean... What are we solving for there, to come up with ideas for us and then put those in play to help staff give us ideas? What would be the purpose of that meeting?

I don't know how you, especially with public safety, what's the goal? Safety. I don't really know how to speak it. So to me, I worry that we're just going to be picking on Parks and Rec.

I think the difficulty is with our previous strategic workshops, we had capital that we needed to allocate and spend that came through grant funding. That's what ultimately was funding and prioritizing that expenditure process. what it's almost like it would be more helpful for us just to communicate hey i know you're doing this you're doing a great job doing it but really that's not a big priority like these are the five things that are most important to me you know to to to do i i don't know how to do that i've not seen that done before but i do believe zero-based budgeting is a very good way of handling um situations that are into this and that's where you just say hey you know take your big rocks we've all seen the illustration you put your big rocks in first and then you put your tiny rocks in and you know eventually you run out of space to put rocks in

Do you want to move forward with the same schedule or do you want to propose additional workshops?

We have a workshop scheduled for July 6th.

um you know we can uh i believe it's the sixth virtual we have a virtual workshop let's make it in person can you go to um slide 16 please jared commissioner granger has a question but we have to know what the you want the departments to prepare yeah so and i will just say real quick this is not an opportunity for us to tear them down it's an opportunity for in my mind

to learn more about their department, ask questions about what changes they see, how can we help? Here's what the public thinks about this. If that's our approach, I don't think we ought to do it at all.

yeah i mean i have no idea what the cost to maintain a fire truck is i never own one of those and so i can't there's only a few little items and i feel pretty ill-equipped to tell them how their budget should be right because i have no idea how those departments just want to pick on sections yeah totally that's never the goal so um but i want to be helpful as much as possible as much as i've never done any of their jobs so i i

me personally I feel like proceed forward let the departments present what it would look like with a four and a half million dollar cut and let the budget office and clerk treasurer continue to work on revenue projections and then we're gonna we're gonna coalesce at some point in time in this this process

How do you think the staff is going to handle that at the bottom end? We're talking to the directors now, and they're here with us, so they get to hear us. They get to hear all the voice inflection that we're bringing here. But how do you think this is going to, what is it, 600, roughly 600 people in the city? I'm just asking you all, what do you think that's going to be like for, you know, folks at the bottom?

Commissioner Granger, I'm glad you asked that. I mean, that's one piece of experience I do bring. I was a professor at Gulf Coast State College, which every year went through this same process. I was a literacy coach and educator with Bay District Schools, again, every year going through this same process. So those of us who work, And we don't get the meeting. We may not watch the video, but we'll hear what other people are saying.

A lot of times it ain't right. A lot of times it ain't right? Yes.

Listen to me repeating you. A lot of times it isn't right. But I'm glad you raised that point because it's very important that our staff believe that we believe We have a well-run city. Do we have things that we need to do better? Yes. And the conversations that we need to have should happen. Not all of them need to happen at the dais. but the five of us as policymakers setting the direction, once we do that, the city manager and his staff and the directors should understand that they've got a direction that they're moving in. And right now, we haven't clearly done that, particularly when we each give our own, this is what I'd like to see, this is what I'd like to see, as opposed to the collective of us going through the process of giving the direction so that they can move forward.

Yeah, the morale of the organization definitely matters a lot. In the private sector, when we get a Google review, that's one star. The whole team, we read it out to the team. We say, here's what the customer says about us. So they know. And it's not fun reading a one-star review. That feels untrue. But that's what employment is. In the private sector, you get reviewed every day. And your customers either come back or they don't come back. And so you're fighting for them.

Usually that's not kind of held over your head for months on end before a decision is made. And what I'm getting at here is using fire as a great example because there is a fire station that has been identified. Those folks that work there are... what what are we doing here you know what's happening for for the next few months you know if if we send the message that hey the the 4.5 million is the they've done that exercise already right so we kind of already know what that looks like but if we send that message that hey this is the baseline and then we're just gonna you know give you money as we see fit moving forward I think you're going to find that it's going to have a detrimental effect to morale. And I say that as somebody who spent 20 years in a very large organization where this kind of stuff spreads like wildfire. And that's rough. That's rough not knowing whether or not you're... You're going to have a job at the end of a certain time.

I literally have software companies that as you're tracking towards profitability, they're losing money and every month you're like, this might be our last move.

I imagine that those people in that company are probably making more on average than these people.

Not necessarily.

Brian, with all due respect to that, that's what happens when you budget to the hittent. when you go and you budget based upon a hundred percent of your revenue and you have no margin and you have no reserves this is the scenario that's created by that and I don't and what I've asked and I mean this is the same stuff that's going through I want to know how many of our employees are 50k and below how many are in that 50 to 100k how many are 100k plus because if I look at that number and all of a sudden I see out of our personnel expenditures 40% is 100K and more. And I've got 400 people making 50K or less. Guys, we're not balanced. And I've never seen that report before. And I don't know what the results of that report is. But that is part of this process. It is uncomfortable, but it is what happens when you go to 100% revenue and you're waiting for those property values to come in just on the edge to see if you got enough to be able to do your next step increase and to do your next COLA raise. like this is why the city historically although it didn't invest in the way that it should have budgeted on less revenue budgeted underneath the revenue that it actually collected but the last because of hurricane michael we can blame them what we blame it to but this is the results of that and so what i'm trying to communicate is the most benevolent way of saying guys There is the fix to this is to get better at your expenses. I don't want to see it happen in personnel. I'd much rather see it in duplicate cell phones and all sorts of other frou-frou stuff that may be sitting around. So the team has got time to change even what they're presenting.

And to your point about the spectrum of salaries, I think that is useful to know, to understand the magnitude of our...

I know we're lethal, and it's not in the 100K plus category. No, no.

We're in anonymity. That's true. So a question I have for staff. Unfund 23 for the general fund considerations vacant positions. The 16 police and 17 fire add up to 23. So are they unfunded now?

that's separate scenario so these are ideas that we um what slide numbers come up with eight so if if i could real quick when when you're on this slide that that starts with police and fire this the exercise that's happening department by department was done a few months ago What we tried to do in this presentation is show you some high level impacts. So when you're at this general funds consideration slide earlier on in the presentation, this was done like between yesterday and today. Okay. So the unfund 23 does not include the fire and police numbers that you're looking at. I think it's a coincidence. It is a coincidence.

But it would be useful to know how many vacant by department.

I would like to just add, and that's to your point, Just unfunding vacant positions is, in my mind, unfair to the departments because right now it's just what positions happen to be vacant across the departments. Some have none. Some have more than others. So when we went through the exercise of the $4.5 million and proportionately allocated that amongst the general fund departments and gave the departments a number that if we had to cut this much, please tell us. where you would cut it from. That was letting those departments tell us if they have a vacant position, if they would choose to unfund it or not, because they may choose to do something different. But we wanted to throw it out there, too, that we do have 23 vacant positions. Back in 2009, we had, I think, 20 vacant positions then, and we did the same thing. We froze them in unfund positions. But it's not fair because... It's just who has the vacant positions as of a certain day.

But to that point of not being fair, only having the general fund departments cut and not the others, that's not fair either. Everybody needs to cut. Every department needs to play ball, not necessarily in this, but across the board.

We do need to cut. Like the utilities fund has to cut as well, but that's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about the general fund.

i mean the the utilities fund only has limited revenue as well and the reason why the utility funds in the spot where has limited revenue is because we've been shifting positions we've been shifting things over to the utilities fund over the last few years so if we want to get into the actual details of how we got here we can but there is no way around this other than having difficult conversations and I wish there was. I want our team to know we care about you. Positions is going to be the last thing that we're going to try to tackle. I think all of us would be in that. But you cannot grow your tax base at the rate of what we have with the amount of expenses and bring facilities online. We have a whole other million dollar expense that we didn't have a year before last that we got to absorb. When the Martin Theater's done, there's going to be costs that are associated with that. We have to budget with everything in mind. And so, anyway, I don't know, I wish that there was a better way to do it. And I think I've tried to handle it as much as I can behind the scenes in private conversations. but it comes down to it we're a public board we're in a public process and we have to talk about people and we have to talk about pay and we have to talk about budgets and it's not fun and i don't like it but it is it is the nature of government yes sir yeah thank you clint murphy director of public works um one thing to keep in mind in this discussion is we actually benchmark these numbers against fy26

So the 4.5 or the 2.5 currently, the deficit we're looking at or shortfall is really based on older numbers. Fuel's gone up, asphalt's gone up, concrete's gone up. So those numbers is actually a bigger shortfall than what we're looking at because those are FY26 and haven't taken into account the inflation. But I'm really glad the discussion kind of ended up on employee morale. That's really what I wanted to speak to. Cutting 23 unfunded positions is really bad. It's bad for the operation. It's bad for our level of service. I know what Chief Smith's guys are probably going to be doing tonight. They're probably going to be online looking at other opportunities. I would. I'm guessing Chief Collier's team, when they're hearing we might shut down a station, are doing the same thing. remember our a lot of our staff is not on a very high pay scale compared to other cities we're kind of lowering the spectrum right now we're taking a real close look at that there's other opportunities for these folks to go do and i guarantee you these cameras are rolling behind me and they're going to be looking So I really appreciate you being sensitive to employee morale, because I think it's a huge, huge issue for us, especially since we didn't do COLA last year. And that even worsened our comparison with other cities. So you mentioned 4.5 as being a bloodbath. That was your terms. I agree. And I think we need to stay away from that. I think the discussion with the revenues that we've discovered are not new revenues they were built into our current rates so it's not like these are new numbers it's just updated so i think the real discussion right now should be 2.5 and with that we wouldn't have to get lay people off or it would be very few people so i appreciate you being sensitive to the morale issues because it's a big deal for us thank you i think to clint's point but

cutting positions. Is that what I'm reading right? They're vacant.

Yeah, they're vacant. We would unfund the vacancies.

So there is no option right now that's been presented other than increasing taxes that would balance the budget other than eliminating unfunded positions.

Eliminating currently funded but vacant positions. That wouldn't result in a layoff. It would just be that positions no longer available for hire.

Which would still have an impact on service.

So what I guess I'm trying to say is what Clint's saying is is is very true on morale but even in this option that we're talking about in the lesser piece there are positions that are no longer going to be and what you guys presented to us correct but they're currently vacant is what we're trying to say yeah I understand good evening I'm Chief Mark Smith Panama City Police Department

The budget cuts that I have presented of losing 16 people will set us back 30 years in the police department. 30 years ago, Panama City was half the size that it currently is. You have increased the size going north because we have so much more property north than there is in greater Panama City. Guess what? We're not policing that on a regular basis. because I don't have the staff to put officers up there on a regular basis. And you just increased it by another 1200 acres. And as that builds out, it requires law enforcement services, it requires fire services, but you're not providing me the ability to do that. I have police cars that are 11 years old. that should be on a five-year cycle. Everything that in the police department is basically done in contractual services or lifespan services, meaning that most of it's on five years. Every five years, we have to replace officers' vests, we have to replace computers, we have to replace everything pretty much that deals with their safety equipment. And you are hamstringing us in being able to make sure that our officers are safe. Not allowing them to be safe doesn't provide them the opportunity to be able to effectively go out there and do their job and provide the services to the community. We have become the second or the next to the lowest paid police department in this area. Panama City, for years, we've been the premier. We have been running on full. Everybody else has vacancies and is looking for people. We have managed to fill up. But what you're asking me to do is to do away with being full and trying to provide the services. I'm providing services now with the same amount of officers that I had in 2006, or this department had in 2006. I can't continue providing the same quality of service, the safety to the officers, and yes, morale, why wouldn't they leave? If you're not going to guarantee their positions and their opportunity to work here and be safe, why wouldn't they leave? They can go to any other law enforcement agency in this county with the exception of one and make more money. They can go to the state. They can go just outside the county. They can make more money. We look today at 17 other agencies in this area. 16 of them pay higher than we do. There is another option. There is, sir. You have not and you will not, for whatever reason, consider raising any taxes or applying any assessments. Y'all are not wanting to discuss that. You keep openly saying in commission it's not open for discussion. It should be. I don't know how you expect for the police and fire to protect the roughly 40,000 that live here and the 125,000 that come here on a daily basis. I think there's more that needs to be looked at here.

So Chief, let me ask you a question. The 125 that you say comes here, is that somebody just driving from Fountain to the beach and you're counting that as part of the 125 driving through town?

So there's roughly 280,000 people that live in this county.

We're having about... Where did you get the 80 from on top of the 200? I thought it was about 200.

In speaking with the other law enforcement agencies, speaking with the sheriff's department, what are they looking at and what do they figure that they're policing? They're giving me that number, sir. Okay. So when you look at what we have that count tag numbers coming into the city, That is the number that we're seeing that comes in here. They come here to do business. They come here to go to work, go to school, go to the hospital, bank, doctor's church. They come here. They don't maybe live here, but they come here every day. With that, they bring their traffic. They bring the people. They bring the amount of cars, amount of accidents. For our agency right now with 101 officers, we're going to answer right at 100,000 calls for service this year. And on top of that, we'll handle probably about 30,000 traffic situations. And when I say traffic, I mean anything that could be from vehicles disabled, traffic accidents, traffic stops, all of that. We'll have an additional about 30,000 of that. The numbers are there. The numbers are high. But everything else has gone up. Everything that I do in my personal life has gone up. If you told me that you were going to put some type of assessment tax to my utility, and I do live in Panama City. I do pay Panama City taxes. But if you told me that you were going to assess me some type of utility fee, fire fee, whatever it may be, And you said, oh, I'm sorry, you know, but your taxes are going to go up and they're going to have to go up $100 a year, $200 a year. I'm not going to be concerned about that because I'm going to look and say, oh, well, you're going to kick me up $8 a month, $15 a month. Big deal. That's not a lot of money. But when you look at it across the board, it is a lot of money for the city to pull in. It would make the difference. It makes a difference when you especially start looking at that it could be just a 2.5% gap. There was a period of time when I wasn't in law enforcement and I was in business. My business was hyper-successful because we looked at how to run it. And we suddenly found that in order to be successful, you had to spend money. You had to spend money to be able to make money, to do the job faster, to do the job safer, and make the customer happy and make the customer want to stay with you and come back with you.

I would argue this city does not have a problem spending money. We got that still set down.

I would say, too, one thing if I could say, we didn't present this. This came from your department. This came from every department that's here.

Correct, sir, but I don't have a choice when I'm looking at contractual obligations and safety obligations. I can't cut that. I can't tell my officers, take off your body vest. I can't tell my officers, put down your body cams. Understood, Chief.

But part of this conversation and dialogue is, do we need to be doing mutual aid across the whole state? Do we need to have every single toy and trinket to deploy everywhere? Do we need to be responding to everything out on the beach? Do we need to evaluate the other things our officers are involved in that do not involve Panama City specifically? So while you're presenting what you're presenting, there are other alternatives for us to discuss. The chief, your other counterpart, uses dispatch that belongs to the county. We have the opportunity possibly to unify. Other chiefs across the county are looking at doing the same thing. This option that's here was presented by internal department staff, not the commission. So I want to make sure that's very specific and understood. The commission has not presented this option. We have not said we want 16 staff gone. This was done through you guys' internal process of where you felt the most this would be the least impactful to your team your budget and the city was this option if there are other options i'm happy to entertain them this was not the plan i came up with or anyone here this came from your department and adding the the same folks that are on the lower tier of the pay scale are the renters and you and i make good money we have great watches and

Nice clothes and nice cars. To a renter, $100 is the difference in them making their rent or not. I mean, that's my line cook's history class. You know, they're the $100 that affects their lives. And so $100 to you and I, no big deal. I go to dinner and spend $200. But to those folks, $100 on a renter, that changes their life. And so, you know, we have apprehension of losing personnel, but I have apprehension about the cost of living going up on the same people. And I, you know, in life you have to make decisions that are best for your family and I want the best pay here and the best equipment and I want the cost of living to be low too. And so it's tough. I tell my own employees, if you can, my own businesses, if there's a better opportunity somewhere else then make the right decision for your family. I want you here. I think we do great meaningful work and this is the best town in this entire state. We have the best state in the entire country. But do what's best for your family too at the same time. And we're trying to protect renters and all these people. So standing up a stormwater assessments and more fire people are going to lose their minds. And for sure, next year, we'll be talking about a 25% cut on the ad valorem. And it's going to be worse than this. So you say stand up more assessments and for sure that is going to pass in November and it's going to be worse next year.

To the point of saying that yes, your personnel would roll back in this presentation to 2009, your budget is still probably twice what it was in 2009. So the question comes to what is costing more? And yes, there are things that cost more. Gas, some of the stuff that Clint just listed. you guys have to look at your budget from the perspective of it's a zero-based budget how do you prioritize to get safety security and the things that are most important to the city specifically not what's going on in south florida not what's going on at panama city beach the city specifically how to prioritize that i believe you guys can i know you care i know you care chief i know every single department here does you guys fight for your team even right now you're fighting for your team completely understand it But the idea that we're going to just raise taxes to solve this issue is just not like it's not something I'm willing to consider. And I hate to say it. I think it would actually be detrimental to the team because I think it would just ultimately end up in more exemptions getting passed and less and more hamstrings from the state as well. And and how the tax dollars are spent here locally.

real quick chief real quick to my point earlier you've created a budget and have already been asked to cut it without even talk having a conversation up here that's my point we're not we are not all on the same page and so today And a long ways from being on the same and get it and there's no way to get there when we don't have open discussions about I need to know what your budget is and then not show up here with Oh, yeah, you were asked to cut 16 people. Why? Let's talk about why we're what is your real number? We don't know what the revenue is. So you were asked to do something on an assumption in the maybe that's not really fair. To use your point. Let's get real numbers. You can't make decisions on assumptions. I help people spend a lot of money every day. I've got a good skill set at that. And we do it through making on real numbers with real bottom lines. And that's what we've got to get to. That's the only way we're ever going to get to the same page.

Or close. We couldn't millage our way, just like history class. If I came to history class and said, guys, what do you guys want to make? The sandwich would cost $47,000. And a beer would cost $2 million. That's right. And we have the same battles with staff at every level of every organization, and everybody wants more budget, and we're in this situation, and we can't speak into your budget. I would say look to other cities, have those conversations. We don't want to cut personnel. We want the best equipment, but next year is going to be worse is my prediction for everyone across the state.

So to address a couple things that you brought up, Mr. Street, going to Panama City Beach, Panama City Beach pays for that service. They pay for the officer to come out there. That does not come out of the city's, that doesn't come out of my budget. They pay for that. They pay for the officer. They pay for the car. us going and helping another law enforcement agency that has been damaged by a hurricane, we get fully reimbursed for the personnel cost as well as for all the equipment that we take, which allows us to make money, pay it back to the personnel so it goes back into the budget, but then the police department has the opportunity to receive some funds from FEMA for the use of the equipment that provides us the opportunity to buy more equipment to be able to use in amongst through the police department. So it doesn't cost us anything. We don't lose money. The equipment that you're referring to that I'm in possession of for deployment is for the deployment to help other agencies because we know what it's like.

I agree with you. I understand.

But yet you said that that's a problem, that I shouldn't be doing that.

I'm just saying what was presented was 16 staff reductions. Before I would do 16 staff reduction, I would be looking at every other option. That's what I'm trying to say.

Most of their costs though, I think what chief is trying to say, and it's the same for fire, I know, but most of their operating costs are fixed costs. Um, contract contractual costs that they have for bulletproof vest and Motorola communications and, you know, things that if they, um, tried to get rid of it, they'd still have to pay that debt service on or pay for. So those are fixed costs. They were left with no option, but to present.

staff reductions because we asked them to cut so how i would solve that issue which has been something encountered before in business where there's some debt obligation that's actually creating an inflated and less than flexibility because debt is ultimately a legacy cost is we should be looking at options to terminate the debt early that could be through property sales that could be through something else so that you can create margin in their budget so they don't have to cut 16 positions What I'm hearing right now, there are other options than 16 staff reductions in police. And you better be darn well sure if you're going to present this, there better not be a single other rock unturned. before we get to cutting staff positions. And what I'm hearing right now is there are alternative options. So what I would like to see is everybody go back to the table and don't present me with cutting officers. Cut stuff that find another way is what I'm trying to say. And that's stuff that you guys have to do.

We can't do that for you. So one of the things also is if you go back and look back about two and a half years ago, our vehicle maintenance cost us around $225,000 to run this year because the vehicles in my fleet are all out of warranty. They're all aging out. And they're costing me like $3,000 and $4,000 every time they go to the shop at the city yard to get repaired. So our maintenance already has been over $400,000 this year because I haven't been able to get the money to get the new cars in.

Do we buy or lease cars?

Great example, Chief. Do we buy or lease them? We lease because we can't get the money to buy cars. That's a perfect example. Why does the Sheriff's Office car vehicles need to be different than the PD cars? Can we not combine the purchasing and get a bulk rate purchase to reduce the cost?

It's through state purchasing.

Even if I lease it, it's still through state purchasing.

I still get the same price. Okay.

But again, that goes back to what I was saying about the budget is we don't have any capital costs in the budget. There's no capital. There's no capital purchases.

Maybe not budgeted, but we've still been creative in finding ways to get what we need for our teams. I mean, we're applying for grants. all the time and like the chief said they've been able to acquire some things through these deployment reimbursements or forfeiture costs we've been creative i think even the asphalt zipper we got creative last year on being able to purchase that so or the paving program with cra dollars and cdbg dollars so We haven't not purchased any capital in two years.

Why would that not work this year? Is there a reason why that wouldn't work for this year?

What?

Doing the same process that we've done before. That's what we were.

That's what we were planning on doing.

And the plan was served.

So is the vehicle an issue or is it not an issue in this year's budget?

As long as we fully implement Red Speed and we can use that revenue for public safety, I think we could purchase fire and police vehicles with some of that revenue.

You guys understand, this is not just about us up here. This is about educating our public as far as from what things are doing what. And when you put up here and say 16 positions getting cut, we've got this vehicle problem, but then you have other ways of solving these issues. Like i don't know what we're doing here it's almost like we're in brinksmanship almost like we're like negotiating from the worst possible scenario that's not good for anybody and if we want to talk about what affects holy morale the most it's that so if there's creative ways to red speed through late night hour ordinances like i don't understand why we're not seeing those like in the pro in the proposal and we're seeing the worst thing that could possibly happen which is cutting staff

Commissioner, I think we're seeing what we're seeing because we asked for it. We asked for $4.5 million in cuts.

We didn't say it, but prioritize staff cuts. Yeah, I did not say prioritize. I said that should be the last result, and what I'm hearing right now is there are other alternatives that haven't been presented. I'm trying to stay calm in the conversation, but I'm a little upset.

Well, I didn't finish my statement. So now we got what we asked for. We want it different. Let's have a session where we are able to talk about not just bring me the cuts. We're learning stuff about how the budget is formed and what goes on in this session. And it is tense. And it is bordering on argumentative, although we are real, trying to be very professional. But it's touchy and it's sensitive.

there's a way to talk about this without getting to that point yeah well and it's it's not like we recommended staff cuts we received this an hour ago yeah i mean we don't we've made that clear our goal is not to cut staff so yes sir sean self logistics director um just want to mention a few things because i think it's really important logistics didn't cut the most we cut 460 000 um but we were we were glad to try and do that to meet the goals of what the city's trying to do Um, but this is not a one-time thing. This is not something I think there's a misconception that staff doesn't dig deep. And I just want to mention a few things to you. The things you're talking about with phones, we already do it. It audits them every single month. If we can turn one off, we turn them off. We have actually expanded to turning off desk phones. If you have a cell phone. It's not a hundred bucks a month for each one, but it's something. And so that's the things we're looking at. Um, I've got April Miller up in the office and logistics. She goes through every electric bill for the city and it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. And all she's looking for is tax. tax or is this not our bill? And she does it every month. Okay. And so we don't find a million bucks there, but we find money and that's just normal processes that we do. One of the things that Cody does in it as well as every year with software, you guys know, especially everybody asked for 10% more. we don't say yes right up front we're haggling as much as we can we get them down three to five percent there's still an increase so that's where we run into that problem but not the increase that we would have had so there's there's some due diligence with that i would say over the last two years my particular department has had five positions unfilled what we did with those is exactly what you're already talking about we took two positions put them together and made one And so staff has already taken on extra as much as they possibly can. So we're not getting to this point without doing those things that you're exactly talking about. I think one of the things we run into, though, is the only people that can have spending authority in the city is in this room. It is not our staff. They don't make the decisions on what we're spending. They don't approve it at a commission level or at our level. So they're carrying out what we're asking them to do. And so sometimes I think the frustration gets there with why are we spending that money on something? And there are times that we run into that. There are also times where I know we talked about reserves. We've brought property sales and specifically put in the AIG. This would go to reserves and just it didn't. nothing came of it so we're trying to address the things you guys are talking about but we need some help on your side too and so we'll give you as many solutions as we possibly can but we need to meet in the middle somewhere to to be able to do all the things we want to do and at the same time protect our staff and not just to protect our staff but to make sure our staff can protect our city and so every group's feeling that i don't think anybody wants to lay anybody off that is not the goal and i don't think that's where we started I think that's where we feel like we ended up.

So, Sean, I see you have their limited after-hours meeting support available. Off the top of your head, and if you don't know, it's fine to say it, how much does a workshop cost?

We have to hire security. Say, for example, right now, we have security upstairs. They're monitoring the doors because the public is invited. So we want to make sure no one's drifting throughout City Hall and those kind of things. So you're looking at least $200 or $300 depending on how long it's going for that. We also have additional staff that comes in and runs the clock on Saturday or tonight. Cody's doing it tonight for us, and he's salary. So thank you. He's doing it. I'm sorry.

Why do we have to hire security? We've got cops.

Cops down here to protect you guys.

Security is to protect the building. We can put it up. We can get another one. Can't we upstairs?

It's still going to have a cost, but we can, we can do anything. And that removes somebody off their shift. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a logistics issue there.

Yeah. And, and the other part of that is, um, you know, I think the difference that we run into is, you know, we, we've always had meetings. Don't get me wrong. We've always had some after hours meetings, but they have exponentially increased in the last couple of years. And I understand why you guys are doing it. You want to be open to the public. You want to do that, but there is a cost involved with that. And so, um, you know, Donald, same thing, it support here. Don't mind doing it, but there is a cost. So when you see IT's cost go up, which it didn't, we actually reduced it, but our cost did go up similar to what was said previously.

So that kind of goes into a topic that I was hoping to bring up tonight, which is we ask a lot of just, and I have no idea what y'all are asking, so there's four of y'all, there's one of me, right? Mm-hmm. And so I know I ask for stuff, and I reach out and say, hey, can you get me this, or hey, can you get me that, or hey, let's whiteboard this type thing or what have you. And I'm sure you all do the same thing, right? But from the dais, we do that too. We do that a lot where we just put new stuff, new stuff all the time. and i think there's there's a dollar value assigned to that i have no idea how much it is there's dollar value assigned to that anything that's new um and we probably need to kind of self-reflect on that and think okay is this absolutely necessary in order to move forward and i know we've had that conversation um previously we touched on it just a little bit which was um staff was running all kind of different directions and finally it was just kind of like hey don't do that unless the commission as a whole tells you to do it right so there's a certain threshold there where you're going to do stuff for each each of us as individuals you know because we're asking questions and we kind of want to know stuff maybe there's a little bit of research but maybe that threshold needs to be bumped up a little bit higher i don't know But I do know that we are contributing to some degree of expenditure, if that makes sense, outside of our city commissioner budget that we have.

And I would submit to you, without having a goals or priority session, it won't change. If we all are on the same page, asking for the same thing, they work less. You brought up a point, and I hadn't thought about it. I really like having these virtual meetings in the town halls. Never occurred to me that we're helping the cost fill up, okay? So I apologize for that, for not occurring to me. But you brought up the lot sale, College Avenue. My problem is, it just shows off on the agenda. You have a thought, okay, good one, but we don't know about that. We don't know what the purpose is, and now we're asked to vote on something, but it shows up at the same time where we're having this big conversation about real estate, and I'm getting ready to present something, and now it's like, whoa, wait a minute. So to me, I think... If we had a plan for the lot sales, now exactly, we know exactly how that's going to affect you. And all of us getting together and having these types of conversations, guys, they can be very productive. They really can.

And again, I'm not proposing we sell 234 properties. I think there's enough to do housing, there's enough to do incentives, there's enough to do some sales.

I'm glad you mentioned that number, 234. Is that every lot the city owns, the lift station, or is that...

No, there's even more than that.

Okay, so 234 can be disposed of.

I don't know that all 234 are commercially viable. I'd like us to get to a real number. I think you're more around 160 that might be commercially viable.

Let's get to a real number so that we can.

I think to Commissioner Granger's point, there is a similar frustration that exists when we get surprised by things that we ask questions who who who's driving this and then we find out it's just some internal initiative of some sort that like somebody thought it was a good idea and and you guys have ideas just like we have ideas and so we want to support your ideas and we hope that you guys support our ideas as well So I think it kind of goes both ways in that regard. And so I do believe that the most defined answer that could come from this is being very specific with what our prioritizations are. What is reflected in this $4.5 million reduction is not what I felt like I was communicating from the standpoint of staff positions should be last. When I'm saying that, that means every other alternative has been explored before we get to that point in time. And I've rejected every other idea that you have before we get to laying off staff. When we present it as the first option that I see tonight, what that feels like is it does feel like it's brinkmanship. It's like, let me present the worst thing so that I can really show how bad it is. And I'm not saying that's exactly what's happened, but what i would say is i think one commission needs to be clearer on what we would like to see and what our priorities are but i would also say that i think that what is presented here needs to go back to the drawing board and there needs to be other things on here other than staff cuts

And Commissioner Brandy, if I end up speaking for you, please correct me. And certainly Jonathan, it was not our intent for that to come off that way. I think what our department heads did, they took a real and honest look of what these reductions would be. based on their 2026 fiscal year budgets our revenues and Realizing that there wasn't for the most part and it seemed like there was consensus. I mean there's some disagreement, but We're not raising revenue. We're not taking the merchant cap You know, we don't we don't want to be at risk for for a potential negative political fallout with a constitutional amendment and they said well outside of my contractual obligations outside of debt and outside of all these other obligations we have, where's the meat on the bone? And I think that's how the exercise was approached. I don't think anybody in this room wants staff cuts. Whether it's an open position now, that's going to, because I know we've got very small teams in some of these shops, and they're going to look and go, great, that position that I needed help with to get this list done that my boss, the city manager, and y'all and our citizens expect to get done, That's going to take longer because I don't have the tools to be successful on it. So I don't think anybody here, if we had the magic wand to do it, would propose staff cuts.

But at the same time, the theme is lack of services, cut education, you're going to lose all these big things that are buzzwords. But nobody's looking inside where you... I don't know if you can sell a truck. I don't know if you need any... I don't know what we can do. But it doesn't have to be around not getting educated, cutting computer programs that help us, and focusing on level of service. There's a lot of other things I think we can...

Already brought some of them up. So I can, I can speak to some of that. So, so like, as far as tuition reimbursement, we're still continuing those programs. Those are essential for some personnel to promote up within their respective departments. Um, there, there are some things that, that are new in the last few years that, that we're looking at, like the CDL training, like we've done it in the past. We, we do it when, when we need to, but you know, at some point we may have to forego some of that.

What's our travel budget with the city? Um, we, we live like Kings and Queens, all these things. We don't have to do that.

Well, and I agree. So, you know, being on this side of the oath is unusual because we don't have any authority in their departments. We're not going there. We can't direct them. And so, so much of when we... I'm at Publix. I'm at Grocery Alley. And a citizen says, hey, why'd you vote for that? And you say, well, staff told me this. And they're like, well, have you seen them in this other city? They do this. And you're like... Staff says they can't do that. And that's literally the conversation. And so for me, I'm often, in all of this, we just kind of throw these silly ideas where we're like, someone told us that another city does this thing, and we really rely on you guys to find the most, to search the dang country, finding innovative ways that people are reducing their costs, unless you want us to do that for you. And I don't really want to do that. And I don't really know what to do. So otherwise, we just suggest... Maybe the truck should have Dr. Peppers in there. I don't know.

But part of that, Mayor, is that what cities have done to reduce may not work here. Apples and oranges and so forth. In the meantime, we've got them all working on the budget.

Here's what 42 cities did, and this doesn't work for us, or it does work, or we say, no, we think that should work for us. But we're so blind up here to what they can do. and they're handcuffed because we control their budget, and I don't have a response on why an idea is rejected and another city does it and seems to be successful with it. And so maybe that's the workshop we're talking about, which is go find innovation in ways that other cities and counties are doing it. Come back to us if it doesn't work for us. I at least have a response when someone says, well, this other city does this thing, and you're like, I don't know. I at least can explain why we are spending tax dollars certain ways.

And just to make a note here too, and I, and I can't speak for every department, I don't run every department, but I can tell you, I feel pretty confident in that in our particular department. The reason why I read those things off is not to brag about it. It's that, or we are doing those things. We have our insurance, um, our risk manager in our group has actually partnered with our insurance company on their insurance consultant. to find ways not to submit claims to the insurance company. Twofold, because we don't want the experience rating to make our insurance go back up. The other half is, if we can solve it ourselves, we'd like to do that. You guys, unfortunately, get pulled into some of those, I know. But I can tell you, over the course of the last year, one person saved us $370,000 in claims. um and did it in a professional fair manner to people and that's because we have learned from other groups and we were we were doing that so i i would be wary to say that i think a lot of groups do a lot of those things now you guys saved a million dollars one year we did we did like

I have no concerns about you guys' ability to get in the granular level and find savings for the city. It is not that. What I do have concerns with, what is presented, is the top line is staff. And we've got to come up with better reasons. And I said this last meeting. I'll say it again. If you are duplicating a service that can be offered elsewhere, you better have a darn good reason on why you're the one delivering it that is the reason why, because ultimately it's affecting every one of your colleagues, it's affecting everyone in the city, it's affecting every taxpayer, and it's affecting every organization across the county.

Would you expand on that? Because duplication of services, in my mind,

has it uh i'd like to understand what you're saying i mean we just used the randler one that we're talking about the very beginning we're offering after school care there's others that offer after school like like we're paying to offer something that somebody else could do that is one one of those one of those items we could go down a list of other things dispatch the thing that chief was just talking about fire uses unified dispatch pd doesn't And so there are good reasons for that. Jared and I had a lot of conversations on why that is. But I'm saying when we're making decisions, when I'm looking at duplicate effort versus eliminating 16 police officers, come on. I mean, we should prioritize way better than that.

So duplication of services in my world is the need met. If we have a need of 3,000X and we have four agencies, organizations, businesses only serving 1,000X, there's a 2,000X gap not being met. So is that duplication of services if a municipality offers that as well to those who don't fit the other four that are being there? So duplication of services isn't just do we have five of X, it's what are their who are they serving and how are they meeting the greater need? And to your point, the community services division stood up ASAP with the police department because there was a need. Let's look at whether that need is still there. Let's go from it that way as opposed to just saying it's got to go because it's duplicative.

Well, what I'm looking at just from a perspective of if I've got officers versus some other program, the big rocks are public safety. And hopefully our public safety people understand that. You are a massive rock. In the midst of this and so that should make others very Concerned as far as from the standpoint of where you would go first at least from my priority from prioritization So I do think it's important for us prioritize. What is the primary function of government? Protecting people and property is in my opinion the number one priority for government So let's start with the big rocks and then let's keep going from there but what I what I'm What I didn't see in this, which is fine, I mean this is the first swag at a presentation that we saw just now, is let's get more creative than what is currently presented. Because I do think that there are other options than what have been presented today.

Is there a top five or top ten of services that we would consider duplicative? I'll ask, like 9-1-1. We have 9-1-1 with the county guys. Do we need that? That's a conversation. I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't mean it's good or bad. I just, I don't know. That's what I'm talking about. Are there those services that I don't know of or... I think that's the point. None of us know.

And can we survive without it? Sure. And I think that's the conversation we're wanting to have, which is spot the services and then put it on us, right? And if we don't know, we don't know. And it's not fair for us to be, like, rambling off things that we... And it makes us look back, why are you picking on this department?

You know, we just don't know. He thought we didn't like him because the first two meetings was 1.9 million... Fire truck.

2.2. It's up to 2.6 now, by the way.

Knowing why, it shows up. Now, I think I'd probably still be there even a year in, but because I don't know. That's my issue is that we are asked to make some really big decisions, like a $153 million budget, and it gets baked in. And then, all right, guys, thank you. That's hard for me to do. And so, but I'm sorry, have at it.

David Collier, Fire Chief. To answer your question about dispatch, yes, we used to be with Panama City PD. Years ago, we made an agreement with Bay County. We moved to their dispatch. The reason why you're not seeing our PD do that is a couple different reasons. And, Mark, if I miss anything, please let me know.

Yes, sir.

But for Bay County dispatch for fire and EMS versus the sheriff's office, they are out of room. They cannot take on any additional staff to run any additional services. The county runs almost 300,000 calls in dispatch a year through fire EMS side. That's not including the sheriff's office dispatch. Several other of the municipalities have their own incorporated dispatch because the county just simply can't handle it. There's not the infrastructure, there's not the personnel for it. So yeah, some of those agencies have a cost. The other important part that most people don't know is, uh, Panama city PD is the backup PSAP for the county. So when the sheriff's office goes down for communications, our PD picks it up and we have to have that redundancy for emergency situations. They have to be there. So talking about getting through.

Why not Panama City Beach? Why not Callaway? Why not all of us together be the metro? Why does it have to be us? We're all in the county.

And have we offered to build them one?

We share the cost.

We are all in the county, but every agency pays into the radio system. Our agency, his agency, all the local agencies that are on the 800 megahertz system, we pay a quarterly fee to the county for maintenance. We pay for that.

But we're not in it because it's full. No, no, no.

That's just to use the system. We are not paying for it specifically for dispatch because we entered into an agreement with the county to utilize our station six, which is not being manned up in Panama City North. In that agreement, it's only for 25 years and that's coming up soon. So we'll have to have that discussion again as well.

We can have a DNX session conversation. Okay.

To Robbie's point, I'm willing to entertain that option as well. I think that's the piece that I want to make sure that it's clearly communicated. We have to solve this together. Every idea coming to the table that, at least I just said tonight, there's a reason why we don't do it. I understand that. Well, I'm not okay with cutting 16 positions. So where does that leave us? And I'm not okay raising taxes. So there's a point that we have to work at this together to problem solve this. And I don't know where that ends up. And that's not trying to be competitive. It's trying to be like, guys, if you're telling me Panama City North is a drain on your budget and we're not able to fund it and we're not things like that, well, then we need to have a conversation about just do we just de-annex it? Because that is the reality that we're in, and we're moving into an environment that is becoming even more combative to local government.

Are we paying the county at all for policing and fire up there? Do we rent them at all? No.

So for us specifically, I can't speak for PD. We have mutual aid agreement with every single agency in the county, and then we also have an automatic aid agreement with Bay County. So Bay County does assist us with response to Panama City North. There is no cost, no fees associated with that.

So, and that touches on, so we have property tax revenue coming from a part of Panama City. We're not even paying for the public safety there, yet we still don't have money. And so that's the kind of people say, well, you got all this land up there, you get all these houses from it, and you get the property taxes, but you're not paying the public safety there. Where does that work? I know, I know.

that was a mistake two commissions ago that they didn't require those developers to put in uh pay into police fire all of that that should have been a requirement no and i know we've had the discussion about automatic aid agreements i know for our agency specifically i've reached out to all the area fire chiefs they have zero appetite in providing us with automatic aid assistance they just don't they have their own issues they have their own coverage areas they have their own financial constraints So outside of the mutual aid agreements, we're not going to receive any additional assistance with coverage.

I would say their commission might.

Yeah, and I think that's what we're getting from other elected officials across the county, is we're all looking at this from the perspective of how do we help our teams solve this together? And points that may have been in the past of saying, I'm not going to do this, I'm going to do this, we want to just take care of this. Maybe it's a situation where we all pull together and we... we all share in the savings that come from trying to do it together this is not we can't talk to each other about these things but we can talk to every other elected official that's in bay county i can tell you this there is nobody from the county to every single municipality and the smaller that you get the the worse that it is because property taxes we are in a very unique advantage from the standpoint of we have a merchant fee Lynn Haven, Springfield, Callaway, Parker. We can go down the list of people that don't. The only person that's sitting really pretty right now is the beach because they don't have any property taxes, so they don't have to consider anything. Giant CRA. Yes, and they have a giant CRA.

But that will be impacted by the proper Avalor.

It's $20 million for Bay County, $20-plus-something million just in the first year. That's huge. So I think where you guys are having conversations at the staff level, and I know you guys all have really great relationships, probably what you're seeing here, we're on the forefront of what's coming because we're willing to engage in the conversation early with you guys versus just be reactionary to what's coming.

What is the number for Panama City? 2.8 on top of this one. No, no, no. I'm sorry. The proposed property tax...

The proposed property tax implications for City of Panama City from the property appraiser, the first phase of that would be the $150,000 exemption would be about $2.5 million. And then the following year, if approved, for the $250,000 level would be 1.3. The county is 18.3 the first year and 11.2.

So even if we didn't do 4.5, we did the $2 million cut or 2.5 million. We're going to be right back in this end conversation next year. So I told Jonathan today, the public needs to know how bad this is going to be if you vote.

Guys, this is us trying to help. I know it feels like it's very competitive, and it's like that thing, but this is actually your commission trying to help.

Because they're going to vote on it, and then next year they're going to be like, wait, what happened? And you're like, well, the property taxes.

And that was my point at the meeting when we had the grant matching from the police department. You know, those kinds of things, should this proposal happen, come to fruition where property taxes are cut and cut again, we are looking at big cuts, public safety, and so forth.

And the state may say, congratulations, you have a merchant fee. We're going to give you less money.

Has that been proposed, or is that a hypothetical?

Let's not give them the idea.

Well, I mean, it's been on the chopping block every year. Neva and I have a conversation about it every year. There's some legislation that comes to eliminate local business services taxes, and thankfully our elected representatives find a way to carve us and the beach out of it.

but every single year it has been five since I've been on that's five times so that's why I bring us back to the is the 4.5 the right target and I think the 2.5 is the right target because we're eventually going to get past 4.5 if that passes. And I'd rather take a I'd rather take steps towards it than wholesale cut. And then that's just that's just me where I'm at, because I think it'd be able to be absorbed a little bit easier over time rather than, hey, you know, 4.5 million, cut it. And then maybe it doesn't pass. I think it's going to pass because I think South Florida is going to vote for it like crazy. But because they're not as economical with their tax dollars as we are. up in northwest florida but um that's that's just my my thoughts on it is i'd rather take incremental cuts towards this than than wholesale let's slash and burn and then you know now we're in the situation that we're in i think josh's point is there's going to be potentially a back filling that we will be able to control more of

Yeah. And so the exercise still is we need to have these hard conversations and preparation, but, and target this really aggressive number, but then we're going to be probably backfilling and hopefully so, but more intentionally. And so I think forcing hard conversations and continuing this exercise is painful, but I'd like to see everyone department heads meeting with other department heads. elected officials and their elected officials and their city managers because departments might not get along but the boards are gonna say we got to do it at some point so I want to force those conversations yeah and and I'll just add you know I'm I'm extremely

Consider a privilege to be a part of this organization not just with the men and women on the dais But the men and women of Panama City and I know this isn't easy but these conversations have been happening for years even before I got in this position and they haven't been out like this and And we're never going to be able to move forward as an organization unless we have the tough conversations, whether it's marriages, business relationships, family relationships. If you're not willing to have tough conversations out in the open, you're never going to solve anything for the long term. So I know this is uncomfortable for a lot of us, but I really honestly do think it's healthy. So I agree with the mayor on that. I think a couple of percentages that I think are important just to know as we kind of have this conversation. Because, again, I want to be transparent. I want everyone to see kind of what we're thinking. Staff would, you know, had we not had a clarifying conversation and expectation from Commissioner Street last week and then discussion in the meeting, we would have never presented the 4.5 tonight. We got the numbers. Ms. Waldron and I spoke a couple weeks ago, and we were planning to put forward the 2.5. Which, thank you for your transparency in communicating that advance. Yeah, he was like, we asked what you were showing, and me and Brandy were like, no, we're not. And so we cleared that up. But keep in mind, when we're talking about the general fund, I think it's like 61% or 62% of the general fund is personnel. And so if you're looking at $4.5 million out of, what, $67 million, There are going to have to potentially be – I don't see how we don't cut staff with a $4.5 million. I mean, just given the fact that it is well – I mean, it's literally almost two-thirds of our expense of the general fund. So I think that number is important. So let me ask you a question.

Yes, sir. And this is – because you said it. I'm just using it as an example. Use me as an example. Would you rather lose your job or take a cut and pay?

And still have a job. Oh, me personally, I would rather take a cut and pay than lose my job. And I've told the staff this multiple times. I feel like the step increase is something that is sacrosanct because that has been promised. And number two, I would rather look across the table and tell someone, hey, we're going to be a little shorthanded as opposed to telling someone that, you know, we're going to have to lose your job. I'd rather have maybe fewer staff that are paid a more equitable salary. That was how I functioned all my time in those congressional offices versus having too many staff or having more staff and not being able to pay folks a very fair wage. So that's kind of just my philosophy in management leadership.

So Commissioner Street's idea of having the – How are we paying? What over 100 under 50 that will tell us a true story and the median average income.

Miss Lewis is already working on that. I promise you.

Chief Smith again. just have a couple things one mr hughes let me just i made a mistake in addressing something to you i used a population of 280 and it's 208 for the county so just wanted to clarify that a little closer to my 180 so i like that so just wanted to clarify that uh and i've never i don't recall that i presented or supported a consolidation of dispatch. I don't think I could support that. In my conversations with the sheriff, they don't have room for the dispatch. Just in the short period of times, when we've had to close our dispatch for some type of reason, some type of IT reason, phone reason, and we've had to shut it down for a few hours, we've contacted them and said, can we send dispatchers up to the EOC? And they said, we have no room for you to send dispatchers up here, so we have to make other alternate means for that to take place inside of our own building. They're not going to do it for free. The price that, I mean, they're going to have to take the dispatchers and go up there. We're going to have to cover their salaries up there. The city is.

I think what we're looking for is having that conversation where someone there says, okay, well, if you have to have people here, and I don't know if dispatch or what it is or maintenance on lock cars, but the conversation of there's no room, well, can we build more room? Can we get a state appropriation for that?

Guys, this is happening all across the state. We're in conversation with other elected officials where everyone is trying to problem solve what we have. And the reason why unified dispatch is being discussed is because that's what a lot of people are moving to I mean that's really really all it comes down to and we have an example of it happening inside of the city now and so I I'm not saying that's what it has to be but before we get to a conversation on laying off 16 officers like we're gonna exhaust every other option and and every other uncomfortable option including holding step increases, cutting colas. We are not gonna leave our team members out there to dry. I'm not doing that. So that means that we gotta come up with some other better strategy than what was up there at four and a half million. What I'm saying is there's other options that I see and I'm hearing. I know Brandy's told me what the step increases are this year. I know what the COLA raises is this year. And so how many police officers does that save? Well, in your presentation, it almost saves all of them.

and so would i be willing to look at the entire team across the board to say we're not cutting 16 officers everybody i'm sorry you can't have your raise this year i think what you're hearing i would yeah is a willingness of maybe previous conversations have of whatever topics have run to a dead end and now we're expressing those conversations need to be explored and say what is the actual hurdle and is that something we can fix or get an appropriation for a grant for what continuing those covers bringing those back to us and maybe we need to go advocate for things but I you know what I don't want to do is continue to suggest silly ideas and we've never done that job we're saying let's have conversation more conversation none of these that I've said are my ideas I mean like there are things I'm watching other people do

actually said to me he was like I think you're the only one that's willing to say that's what we sit out here and we listen whether it's in the Commission meeting or it's in here we're looking for support from you as a dais and it's something that seems to lack

The citizens say the same thing. They say, how does this city function with three revenue streams and other cities do it with one?

Chief, with all due respect, I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. I've been here for five years. the budget is 60 higher than what it was five years ago so to act like i'm not supporting and that you're not getting support from this dice is not true like you have gotten a tremendous amount of budget growth where you choose to prioritize that budget is ultimately your department's decisions but from a funding perspective there has been more dedicated to public safety than there has been at any point in time in our city's history So with all due respect, you are getting a lot of support. What we are saying is the citizens are tired of having their taxes go up, and they are having pinches too, and we also have a limit to what we can do in raising taxes. This is a give and a take, and we have to work at it together.

And no topics off. I mean, deaccentization is, we're going to be talking about that too, what that looks like. I agree.

I would like to know what the legal parameters are for deaccentization.

It's something as simple as tonight, two of you have represented that you would be interested in looking at the two and a half. The others aren't interested in looking at the two and a half.

I've communicated that I am willing to look at the two and a half. What I'm saying is...

But you want the four and a half.

You say that too. I think we should be very aggressive at all. No topic is left behind of us to explore how to reduce the tax burden. And so what I don't want to say is let's not be aggressive. Every, we should be very aggressive. Will we say we're going to go after everything? No, but what I want to see at willingness to go after controversial topics like deannexation or anything that those conversations need to happen.

And I agree with you, but they don't need to happen in two hour bites. Okay. So perhaps we need a summit. Perhaps we need a four hour workshop where we are looking at those things. So I see a process of At hand, the budget that we have to approve this year. The long term, how do we get there and give more consistent consensus from the dais? I don't think we get there in this budget year. But looking at what's potentially coming, we have to have a process to get there. Because Commissioner Street, believe it or not, I do agree with some of what you're saying.

I was just going to say, it's on staff, whatever process they will do, or summits, that's on them to bring to us on how to educate us and how to force those conversations.

Well, that actually comes out of Strong Towns. We were all at Strong Towns. We all saw different presentations. Some of us saw... Similar ones and ones that's the one that's sticking out to me right now in this conversation the guy who presented about density and And what it what it cost that kind of strategic look at our city I see something like that informing us as we move forward for future budget years chief.

I want to address the The feeling that you get from the commission I think I've been really trying to understand you we're set up that we're not really supposed to be involved with you guys or past the getting into the weeds of the budget you know I've been hearing that a lot no it's not an answer that I take well and so for me to help you or for you to have a better feeling for me on the nights, I got to know what's going on with you. And this is really the only time that we bring all of y'all together, and now we're trying to have a conversation, which it's my understanding that hasn't been the normal protocol. When it comes to money, everybody gets upset. I don't care if it's personal or business, it's my money. Because as the leader, as your team leader, the hardest thing for me to do as a manager is tell somebody they don't have a job anymore. And most of the time they've worked themselves out of that, but I'm still the one making that happen. And that's a real problem for me. To answer your question, I'd like it to be 2 1⁄2, but I don't want 4 1⁄2. But today, I don't have that information. So you're asking me to say I want to go towards something. Mine's 2 1⁄2. But if it's 4 1⁄2, don't hold that against me because today I can't tell you that. That's my problem is I can't help you because I don't have the information to be able to help you. And to me, that's an issue that we need to work out. The city needs to work out how that operates going forward.

A process.

A process. Getting the numbers as late as they want to give them to us doesn't work for me. I can't help you that late in the game. Does that make sense? So there's my olive branch of saying we need help understanding who y'all are and what your needs are so that we can all have a better relationship between public and dais. That's just my thought. I believe in the blue. I want to make sure that y'all are funded. Y'all are the biggest part of our property taxes. We gotta take care of you. But at the same time, Josh is right. Where can you cut? I'm gonna pick on car allowances and travel. None of us need any of that. Maybe we pick one thing to go to. But every dollar counts. We don't need to go six at a time three times a year. We spend a lot of money doing that. There's other ways that we can put money back in your pocket and keep those officers. I just wanted to say, I hear you, because that's the same way we feel with sometimes with staffing just getting dropped on us, and I get mad. And I just, sometimes y'all see it, and sometimes you don't. Most of the time you see it, I think. But... I want to help you just as much as you want to help me understand. That's kind of where I'm coming from. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. And at any point in time, you're more than welcome to come to the police department.

I'm talking about money here.

But you're more than welcome to come to the police department and communicate with me, communicate with my officers, do write-alongs. You're more than welcome to set a meeting with city management and ask for me or any other director to come in there and ask us about our budget and ask us, how do we do our job? How do we function?

I've asked for that. Nope. Jonathan, he just gave me permission to go talk to him and go talk about his budget. I'm not allowed to by our charter. Now, if you all don't give me permission, I'm going to KF out in your offices. I promise you that.

You go see Robbie Hughes. Robbie, you don't have to just come talk to me about my budget. You can just come talk and meet the officers and find out how they do their job and what they do. There's a misconception of how police and how fire really works and what we walk into. The mayor came and did a ride along with me, and I think it was extremely eye-opening for him. Jonathan, you came and rode with me, and at the end of the night you said, well, you've completely ruined my view of what Panama City looks like because you saw the underbelly.

And that's not where I'm going. I'm talking about how to fund you guys. Y'all do great work, and yes, I need to come ride along.

But those communications can take place too. But there's more than just getting in here and fussing about money and budget that shows support.

Commissioner, I ride along with both Mark and our patrol officers and our street crimes units, and I would say you will find more out in those hands-on experiences on how they do what they do and what their needs are. and how that ties back to what their budget requests are than Chief Smith telling you directly. I think those are the most valuable experiences I've had in this leadership role is when I'm riding with my, whether it be a public works team or a fire team or whatever else, I'm seeing that direct need in the field, and it helps inform those decisions when Mark and I are sitting across the table or when we're helping craft budgets together.

So maybe wrong department. I'll pick on Sean's or Keith's. I don't have to go right along. To get the relationship.

I, too, have done an annual ride-along. Does my point make sense? It's informative. So, Chief, I want to take you up on that. I've written with other officers, but not with you.

So I'd like to... I'm sorry, Ms. Lucas. I couldn't hear you.

I was just saying, I've done an annual ride-along, but I haven't done mine this year, so... right along with you one evening. That's very cool.

I'd be more than glad to have that happen. Yes. We can work out a date and make that take place.

Yeah, I'd just like to see action.

That's cool. You want to see some action?

Yeah.

Yeah, they gave me a bulletproof vest.

It's heavy, those things.

It is, it is.

What else? So, I mean, I think if we go back to the dates, I think we talked about the July 6th. uh we'll turn we'll move that one up uh for a deeper conversation uh with the directors um and then i mean i don't know if y'all want to keep the july 16th as well potentially for a fourth kind of pre-budget workshop and then uh you know kind of before we get into setting the proposed military which would happen on july 28th what would just keep it as a tentative on the on the calendar and then would you make that decision after that just thinking agenda wise it'd be hard to cram meaningful conversations with all departments into one meeting typically and I don't we didn't really do it I think we've done since I was city manager but I did do it as a director where it was like a four or five hour I don't know if you would three of us and so there were a series of it was like 9 a.m. to like 1 or 2 p.m. in the room and it was but it's apparent these two guys have missed that

And I don't mean that negatively.

The problem with that kind of setup, though, is that whoever the directors are that go last, I mean, we're already fried. So it's not fair to all of them.

July 6th, July 16th. Sure.

We're going to do it.

Anything else? We have audience participation on the agenda.

Oh, audience participation. Anyone? Yeah, Patty Sender, come on up.

Am I the only taxpayer in here? No, you're not. We're all taxpayers. Just kidding. Patty Sunday Fairland. I had to look up brinkmanship. I'm embarrassed to say. So thank you. I came into this thinking about things that I work on and wordsmith things. I think I've told some of you that know me personally, I'm working on a very large grant for a neighboring county. It's a very large federal grant. And one of my functions is to be the editor. And something that drives me crazy so far about these meetings so that y'all can make good decisions are these prepositional phrases that say, of great lack of service or doing tremendously well. Those are driving me crazy. I edit those like crazy in grants because you get points for saying 10% off, 30% off because you're competing for other people. So like today, when somebody was saying about maintenance or something, customer service would be decreased lately. I want to know how many days. If it was a sidewalk or a pothole, and it used to take 20 days, and now it's going to take 28, I really would encourage them, as y'all go to the next round, to try to put some of that in, because I think it will elevate the discussion for y'all on the cuts. the other thing i thought about from my corporate background and i'm so glad you spoke today mr sean is he's really good at what he does i'm saying it as a taxpayer can he be a friend to other department heads that may not have as much experience in it well or they only do government no no the way to think about it the way to think the way to think about cutting or how to look at it or have the dialogue if you've only been in government you're used to receiving the money putting it on a spreadsheet and spending it rinse repeat rinse repeat it's not going to work anymore ai is coming y'all i have two sons that work in it it's incredibly competitive not only do you have these two years budgets but we're about to change the economy The other thing I'll just say, anecdotally, fire and police, and you all know this, is really important for economic development. It's critical. I'm sure we'll find a way to get them what they need. And I really appreciate the courage of the tough questions. That is very healthy. It's super healthy to have the tough discussions. And in my five years working in five states, all kinds of commissions, county, Austin, all kinds of places, lobbying in Washington, DC, you guys are my favorite commission.

You say that to all of them, don't you? No. Just in different states.

It's because you're finally talking about all the good and the bad and getting it out. This almost ended up being a meeting to get ready for a better meeting. That's OK. Thank you for my extra seconds.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much.

I just want to make perfectly clear I don't do anything that all of these people don't do every day they just do in a different field than what I'm doing and that's because they're the experts of those and if they brought me into their field I'd be lost I wouldn't know what I'm doing okay And I don't do anything. And I have a couple of people in the room that I can brag on Cody and Donald behind me. I don't do anything. I don't save you a dime. I don't do anything that makes an impact on this city. My staff does. And so that's why you hear all of us going to the wall for our staff, because I'm going to tell you, I know that you mentioned we saved a million bucks. I didn't save it. Staff did. HR staff did. I'm not going to be able to do those things alone, and so that's why those people are so important to us, and that's why good people are so important, because I'm going to tell you, I've had some average people before, and we didn't get the $360,000 savings for you. We didn't. But by investing in people and paying them what they deserve and having a path for them to stay because we're never gonna be the highest paid but I've got to have something to keep my staff here and that they're in part of that is you treat them well and you're fair to them and you give them some autonomy to do the work that they need to do you trust them you give them support that's what I'm here for pay is part of that support and and so they've got to know as their gas goes up just like the city's gas goes up and just like our citizens do that we're going to have their back as well but i will tell you it'll pay you back tenfold that's what i see in my group and that's why we do so well and so i think that's that's across the board um you know they there's been some great i know we talked about the budgets went up and it has over the past few years but i think there's some great accomplishments i came to panel city five years ago it doesn't look the same okay and so when i first got here i think i asked john a few times what's happening here Well, those things aren't happening anymore. We're seeing tangible results from it and I would, it would be a shame to go backwards. And so, um, I think we've got to find a way to move forward. Um, I think one of the things that would help us and I don't, you know, I'm not speaking for everyone here is sometimes when we're in a room like this wrong at the commission meeting or the dais, there's five very strong opinions. And sometime when the, sometimes when the meeting's over, I have five different directions and I don't know which one, because there's not a consensus. because we have no goals and well and sometimes sometimes you just don't agree and that's fine but what i'm saying is if we had like the question now is we've got some pretty strong at 4.5 we've got some that think 2.5 but we kind of need that direction from you guys and so when you give us that direction we feel there's a consensus We build towards something so that we're trying to make the whole commission happy in getting the results that they're looking for. But we need some of that specific direction that we can get from you. And we need it to coalesce between the five of you, if that makes sense. It's kind of difficult to make five different people happy if it's five different And you're not always going to agree.

Yeah, that's me every day. But thank you, Sean. No, it's not. I mean, I think probably Commissioner Street more than anybody, I think, would attest to the fact that our response times in general are 1,000 times better than they were five years ago. And Sean and I started in the same department.

It was six months on Waterloo, the first month.

And look, folks have heard me say, we need to be honest, we're probably only halfway through our recovery from Hurricane Michael. I think we all need to acknowledge that. And these guys have heard me say, an organization this size with this level of responsibility is bigger than any one man or woman. And that starts with me and goes all the way down to each and every one of the men and women in this room. and all of the guys and gals that are out in the field every day as well. And so I was reminded by Mr. Meyer via text, we actually have a workshop on June 29th planned for Parks and Rec, the advisory committee work. I don't know if this board feels that some of the budget stuff might be a little bit more pressing than that. We can push that off, he suggested, if you want to look at maybe like a June 29th and a July 6th kind of workshop, pre-budget workshop three and four. Can we flip that to the 16th? So move PRAC to the July 16th and then do June 29th and July 6th for budget? I won't be here July 6th.

So we need to vote on stuff on July 6th.

Well, I mean, July 6th.

Just email us some more options.

Okay. No one's opposed to slightly delaying the PRAC if need be? If need be.

If it supports the team and their budget, that definitely is the...

Okay, anyone else? All right, meeting adjourned.