City Council - Special Meeting

City Council meeting is 530. If you would rise for silent invocation and I pledge allegiance. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. With a quick call to roll. Councilman Foley? Here. Councilman Gifford? Here. Councilman Green? Here.

Vice Mayor Grove?

Here.

Mayor Spelman? Here. Appreciate everybody being here in attendance. We're going to move right to agenda item number four. And we will methodically go through this tonight at a slow pace to ensure that the Assistant City Attorney can make sure that all the I's are dotted, T's crossed, and so forth. So, and keeping us on track where we need to be. Agenda item number four, the public hearing is now convened to discuss the millage rate and budget. The fiscal year, I'm sorry, the fiscal year 2027 budget commences on October the 1st, 2026 and continues through September 30th, 2027. We will begin with the city council discussion of the tentative millage necessary to fund the fiscal year 2027 tentative budget for the city of Port Orange. The city is the taxing authority and the current year taxable value for operating purposes is $6,067,715,038. The tentative millage rate is $5.15 mills per 1,000 of valuation, which represents a 6.03% increase in ad valorem tax revenues above the rollback rate of In addition to the foregoing tentative millage levy, there is a voter approved millage levy of 0.1102 mills necessary to fund the debt service payments on the 2006 general obligation bond for public safety capital facilities, which were refunded in 2016. There is also a voter-approved millage levy of 0.4916 mills necessary to fund the debt service payments on the 2025 general obligation bonds for parks. Mr. City Manager, can you comment on the increase in the millage over the rolled back rate and the specific purpose for the increase, please?

And to copy a little bit of what you'd said earlier, the proposed millage rate of 5.150 is an increase of 6.03% over the rollback millage of 4.8573 related to the following operational and capital needs within the general fund. Starting with our operational cost, $2.3 million of the increase goes to contractual personnel costs related to police, fire, and all of our general employees. The largest amount of that increase is going into personnel. There are estimated increases in both our health workers' comp insurance and our property casualty insurance that are both at about a half million total between the two of them. We have vendor contract increases, so fireworks, debris removal, sports officials, Christmas decorations, ground maintenance services, all of those are going up. There are approximately a couple hundred thousand for that as well. So that's our operational side that's driving the increase. On the capital side, there's a little over a million for fleet. In the park side, these are non-park spawn park projects, so Bushman Park's playground replacement, and the rec has a couple things we talked about back in June and July, interior sound improvements in the play area, and there's a little bit of a drainage problem in the skate park, so improving the drainage over there in the skate park. That's close to 700,000 for that. Generators at both rec and city hall, because of their important role during emergencies, about 1.3 million for those. Half a million dollars for the upgrade to the AC here at City Hall, which may not be enough money now because it's been broken for about two months and still not really fully working. So I'm not sure if that's going to be enough to get us there, but that's what's in the budget. And then this year we're coming into the construction phase of one of the bigger turn lane projects we have. The Dunlaughton Turn Lane project is one of those ones that's been building for years. I think there's like seven total. And our share of that this year is close to $2 million. So those are the driving changes to the budget that are over and above. Normally I kind of stop there, but I just wanted to add a few things. As far as we know at this point, not every city's done, but we have always been in the bottom five lowest millage rates in the entire county. And from what I have knowledge of now, we will retain our position fifth from the bottom. We thought maybe the shores would increase enough to pass us and we would be fourth, but they ended up pulling back a little bit. So they still have an increase, but we retain one of the five lowest millage rates in the entire county. And some of the other cities that have lower have their beachfront cities. So you've got Shores, you've got New Smyrna Beach, you've got Ormond, who have major non-homesteaded commercial properties at high values along the ocean for their properties. And then you have to bury that's got two giant electrical plants that pay a ton of property taxes. So from standpoint of being a suburban community, principally two thirds plus homestead and single family residential properties, we do pretty well. We're at the bottom of that kind of city with again, one of the lowest tax rates in the region. One of the things that's happened since July, when we were talking to you in July, we didn't know state revenue at that time. It had been undeclared, and we now have that number. And normally, we're very conservative in how we budget. We follow trends of prior years. And usually when we come back to you, if we bring back a millage rate that's a little lower than the max that you set back in July, it's usually because there's some state revenue higher than we anticipated. This year our state revenue is $400,000 lower than what we told you in July. The bulk of it is about 300 in sales tax. Sales tax has dropped to the point where it's lower than we've seen in at least the last three, possibly five or more years. So it's a volatile thing and we lost over a quarter million dollars in sales tax revenues. Our property values went down, sales tax from the state went down, state revenue sharing from the state went down. So we had to eat that. Fuel has become pretty volatile. Diesel is extremely volatile. We have a 5% increase in fuel in there to try to keep up with fuel costs going into that. So how we handled that, because we have basically gone in and done an additional set of deferrals. So once we got the union contracts all set, we went in and deferred another $1.7 million. So when we were first talking to you guys in the summer, we had a little like seven and a half million dollars of things. Everything anybody came up with, it was something new and better. We just didn't do it. And then we deferred a number of vehicles and the additional employees and those kind of things. So we've gone back in now and I think there are times that the total number of vehicles or pieces of equipment that we have deferred in order to eat some of that extra cost is now up to 33 pieces of equipment. that are being pushed down so that we can afford that. And that's at the millage rate, the 5.15. We talked about this also in the summer. The 5.1, raising the millage from where it is, that percent that we're talking about, what that percent really means is 1.7 million more dollars. That's what you're getting is an extra 1.7. And I think I covered the... raises the basically the payroll for fire police and other personnel is over $2 million. So the 1.7 that change in the millage to 515 doesn't cover the full cost. We had to get that through for changing other things in the budget. So that's the summary of it. Again, those are the things that are driving the millage going from 4975 to 5.15. And as you go through the conversation, be happy to answer any questions. We do have the PowerPoint from the summer available should you have questions on those as well.

I appreciate your your comments, especially relative to some of the additional revenue sources and streams that municipalities can receive because there seems to be a lot of information out there that would suggest otherwise, and to hear that those sales tax revenues have dropped so much is fairly eye opening when you also consider the cost of all the other things that municipal and county governments are not immune to. When fuel costs go up, they go up for us too. So that's one of the frustrating points when you're trying to fund and operate a quality municipal, county, or even state government, you're not immune from those costs, and so you have to decide those levels of quality, is that your benchmark, and fund them accordingly, or make some kind of changes, I don't know, but I appreciate you making note of that kind of stuff. All right, council discussion is now open regarding the reasons for the increase in the tentative millage above the rollback rate, so Reid, we'll start with you.

Yeah, so Wayne just understands currently, and I have the presentation from the summer pulled up here. So additional over rollback is 1.7. That would be, that's not over what last year's number would have been at rollback. That's what this year's properties values would have been at rollback.

That's over what we would have gotten this year.

Right, okay. So we got 1.7. And 2.3 is going to basically wages and personnel. Where in the world do we even find the other $600,000?

The rest of your general fund is all those other funding sources that we talked about. So some of them are higher, some are lower, but we don't have the same amount. Some of it is transfers from fund balance, so some of it is capital projects. So we have pulled money out of, we talked about that a little bit too, you have your fund balance in that range that we had is in the upper part, so I think it's around 17, 16, 17 million dollars, and so we were able to use some of that also to offset some of the loss.

Okay. And those contracts, I believe, that we've all passed, they all passed 5-0 up here, correct? Yes, sir. So everyone support every one of those contracts that we agreed to fund? Okay. Just want to make sure that I'm good for now.

Let me see what you got.

Some of the concerns I have, and I guess the biggest is dealing with fleet deferred. I know that you got with your teams and all your managers and directors and asked what could we cut to try to keep it down as little as possible. And I do appreciate everybody's work in that. My concern is in the future, every time we do something like this, 33 pieces of equipment and vehicles, even if it was 10, Two years, three years of doing this every time. You guys are going to be kicking the can down the street until it starts to mount up to have problems for citizens, future council, in the future as those things come to raise their ugly heads per se. Vehicles only have a life expectancy on them. and as departments uh thank you for what you guys did but that is one of my biggest concerns i know contractionally dealing with the unions and what we do with all three unions that basis we all agreed 50 making sure that we take care of our people and i still stand behind that a hundred percent no issues at all it's understanding that The way we get to here is our tax bases have slid. Unstable economy, tourism, all the businesses in that is how sales taxes get affected back to us. When economies are the way they are now, and economists are looking at it to be another year at least again, we may be looking at the same exact thing next year. as far as tax basis. So as we go forward, Wayne, I know the management and directors and managers have done a great job finding cost savings. And we've done a great job doing that over the years. But it's what is the next biggest ideals of savings on the money as we look forward as unstableness happens with our tax revenues. So this is publicly, you know, bringing revenue streams into the city for us to make revenues in different ways than what we are doing now is, and foremost, one of the biggest things I think council needs to be looking at. We are almost at build out. And a lot of people don't understand that. But when we get to build out inside our city, we are gonna have to focus on how to bring money in. And millage rate isn't the best way of doing it. There's other avenues. So it's going to collectively take this body and managers at hand to be able to do that. So as we move forward past this meeting, those are some of the discussions that we definitely need to be bringing to the table. Different ideals and suggestions. So we're not taxing more to our citizens.

Anything else? Lance?

Again, I'm going to just echo what Tracy says. Again, we can't keep kicking the can down the road on this. And I've put a lot of time and a lot of effort into dissecting. But we have a lot to do. We still have a lot to do. And we've committed to doing a lot. And it's not just this or that item. Overall, I mean, we know the contracts we just signed. We know that's a big increase. And I still think there's more coming when it comes to public safety. There's still going to be some additional increases as we go on. But I think we've got to quick kick in this can down the road and do what we need to do to continue to work on these projects that we've progressed so far on. And a lot of them are flooding. You still got to have the money to match. And like Wayne's talking about these projects that we need to match to do this, that, and the other. We got to go ahead and keep doing it and keep dissecting at it. But yeah, I'm in favor of what we need to do to fund these contracts that we've committed to. And we need to continue the path that we are on the projects that we're doing.

Anything else?

No. Sean?

Oh, yeah, this is probably one of the hardest things that we have to do as a council is determine if we're going to ask the citizens to pay more money to live in our city. And we don't think any one of us take it very lightly. I had a gentleman call me today and tell me, yeah, see the headquarters reducing their taxes. And like, what's their millage at? Is it much higher than ours? I know that some other cities have maybe thought about going back to roll back or considering it. I know the county's not based on their previous initial first meeting. When you're at over six and coming down is probably easy, but we're not there.

They were 633 last year.

So a lot easier to come down from 633. We've been at 4.95 or less. kicking the can down the road. It's a terrible thing to say. I mean, I think the people that the elected officials prior to us were making tough decisions like we are going to make tonight and trying to do the best for their community. And, um, I've got to sit here for the last year and a half hearing how our staff has cut costs and found ways to save money and found ways to raise money. We've witnessed over the last couple of years with our fire rescue generating revenue and providing a good service. And I really think that's why people live here in Port Orange. They live here for, I'll speak for myself, for parks and rec, for wonderful landscaping when I pull off a 95, I take it for granted. Now I've been here a long enough time, but when I talk to people who have decided to move to Port Orange, the first thing they say is you pull off 95 and you're like, where are we? This is beautiful. All that costs money and all that, uh, required a lot of, uh, heartache amongst people who had to make those decisions to allow those big businesses to come in and have the setbacks and the landscaping and all costs money to maintain. And, uh, the traffic that we've talked about. People have complained about our traffic and done lot. Well now we have to pay to have something done about it doesn't come free and we're doing something about it. Of course it takes a long time. That's a quality of life issue. Safety. We made a decision to make sure that we pay the people that keep us safe more money and we have a commitment there, a financial commitment. So I hate to say it, but we have to look at where we're going to be 10 years from now by making decisions today. It'll help us be in a good spot 10 years from now. Because if you go back 10 years, we're kind of going, man, I wish we would have done things a little differently back then. Maybe we'd have a little more and ask for a little less. But people want to be here. There's not many people here complaining about what we do tonight on one of the most important decisions we make. And so that's what I have to say. We have to invest in our community and our staff to make that community great for our citizens. That's what they want.

appreciate all of the uh the comments and and thought in the process i will i will say you know i've sat up here for more years than the rest of you guys um you know you when you get elected and you sit up here you it's natural to have this process in your mind of how things are going to go right and just like sean was just talking about you know you want to think 10 years out and i think we're all like that the reality of it is is that no matter what course and path you have, there is something you haven't planned for or thought of that's gonna change the course. It's a very fluid thing that we do up here every year. next year for example we may be sitting here next year with the same method and process of funding our municipal government we may be working on a completely different process figuring out how to fund it under a totally different set of options we'll say with or without changing the quality of life and the services that we provide so You have to keep your eye on the ball that's in front of you, right, so to speak. And I think we have done a pretty good job over the years of continuing to do this. Just an example, I had a resident reach out to me. I know residents have reached out to all of us, but I had a resident reach out to me and Got him on the phone. We had a great conversation. He initially had sent an email and started the conversation off with he'd been a resident of Port Orange for 33 years. And concerned about the increase in property taxes versus property values and all these different kinds of things. And I get it. And look, the reality of it is, and we've said this before, none of us pay our property taxes in mils or percents. Pay them in real dollars, right? So what is it? Is it $2,100 or whatever it is, but you pay in real dollars. And so we were having that conversation and I went back and did a little bit of a comprehensive look of his particular situation. Surprising to him, what he actually found out and I found out was that it cost him more. His total property tax bill was more in 2005 than it was in 2025. In 2025, he actually paid $114 less than he did in 2005. So why is that? So we have a system in place that there is a direct connection to growth, to property value, rise of property value, fall of property value, rise of growth, decline of growth, and all these different kinds of scenarios. I'm not an expert. But we know that those impact those real numbers and those true numbers. Now, during that same 20-year period of time, the total that he actually paid even dropped less than that and then came back up. Well, why was that? Well, 2015 timeline was a huge growth period of time for the city. A lot of growth coming in, a lot of new revenue, things like that. but not a huge escalation in property values, perhaps. And so the way things were shaping out, what his total tax bill was, and when I say total tax bill, I'm not talking about just city. I'm talking about the cumulative total tax bill, which is what most everybody wants to look at. So it had fallen. So through that 20-year span, it had risen, it had fallen, it had risen, it had fallen, so forth and so on. But it was interesting, and I think it was interesting for him also to note that over the 20-year, between 2005 to 2025, He actually was paying less for all the same services or even more services, perhaps. So I'm not making an argument that it's cheaper or more expensive to live in Port Orange today than it ever was. That's certainly not the case. And there's all the variables, whether you're homesteaded or not homesteaded, and the value of your homes. In certain areas of the city, I would imagine homes have increased at a higher rate in value than other areas in the city. And so there's all of that complexity involved. All of that to say to all of your points and comments, what I think our objective remains is to deliver the best quality product we can at the best price we can. And that's not always, those things don't always align. There's a lot of things that we would love to see that would increase quality of life, increase quality of services. And perhaps currently the price tag is too far out there, right? and I do appreciate the comments complimenting the city managers and his staff, and I know he passes most of that on to his staff, that they're continually looking at ways to be more efficient, to find cost savings, and we are grateful for that, but we will encourage more of that in the coming years, and so that will be something that we will be looking for even more and more, as we should. It's the right thing to do. All that just to say, I think we're at a period of time currently where there are a lot of factors. And if we want to maintain the quality of life that our residents have come to expect, they still ask for it. Even by the way, this person who I spoke with at the end of that conversation, that was the concession was, hey, listen, I'm not looking for you to cut. I'm not looking for you to cut quality of services, services or anything. I love the product I have here in Port Orange. I've been here 33 years. I'm not going anywhere. It was a great conversation to have. And I've had that same conversation with many, many residents. And And I, you know, I know that's something Sean talks about a lot. None of the residents are saying, Hey, I think you can do with 10 less employees in this department, five less here, get rid of, you know, youth sports or, you know, any of these things, or let our medians look like the I-95 medians. Right. So nobody is asking for that and saying that in fact, They're asking for more pickleball courts. They're asking for more recreational venues. They're looking for things like that. Still, we have to find the balance. And I do appreciate all of the work the staff puts into this and certainly all of the work the council and the comments that you guys all made regarding that.

Hey, Scott, can I add something to that? You can. I've had that same conversation, and then I asked the person I was talking to, I said, let me ask you this. Would you want the money, if you were to sell your house today, would you want it to be the same price that you paid in 2005?

You know what his answer was?

Hell no. Because his house was worth a heck of a lot more today than it was in 2005 when he bought it. And I think that's a lot of people think that, hey, my taxes keep going up. Well, sell your house today and see how much you paid. Because you don't want to get the same amount you paid 20 years ago. No one wants that. They want an appreciating asset. Well, along with appreciating asset, the taxes come along with it and assess values.

Well, and I... comments are very valid. And I don't want to get too far off what our task is tonight, but I will say, and I've said this from up here, our current system, not pulled oranges, we fund municipal government it's it's a system that needs to change yes it needs some work i have concerns i know we all have individual concerns and maybe opinions or perspectives and you know mine particularly is more of a balanced funding of services as opposed to you've got some folks who don't fund any of it zero yeah how many what do we have wayne about 1,200, 1,400 properties that don't pay any property taxes at all. But they get all of the same services. They are entitled to every one of those services. They get them. They use them. We know that. And then you have another total other end of the spectrum. You have folks that the property tax, because of the way the calculations are, they are paying way more in property tax than they should have to pay. so my point to that is and i don't want to get too far off topic because these are conversations for coming the coming year but my point is i would love to find or see a way where that balance comes more into check right where there's something a little bit more balanced on that yeah all that to be said my next thing here it would be to announce the council will now hear public comments regarding the proposed tentative millage the general public shall be allowed to address the council to make comments and to ask questions Anybody here in the public that would like to speak tonight to this? Seeing none on that. Council will ask for discussion regarding any revisions to the proposed tentative millage budget as presented with a special notation. If revisions are made, changing the tentative millage that has been presented to the agenda package that agreed to revise the tentative millage. In other words, do not vote to adopt. for the current millage. Consensus of the council would be to direct the manager to compute the tentative millage and mark up the resolution adopting the tentative millage rate accordingly. This is the city manager. Did I cover that correctly, that part? You good with that?

Yeah, you're good.

Okay, all right. Any revisions proposed?

It seems like we're all pretty well in unison here.

Moving on to agenda item number five, I will read the resolution number 26-46 for tentative city village and ask for a motion. Can I get a motion to be read as presented here on this document please?

Move to approve resolution number 24-46, adopting the city of Port Orange fiscal year 2027, tentative millage rate 5.15 mils per thousand of valuation.

And just to clarify, that is resolution number 26-46, correct?

26-46.

Okay, and do I have a second? Second. A motion and a second. Is there any public comment on that motion? Any other council comments on that motion? Will the clerk call the roll?

Councilman Foley?

Yes.

Councilman Gephardt? Yes. Councilman Green? Yes. Vice Mayor Groves? Yes. Mayor Stilner?

Yes. 5-0. The adopted tentative millage rate of 5.1500 mils per 1,000 evaluation is a 6.03% increase in ad valorem tax revenues above the rollback rate. Agenda item number six. Read resolution for number 26-47 for the tentative city budget. Can I have somebody read that request for a motion and then a second, please?

Motion to approve resolution number 26-47 adopting the city of Port Orange fiscal year 2027 tentative budget. Can I have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on this motion from council? Anybody in the public wish to speak to this motion?

um mayor point of order really quickly just because i want to make sure we're doing this correctly but correct me if i'm wrong for reading resolution number 26-46 don't we need to actually read this aloud that it's a resolution of the city council and what it actually is before we get a motion let's be an attorney question Because to my remembrance of doing this all the years, I believe that that needs to be read aloud. Mayor Burnett would read that, but I know you have Matt usually do it. But if I'm correct, we need to read that aloud before we actually vote on, before we accept a motion.

I would do it.

So we almost need to go back to item number five and start over.

Would you concur to that? I would concur to that. Okay. I think it's just a good basis.

Procedurally... How do you want us to go back to item number five? Start that over? Just do that?

Yes, just read resolution 26-46. Okay. And then we'll just redo the... The vote? Okay.

i'll read into the record the resolution of number 26-46 a resolution of the city council of the city of port orange volusia county florida adopting the tentative ad valorem property tax millage rate to be levied for fiscal year 2027 october 1st 2026 to september 30th 2027 providing for scrivener's errors and providing for an effective date can you restate your motion and reread that for me yep

Move to approve resolution number 26-46, adopting the city of Port Orange, fiscal year 2027, tentative military of 5.15 mils per thousand evaluation. Okay.

Second. We have a motion and a second. I will recall for public comment. Back to council. Anybody else have any comments? and i will ask the clerk to recall the vote uh councilman foley yes yes yes yes yes 5-0 now moving uh i'll re-announce the adopted tentative millage rate of 5.1500 mils per 1000 evaluation is a 6.03 increase in ad valorem tax revenues above the rollback rate good okay item agenda item number six we'll read the resolution for 26-47 A resolution of the City Council of the City of Port Orange Volusia County Florida adopting the tentative operating budget for fiscal year 2027 October 1st 2026 to September 30th 2027 for the City of Port Orange providing for appropriations and procedures providing for scriveners errors and providing for an effective date. Now may I have the motion?

Motion to approve resolution number 26-47 adopting the City of Port Orange fiscal 2027 tentative budget.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any public comments to that motion? Back to council. Final comments. Council, anybody? And will the clerk call the roll on that motion?

Councilman Foley? Yes. Councilman Becker? Yes. Councilman Green? Yes. Vice Mayor Groves? Yes. Mayor Stillman?

Yes. This budget includes all operating and capital costs for fiscal year 2027. This budget includes the general, special revenue, debt service, capital, enterprise, and internal service funds. The proposed citywide fiscal year 2027 budget for all funds will be $215,582,170. I'm going to look to the assistant city attorney to see if there's any other I's that needed to be dotted and D's crossed. We're good? get this correct and get the process right.

Anything else to come before us tonight?