Planning and Zoning Board - workshop

Okay, we're going to get started. Time is now 6.03, and today is August the 11th, 2026. The first item on our agenda is roll call.

Mayor Douglas Lawson. Mayor Douglas Lawson. Chairperson Bruce Guyton. Here. Chair Pro Tem Glenn Spiritus.

Here.

Councilperson Keshava Miller-Anderson.

She's here.

Councilperson Shirley Lanier.

Here.

Let the record reflect that Councilperson Lanier did provide notice to the clerk's office that she would attend the budget workshop virtually. Councilperson Frisella Davis-Panier. Here. City Manager William Wilkins.

Here.

City Clerk Deborah Hall is present. City Attorney Don Nguyen.

Here.

Mr. Chair, you may proceed.

Thank you. We're going to have the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance led by Vice Chair Spiritus.

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.

Our next item on the agenda is INTRODUCTIONS AND PURPOSE. STAFF, BEFORE WE GET STARTED, TOO, I WOULD LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE MS. DOROTHY JACKES, WHO IS OUR PROPERTY APPRAISER. LET'S GIVE HER A HANDS LEAVE. THANK YOU FOR COMING TO OUR BUDGET HEARING. WE'RE VERY GLAD TO HAVE YOU.

MR. CHAIR, PLEASE LET THE RECORD REFLECT THAT COUNCILPERSON MILLER-ANDERSON IS PRESENT.

OKAY. SO NOTED. I think staff is getting themselves together here.

Mr. Chairman and board and audience, the purpose of this meeting today is to present the proposed fiscal year 26-27 annual budget. As most of you know, perhaps the audience does not know, the budget is the most important document that any local government or municipality can entertain. It really is the embodiment of the policy of this board. So tonight is very serious. event and we encourage the general public to follow along as best they can. Before we get into the meat of the matter, I'd like to present Mrs. Dorothy Jacks, who is going to make a presentation that's going to help us understand the predicament that most local governments in Florida are undergoing today concerning the property tax issue.

Thank you. Yes.

I really can't understand what Mr. Wilson is saying. It's not coming out loud enough, I guess.

Councilwoman Miller-Anderson is saying that she can't really understand what you're saying, so be sure to talk into the mic.

Yes, sir.

Okay, thank you. Move closer. We are fortunate to have the property appraiser of Palm Beach County, Ms. Dorothy Jacks. The pleasure is all ours. You have the floor now.

thank you so much mayor and councilmen and women it is a pleasure to be with you this evening uh and most appropriate as you begin your budget discussion for 2026. i have a few slides tonight uh just specifically to revere beach and i thought i'd talk a little bit about your value TELL YOU A BIT ABOUT WHAT THE 26 TAX ROLL LOOKED LIKE AND ALSO TALK ABOUT AMENDMENT 3, WHICH WILL APPEAR ON THE NOVEMBER BALLOT AND WHAT THE IMPACTS FROM THAT MAY BE ON THE CITY OF RIVERA BEACH. SO LET'S GET STARTED. RIVERA BEACH, MAYBE I SHOULDN'T. THERE WE ARE. Some high level numbers for the city. First of all, the market value reached $13.3 billion this year. You are within the top 10 cities in Palm Beach County. I think you're number nine as far as your value, your market value. TAXABLE VALUE OF 9.9 BILLION. I'LL GO OVER THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE TWO NUMBERS IN JUST A MOMENT. NEW CONSTRUCTION 19 MILLION CAME ON THE ROLE THIS YEAR. LAST YEAR YOU HAD A MUCH HIGHER NEW CONSTRUCTION NUMBER. NEW CONSTRUCTION IS REALLY RELATED TO PROJECTS THAT FINISH BY THE END OF EACH YEAR. SO IN OTHER WORDS WE ADD NEW CONSTRUCTION THE YEAR AFTER IT'S COMPLETED. So if you have a year where you have a lot of building going on or it may be a big project, you'll have a high number and then the next year it might not be so high. This year it reflects 19 million added that was completed in 2025. So your percent increase from 25 to 26 tax years was 4.66%. at the moment your parcel count is at 17 000 so what does that mean a parcel is anything that can be taxed so it could be a condominium unit a single family home an office tower anything that can be independently taxed and we just use that number in our office to sort of give us a sense of the size of each town or cities or municipalities tax roll you also have 1500 tangible accounts so tangible personal property is business equipment so a um any business has both a real property bill if they own their land and their building and then a tangible bill for their equipment or fixtures think the easiest way to explain it is somewhere like a supermarket may pay tax on the land and building but they also pay tax on the refrigeration units and the cash registers of the shelving that's what tangible personal property is So let's go on and talk a little bit about how we get from that market value to the taxable value number. It reflects a lot about a community, just the different items that are subtracted. So we start at market value at the top line, the 13 billion, and we start subtracting things first to save our homes differential. So that's the 3% cap savings that homesteaders are receiving. And then the 10% cap, which is on non-homesteaded property, so vacant land, commercial property, apartments, rental property, agricultural classification. There's still some ag in Riviera. The pollution control devices are part of businesses and working waterfronts, which is very obvious and present here in Riviera Beach. that gets us down to an assessed value of 11 billion. And then we go on and we go from that 11 billion and we start removing the exemptions. So homestead exemption, of course, the first one, the first 25,174 million, and then the second 25,000, 150 and the 25,000 age 65. So that is for low income seniors. The threshold each year is around $37,000 a year household income. You allow for an additional homestead, which is very nice. Not all cities do that. So I always like to say thank you for supporting our low income seniors. Then we have the 25,000 tangible property. What that is, is I mentioned those business accounts. If you're a small business and you only have, let's say, $10,000 of equipment, you don't pay this tax. It's as if you have a homestead on tangible property. So that's nice for our small businesses. Government is, of course, buildings like the one we're in now, institutionals, churches, hospitals, schools. Other exemptions are things we have, there are a number of personal exemptions for widows and disabled people, first responders who are disabled, and then historic and economic also at 40. And we get, that brings us down to the number that is your taxable number, $9.9 billion or 74% of your market value. And I just point that out because that's actually very good. Some cities have a much lower percentage, meaning that they have a lot of value, but then a lot of it is exempted or capped away. So in your case, you have three quarters of your total value still as taxable value, which is good. I'm going to go on now and talk about the Amendment 3. So Amendment 3, I think it's now fairly... FAIRLY WELL KNOWN. IT WAS APPROVED BY THE LEGISLATURE AT THEIR SPECIAL SESSION IN JUNE. AND IT WILL PUT ONTO THE BALLOT A MEASURE THAT WOULD PROVIDE FOR A HIGHER HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION. IT WOULD RAISE THE NOW $50,000 EXEMPTION TO 150,000 IN 2027. 250,000 IN 2028. AND THEN STARTING IN 2029, IT WOULD GO UP BY INFLATION EACH YEAR. Under the amendment, if approved, the first $25,000 of exemption applies to all the taxing authorities, including the school district. The remainder would only apply to non-school levies. So out of the 150,000, 125,000 would apply to you and to most taxing authorities, but taxpayers will continue to pay property tax to the school board on that 125,000. New residents who move here after January 1st, 27 will not receive the 150, 250,000 exemption. They will only receive 50,000 for the first five years of their residency. They'll have homestead, but the homestead will be at a lower amount. Also, the final item is that non-homesteaded, the 10 cap, I mentioned that a minute ago, it's on businesses and non-homesteaded properties, vacant land, any apartments would lower from 10% to 5%. It's not a significant difference, interestingly, that particular item, but The other, the increased homestead exemptions is quite significant to many communities. I brought today the numbers for Riviera Beach. I wanted to start with the parcels. So of those 17,000 parcels I mentioned earlier, 13,000 of them are residential. So the rest of those, the other 4,000 are commercial or vacant land. Of those 13,000, interestingly, only 7,000 have a homestead exemption. And that is because you have many seasonal residents, especially on Singer Island. But certainly even on the mainland, you have many people who currently are not qualified for homestead for one reason or another. They may also be renters. You may have single family homes with renters in them. Those are still considered a parcel. They are considered a residential parcel, just like a condo, but they are not homesteaded. So of those 7,000 homesteaders today, 898 don't pay any tax to Riviera beach because their value, their taxable value is below $50,000. So today there's almost a thousand people that don't pay any tax to Riviera beach. In 2027, when we go to the 150,000, that number goes up to 2,700 people of your 7,000 homesteads. And then if all the value stays the same, now again, value will change and it will increase. So these numbers would be flexible, but we only have today's numbers to go on. We don't know what the market is going to do. WE GET UP TO 4500 OF THE 7000 WOULD NOT PAY TAXES TO RIVERA BEACH OR ANY OTHER TAXING AUTHORITY EXCEPT THE SCHOOL BOARD. NOW EVERYONE WOULD CONTINUE TO PAY NON-ADVALORUM ASSESSMENTS, MANY CITIES HAVE their own non-Avalorum assessments. In addition, many communities have a non-Avalorum assessment, a special assessment for drainage or roads or something of that nature when they were put in. So let's go on and see what the value numbers look like, what the actual dollar numbers look like. And that's on this next slide. Today or in 2025, the taxes levied, meaning the taxes you collected was $79 million. YOU TOOK A 2025 EXEMPTION REVENUE LOSS SO AGAIN THIS IS LAST YEAR OF THREE MILLION DOLLARS WAS RELATED TO THE CURRENT 50,000 HOMESTEAD REDUCTION THAT GOES UP TO SIX MILLION AND THEN TO NINE MILLION IS THE REVENUE LOSS SO IN 2028 IF these numbers were all the same. And again, they will change. You would see a 12% reduction in your total taxes levied due to amendment three. So Quite honestly, 12% is a good number. It reflects, I want to make sure I'm clear, it reflects that your community has a diversity of property types, which is very helpful in this situation. Further, that interesting figure that only half of all your residential property are homesteaded. So as those are the only property types that are going to benefit, really, from Amendment 3, it means that everyone else, unfortunately, would still pay a significant tax, but the burden or the hit to the city of Riverview Beach is better than in many communities that I talk to. I mean, that number I've seen go up to 60% and 70%. So it also reflects that Riviera Beach has a good mix of commercial, industrial, vacant, again, non-homesteaded residential that is helping to buoy the numbers, helping to hold up the loss. Well, I should say hold down the loss, keep it at a lower amount than it could be. So, yeah.

Mr. Chair. Thank you. And Ms. Jacks, thank you so much. I'm sure the entire board will have questions and some feedback for you as well and thoughts as to how we can improve on this budget cycle. But I think that it is helpful for this discussion when it comes to THE COMPARATIVE NUMBERS OF IT ONLY BEING 12% BECAUSE I'VE SEEN NUMBERS IN BOCA ROTON, 60%, OTHER COMMUNITIES. I THINK IT'S JUST THE ISSUE IS BECAUSE WE HAVE SUCH A DISMAL HOMEOWNERSHIP IN RIVERA BEACH AND WHILE IT'S DIVERSE, WE HAVE TO INCREASE THOSE NUMBERS. I THINK THAT'S WHERE IT'S NOT REALLY BENEFICIAL TO THE COMMUNITY BECAUSE BUDGET DISCUSSION, WE'RE GOING TO FIND WAYS OF ADDRESSING THE CONCERNS OF THE BUDGET. WE'RE GOING TO MAKE SURE THAT WE CAN MAKE THIS DONE OR SEE WHAT HAPPENS WITH AMENDMENT 3. but more importantly, I think that the home ownership is, I want our residents to really understand that even though it's good for this, we still have to increase those numbers across the city. So it's dismal, we need to increase that. So when our residents are hearing and listening, I want them to know that it's helpful here, but it's not truly helpful across the board for the stability of our community.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's important. I mean, home ownership is, the American dream, if you will. And it also lends itself to healthy communities, having people who are invested in their community by investing in real estate in their community. Absolutely. So I have one more slide, and then I'm happy to answer some questions. So again, just some high-level information. This goes before the voters on November 3rd. It must pass by 60%, which is a high threshold. In the last 10 years, we've actually had other measures on the ballot to raise the homestead before. Actually, one of them was just to raise the current exemption to 100,000, and it failed at 58%. So we are not sure at all that this will pass. However, we need to be prepared. Hence, you need to be prepared with your budget thoughts for what may come. It's important to know that taxpayers won't have to do anything. I think that we just make sure everybody knows that because our office is certainly gearing up for November 4th, everyone in Palm Beach County calls. And also that it would be effective for January 1st, immediately, right away. We've had other law in the past, which said, for instance, the Save Our Homes cap passed in 1992, but it didn't go into effect till 94. So we had some time. This will immediately go into effect for the next year. The good news is for us, it's simply changing some numbers in our system and then reapplying the homestead. uh but for you it is preparing for the 2027 uh budget as you think about 26. and that's all i have i'd love to be happy to answer some other questions miss jack um when it takes effect i thought i read somewhere where it takes effect in 2028 So the amount of the homestead will be higher in 2028, but there is an increase in the homestead from 50 to 150 that's in 2027. So it's both, the really big impact of it is not till 28 when it goes, I mean, it'll go up three times in 2027, but then it will go up five times in 2028. Chair? Yeah.

Yes, Vice Chair Speer.

First of all, Madam Tax Assessor, thank you for being here and giving us this information. My question is, if you own a homesteaded property right now, you can transfer your homesteaded property to another property. So somebody is in a property right now and they transfer it after November. Will they still get that homestead exemption?

They will if they have a homestead today. So the portability process will still work for them. They'll be able to move. But the law, it's somewhat confusing because there's a distinction between what residency means and what a homestead means. But our understanding is if you have a homestead today, here, anywhere in Florida, you will be eligible for the savings that come from this. It's if you do not establish your residency until after the first of the year. Thank you.

Any further questions from our colleague?

Mr. Chair? Yes. Just to be clear on that, Ms. Jacks, the homestead today, meaning that if you have a homestead today and you try to port it from another city to come here, because if somebody purchases today in, let's say, Riviera Beach, they would have already missed the homestead application. And then if it does pass 2027, then they still would only apply for that $25,000 or $50,000 exemption. OKAY, SO I GUESS THAT ANSWERS THAT QUESTION. I HAD TWO QUESTIONS, AND TO MY COLLEAGUE'S POINT, THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE AT THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE. OUR CITY MANAGER LED WITH THAT THIS IS THE ONLY IMPORTANT ROLE AS ELECTED OFFICIALS THAT WE'RE SUPPOSED TO DO. ONE RESPONSIBILITY IS PASS A BALANCED BUDGET. doing the budget, your assistance and your help, what would be the most important thing that you'd want us to identify when it comes to Riviera Beach's property values, future tax base, and things that we need to be looking at as a council board and residents?

Yeah, well, certainly I am not familiar with your priorities and your needs as you are, but I would say to you that your continued effort to grow your city, especially in the commercial, industrial, that realm is a positive move. Because if this passes, or even if it doesn't, and some further in the future, a year or two from now, further change is made to the homestead inventory, the amount that the homestead inventory pays, it will put more pressure on cities where that is their primary and predominant taxpayer. And to your point, it's important that people buy homes and live in them and be Florida residents and get all the benefits that are available to Florida residents, it is also important that cities think about that mix, the mix of homestead residential and everything else, because the everything else, it appears our legislature at the moment hasn't really focused in on that's also important i mean it's important that the everything else is also treated fairly i i worry about renters because of course they won't be eligible for these savings so if the tax rates increase in a community they will pay those higher taxes and that's i i you know that's you don't You have to be thinking about that. But again, if I was to say anything to you, what you're working on here in Riviera Beach about looking at a diversity of property types is a good thing. I meet with communities. I'll give you some examples. Tequesta, North Palm Beach, Lake Clark Shores, Haverhill. These communities are very residential and they don't have anywhere to go either. They don't have any room to... become bigger in any way. And because of that, they're going to struggle because their tax base is predominantly built by residential homesteaders.

And that was to the point where I was exactly going because I wanted to make sure that our residents, staff, colleagues understood that we have to grow that tax base to help fund and continue to fund these services so that we don't put that pressure on the existing homeowners. So that's why development of our marine or industrial the economic development coordinator. And to my staff, that's going to be a priority. While right now we have major needs, as you said, we have infrastructure needs. We have a lot of growth that we're working on, but I think we have to look at the long-term five to 10 years, what's going to be the impact on our current homeowners, where if this passes or doesn't pass, there's still going to be a burden on them. So that was the exact point I was looking for, or some additional assistance and guidance coming from your expertise. And again, thank you for being here. Thank you for your years of service and commitment with the property appraisers. Thank you.

Are there any further questions or comments? On behalf of our city, Mrs. Jax, we are very grateful for your presence. We thank you for your input. And if there's anything that we can ever do to assist you in your operation, do let us know.

Thank you. I very much appreciate you having me. And I will tell you, Mr. Wilkins and I worked together 20, 25, 30 years ago. And I said to him this evening, if there's anything further you need from us, any further data or statistics, please reach out and we'd be happy to provide it for you. Thank you again for having me.

Thank you very much. Thank you for coming.

Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair.

Yes.

Do we have a copy of those slides? Or if not, can we get.

Could we get a copy of your presentation?

OK, thank you.

OK, good point, Ms. Miller. And I wanted that to staff. That's what staff is coming up. Let's make sure that the ground rules are understood as it relates to. Public input, is this the type of workshop that allows that? Let's just lay it out how the process is going to work now.

Ms. Chair.

Yes.

We generally do not have public comment during our workshop meetings.

Yes. Well, that I understand, but we need to advise the public of what the process is so that when we start into our discussions, they understand that it's just a workshop today. And typically, there are no public comments. Even though each of us can be reached, if you have some comments, you hear something here, each of us can be reached for any comments and response to what we are discussing. Okay, are you ready, Mr. Sherman?

Yes, sir. All right. Well, good evening, everyone. Welcome to our first budget workshop of the year. Just give you a little bit of background. The manager laid out certain priorities in developing the budget. And as you know, back last month, you voted on a maximum millage rate of eight point three five mills for the operating budget and one mill for the debt service. We wanted to continue to fund our capital infrastructure. We wanted to continue to invest in our employees and make sure that we invest in the amenities and quality of life of the community. Maintain as many current service levels as we could. Evaluate our capital needs. Develop revenue and expenditure projections so you could all see what the long-term impact was. CERTAINLY TAKE DIRECTION FROM THE BOARD, MAINTAIN OUR LONG-TERM FISCAL STABILITY, AND AS MS. JACK SAID, WE NEED TO BE PREPARED SHOULD AMENDMENT 3 PASS. SO WHAT WE DIDN'T WANT TO DO WAS BUILD A BUDGET BASED ON THE PRESUMPTION THAT SOMETHING WAS GOING TO BE ABLE TO BE FUNDED OVER A LONG TERM. put something in a budget and then 12 months from now we're pulling it back out. So we were trying to avoid that when we developed this budget.

Mr. Sherman.

Yes.

One thing I forgot.

Sure.

Could you briefly go over the timeframe that we have to pass the budget or is that somewhere in your presentation somewhere?

The dates are in here, but September 8th is your first public hearing. um and we have a budget workshop to do capital next tuesday on the 19th and then we have the usd uh and then any other you know budget items to do on the 25th that gives us time to make all the changes that have been approved by the board get everything published get it on the website and get it ready for the 8th because again we do have a holiday in there as well

when does it has to be passed by um as it relates to the state requirements i believe it's the end of the month is that correct yes end of the month it's in the month the other thing that i want to make sure that everyone knows is we are required to have a balanced budget um by law right each year So there's never a time where we go into a budget year in the hole somewhere. So as we do our necessary adjustments to the budget and reductions in staff, it's because we are required to have a balanced budget. And there are going to be some decisions made that may not be popular, but we have And I also like to, I got a call about why the process is so compressed. We have to do it today and then we have one next week because we do have a deadline and we did have a change in management and that does impact the process. If there was a budget already being worked on, then someone else comes in who have to then move that budget forward. That person needs time to familiarize themselves with what was there. So it's just part of the process and it is what it is. Mr. Sherman.

Mr. Chair.

Yes.

So we don't have a set time we're trying to leave on these meetings.

Well, I will tell you, I will not be in here till midnight. We would have to make adjustments to the proposed schedule. We do have staff in here that had to get up tomorrow or I mean, we all got to get up.

So that's OK.

But my point is, yes, I'm not going to be here to one or two.

But here's my question. So if we are not because we only have a couple of days for the meeting.

Mm hmm.

are we open to if we do not have it i don't want to rush this because i feel like no i don't want to rush it either i'm not going to rush okay so if we need to have additional days yes that's what we'll do okay yeah we won't have additional hours but we'll have additional days okay okay that sounds good to me too yes but but we will

do what we need to do to complete the budget within the time we're required to do it without having to stay here to midnight and one o'clock in the morning.

Okay. So again, this slide here just actually shows the budget process. To your point, we've been working on the budget probably since February or so, give or take. But again, as circumstances have changed, you know, We have ended up with this slightly compressed schedule here at the end. Just so you know, and these are the dates that I laid out. I think I gave you those same dates. You get to tonight, get the 18th and the 25th. Those are the ones that we have currently scheduled, the 8th. And then the second reading is scheduled for September 16th. Now, again, our public hearing date First public hearing date, that's what goes out on the term notice. You voted on that September 8th date when you voted the maximum millage rate. That's the one date that really cannot change. Which one is that? The September 8th.

So by September 8th, we- You really should be done.

Done. Yeah. And then we'll have a second reading in case anything comes up from public hearing on the 8th.

Mr.

Chair. Mayor Love.

Two-fold. The 18th is a primary election day. I don't want to limit the ability for residents, being that polls will be open until 7, to miss any of the budget workshop and also promote it. We also need to add additional dates. And typically during workshops, meetings, we just kind of more so have free-flowing conversation. We always respect and go to the chair, but it's easier with this discussion just to everybody jump in and ask the questions so that we move and go. That's typically how we've operated, but it's a pleasure of the board and also the direction, discretion of the chair.

Absolutely. Everyone, we're not going to rush through this. Everyone may have an opportunity to articulate their concerns and ask questions, but I do not believe in standing here until 12 and 1 o'clock in the morning. So we have to look at other dates. When we start getting close to nine o'clock, we'll start looking at what other dates that we may have to add. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chair.

Yes.

So are we addressing the September 18th date or we're not?

Do we want to address it now?

Yeah.

Okay. So there's an election on the 18th.

The primary. I mean, the primary election.

So, but how does that impact 16 and 8, though.

No, just the 18th. I'm sorry. I meant August 18th is the only impact. Oh, August 18th, not September. We may want to add maybe a Thursday of that week, possibly the 20th. And I know that we want to add some additional dates just to make sure we get through all of the budget. But we may want to change next week so that we don't take away from the election day, especially for our residents to participate in budget and also the elections.

okay can can we see how far we'll get today yes sir determine how many dates we need thank you mr okay thank you thank you mr our commission of mill anderson councilwoman miller mr sherman so uh each year we try to show you what a sample tax bill is going to be this year we selected property that was worth or had a property value of six hundred thousand dollars We take out the $50,000 homestead exemption, which means the taxable value on this property would be $550,000. I'd like to point out the bottom part of that screen, those are all of the taxing authorities that we pay taxes to. So the bottom line on that is $21.56. Remember, we're only the 835 and the 1. Okay, so we are barely a third of this entire bill. So it's a $12,000 property tax bill, but we are about 5,200, a little less than 5,200 of that. Question. Yes.

Don't the bonds also go on these Avalon taxes as a separate charge?

so the top line where you see the red 8.35 that's our operating millage that was approved and then we have the second line is for the the bonds the dollar so we would have two tax bills related to the um property tax collection

you'll have one tax bill but you'll have two lines for the city of riviera beach we'll be paying two separate bills one for debt service for the bond correct and one for the normal avalon tax correct sure um yes um four point five eight percent is your debt service

Does that include all the general obligation bonds as well as the other bonds?

No, this is just the referendum bonds. We can only use property taxes on the referendum bonds. So we have other bonds. You have other bonds.

That are going to hit this tax bill.

That are going to continue from prior years, yes, and they're included within this budget, and we can point that out. Good point.

so those bonds that are not included in this debt service where in the calculations are those included so those are paid out of non-property tax revenues so when we show the revenues here it's everything below property taxes is used to pay for them okay for the residents how debt collected from the residents

SO SOME OF IT WOULD BE STATE REVENUE SHARING TYPE NUMBERS, RIGHT? WE GET CERTAIN REVENUES WHETHER IT'S SALES TAX, REVENUE SHARING, COMMUNICATIONS TAX. SOME OF IT WOULD BE FRANCHISE FEES, SO WHAT WE COLLECT FROM LIKE FPL AND FPU. THOSE AND THEN CHARGES, SO PARKS CHARGES, FIRE CHARGES, ALL OF THOSE ITEMS ACCUMULATE UP TO you know, almost $40 million, a little over $40 million, and it's that that is used to pay those other debts. And as we get into capital and we get into talking about that other $60 million of bonding that we've talked about, those payments would come out of there as well. Okay. Any further questions? Yeah, Chair. Right there.

So can we get a list of the general obligation bonds and whatever other bonds that were not part of the referendum?

yeah they are included in our annual capper you know our financial statement not capper anymore but our annual financing but we can certainly provide i would like to see it itemized i don't want to see i don't want to see just the bulk number no no no that's it is i am but we'll we'll break that up great and could you provide it to all of the um council members please yes okay yep thank you okay continue please Now you, you did ask when we were talking about the millage rate, if you could see some scenarios, because again, these millage rates can't go up, but depending on how we, you know, take the budget between now and September 8th, those millage rates could possibly go down. So the next scenario, what we did is we took it down 0.25. So again, on your first line, it's no longer 8.35 on here. It's now 8.1. And now you can come down to the bottom line and it was about $138 drop in the total bill. So by taking it down that 0.25, brought it down again, this is on this value of home. So that'll vary depending on the value of the property, but it brought it down about $138. And then on this slide, we took it down another 0.25 and it drops again, another $138, $137. So again, that 0.25, and that's what we're saying is, you know, it's about $550 if you take a whole one mill off.

How would that impact the revenue that would be generated if we took a whole mill off? How much would we lose in revenue?

so our assessed value taken off a mill probably takes off about nine to ten million dollars you know it doesn't remember taking off that mill may save this resident 550 take that mill off of fpl's bill and you're saving them millions of dollars right um so It's probably in that $9 to $10 million range. Okay, thank you.

Chair?

I'll invite the chair.

So based on what you just, the information you just asked, if that amendment would go through the statewide amendment, we'd be losing probably about $16 million if we dropped it, that percent of check. Correct.

Correct. I think there are some communities that are actually looking to raise them. Now we can't do that this year because it doesn't hit us this year, but raise their millage rate to make up for the loss of the additional exemption. But yeah, this probably isn't the time to be reducing it. And remember a couple of years ago, we actually recommended reducing it slightly and we decided to keep it to put it into the street program. You know, so again, it gets to be that balance of those dollars. This is the municipal, Palm Beach County municipality assessed valuation. This is the increase year over year. And as Ms. Jacks just said, you can see Riviera Beach is over on the right, about a third of the way up from the bottom. Our increase issue is only 4.49%. The last several years, we have been in the seven plus range. So we've been in the left-hand column the last several years. But again, we only had $19 million of new construction that came on the books. And again, that's just timing. Not that we don't have projects going on, but it's timing of when it actually hits the tax bill. So they have to have their CO before January 1st to make it on the next property tax. On the millage, again, we talked about this back in July. We do have the second highest millage rate in the county. But again, I would point out, just kind of going down the list, West Palm Beach is just below Riviera Beach. West Palm Beach has a fire assessment fee. That's why they're lower than us. Boynton Beach has red light cameras. That's why they're lower than us. You know, and we could go through it, you know, and start chipping away all of these. But the reason we're high is, again, our distribution and our revenues were very heavy on the property tax side. And you'll see that as we go forward.

Mr. Sherman, when we had a management change, were the revenues sufficient enough to cover the liabilities when Mr. Wilkins came in initially?

Oh, yeah. No, I mean, for 26? Yeah, 26, we're fine.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay. And again, I'll go through and why we've had a challenge for 2027. Again, this slide here shows where Riviera Beach matches up with the other communities as far as our fund balance. So we have about 38% of our budget that we're carrying, and I'll call it our equity that we have. We're not at the bottom. We're not at the top. We're a little bit above average. But again, remember, this is a percentage of your total budget. So it's not telling you how much cash you have. It's giving you a percentage of your budget. So the lower your budget is, your number here probably could be a little bit higher. But I will tell you that 38% that we have up there, it's not all cash because it's all, you know, some of it is receivable. Some of it, you know, we have liabilities that are on the books at that point. But again, it's 38%. If you're annual revenues exceed your annual expenditure it is going to grow so that again it's growing because you know i think we do a good job city-wide um as far as budgeting we try not to budget dollars that we you know are speculative um and you know i don't believe we've had expenditures over revenues uh in probably uh 12 13 14 years sure on budgets

Director Sherman, we're pretty close to the end of our fiscal year. So can you give us a guesstimate in dollars of what our fund balance will be this year?

Well, I think we're probably going to end up with about a million and a half to two and a half million dollars, depending on what may or may not occur over the next couple of months. And again, out of $126 million budget, that's pretty thin, but it looks like it's going to be positive.

Thank you.

And then the other one I always like to show is our cash on hand. Now, this is a snapshot as of the last day of the fiscal year. Right now, on an operational basis, we spend $265,000 per day. That's based on our budget. That's what we're spending per day, just for operations. So at the end of the fiscal year, we have about 152 days' worth of resources. But I'll tell you that is just operational spending at 265. What we have cash on hand by the time we get to start collecting property taxes in the month of November, we're probably down to, you know, maybe 10 days of cash on hand because you're going through October and we're not collecting a lot of revenues in October and we have a lot of expenses in October. as you get into the new fiscal year. So the 152, I'd love to see that a lot higher because October is always a tough month to get to. And if we get hit by a couple of storms in September or October, it's actually, you know, we're actually at our lowest cash point at that time.

Mr. Sherman, the general fund, I was just thinking about what Vice Chair Spirit has brought up and the amount it is compared to what our overall budget is was um and i'm thinking about the times i've been up here that's pretty low um the general fund that what we have now that's the 30 and this one with the 38 percent no no wait let's back up you see the front balance i'm saying you said it's about one point it'll be about 1.2 mil and we started off with about 121 mil did you say is that accurate i i don't i hope that's not what i said i i gotta clarify so

this is a percentage of our our budget okay so the budget's 126 million dollars that's why i got 120 126 million so this is 38 of 126 million dollars start right there so vice care spirit is that we're getting into um close to the end of our fiscal year yes

So what do you think our fund balance will be?

Oh, the 1.2 was what our surplus was going to be this year. I'm sorry if I'm missing. That would have been our surplus. So by the end of the year, we probably should have about $45 million in our fund balance. Now I understand why you think it was low. But yeah, you have to add it on to the balance that we already have. All right, so Chair.

Okay, go ahead. So just so people understand, the fund balance gets carried over from year to year. That's how we got the 45 million. How did we end last year in the fund balance?

Around 42, 43. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. Got to do a little math.

Okay, so we did have a number of significant challenges in developing this budget. The salary increases, you know, we've covered all the salary increases and all the labor agreements.

As you know, IAFF is the one agreement that is currently open.

So we've, you know, we have that consideration that we need to address. There is a 4% increase budget for non-REP employees, which is the same percentage that we had this year.

Okay, Mr. Chairman. Yeah. Question. Last year, we sit at the CRA board too. And it was decided to give the CRA board 6%. but only gave the non-represented employees on the city side 4%. Didn't make any sense to me. But it was what it was. Have you done any calculations? I'd like to be fair. I'm not going to request they get 6% on the other side this time. I am requesting this side. because they didn't get it last year. Have you done any calculations of what that would be if we were to be fair and it takes three votes and give those who didn't get it last year that extra 2% and we don't give it to the CRA? That's a whole nother deal. Have you done calculations?

So it would add probably about $600,000. It's about $300,000 per percent. And then you've got to add your benefits on top of that.

So when, Dr. Sherman, when we gave the 15% raise to the civil service employees, did the other, did the CRA employees get that 15%?

I don't know what their raises are. I think so.

I wonder what we did at that time. I don't remember.

I do remember the 4 and the 6%, and I didn't understand.

We shouldn't be treating. AND THE UTILITY DISTRICT AND THE CRA AND THE CITY DIFFERENTLY THEY'RE ALL THE SAME EMPLOYEES AND THEY SHOULD ALL BE GETTING THE SAME LIFE AND THAT'S WHY IT CONCERNED ME AND I WAITED A WHOLE YEAR TO BRING IT BACK UP GO AHEAD MR.

CHAIR WE'VE NOTED OKAY WE EXPECT TO LEAVE HERE WITH HALLMARK I LIKE SOME EXACT NUMBERS THIS TIME I REMEMBER LAST YEAR WE ACTED FOR THAT AND WE ONLY GOT APPROXIMATE NUMBERS I was about two times asking. This time, Mr. Wilkins, do you hear that? I want some exact numbers this year. We never got those last year. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, so back in March, the board did approve, I'll say tentatively, a $60 million bond issuance to cover the police station, provide some money for streets and some additional money for parks and recs. So we are carrying debt service for that $60 million worth of bonds. Pension contribution increased by 20% or $2.58 million. And I've got a slide where you'll see where those increases actually occurred. This $2.58 million almost eats up the entire increase in property taxes alone. But again, $2.58 million. We maintain our transfer for the pay-as-you-go capital, $4 million going into the capital, so we do continue that. And then on the CRA side, just so you know, because I know you've got a CRA budget coming up, the city TIF payment to the CRA next year is $10 million.

Question. What does the city do with that $10.3 million? that comes from the CRA. How do we use it on the city side?

Well, that's property taxes that the city collects on the properties located within the CRA district. And again, the way the CRA works is they get a percentage of those and that's the $10 million.

The only way you could really leave it on this side is to dissolve your CRA. And not to interrupt you, I just want to get right to the point that I asked. How do we use it on the city side? How do we spend that? How could you spend it? No, what do we use it on?

Oh, no, that's money we transfer to the CRA. That's funding the CRA's budget.

The CRA pays us how much a year?

The only thing the CRA, CRA pays us for certain services. So they pay for finance and pay for it. How much is that? I think we're at $200,000 next year. $200,000 next year is what they're paying for services. And then they pay back a loan that the city gave them about 12 years ago. But this $10 million, whether, you know, when we collect it, we give it to the CRA. By January 1st every year, we pay the CRA their share. Okay. So this is the slide on the pensions. So if you look into the first set of columns here, that's the required employee contribution. We have three pension plans that we make contributions to. So we have the general employees, the firefighters and the police all have separate pensions. And you can see in 2025, the percentages that we were contributing, and this is a percentage of payroll within each one of these groups. So general employees has gone from 21.73 to 22.67, and now we're at 23.86. So we've seen a little growth from year to year, that 1.22%, but the general employees have actually done well as far as maintaining their funding of their pension plan. You move over to the last three columns and you can see the funded ratio. And what that means is there's a liability that's calculated for future pension payments. And the question is, is how much of your assets is the ratio to your liabilities? So in 2023, and the ratio always lags a year, but in 2023, We were 121% funded in the general employees, 2022 or 122% funded. And now in 2025, we're 127% funded. So again, your, your general employees pension board has an outstanding job and been able to main a funding ratio above a hundred percent. And so that's surplus dollars that are generating revenues generating, you know, interest and investment income that stay in the plan and keep that plan healthy. On the second line down where you have your firefighters, we've gone from 40% employee contribution. We dipped down to just under 36%. And now we're back up to over 48%. So this is the one of the three that really took a jump this year. Our contribution, again, this is a percentage of salaries. So when you're giving raises, that's an extra increase over and above the percentages that you see up here. So the contribution for the firefighters went up 12.75%. And if you look at their funding ratio, they were at 99.9. So they almost had all their liabilities covered. In 2024, they actually did have all their liabilities covered. And then now that we're in 2025, again, they've dropped down to that 98.7. So it's still a healthy plan, but again, they're hovering right around that 100%. So they don't have any extra assets to generate income on that could then help fund the plan. Go ahead.

So Director Sherman, so is these percentages, they're negotiated in collective bargaining, correct?

No, these are done, these are prepared by the actuary.

So the actuary just comes up with it. It's based on the income from the pension plan itself, how healthy the pension plan is. I'm sorry.

So they have certain assumptions, how much the plan is going to earn, how much the raises are going to be every year, how old people are going to be when we hire them, how long they're going to stay, when our pensioners are going to pass away. I mean, they have all those assumptions built into the plan. And the issue tends to be, and this is where police has kind of gone up, is the assumptions that they have the plan working off of aren't meeting reality. So if the actuary is told to say, hey, put in a 5% wage increase every year in the plan, and we're giving 8%, 9%, 10%, 15% raises, that's what throws your plan out of whack. Or again, as the markets come and go, that's going to throw your plan out of whack. So as you can see on the police, they've gone from 28% contribution to this year they were at 45%. So they're lower than FIRE, but they started out lower as well. As you can see, in 2023 they were funded at 93%. 89.4 percent and now they're back up to 87.3 so that deficit between one being 100 funded and being below 100 you're paying seven percent interest on that liability every year because that's the assumed rate of return in the plans So they assume I have $100, I make 7%. They only have $90 and make 7%. I'm short. Now we have to pay that at that 7% rate of return. So that's why when you go back to this slide and we have pension costs.

Before you leave that, on the funded ratio side, doesn't that fluctuate throughout the year depending on? how good the investments are.

That is one of the assumptions, yes.

So in the end, how do you determine what is the final percentage for that year if it fluctuates throughout the year based on the market?

This is all determined on September 30th.

Where the plan stands at September 30th. Okay.

All right. Thank you. So this chart or this slide shows the current operating budget. On the left-hand side, you can see our revenue distribution. So again, as we talked earlier about non-tax revenues, everything below that top line, okay which is property taxes which again we all you know i'm sure everyone assumes property taxes is the largest portion of our revenues um everything below there is what is available to pay your other debt service and then on the right hand side again i don't think it's it's any surprise to anybody that you know police and fire are two of the top three um budgets in the city and that general admin budget. I know we spent a lot of time on that last year. That includes the money that we give the CRA and that includes your debt service. So about half of that $30 million is what we have in the budget for debt service for this year. And about a third of that $30 million is the $10 million that's going to the CRA. So again, there's very little else that's in there. Contingency is in there and certain programs that we run are in there. But that $30 million, again, that's kind of citywide. It doesn't go to a particular department. But those are your top three categories of where the money is being spent.

Mr. Chairman, if the property tax issue passes in November, what is our plan B? Has there been some thought of how we're going to make those funds up?

So again, you do have the option of raising your millage rate, again, because you'll know that it's passed before your 28 budget, which is the one that it's going to kick into. Or again, now you start going on that right-hand side and say, okay, where can we chip away to make up that $6 million or $6.9 million that Ms. Jack showed you? You know, we got a slide later when we started talking about personnel. But since 2022, we've added like 46 positions. And again, we have a lot of vacancies. And it's really personnel is one of our highest costs. That's really where we need to start, you know, chipping away at it.

Okay, this is what I would like to see. Mr. Wilkins, you are what you did is to We need a concrete plan before it happens. We don't need to wait until it happens and then we start trying to figure out where we're going to go to try to make it up. So the council can decide when they think that we should have that done, but we definitely need a plan before it happens. Hopefully we won't have to use it, but we need a plan.

Two separate budgets. One current with everything as is. One with everything as is. The second one would be a conditional one if things pass.

We have a plan in place that we know how we're going to move.

But we can work on that one past the deadline.

If you think about it, you'll know the answer in about 90 days. November 3rd isn't that far away. We know the answer, but we don't have a plan. So we've talked about, you know, as vacancies come, you know, maybe we hold off on them.

That's a good question, Chair. So if we could, can we pass a budget that will be contingent on the referendum not being approved, and then if the referendum is approved, the other budget goes into effect?

I'd say probably not, but let me, let me just, and we certainly can research that for you. But again, this budget is based on, there is no tax reform, right? So we're, we're trying, we just want to make sure we don't put things in here that we got to take out later. Understood. Yeah. um but i think he's just saying if we need a plan so if it does maybe not in the budget this time we we roll like we don't have it but should it happen right but your revenues aren't going to change this year you've got your 8.35 you've got your non-tech those revenues aren't going to change and again as the chair pointed out earlier you'll have a balanced budget come you know september 8th right chair um the county tax assessor told us this goes into effect january january 1st so it will it will impact this so your tax year goes january 1st to december okay and then that goes into your next budget year so your property appraiser goes in on stem first but it's for the next tax so it's for the next year So again, here's a little bit more detailed breakout on your revenues. And again, you can see that the property taxes just two years ago were $8.1 million less than we're looking at this year. So to roll back $6.9 million, I don't want to minimize it, but we were really there just two, three years ago. So we really have to consider what have we done in the last couple of years? What can we do to kind of start, you know, moving backwards? And part of that is reflected in this budget, because again, this was still a tight budget with things like the pension costs, you know, that have come in and the fact that we've added that additional debt service.

So it made it, you know, a tighter budget.

But again, you know, anything below that first line, right,

is eligible for debt so just getting back to that that item mr sherman um question and you just mentioned that part of why we lost that six million or it escalated um was the debt service um did you just say that that was no no what did you say no what i said was is this budget again was you know a more difficult budget because we put in debt service for the 60 million stop right there i then i just asked you did you mention debt service and you said no and the first thing when you begin to explain here was that service i know i heard that service No, keep going. Okay.

But also things like the police contract, the pension costs. You know, we've added to our expenses, but the big items, again, if you look at our property taxes are only going up $3.5 million. Your pension costs alone went up $2.6 million. The payment to the CRA went up $600,000. So just between pension and CRA, this budget has eaten up almost the entire increase. What's made it difficult is a 4% increase in property values when we have been running 6%, 7%, 8% the last number of years. So the fact that we don't have anything coming out of the ground that came online had contributed to it as well.

Understood. Mr. Sherman, our debt service related to our bonds, where are we in regards to any flexibility within our maximum amount that we're able to charge a bond? bond limit so again our debt capacity right now we have about 70 million dollars of bond i mean a percentage um how much room do we have uh you've given me amount all right for a percentage okay hey what is the uh have we bonded 80 percent of oh oh i got you um

So we're not even at 50% of our total capacity.

So again, we have... We're not almost maxed out on our bonding capacity.

So the bonding capacity is based on The amount of non-tax revenues that you're bringing in. So as that grows, that increases your capacity, right?

As we pay debt off, that gets added back to your capacity. That was a yes or no answer. Are we almost maxed out on our bonds?

No, right now, no. No, if we issue $70 million, you'd be maxed out.

If we issue what?

If you issue $70 million, you would be maxed out until these conditions change again.

Okay. We just had 400 mil with the water treatment plan.

Yep. Two totally different entities, two totally different pledged revenues. One's coming from a utility. We also have stormwater debt out there. Again, a different funding source. Those don't cross. This is strictly general.

But that is what. I and the public need to understand. Because you're assuming that everybody understand how this bonding process works, but the only thing that they're hearing is forty five million dollars here, four hundred over there for the recreation center. And then we hear we're going to be paying another property tax because of the debt. I'm told we're almost maxed out on our bonding capacity. And that's why I asked you that question. But the residents need to know where we are. We don't need to assume that they understand this financial process. because one, there are naysayers out there and they're going to be saying a lot of negative things. And I want to make sure that we are doing as much as we can to ease the burden on residents. And we'll talk about how to do that and mitigate some of those debt service payments on the resident at another time.

Right, Chair?

Yes.

I understand what you're saying because in the last year I've been getting VERY DIFFERENT OPINIONS ON THE BONDING LIMIT, YOU KNOW, FOR THE CITY, FOR THE UD DISTRICT. I HEAR DIFFERENT THINGS. I'VE BEEN TOLD DIFFERENT NUMBERS. I WAS TOLD WE'RE AT OUR BONDING LIMIT, THEN I WAS TOLD WE'RE NOT AT OUR BONDING LIMIT, THEN I'M TOLD AGAIN WE HAVE 70 MILLION, THEN HOPEFULLY NEXT WEEK YOU WON'T TELL ME IT WENT DOWN TO 5 MILLION, BUT I'VE BEEN GETTING ALL DIFFERENT MIXED answers to my question on what our bonding limit is for the last year. It's been going up and down and up and down. I'd like to have a real solid number. That's why I asked for the list of the bonds and what our bonding was originally and what the balance is so we know where we stand in bonding.

We certainly can either make a whole entire bond presentation, or if you preferred in writing, we can give you something in writing.

Yes, probably a presentation for our residents who's going to have to pay it. They need to better understand what they're committing to. We're not going to hold them voted for some of it, the referendum, but what weren't discussed is what that actual financial impact on your household is going to be. you see i want a 45 million dollar recreation center or when you say that i want this high-tech um water plant different areas understand that they still paying for it and there was never an explanation about as it relates to your pocket if your home is about three hundred thousand this is what it's going to be in addition to the avalon taxes It has been mentioned in meetings, but that was not as I read the language on the referendum. It did not speak to the impact to their pocket. And people get excited when they see new buildings going to go up until they start getting assessed and they start getting the assessment bills in the mail. So but yes, we do need to have a bonding presentation for the people who are going to have to pay the bonds. Okay, thank you.

Okay, this is the, again, general fund expenditure side. Again, this is your department spending. AND, AGAIN, YOU CAN SEE BOTTOM LINE, WE'VE GONE FROM 112 MILLION TO 120. WE'RE NOW AT $126.6 MILLION. AND, AGAIN, YOU CAN, YOU KNOW, RUN THROUGH ALL THOSE NUMBERS. BUT, AGAIN, YOU SEE VERY INCREMENTAL INCREASES. WE TRIED TO THIS YEAR GET THE DEPARTMENTS AROUND A 2 TO 3% INCREASE IN THEIR ANNUAL BUDGETS. AND, YOU KNOW, really accolades go out to the department heads, they all came back and you know, provided some, some significant cuts to get to this, this number that we currently have. So again, just a kind of another presentation, you know, looking at the numbers, you can see that again, the majority of our budget is is public safety. And again, I don't think that's a that comes as a surprise to anyone. And again, on the spending side, again, looking at the categories of spending, as you can see, you know, half the budget, a little more than half the budget is your personnel. So when we talk again about how would you go and roll back that, you know, come up with that $6.8 million, you got to start with positions. Again, with the cost of health insurance, the cost of pension costs, um you know the personnel you know is really again 50 of your budget it's it's hard to start cutting your budget if you you don't cut uh you know the personnel uh i did mention i think before you know we do like to look out five years um so we're make sure that we're not making decisions today that you know maybe we're missing how it's going to impact us uh in the long run So as again, you can see the first two columns of the 26 and tentative 27 budgets, they're both balanced at this point. But if you then take that and use historical trends and use industry, you know, spending, you know, how things are moving, you can see that if we don't make changes every year, that balanced budget becomes next year a $2.8 million deficit. going all the way out to 2032 and it's now a 16.8 million dollar deficit and this does not even account for property tax reform this is just our current budget if we continue to trend without making annual adjustments to it um you know you'd find yourself uh to you know to a very uh large deficit sure uh yes i just read it uh director sherman are we going to get an itemization

AN ITEMIZED BUDGET FOR EACH DEPARTMENT RATHER THAN JUST A GENERAL NUMBER.

NEW SPEAKER PORTER YOU SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN THAT ON JULY 31ST. YOU DIDN'T GET THE TENTATIVE BUDGET. I BELIEVE IT IS A COPY IN YOUR BINDER.

NEW SPEAKER I GOT IT IN MY OFFICE. IT ITEMIZES THE ENTIRE DEPARTMENT. SO WE HAVE EVERY SINGLE DEPARTMENT IN THE CITY.

NEW SPEAKER IT DOES. YES. NEW SPEAKER AND AGAIN, WHEN WE GO SEPTEMBER 8TH FOR OUR first public hearing and when you actually adopt budget, you're adopting the budgets for every one of these entities that are up here on the screen. So even though we break it down, you got a general fund budget and you got a marina budget and you got a USD budget. At the end of the day, when you're adopting the budgets, you're adopting the entire package, including USD. The only thing that is not included in the budget that you adopt by this board is the CRA budget. You do that as a separate action. But again, up here, again, bottom line, 2026, the entire budget was 214 million. And now we're at $243 million for all of these entities. I mentioned earlier about staffing. So again, this is something you see in the budget book every year. uh we started fy 26 with 588 positions we've paired out 20 positions or unfunded 20 positions in this budget so we're at 568 but again if you go back even just to 2022 i believe that the number was 542 positions so again we've added positions uh You know, the budget's gotten tighter. We're going to have to start considering looking at those vacancies with a keener eye and see how we can do things a little bit differently.

Mr. Sherman, I'm going back to Vice Chair Spirit's question about the individual departments. Are they going to give presentations or is it going to be just a general presentation?

You're almost done with me and then it's all them. Oh, okay. Matter of fact, I have one more slide to quote Ms. Jacks.

I have one more slide.

I always like to point out again, we do provide Riviera Beach Open Finance. This is right on the city's webpage. If you go to the homepage, it's the button on the bottom right. down by where Sargent is on the page. You can come in here 24-7 and look at our spending, and you can drill down. So again, if you look over on the left-hand side, you can see the revenue budget, that $226.9 million, right? And you could click on that, and you could drill down to those revenues. You can see that are to the right of that is the operating budget. And again, that's the entire budget. It the numbers are slightly different because we have encumbrances from the prior year that that roll forward. And then below that on the left, again, you can see right now we have spent $161 million through today. And sure.

So I'm looking at the budget, the proposed budget, and I see what you're calling itemization of the budget by department. But I don't see, for example, the employees and their ties. Let's just use the police department as an example. I don't see 10 sergeants. You know, 15 lieutenants.

We have that. We can provide that. We do have that.

You can provide that. I'd like to have those numbers before I vote on the budget.

And again, that's a schedule that is in the budget book every year. It's just, you know, as you know, the budget book is about 300 pages. And, you know, this is the tentative when we narrow it down. We could certainly get that out as well. And again, you can see over here, the payroll number is 58.9 million. That's what we've spent on payroll so far this year. But this is my last slide. We're now going to move into the department directors. And I'd asked them to come up and start getting ready to roll through here. But we're starting with Chief Coleman.

Good evening, Board Chairperson, Board Directors, City Manager, Chief Coleman, City of Riverview Beach Police Department. And I also want to introduce my executive staff, the current staff that's here today. I have Major Thomas, Major Kamond, Major Walker, and Chief Madden. Give you an overview of my police department. The Riverview Beach Police Department is a full-service law enforcement agency whose business model is centered around community policing, accountability, and professional excellence. The department has achieved state accreditation, demonstrating our commitment to maintaining high standards and being recognized among the best law enforcement agency in the state of Florida. Our executive staff is expected to be lifelong students of the profession. Members of management team are required to possess advanced educational credentials, including bachelor degrees or higher, as well as advanced professional training. This includes programs such as the FBI Academy, AOC and SMIP at Harvard University. And I think most of my staff here obtained one of those credentials or not both. So I'll let you know that we have a very well-groomed executive management team who's able to maintain and move the agency forward no matter who's in this seat as chief of police or not. The first slide here I want to talk about, the Riverview Beach Police Department has 120 sworn officers and approximately seven non-sworn officers and professional employees, reflecting the diversity of the community. As shown in this slide, the department is organized in three primary divisions, administration, support, and operations. Administration division responsible for administrative operations and departmental management. Support team is overseen by Chief Madden, It's comprised primarily of our professional and specialized staff who provide critical support and department operations. Operational side is overseen by Chief Gordon, who's not here today, comprised primarily of sworn personnel responsible for day-to-day law enforcement and public safety operations. This structure allows us to effectively manage our resources while ensuring that our personnel remain focused on our core mission of protecting and serving the community. Of course, these are four slides here. I'm going to go from far to top left to down, back to the far right. If you have any questions, you can stop me in between. I'll answer any questions you may have in between. As you see in our 2027 goals, which I can't see from here, so I'm going to look over here. Our vision for the police department is built on three foundation pillars. And when you talk about pillars, my pillars, well, Forrest Ryan organization is all about crime reduction, community trust and community outreach and educational development and training for my police department. For my goals for 2027, you're going to have engagement, community engagement. You're going to have implement a drone program. You're going to have reduced undue to traffic accidents along Blue Heron Boulevard and our main corridors. And I think, you know, if you want the data, we can show you the data, which we have reduction over the past three years in all of these areas. Crime reduction. Our strategies are producing measures, measurable results. In 2025, the city experienced a 24% overall reduction in crime. Now we had a 38% crime reduction from negative to positive in 2020, 2025. But we had a 24% reduction overall crime in River, in River Beach, the lowest crime rate we ever had in history. OF THE CITY. TO DATE, IN 2026, WE HAVE ALSO SEEN APPROXIMATELY 20% REDUCTION IN VIOLENT CRIMES CITYWIDE, AND THAT'S BECAUSE WE HAVE SURPASSED OUR NUMBERS LAST YEAR, AND WE HAVE GREAT NUMBERS LAST YEAR, AND I THINK IF WE CONTINUE DOING GREAT WORK, WE'RE GOING TO SURPASS THOSE NUMBERS THIS YEAR AS FAR AS VIOLENT CRIMES. WE HAVE AN UPTICK IN LARCENIES IN THE CITY, AND THAT'S BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE JUST POOR, AND PEOPLE ARE STILL IN BUBA GUM, BEER, THINGS OF THAT NATURE, SO WE'RE GOING TO HAVE We're looking at that and trying to target those individual on Broadway corridor, which most of my large needs taking place. Singer Island, petty theft, Broadway and South Broadway. These results demonstrate our community police model combined with strategic enforcement and data driven decision making. It's working the way we deploy our resources is working. We have a serious impact on how crime has been taking place and we push an individual out of our city. and I'm sad to say for my counterparts, they go into their cities. Community outreach and trust, building relationship with our residents remain priority. In 2023, the department has painted 97 homes through our community engagement initiative. We have also made progress in addressing homelessness through our weekly co-response model program. We have helped reduce the homeless count from approximately 236 individuals to fewer than 40 in less than three years we go out every thursday with uh mental health providers va saint mary's and um jfk and we meet the individuals where they're at in our city and we provide them services because of house bill 1365 we was able to get them interviewed some medical help and get them where they need to be not river beach oh chief on that point yes sir because that's that's the point that a lot of people

don't want to deal with the homeless in their community, but I'm of the position we need to show compassion to get them help. So what kind, do you have some type of programs with the collaborative programs with the agencies that deal with the homeless other than the mental, what about housing and food and all that other good stuff?

Everything you've mentioned, yes, sir. We work with outside agencies throughout Palm Beach County, the mental health, Palm Beach County mental health services. They use our data and our program guidelines to get $10 million for the county. So they there was the goal of $30 million. They use my data, our data to get $10 million. We provide housing. We provide mental health services. We have a program with JFK. We get them in service and we get them housing. So we just House Bill 1365. If they want housing, we have to provide housing to them based on House Bill 1365. If they refuse that, they don't get protection. But we do get them housing.

Yeah, there was a bill that passed that prohibited the homeless from being on or sleeping on public property. Are you familiar with that bill? House Bill 1365, absolutely. That's the one? Yes, sir. If that were to happen... And we didn't catch it before somebody else passed by and reported us. How do we deal with that?

Well, we work with it outside agencies, Palm Beach County and throughout. There's a lot of nonprofits out there has programs to address the homelessness. A lot of people just never use them over the years. Chief Gordon, when he came back from AOC, he created a program before House Bill 1365, and we were able to reduce because of his program he created from 236 to 107. And because of House Bill 1365, we're under 40 now. But we provide resources to anybody in the city of Red River Beach who needs housing and medical facilities.

Last question regarding mental illness. It hasn't been a taboo subject in our community, the black culture for years. We don't want to admit that sometimes we need help. Do we offer services to the non homeless who may need some help and you have a contact with the mental

Absolutely. Absolutely, sir. What I spoke earlier about the lady and Dr. Phillips and she's all 45th and Maxine, whenever someone needs help and we get first, we get first right to go in there because of the MOU we created with the mental health facility of Palm Beach County. And we created a program with a couple of drug treatment programs and mental health facilities. If they need help, we have a first right to get into those facilities. Matter of fact, we have scholarship, three individuals that valued at thirty seventy thousand dollars. to get into the treatment facility who's suffering from mental health issues and opioid epidemics. Okay, thank you.

Yes, sir. I get some calls about people needing help, and so I know that I can.

If you all have those individuals and they need help, we'll triage them, we'll get them to a facility and get them treatment.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Chair?

Yes, Councilwoman Lanier.

Yeah, I'd like to thank the chief and his staff because what's happening with the decreased crime in Riviera Beach is addressing those issues you know, preventatively, if you're looking at homelessness and mental health, you are stopping crime from happening. And a lot of major cities have decreased their crime based on, you know, people call it social services or socialism. But based on those issues of preventing homelessness, of preventing or getting help with mental health, a lot of those issues prevent crime from happening in your city. So I really appreciate the chief and the staff and the police officers for doing their jobs.

I would agree. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Lanier. OK, these programs demonstrate the effect of policing goes beyond enforcement. It also means addressing quality of life issues and building meaningful relationships with the people we serve. We meet people where they at. We don't wait for them to come for us. We go in the field and meet them where they at and provide treatment training and development. As I talked earlier, we have created a comprehensive training blueprint and raised our department training standards. My entire command staff either holds advanced degrees or actively pursuing higher education, professional development, we believe our leaders must be developed from the neck up, meaning they must have education, knowledge, critical thinking skills, and analytical ability necessary to assess situations effectively and make sound decisions. The third slide I'm talking about, well, the budget modification. In this whole process, we talked about, you know, when we had to create a budget, my budget increased to $35 million. My city manager came back and said, I need to cut your budget by $2 million. So we had to go back to the drawing board and find $2 million to cut. So what we did, we reclassified positions and eliminated positions that we no longer needed to make that budget. Also what we did, we have a hiring freeze on six positions in my organization because since I've been here since 2023, I've been hovering around seven to eight vacancies. So not a big impact on me. I don't want anybody to take it away from me. But if the city continues to grow and we continue to build out, I look at my CIP projects and see every time we build a building, we have three to four families in these homes. So we're going to need these bodies over time.

Chair?

Yes, Vice Chair Spiridon.

So you didn't deduct the two new Marine police officers?

I'm getting to that. Absolutely not, sir.

Thank you. Yes, sir. Question about how are you maintaining... the positions that you say that you're not filling or took away, but you still need them in the future. So are you just not filling them right now or are you eliminating them? What is the process? I'm freezing those positions.

I'm freezing six positions. And because of the PBA contract, we agreed to freeze six positions to fund that PBA contract. but also on freezing three positions until March. That's kind of like a $75,000 savings, a little bit more, $80,000 savings until March. That's three positions on freezing until March. So that's a savings as well. So we were able to find my $2 million from just restructuring some things in freezing positions. Okay. Yes, sir. The third slide I'm going to talk about is the police department has successfully met the $2 million saving requirement to improve management, enhance oversight, elimination, reclassification, and consolidate positions. Our savings and efficiency include, now I have a CRA program. The CRA program, we have three officers that must remain in the CRA district at all times and at the boundaries within the CRA. The CRA, since I've been here, since we started this program three years, They fund those officers. This year, we agreed in principle, give us $400,000 to cover the cost of those CRA officers so they can continue to work in the CRA district to maintain our, as we continue to build in our CRA district, they will be only allowed to work within the CRA district to maintain, eliminate slum and blight and safety within the CRA district along Broadway. They can't leave this area.

Okay, I have a question regarding those officers. um is the cra also paying the um benefit package or they're paying the salaries or they're paying both absolutely they're paying uh salaries and benefits okay yes sir yes uh chief are you are you funding uh

On Singer Island in the CRA District, are you getting funds for policing in that area, in District 4?

Part of, yes sir, part of Singer Island is covered, part of that is CRA District. So yes, those officers is covered as part of that area. We can't go outside that boundary. Certainly, they have a geographical map they have to stay into, but they are part of Zone 11, which is Singer Island.

Right.

Thank you. Yes, sir. The Marine Unit, I know we talked about the morning field, and I think it's all over the news. I think we've been hitting that pretty hard. that before the town of palm beach was pushing all the derelict boats into our waterway so we came up with a robust program to eliminate our derelict vessels from being in our waterway and push them to another location outside of river beach so because of our program that we put together that the city allowed us to hire two additional officers to go on top of my 121 so we're going to hire two additional officers just to be on our marine boat so that's going to be We're going to get $300,000 that you guys voted on a unanimous vote about a month ago to hire two officers at $300,000 you're going to give me for that Marine program. So thank you. Okay, let me get to clarification. You froze some positions, but you're about to add two. How did that work? Different funding, different funding sources. That money strictly comes from Marine unit. They have to work on within the waterway area. So we froze those six, but the funding source is different. Just like the CRE funding is different funding sources, not from the general fund.

OK, where where where are the funds coming from for the new positions that you're adding to? And I support it. Let me just say that. Yes, sir. I'm just trying to understand how the financing is working.

It comes from our Marine program. We have a robust marine program on Overseas Waterway. So that funding comes from the marine program. OK. I thought you said that we approve the budget When we did the morning field resolution, within that resolution, you had $300,000 for two officers in that resolution that you guys passed about a month ago. Okay. Unanimous vote. Okay. Also, technology. We know that, thank you guys for approving our police department. We're going to have one of the best police department, thanks to Mr. Bailey and his team, putting together one of the best technology, the best advanced police department around. So because of the technology we're going to be experiencing, we are transferring our technology specialists back over to our department so they can continue to work with the builders to make sure we get the, I don't like change orders. So we're going to make sure they don't do anything wrong. So we got our technology specialist, you know, going to come back to our department and help build out OUR POLICE DEPARTMENT. SO THAT TECHNOLOGY ADMINISTRATED WERE TRANSFERRED BACK TO MY DEPARTMENT. SO THE MONEY WAS ALREADY IN THE BUDGET. THESE ACTIONS DEMONSTRATE OUR COMMITMENT TO RESPONSIBLE PHYSICAL MANAGEMENT WHILE MAINTAINING LEVELS OF SERVICE THAT OUR RESIDENTS RESPECT. NOW, THE FOURTH SLIDE, THE 2027 BUDGET, THE PROPOSED POLICE BUDGET IS APPROXIMATELY $33.7 MILLION. REPRESENT AN INCREASE APPROXIMATELY $700,000. primarily associated with the PBA contract and related personnel costs. Because you see the several hundred increase, and that's because of the PBA contract, when you approve the budget, the hourly wages went up. So that's why you're gonna see the increase plus that 2.3% increase, the reason we have that increase of several hundred thousand dollars from 32 million to 33 million. That's the cost difference.

Chief. Can you tell, Chair, okay. Can you tell me about overtime? Overtime? Yes, sir.

Absolutely. Because of the cost that we gave these significant ranges, we had to pay more in overtime. But because of the great management skills of your management team, we were able to keep our overtime limited at a premium because of proper management, better management over staffing. Great. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you for being here. And currently we had the budget. We had 80 last week. We have that. I do a weekly monitoring of my budget. We last week was at 85.6% of our expenditure for 2026, 2027 budget cycle. So we're right there in that sweet spot where we're not going to over go on there. So I'm not going to go. We should not go over our budget. If we do, we go over just a little bit. Even with the increased costs, we have continued to identify efficiencies, maximize outside funding opportunities, and strategically manage department resources. When I talked about finding resources, we are looking at state and federal appropriation bills that we can apply for. Last year, we brought in, of course, I think $500,000 that we applied for. The year before that, we got a million dollars for a mobile command center. The year before that, we got $700,000 for a mobile command center. THIS YEAR WE'RE LOOKING TO APPLY FOR MORE GRANTS THROUGH THE STATE AND FEDERAL APPROPRIATION BILLS. I HAD A CONVERSATION WITH ONE OF OUR CONGRESS LADIES AND WE'RE GOING TO LOOK TO APPLY FOR SOME BILLS. ALSO WE APPLY FOR $600,000 GRANT FROM THE PORT OF PALM BEACH AND WE'RE WORKING WITH THEIR LOBBYISTS AND WORKING WITH THEM AT THE PORT TO APPLY FOR TECHNOLOGY GRANTS SO WE'RE GETTING THE HANDS FROM OUR REAL TIME CROWN CENTER IN CASE WE HAVE A SHORTFALL WITHIN THE CITY.

CHIEF, DO YOU HAVE A GRANT WRITER ON YOUR STAFF Yeah, Matt.

But we just put in my budget analyst, my budget analyst that we hopefully get approved. That person will be because Matt is retiring in 2028. I need to make sure we don't lose anything and be efficient across the board. So I'm bringing in a budget analyst that would be required to do grant writing, agenda submissions, as well as overseeing my budget.

Congratulations, Stacey.

The last slide, capital improvement. Capital improvement requests are directly tied to officer safety, operational effectiveness, technology, and our ability to respond to emerging threats. Now, capital improvement budget, we have a barricade. We requested a barricade over the past three, four years. The department executes approximately 40 search warrants each year. A barricade will provide officers with an enhanced level of protection during high-risk operations, including search warrants, barricading suspects.

Chief, can you tell people what that is?

A barricade, well,

It's a big truck.

But if I can, I'm going to turn it over to Major Thomas because that's his project. So can you explain what a Bearcat is, please? Yes.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Major Thomas, River Beach Police Department. So the Bearcat is a armored rescue vehicle which can be used for SWAT operations. It is ballistic all the way around. It allows us to transport our personnel to and from a location safely. In addition to search warrants, I'd like to also add that another situation where they're used for is for rescue of individuals. In the instance of an active shooter or any other type of situation where a person is down and needs to be rescued while they're still an active assailant.

So if you watch the show SWAT, that's what you're buying, right? Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. And for hurricanes also. So that's one of the things that with our high risk operations, we want to currently use is something I want to talk about what we use it now, but it's not safe to use as a long term basis. The next thing is our capital improvement, real time crime center software. We know that you guys have given us $57 million to build out our police department. Thank you. But that just the real time crimes that the software itself is cost a lot of money. So that's where we want to start building out and ordering, looking at our software. So we get into the police department. We can have that software already on hand. We start looking at how we're going to build it, build it out. So that's what the three million dollars for it costs around fifty thousand a year. But it's going to cost overall three million dollars about to build out our real time crime center. And that would be able to oversee our drone program. We can launch our drones from the roof. We can launch our drone from the port of Palm Beach and so on and so forth. So that's what the software dollars are for. Enhanced security, another capital. We also need to strengthen our overall security plan to ensure that the department and the city are prepared for evolving threats, large-scale incidents, the incidents improving infrastructure, technology, operational planning, and emergency capabilities. Now, one thing, that's the four things that we talk about, but I also want to talk about some programming I think is important that I want to bring up for what we're doing. The morning field, that's a program that we added to last year's program that we want to do next year. We want to really strengthen our morning field because a lot of individuals that park their boat here don't live in the city of River Beach. They park their boat and go to Wellington and go to Palmy Star and go wherever, but their boat is here. And what they're doing, a lot of time, they open up their buoys pumps, their waste pumps, and leave all their waste in my waterway. So now with this marine unit we're going to create, we'll be able to monitor and safeguard our, protect our waterways. Because other cities, like the town of Palm Beach, they're pushing everybody out of their city into my lagoon.

A question, because as you probably have seen, we have some of them coming here asking for temporary parking, while we're doing the mowing system. Have your area researched how that would impact our waterways?

Yes, I don't approve of them having any type of extensions in our waterways. However, FWC has that authority to give them that extension. I don't want to give them that extension, because like I said... Who's SW? FWC, Florida Wildlife. Oh, FWC. Yes. I don't want to give them extension. They can give them extension for permanent anchoring. I don't think they need permanent anchoring. I don't think we need any type of waivers to even be here. They don't live here.

So why are they coming to us if they can get the permission from someone else?

Because we listen. Okay. Thank you, Chief. Yes, sir. Forfeiture program. You know, we want to look for revenue because a lot of time we arrest people. We don't have a forfeiture program. I'm working with Miss Wynn in her office to create a forfeiture program. I met a young lady who go out to Bitcoin when criminals right now, they're keeping all their wallets and their cell phones. And then she found $30 million in Bitcoins and people's cell phones that they should not have on illegal means. So with this forfeiture program, we will be able to hopefully get some $30 million to assist with our program that we want to do. So I want to create a nice, robust forfeiture program so we can punish those individuals who are using our illegal operators and vehicles for illegal opportunities. So we want to go out to those individuals and take their money. The second one, the drone program. We're working on a drone program. We work on a water program and an area program for drones. We have also developed a comprehensive drone program capable of supporting both area and water-based operations. Drones can enhance our ability to conduct searches, document crime scenes, monitor large events, support marine operations, locate missing persons, and provide officers with real-time situations. The drone program is something that we need. It's kind of offset. and provide safety for our officers before they get to a scene. We can evaluate it better before we actually deploy resources. The aerial drone, I don't need a dive team. I have an underwater drone, which you guys did approve for me to get a drone for $77,000. Thank you once again. So that program would be all part of the drone program. We ran out of real-time crime centers, so we don't have to dive for individuals in the waterway. We can put a drone in there, and we have sonar radar. We'll be able to detect where those derelict vessels are and how long they've been tied off in the waterway. At the end of my presentation, you have any questions? My team and I can answer any questions.

I've got a question. It's regarding. And certainly we want to comply with the state and federal law. Let me preface my comments with that. But there have been incidents around the country regarding ice. coming into communities. Have we had any unfortunate incidents in our community?

To my knowledge, I don't know of any. I'm not saying they're not here. They don't have to report to us, but I don't know of any ICE agents operations being taken place in the city of River Beach. I've received phone calls saying they think they saw ICE, but some of the time when I get a phone call, that's just us doing operations and they think it's ICE, but it's not ICE when they receive the phone calls.

Were we required to have officers with them at one time, or is it on request? On request. Because I remember seeing something about our officers working with them.

What we have done throughout the state, we have, I think, four officers with credentials of ICE, but we have never deployed any resources to assist ICE.

Maybe it was the credentials. Last question. I like real-life crime shows, and they always have these highway cameras everywhere. Do we have the same, and certainly don't share where they are?

Absolutely. I can't tell you where they're at. We have some of the best technology and cameras in the world. I've had Israel come over here twice last year to review my cameras in my real-time crime center. We have over 430 cameras in the city. We have 150, 430. I need more if you want to increase my budget. We have 150 LPR systems in the city. We have a facial recognition system in the city. We have flock. We have shot spotters. We have some of the best technology in the world on River and Beach. And we always had it. We're the first to have shot spotters. I think now we're using the technology to its full capacity now. And we have people trained and confident enough to understand how to use that technology better. Okay.

Do any of my colleagues have any? Yes, they do, sir. Yes, Councilwoman Miller-Anderson.

I was just trying to see how the, that slide up there ties in with the binder that we have with the itemized list. Because when I look at it, I see operating, that amount doesn't match what's in the book. Can somebody just explain to me how the numbers in the back of the book match up with what they have on their slides?

I know, well, from 21 to 25, at the very bottom line, 2025, 2026, 2027, those numbers are accurate to based on over three year look back. 2025, we had 29, we went up 3 million, and this year we're going up 700,000 at the very bottom. I THINK IT JUST BREAKED DOWN WHAT WE'RE ASKING FOR.

NEW SPEAKER Yeah, BUT I MEAN, WHO DID THE BOOK, THE STUFF IN HERE, THE NUMBERS THAT ARE IN THIS BOOK? WAS THAT MR. SHERMAN?

NEW SPEAKER YES, HOLD ON, MA'AM.

NEW SPEAKER I'M JUST TRYING TO SEE HOW IT LINES UP, BECAUSE THOSE NUMBERS AREN'T MATCHING WITH WHAT I SEE IN HERE. I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT SHOULD IT BE MATCHING.

Councilwoman, what page are you looking at? 160. 160. Because I see those numbers on page 87, but you're looking at 160.

But 87 is the same as what's on there, right?

Okay.

Yeah, no, I'm looking at the breakdown. Okay, gotcha. Thanks.

Who's going to answer that question?

Yeah, in the binder, page 160. WHICH IS POLICE SUPPORT SERVICES AND THEN 161 IS POLICE OPERATIONS. BUT EVEN THE OPERATIONS NUMBERS DON'T MATCH WHAT, YOU KNOW, I DON'T KNOW. THAT'S WHAT I'M TRYING TO FIND OUT. SHOULD THEY MATCH OR WHAT AM I LOOKING AT? WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

AND WHILE THEY ARE RESEARCHING THAT, MR. CHAIRMAN, YOU ALL ARE RESEARCHING THAT ISSUE? Okay, as soon as you find out, would you come up and provide that information to Councilwoman Miller-Anderson?

And that would be for every department, I mean, because there's a slide and then there's a back part, yeah.

Okay. I know this, ma'am. May I? Well, you have a breakdown between support services and you have operations. My department has to, as I explained earlier, we have a support side of the house, which is the total breakdown of a cost for that department, for that division. That's more like my surveillance staff. On the operational side, you have, it's gonna add, if you look at the very bottom line, the far right, you got $13 million for support. The very bottom. It's just a breakdown with Mr. Spear's account I talked about earlier. You got $13 million for support. $13,180,000, all right? And then you flip over to the other page, 161, on the very bottom, you have $20,475,000. Just combine those two numbers. It's just a breakdown of expenses, insurance. It's a breakdown of how the money would be spent and allocated for different functions.

Okay, so the two pages together gives you the total for the 2027.

You know, if you added those together, it would come out to $33 million.

Okay. I'll just look at the next one, make sure the other one goes that way. Thank you.

Don't confuse anybody. Chip is right? Yes, sir. Oh, you don't think? We all are right.

Okay.

I just had a quick question. How do you all determine, like, how much visibility you all have in the gated community? like your Thousand Oaks, your Turtle Cave, how do you determine how much time you come through, you know, monitoring in those areas?

Well, we have the city broken down in, I think, nine zones, nine zones. And then each zone, we look at, we have a CompStat meeting every other month. So based on the data, based on CompStat, we look at the data and we look at the trends that are taking place. But regardless of the trends, we should be going into those communities, you know, every hour, an hour or so many times per night when we were patrolling. But because of certain areas that have been like zone on military trail, we have some individuals just moved out there. Section eight, my crime had went up with large names and vehicle theft on the zone of military trail. So we put a lot of resources in District 3, which is Bellator Trail. The lowest crime rate in the city of River Beach right now is in Monroe Heights Federal Garden and Monroe Heights Firehouse. Those that have the lowest crime rates over the past three, four months they ever had in the city. And we haven't had any violent crimes over the past four months or summertime, which we have a lot of that. So we deploy based on resources, based on data. But we're also going in those places on a regular basis.

Okay. I guess we'll have to move the police station.

Sorry?

I guess we'll have to move the police station. Well, that's because of the great police work you don't have, Brian.

Thank you very much, Chief. Yes, sir. Good presentation. Thank you, officers. Okay, Mr. Wilkins. Next slide. Oh, quick question, though. How many... How many departments do we have in the city. Who knows that 13 to 14. A 13 to 14. I'm just trying to calculate times here.

Good evening, Chair, Council. How are you doing today? Good. Acting Fire Chief Timothy Allen, representing the city of Riviera Beach Fire Rescue. See right now, our organizational, functional organizational chart is our fire, our EMS services, our fire services, ocean rescue, and our inspection, which is also prevention and logistics. Right now, our department is comprised of about 106 personnel. to make up this facet of our organizational chart.

Question, Chief. Yes, sir. Are you the team? They brought in the team.

I'm just curious. Okay. One of my team called out sick today. The other one is out of town visiting family. So I'm sorry.

I'll make sure they be in the next time. Okay.

Our organizational goals for 2027 is we also just want to continue to improve our response time and capabilities through advanced training. Also, deployment of our state-of-the-art emergency equipment and firefighting equipment. Also, expanding our fire prevention and our public education and community paramedic, paramedicine. We want to also try to get into that this year. and also foster the community culture with the leadership and accountability, professional development, recruitment and retention, and our employee physical and mental health wellness. And continue to invest in fire station improvements, technology fleet replacement, emergency preparedness, and the regional partnership in ensuring the long-term operational resilience and service of excellence. For our 2027 budget modifications, we eliminated nine firefighter positions and also eliminated our apprentice program. That brought us down to like 1.4 million with some of the additional cuts. On our operation budget, you can see over 2005, 2006, we stayed the same, over 21 million. And as of 2027, we're up to about 23 million, which that comes with the current up staffing of hiring. We just had hiring an additional 16. For our capital, 2027 capital budget, capital projects, I mean, over five year, we wanted an additional four bunk rooms in our station 88. That, because we hired so many, we had to put our minimum standing, minimum staffing had to come up to 21. With the influx of hiring, we may have to take our wellness room and expand it and make an additional five dorms for personnel to stay. And also, we're looking into replacing our SCBA breathing, self-contained breathing apparatus this year. I mean, next year, they're at their life at this time, and the majority of them are going to be out of warranty. So we're going to pay a lot more money paying warranty for these items than just go ahead and replace them totally. And that's consistent of 50 packs and 100 bottles. That concludes my report. departmental overview, if you have any questions, I'll take them.

Chief, you talked about your capital budget. What condition are your trucks in right now?

Our trucks right now are on the backside of their life. We now have a six-year plan of replacing three of them, two engines and one ladder. Hopefully, we have one right now in progress to be built. And after that one, then the next one, it takes about two years to build each apparatus.

Right. That's why I'm saying it takes about two years. I know you have the ladder truck is being built right now, right?

No, the ladder truck is going to be built last.

That's going to be built last. Yes. So I thought we already approved that like two years.

Oh, yeah, we approved it. But the other two, the engines take a lot more. They take a beating than a ladder truck.

I know you need a ladder truck, but didn't we approve a ladder truck? Yes, sir. I thought it was under construction, right?

No, it's not. When they custom build them, they put them in line. They put them in an order.

Okay, but it's been ordered. We paid for it. It's been ordered, and it'll be within that two, three-year period. We'll have a new ladder truck?

We should have a new ladder truck, yes, sir.

Okay, and how about your pumpers?

We should have our pumpers as well.

Do we have pumpers on order right now?

We have one pumper that's being specced out to be constructed and custom right now.

Okay, and your ambulances?

At this time, we have one that's out there with a remount, what we call a remount. Right. They take it off, put a new chassis on. Right now, actually, we picked that up today and took it down to... Palm Beach County Fleet, they're doing, put the additional lighting and instruments on there, emergency lighting, different devices on there now. And as soon as that one is back in service, we take the next one. So three of our rescues are going to be remounted as well over the next six years.

So you don't have any trucks in this budget for the future in your six year plan and this in 27?

The trucks have already been approved last year, and this year is the remounts.

So this is just the remounts? Yes. So you're confident that if we do all this development that's going to be coming out of the ground, the trucks that you have will be able to handle the development? Yes, we should be able to develop that. Okay, thank you. Any other questions from board members?

I have a quick question. Sure. Can you summarize briefly the apprentice program that you will not be funding?

So the apprentice program that we had about two years ago when we were taking the students out of high school and employing them and paying for them to go through high school. I mean, go through Fire Academy, EMT, and paramedic. BUT THEY WERE EMPLOYED WITH US, THAT WAS THEIR JOB TO GO TO SCHOOL. THAT DIDN'T WORK OUT TOO WELL FOR US THAT WE EXPECTED TO. SO THAT WAS ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE CAN ELIMINATE RIGHT NOW AND COME BACK IN THE FUTURE AND TRY AGAIN.

NEW SPEAKER THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION. CAN I FOLLOW UP ON YOUR QUESTION? NEW SPEAKER CAN I FOLLOW UP? NEW SPEAKER THAT'S A GOOD POINT, THE APPRENTICE PROGRAM THAT MY COLLEAGUES SAID. I THOUGHT WE funded $300,000 from the two new firehouses that were supposed to be used for that apprentice program.

That was before my time? Yes. I don't know anything about that one.

Okay. We'll do some research into that.

Okay.

Okay. And so my question was, because I know like Palm Beach Lakes has a fire academy, a lot of our local high schools, not a lot of them, but a few have them. So will you still be able to do some type of youth initiatives through your, through the department without maybe it being from things to that magnitude?

Yeah, we still work with them.

We still, we have, we still donate equipment to them. Okay. Old bunker gear, old stuff they don't, that we can't, is out of service for us. So we still have that relationship with them.

Okay, great.

We still go down and do hose pulls. We go down to the truck. So we still have that mentorship program with them. So the relationship is still there.

all right thank you sure um chair i have a question councilwoman miller-anderson and then councilwoman lanier how much was this program costing do we know not sure i'll have to get one um mr sherman if he has that number yeah i would like to know how much that um program was costing us um because YOU KNOW, I WAS JUST LOOKING AT SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WE'RE CUTTING OUT OR THE RECOMMENDATION FOR CUTTING OUT SOME IN THE DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS. AND IT SEEMS LIKE QUITE A FEW PROGRAMS THAT ARE BENEFICIAL TO EITHER THE YOUNG PEOPLE OR BENEFICIAL TO THE COMMUNITY. AND I'M JUST THINKING AS WE'RE GOING THROUGH THIS BUDGET PROCESS, WE NEED TO NOT TRY TO CUT OUT THINGS THAT ARE EMPOWERING PEOPLE and educating people on different things. Maybe there are other things we need to start cutting out, which I think we did a little bit. You know, we're talking about contracts, we're talking about professional service contracts, talking about travel, promotional. Maybe those are some of the areas that we need to cut a little bit back from. And I know some have, but maybe a little more needs to happen so we can maintain some of these programs that are, VERY POWERFUL FOR PEOPLE AND NOT LOOK TO, YOU KNOW, DUMMY DOWN STUFF FOR PEOPLE. SO KEEP THAT IN MIND AS WE'RE ROLLING THROUGH THESE BUDGETS. NEW SPEAKER YES, MA'AM. NEW SPEAKER BUT I DO WANT TO KNOW HOW MUCH THIS PROGRAM COST US, WHEN YOU GET IT, IF YOU CAN SEND IT OUT OR WHOEVER, MR. SHERMAN OR YOU, CAN SEND IT OUT TO US. NEW SPEAKER YES, MA'AM, I'LL GO WITH MR. SHERMAN.

NEW SPEAKER ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. NEW SPEAKER FINISH COUNCILWOMAN MILLER-ANDERSON. COUNCILWOMAN LINEAR.

Yeah, with that, with that apprenticeship program, that was a program that I brought to the fire department through Palm Beach Fire Academy. They have two students that started. It didn't really work out with the students, but they didn't go any further with it. It needs to stay. That program never got the The input, it never got the support that it needed. The two students that were there, they had some issues. It was a new program. And after that, it went nowhere. And that was the program that was very, it was pushed by my office, it was pushed by city administration. We had a very good relationship with the fire academy at Palm Beach Lakes. It was a program that can really work, but it did not get the support that it needed.

Thank you. You finished Councilman Lanier.

Yes, I'm done. I don't want to see that cut.

You heard a sheep, right? No, I can't. That echo. Oh, I know. Unfortunate. Yeah.

OK, so. So did you say that you did not understand their chief? I heard some of it, but I didn't hear the last part.

What she was basically saying is she, that Councilwoman Lanier is in favor of the apprentice program and that she helped start the program and doesn't understand why they did not get the support through the years of that program.

Correct. After the That was under Chief Kerr. I guess whatever happened with the two youth that didn't work out, we never pursued it again and brought the program back. So I'm willing to. We can look into it again. I think it's a fantastic program. I had to develop our Explorers program years ago, which kind of fizzled out because all the kids kind of grew up and went their separate ways. But it's a fantastic program. It's a great mentorship for the kids and to get them into the fire service.

Chair? And I can add to that because the process is not that easy for a student coming out of high school because you have to, you know, you have to register for the classes. You have to know what to do. You have to go and do meetings and things like that. So if no one is kind of really guiding a student, it could be, I mean, very, yeah, it could be challenging. So.

The fire side is very challenging. just saying getting started yeah yeah it is very getting started that's what i talk to a lot of students and it's i don't know just it's just like that i don't know it's just a way i don't know if it's a way to filter uh you know but it is very difficult you know and going through the apprenticeship program you can slide right through because you're in front of the line you understand what i'm saying so It's a benefit of having it. We meet with the colleges monthly about the programs and the progress of the program. And we could talk about maybe mainstreaming it a little bit more and make it a little easier to get into the program. It's just a lot of documentation that's required right now.

It really is. We had one at our school, and it was just just all of the different meetings and what you had to do it was kind of it was kind of tedious right um and unless i took out for my job to do it all with the student if i could see that it was not going to right if you don't if most students that they don't have a mentor helping them through that process they fall through the cracks so i think we kind of all want to hear a little bit more about if you can do some research on it and just let us know okay i will okay thank you

Thank you, Councilwoman Davis-Preneur.

And Chair, I just want to say.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I just want to say that I would work with the chief to be able to do that because the program, it doesn't need to be easier. It just needs to have support. The program is an excellent program. If the kids are high school kids, these kids start in ninth grade and go from ninth to 12th. So they're prepared in the sense of the fire department, fire services. It's just the 17, 18 year old needs the support of a mentor or the support of just the department in general to be able to help them through the process. So I'll be willing to sit down with them to be able to retool this program, but it doesn't need to be easier. It just needs to be supported.

Thank you, Councilwoman Lanier for your comment.

Mr. Chairman.

Yes, Mr. Wilkins.

If it's council's desire, we are keeping a ledger of individuals and programs and decisions that the council makes, those that we're adding and those that we are deleting. So if you'd like to...

Please shut your phones off, please. Okay.

I'm sorry, I'll speak louder. If it's counsel's desire, we'll put that on the list of things to consider for retention. We have a list of things that you're going to retain, things that you're going to eliminate. So we'll put that on the list.

Sounds good. Thank you. Okay, Chief, did you have anything else?

That's it, sir.

Any further questions from the dyad? Thank you very much, Chief. Thank you for the presentation. And be sure to follow up with Councilwoman Lanier. for that mentor program. Yes, sir. Everybody, especially Councilwoman Miller-Anderson.

That's right. All the educators.

Okay. Next up, and we're going to start looking at some days after this presentation. We can still be done by next week. We won't have to do it all tonight. Okay. Looks like recreation is next up. Good afternoon, everyone.

How you doing?

Good afternoon.

All right. My name is Mike Pinkney. I am representing the Parks and Rec Department. I am the interim director of Parks and Recreation. OUR PARKS AND RECREATION DIVISION HAS THREE DIVISIONS, RECREATION, AQUATICS AND PARKS. JUST TO GIVE YOU A LITTLE BACKGROUND ON WHAT'S IN THESE DIVISIONS, OUR RECREATION PROGRAM HAS OUR SUMMER CAMP, OUR AFTER CARE PROGRAM. IT ALSO CONTAINS SUMMER CAMP, AFTER CARE, Our sports recreation like football, basketball, baseball. I want to give a heads up to my staff for being, I think, the first time in a long time that our baseball team is part of Little League Baseball, District 7. Big accomplishment for us. Okay. And then we also have some newer sports like indoor pickleball in our gym.

We're trying to foster a tennis club, and we also work with outside organizations for golf for kids.

So our recreation department is growing. We have some other programs that we're trying to bring online, like NFL football, which just started this year. So then we also have our aquatics program. So what is our aquatics program right now? It's our swim on the go program, all right? It's our swim team. It's our water aerobics, right? And what's cool about this, we also have And so at the end is our Rapids Pass program. And we also have our Park Hopper Pass.

So you ask me, what is that?

That is if you don't want to go to the Rapids, you don't want to use one of our local pools, you do have the ability to venture out to other neighboring communities and use their pools. So Palm Beach Gardens, North Palm Beach, We also have the Country Club over there in North Palm Beach, too. So we have some great examples. If our residents don't want to use the local ones that we have right now, we have the ability to go visit these other ones.

Question.

Where does the swim team practice? So the swim team, Warren Hawkins in West Palm Beach. Where? Warren Hawkins. Gaines Park. I'm sorry about that.

Gaines Park.

So we currently have eight swimmers on our team right now. One of the things also too about our lifeguard program, we have three kids on our lifeguard program right now who are from our swimming, excuse me, from our swim lessons program to our swim team to now they are lifeguards for the city. And we have a few other ones who are probably going to transition to a water rescue, hopefully in the future. So just to show the progression of what our programs are, what they're based on, and what the Power River Beach could do. All right. To go on to our FY2027 goals, improve program management for parks and recreation initiatives, optimize our lifeguard deployment to reduce overtime, support a prosperous and resilient recreation ecosystem by modernizing registration workflows and ensuring consistent access to seasonal leagues DESPITE EXTERNAL SYSTEM DELAYS. WE'RE GOING TO STRENGTHEN NEIGHBORHOODS THROUGH EXPANDED PARK ACTIVITIES THROUGH OUR ADULTS SPORTS OPPORTUNITIES AND COMMUNITY DRIVEN PROGRAMS ALIGNED WITH RESIDENTS NEEDS. WE ALSO WANT TO ENHANCE DEPARTMENT STEWARDSHIP ACCOUNTABILITY BY IMPROVING BUDGET ACCURACY, DOCUMENT MAINTENANCE AND IT NEEDS PROACTIVELY AND SUBMITTING ALL REQUIRED MATERIALS WITHIN THE ESTABLISHED TIMELINES. OUR BUDGET MODIFICATIONS FOR 2027 IS, EXCUSE ME, ELIMINATING FUNDING FOR THREE SUMMER CAM AID POSITIONS. OUR OPERATION BUDGET FOR 2026 WAS 7,369,465, AND OUR FY27 PROJECTED WOULD BE 7,690,516. OUR NEW FY27 CAPITAL PROJECT IS STILL STAYING IN ALIGNMENT WITH WHAT WE HAD BEFORE FOR CAPITAL PROJECTS LIKE THE BEACH, SATAN MCCRAY, AND LONG PIE PROJECTS.

OKAY.

IS THAT IT? YES. THANK YOU, MR. MAYOR. ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS FROM THE DIET? YES, DIRECTOR.

SO THE PARKS DEPARTMENT IS RESPONSIBLE ON SINGER ISLAND FOR MAINTAINING THE BEACH ACCESS WALKWAYS Yes, sir. They're in horrible condition. They're very, very old. They're falling apart. The walls are breaking up. Do you have any money in the budget to your capital budget or in your operations budget to do something with this?

As of right now, I mean, we're trying to do some minor modifications, but we don't have the funding. So we are trying to look for funding outside sources to help us with that. So we do recognize the need. We're also talking to our code enforcement programs to help us with the neighboring buildings to help keep some of these access paths up because some of the land that we have the path on, some of the, I guess, the awkwardness of the access paths comes from some of their maintenance from the stuff. So we are in tune with the code enforcement to help us with that. We have the ability to move money around.

We're just hoping it was in their budget, but we'll have to find it somewhere else.

Any further question.

I have a question.

Yes. Come to woman Miller.

And I probably should ask when police was up there. But this question is the same as well. So for I see on page seven, maybe it's not all seven on the page. The on page five in the binder, it says that youth empowerment is being transferred to the parks and rec department. So where is that? I know it has a separate one, Youth Empowerment, in the back, but is that not being added to the Parks and Rec budget, or does that budget stay separate?

At this point, until I guess it's completely transferred, it will stay separate.

Once it's approved, you're saying?

Yes, ma'am.

And thank you, but now I forgot to ask about the PAL. So you talked about decreasing PAL from 25,000 to zero. The items that's on page seven, like when are we gonna have that conversation about these things?

When he was up, but you can bring it back up.

Okay, so Pell being eliminated?

I saw that page too, I'm not sure yet. It's based on the approval of the board or to the manager, I'm not sure. But we have discussed it to eliminate it because of cost savings.

Has that program not been successful?

very successful. We have approximately 40 kids in the program.

The truth, personally, I do not think that needs to be eliminated. We fought hard for that for many years. The very few years that I was on here, and we finally got it. We've made some really incredible milestones with the program. And we are impacting kids who may not otherwise have time or have the opportunity to have the experiences that they're having. Like I said a few minutes ago, if we want to cut, we can cut. But we need to look at other stuff to cut that is not impacting people. And it looks like the programs, again, and I'm going to say this again, the programs that we're looking to get rid of, Citizens Leadership Academy.

That's what just helped us become an all-American city.

And you want to get rid of that. That is It makes no sense. We can find 25, first of all, it doesn't take that amount of money to run that program. Chief, is it costing that amount to run that program or is this an inflated amount? And it can still be run.

Chief called me once again. No, it takes more to run that program. I have Officer Nance who dedicates that program full time.

He's in the back right now.

But it costs more than $25,000. A lot of times Officer Nance reaches his own pocket or our pocket to make that program go.

Yeah, I think that that program needs to remain. And then if additional funds need to go there, that's where it needs to go. You're really making an impact with these kids. And I see Officer Nance with them. I think I passed by the park, Flint Park, on the weekend and saw him over there practicing with them with basketball. And again, that's keeping these kids off of the streets. that's keeping that age group from getting into crime, to get rid of that is going to then increase your patrol time that you're going to be out there. It just doesn't make any sense. I do not think that needs to be eliminated.

Councilwoman Tu, as you very well know, the only recommendation, if we so choose to move some money around, and I would support that, to support those programs. Right.

But but here's my thing. I know I understand that. And I'm sure everybody is on board with making these things happen. But just the thought of. Thinking that was the first place we wanted to look to eliminate is what bothers me is that these programs that are impacting people are the ones we want to say, hey, let's recommend these be deleted. No, find something else to eliminate. It's a lot of probably inflated things in different departments that we can pull from. So I understand we make the final decision, but why would that be on your mind to be the first thing to go? That's what bothers me. Because you could have picked anything, but you chose programs that impact people. And to me, that's just crazy. So I appreciate the council. If you all understand where I'm coming from with this and that the PAL program is going to remain, and then we can talk about how much we want to put in there. And it would be helpful to know exactly what it costs to run the program.

Mr.

Chair. I heard Mayor Lawson and then Vice Chair Spiritus. And let me just say that Mr. Wilkins has already indicated that he's keeping a list of things that we show an interest in that they have to go back and revisit. So on that note, Mayor Lawson.

Thank you. And I couldn't agree more with my colleague. This is a cultural and staff concern where residents have to be prioritized. PAL is not an option to defund that. The Citizens Leadership Academy, were nationally recognized because of these type of programming. Economic Development Coordinator, I had a conversation.

I'm looking through to see if it was actually was eliminated as one of the positions.

I don't see it on the eliminated list on five, but I believe in a meeting with Mr. City Manager that he discussed that. These are things that have to generate money and revenues. With Powell, Chief, doesn't other municipalities or cities have them as 501 ? Yes, sir.

So let's look at that.

Let's look at that possible option of increasing the resources and support for our residents and for our students, especially when we're rebuilding facilities and fields with programs and also partnerships. You understand the process of how to utilize the nonprofit sector. And also, Mr. Pickney, we had a conversation with the Boys and Girls Club. using those partnerships and relationships to come up with creative strategies before just defending defunding the program that may be the strategy within staff but before we defund it let's build those relationships first so that we can just transfer and pivot it so if we're going to look to possibly do something with pal and if that's one of the things that have to be cut let's find an option of generating revenue for it chief you talked earlier about the forfeiture funds Let's get aggressive with it because that could fund all these community services and programming and tell us exactly what you need resources wise, budget wise to put the dollars into getting that up and running and utilize that to fund our nonprofits like the power program that we could spend the next 12 months creating. So a strategic or creative way is let's look as a board to establish it as a nonprofit arm of the city so that we can keep PAL and that we can work hand in hand, because we do know that a lot of these social services and community services and programming are going to have to be cut with if this ballot initiative does pass. So we're going to have to look at that. I understand staff's tough decisions they have to make, but let's make sure that we have creative options and alternatives before we actually take these out of the budget. And that would be one of my recommendations for that. There's a few other questions, but it's more so for Parks and Rec. So thank you, Chief. So noted. I'll invite Jeff Spirit.

So, Chief, this is for you. PAL, you know, I work very closely with the PAL up in Hempstead, New York. One of the best programs ever. Officer Nance is doing a great job here. My budget fund is about $5,000 a year, maybe more. I just... count that in my budget, because that is one of the most important programs we have here on the street. And I would urge you to try and keep it in the budget. You, Mr. City Manager, please try and save PAL. It's a very important program for the community and helps you keep your crime down.

Absolutely. Most of my crime take a place between ages of 12 and 17-year-old violent crime taking place with all young kids. So those young kids within the age limit, they drive the crime numbers at the City of River Beach.

To the City Council, as the Mayor, SUGGESTED FINDING OTHER SOURCES. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO OBVIOUSLY REWRITE OUR MEOP PROGRAM SO WE CAN MEET THE FEDERAL REQUIREMENTS. MAYBE WE SHOULD ADD SOMETHING IN THERE WHERE WE CAN GET SOME MONEY OUT OF THE MEOP PROGRAM FOR SOME OF THESE IMPORTANT PROGRAMS FOR OUR STUDENTS AND OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. NEW SPEAKERS.

NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. CHAIR. NEW SPEAKERS. WE CAN GET CREDIT. NEW SPEAKERS. CHAIR. COUNCILWOMAN DAVIS-PRENIER, THEN COUNCILWOMAN LENIER.

NEW SPEAKERS. SUPPORT THE PAL PROGRAM. I HAVE DONE SOME COMMUNITY SERVICE OUTREACH ACTIVITIES WITH THEM. I THINK IT'S VERY IMPORTANT LEADERSHIP, CITIZENSHIP THAT'S BEING TAUGHT THROUGH THE PROGRAM. I APPRECIATE OFFICER NANCE AND THE DEPARTMENT FOR SUPPORTING OUR YOUTH AND I DEFINITELY THINK THAT THAT HAS TO BE A PRIORITY. AND THEN THE OTHER THING I HAD TO SAY BECAUSE WEST PALM BEACH HAS A PAL PROGRAM, I BELIEVE. DO THEY STILL HAVE IT? DO YOU KNOW? THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE IT ANYMORE. BECAUSE I WAS SAYING OUR YOUNG PEOPLE WOULD HAVE TO GO ALL THE WAY TO WEST PALM BEACH TO PARTICIPATE IN ANOTHER COMMUNITY, AND NOW YOU'RE SAYING THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE ONE. SO, YEAH, THAT'S EVEN MORE OF A REASON WHY WE NEED TO MAKE SURE WE KEEP THE PROGRAM HERE IN RIBIERRA BEACH.

NEW SPEAKER Oh, no, dude.

NEW SPEAKER NOT EVERYBODY IS. NEW SPEAKER ABSOLUTELY.

I THINK WE'RE ALL ON THE SAME PAGE WITH THAT.

Yeah, this is this question is for parks and recs. And I do agree with the foul keeping the path for parks and recs. Are you proposing to take the youth empowerment program?

I think that's what's on the table. I still think we're going through. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What program?

The Youth Empowerment Program.

Oh, you know, I heard it from the administration, the parks and recs.

Yeah, I'm not liking that idea at all.

It is still in the program. The money has been transferred to Parks and Recreation. We're moving that to Parks and Recreation.

Okay, that's something I do not like. You need to find out too, because the money comes from the county, I think that it has to be a separate entity. And I say that because the Parks and Rec program is struggling over there. That's the first thing. You have aftercare programs that you need additional bodies to. There needs to be additional people at those aftercare programs. Number two, where is, does this budget include the funding for a pool? And if so, what is the timeline?

For a pool? And that was going to be my issue, but you can answer the question, whoever want to answer that. Is Terrence in here? Terrence Bailey?

Yeah, this this budget does not include money for a pool, but we do have.

OK, that's going to be a problem that we were promised. The residents promised that when we knock down Barrickwood Bay, there will be something that will be coming shortly after.

Yeah, that's what we did. I agree with you.

Waiting for an aquatic center is not, that's years ahead. But with that being said, and hold on a second, Mr. Bailey, that YEP program, you need to check with your grant sources because I think that that program needs to stay separate just based on the fact that it comes from the county and the grant source is separate. Secondly, Mr. Pinckney, you need to look at your aftercare. That program needs more bodies. That program, your summer program and your aftercare programs are excellent. The young lady, Lena, who runs that program, excellent, but she needs more bodies. And I don't see that anywhere in your proposal to put additional people at that at the aftercare program. The summer program, you know, had some issues. And in fact, your director is gone because of that. So you need to focus on this aftercare program and Mr. Wilkins, you need to look and see if that money can be transferred to another department, because I don't think that it can, but you could find that out. And also too, you can go and tell me about what's happening with the pool.

Mr. Bailey.

Yes, ma'am. So there is some open positions that we plan on, excuse me, We do have open positions right now for our aftercare program, and it's our plan very soon to add personnel to that department. So that is something that we discuss with staff, and we do know that's a need. Pool-wise, I just want to make sure that we understand that we do have our four pools out there, Mystic Woods, Sonoma Bay, Thousand Oaks, and do you want to play?

No, I know that we have pools out there, but when we demolished Barracuda Bay, it was the understanding that there would be a pool built for the residents in Riviera Beach, Mr. Bailey. Is that not what we discussed? Because clearly, it was just me that heard that.

Comfort Woman Davis-Preneur.

While we're waiting for Mr. Bailey to find out about where our pool is and will be, can you tell me about the aftercare program?

So, yeah, so Ms. Bell leads our aftercare program. We have 30 to 50 students. We are at max capacity, not because of building space, but because of transportation-wise. So we only have enough buses to pick up a certain amount of kids. So this with the license that we just have to be careful that we can only put a certain amount of people on the buses for the kids and stuff like that.

What age?

The ages are five to about 13.

Five to 13. And they report to Will?

They report to Tate.

Tate, okay.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Bailey. Yes, sir.

I'm in the same... mindset that Councilwoman Lanier is that when we decided to do the police department, part of the reason that it got my vote was it was said that the pool would be built simultaneously while the police department was being built. We had the discussion yesterday. As you saw, I was very adamant about it being built and the other reason it got my vote too was the bond we would have lost 35 million if if we would have won a different way so but the pool is very important to our community um i almost every day somebody asked me about when are we going to rebuild our pool so tell them

CURRENTLY THERE ARE TWO POOLS UNDER CONTEMPLATION. THERE'S THE POOL AT CALLOWAY THAT IS IN DESIGN. AS YOU KNOW, GENTLE HOLLOWAY IS WORKING ON THE DESIGN. AND WE HAVE THE POOL THAT WILL BE THE RECONSTRUCTION OF WELLS ON THE NORTH END OF CITY HALL. AND BOTH OF THOSE WILL BE DISCUSSED IN GREAT DEAL AT THE CAPITAL BUDGET MEETING ON THE 18TH AS THOSE ARE COMING OUT OF CAPITAL DOLLARS, NOT OPERATIONAL DOLLARS. But to, I think, the question, as we near completion of construction of the pool, in the fiscal year when the pool will open is when you will see the operating dollars to support the pool. So being that in the next 12 months we will not have the pool completed, you will not see operational dollars in the budget before you to operate the pool because it will not be completed in this 12-month window.

Okay. What kind of window is it before construction would start on a new pool?

We intend to bring that level of detail at the capital meeting next week. Again, it's difficult to, we cannot get into the city hall project because we're currently in the cone of silence. So in that publicly noticed meeting is when we can talk about city hall and the pool situation there. As for Callaway, we're another six or eight months MINIMUM BEFORE YOU'LL SEE CONSTRUCTION COMMENCE ON THE CALWAY POOL. RIGHT NOW WE'VE GOT THE MASTER PLAN COMPLETED. WE'VE BEEN WORKING WITH THE SCHOOL BOARD ON THEIR RENOVATIONS AT LINCOLN, WHICH WILL NOW BE INLAND GROWTH, AND THEN WE'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE ENTITLEMENT PROCESS THROUGH DEVELOPMENT SERVICES TO GET THAT PLAN APPROVED, SITE PLAN APPROVAL, AND THEN MOVE DIRECTLY INTO CONSTRUCTION.

NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS?

That is not what we were told. This would take a year to build a pool. We were promised a pool. We, meaning people who live in the city, were promised a pool so that we knew that it was going to take time to do the aquatic center. We knew it was going to take time because the city hall project, the aquatic center, the recreational, all that is in one big pool. package and we understood that but in the meantime because we were tearing down barracuda bay we were supposed to we are going to build a pool for the residents in this city now it did not it does not take a whole year to do that So we need to look at regrouping with those timelines because we need to have a pool in this city. And if you're going to do it over at Tate, then that's what we need to do. But we don't need to have a whole year and a half pass by before we get a pool and just say, oh, go over to Sonoma Bay or you go over to thousands notes. And no, that's not how it's supposed to be.

Chair. Vice-Chair Spiritis.

I'd like to ask Attorney Nguyen for an opinion. ENGINEER BAILEY SAID THAT WE OBVIOUSLY WERE IN A CONE OF SILENCE. WE KNOW THAT ON THE ITN. BUT IF THIS IS A MEETING THAT WAS ADVERTISED PUBLICLY, AND IT'S A PUBLIC MEETING, AND PART OF THE BUDGET INCLUDES THE ITN, ARE WE NOT ALLOWED TO DISCUSS THAT?

THE PLAN WAS TO DISCUSS IT AFTER THE CONE OF SILENCE IS OVER AT THE MEETING ON THE 18TH. AND I BELIEVE THAT'S WHEN THE CONE OF SILENCE IS OVER. And Ms. Ammons or Mr. Bailey, you can correct me if I'm wrong.

No, she's coming. I agree with Councilwoman Lanier that that was the time frame. I don't know if it was a year and a half. I think it was about two years.

Three, not three.

No, no. It wasn't three years that the time frame was as soon as possible, given the fact that we were going, we were doing all of these projects simultaneously and we were making sure that we were not going to be dependent upon other people's pools for the residents. So if you're in the process of designing it, then it should not take a whole year to get it done.

OK, Miss Amos.

GOOD EVENING, I'M TONYA AMMONS, DIRECTOR OF PROCUREMENT FOR THE CITY OF RIVERA BEACH. BECAUSE WE ARE UNDER THE CONE OF SILENCE FOR THE CITY HALL PROJECT, WE DO HAVE TO NOTICE THE MEETING, AND WE DID FOR TONIGHT, FOR NEXT TUESDAY, AND THAT'S WHEN WE CAN PUBLICLY DISCUSS THE NEGOTIATIONS AND THE PROJECT PLAN FOR CITY HALL.

NEXT TUESDAY IS WHEN IT WAS ADVERTISED FOR?

YES, SIR, AT THE CAPITOL MEETING.

at the capital meeting.

Yes, sir. Chair.

Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry.

So, Chair, what is that?

Speaking to the councilwoman, David Sprenier, then Councilwoman Lanier.

If we're talking about Dan Calloway, is that the city hall project?

No, no, no.

Right. That's what I know that. So if you're talking about that's where the pool is going to go, I'm not understanding what the conflict is, except for we didn't say three years for a pool. Yeah, it was supposed to be priority because you all were tearing down Barracuda Bay.

You can, Mr. Bailey, my understanding is that you can talk about the pool at Tate and we're talking about two pools, but Ms. David Spanier is interested in the pool at Tate.

Right. That's what you said, the Dan Calloway pool.

We were talking about pools.

We can talk about one. We're talking about the Dan Calloway one. Let's talk about that one. When is that?

Like I said, I believe eight months from now we can begin construction. But I don't have a good... No!

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

We haven't begun the entitlement process yet. We haven't gone to site plan. We haven't turned in the plans to development services. That process has a timeline in and of itself. Then we have to go through the procurement process, which is another 90 to 120 day process so all of these are processes that have to be done um once we get the plan the other thing is we haven't brought this latest plan back to the community the community hasn't seen a plan at callaway in six seven months so I believe we owe the community at least one more, here's where we're at and here's what it is before we go headlong into we're going to build what we think is best versus coming back to the community and making sure we're all still on the same page for what they asked for.

Councilwoman Lanier and then Vice Chair Spiritus, are you done? Yeah. BUT YOU SAID GO BACK, SO YOU'VE BEEN TO THE COMMUNITY ONCE OR TWICE WITH THE PLAN?

WE WOULD DO ONE MORE, HERE IT IS, HERE IT IS. COUNCILWOMAN LENIER.

Yeah, okay, Mr. Bailey, I'm gonna have to disagree with you. We talked about a one year window period for design, for implementation, for building. We talked about one year and we're not talking about city hall. We're not talking about the sports complex. We're not talking about any of that. We're talking about the fact that all of these projects are going on simultaneously. And we understood that, but we also understood that there was gonna be a pool built at Tate for the interim. meaning that we were going to have a pool at Tate. We had this whole conversation about bringing the pool back to Tate because it was there originally. We had all these conversations. It was going to be one year. So to tell me that you cannot start for eight months because you got to go to the community, you've already talked to the community. And if you were going to talk to the community, you should have been talked to them because we were promised a year before Barracuda Bay was even demolished. so whatever needs to happen needs to happen because this is what the residents were told this is what the board was told that it would that even though we understood the sports complex was far out we knew we had needed a pool in the city regardless so whatever that needs to happen and that needs to happen because to say we're not going to start for eight months it's going to take a whole year just to get it no that's outrageous that is outrageous so no i've done uh uh chair

Thank you very much, Councilwoman Lanier. So noted. Vice Chair Spirtis.

So I do agree with Councilwoman Lanier. I believe I went to meetings in Station 87 and in other areas in the city where we met with the community people that was discussed, the police station and the replacement of Barracuda Bay with a new pool. And we were told over a year ago THAT THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, THAT WAS GOING TO START AS WE WERE SPEAKING, EVEN THOUGH I GUESS EVERYBODY ASSUMED THAT IT WAS GOING TO BE LEFT INTO THE BOND. I VOTED, REMEMBER, I VOTED FOR THAT PORTION, I SUPPORTED THAT PORTION OF THE BOND, WHICH WAS APPROXIMATELY 20 SOMEWHAT MILLION DOLLARS, WE THOUGHT, TO BUILD A NEW POOL TO REPLACE BARRACUTA BAY. I THINK WE HAVE TO MOVE VERY QUICKLY AND GET A POOL FOR THIS COMMUNITY I don't think we could sit back and start having more community meetings. I think the city council has to sit down and decide where the pool is gonna go. Because at those meetings, I don't think there was a final decision where we were given certain options and recommendations from staff, but we never really made a final decision where the pool was gonna go. And I think that we really have to do this quickly and get this swimming pool under construction ASAP.

Thank you. And because we're on the cone of silence, we can't talk about the other one, but take, we can speak about, um, there was discussion about at least, I don't know if what the interim or being that permanently, but it was discussion about moving expeditiously. I agree with vice chair on spiritist and the council woman linear. whatever we need to do as a city, if we need to get a site plan. Did you say something about a plan first? Was your first move that you need, Mr. Bailey? Mr. Bailey.

Yes, sir. Like every other project, it has to go through the development services process for site plan approval. So we'll be rushing to get all the documents necessary for that process to begin.

Do we have a site plan for that yet?

We have a master plan. It doesn't have like that granular level of detail with like real dimensions to call it a site plan. But we've been working with the school board on making sure that their needs and our needs and how that all works together with Inlet Grove moving to Lincoln is going to work. So we've been back and forth with the school board, making sure that everything's going to be integrated properly.

OK, so from what I am hearing, the council want you to move expeditiously. on ensuring that whatever documents we need to be reviewed by development services, that that is done. And the community is also inquiring about the timeframe for April. So please make that a priority and update us during council meetings. That's every two weeks to keep it out. in front of your thought process. I got to give them an update. I submitted a plan. I talked to the school board. I got whatever you were doing moving toward that goal. Give us an update every two weeks, please.

No problem.

And the community. The community wants to know, too.

Mr. Chair.

Yes. Councilwoman Miller-Anderson, then Mayor Lawson.

I heard you said, I don't know if you meant that place specifically, you said a pool was being built at Will, or you're talking about the one in the Cone of Silence across the street?

Yes, as part of the Cone of Silence.

Yes, well, this is public.

I just want to know, are we talking about south or north of Blue Hair? Which side?

As you know, in all the presentations that we made before we went out for the solicitation, we were reconstructing wells on the north side of City Hall. That's been in my last year's budget presentation. We had a couple concepts. There was a gym, there was a pool, there were fields, and they were all on the north end, north of Fire Station 87, to put them in proximity to the school board's property. So the pool that you saw last year in the budget presentation is the pool that will be on the north side of Blue Heron at the City Hall property.

So when you said we were going to have a pool at Wells.

So all of the parks elements that are on the north side of Blue Heron are Wells. We're not getting rid of Wells. We've always committed to reconstructing and upgrading Wells. So we as staff refer to everything that's coming forth as Wells, say 2.0 on the north side of Blue Heron. So I apologize if that caused confusion.

Okay, yeah, it did. Okay, thank you.

Mayor Lowe. Thank you. Mr. Bailey. The pool or the placement of the pool is going to be limited or based upon the land swap going through with the school board. Do we have a timeframe for that?

I believe that Mr. Sanchez has indicated that he intends to bring that before the Palm Beach County School Board in September.

So realistically, we can't even come up with an idea until after that September meeting. that land swap has been approved and completed, then we can come up with a location for the placement of the pool, because dependent on the approval process of that land swap, the pool won't be able to be placed on that parcel until we've made a decision what's happening with the school, with the inlet relocation and the land swap, from my understanding. So as of right now, we don't have even the ability to have any discussion about a potential pool or even go to development services or expedite any process until this land swap is complete. Because you can come up with ideas.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Councilwoman Lanier, I'm waiting till you get done because I have some comments about that too. But then you'll be next.

We can come up with ideas and a few opinions and do some community charrettes. But of course, all of those are going to be contingent on what happens. So we could possibly start working on an A, B, and C option for those locations. If this happens, then that could happen. But Right now, we're still waiting on the school board to approve the land swap, from my understanding.

The land swap has not been completed. The land swap has not been completed, as you indicated. We have come to an agreement on what the land is that is in contemplation, and unless there's a deviation by the Palm Beach County School Board, the lot lines are locked in. We've agreed with the school board staff of what needs to be done, and we have moved forward on that land with laying out the concepts for both Callaway and City Hall. So short of something happening at the school board, we've moved forward in good faith so that we don't lose time waiting because when the school board approves the land swap is out of our control.

So with that good faith, I want us to also have a plan B or an option so that we're not delayed three to six months to say that it fell apart and then the pool never gets off the ground. So what I would recommend is we proceed with the good faith intent of the school board doing what they said they were going to do and have a rendering have a potential community charrette, because I heard you and I heard Dr. Spiritus say that we just need to move forward, but we can go ahead and walk and chew gum. We can have a community charrette immediately with a potential location for the Dan Calloway site for a pool brought back to this board with an expedited fashion. So as you heard from the entire board, I remember the meeting saying that we'd be baking ground on a pool and moving forward with that. But now we're talking about a year out. That's not really acceptable to this board. So I know you've made magic happen, Mr. Bailey. So this is just going to be another magic trick. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mayor Lawson. Councilwoman Lanier.

I'm not trying to be confused, Mayor, but I was talking about two different things. Because you keep mentioning the land swap. And I thought that that had nothing to do with the pool at Tate. We were talking about two separate pools. We were talking about a pool that we were going to do so that that would... after we abandoned Barracuda Bay, there will be something for the residents. It wasn't going to be something in the line of the sports complex, but there will be a pool in the city. The sports complex pool issue was something that was separate because we can't talk about that. This was almost like a temporary pool in a sense. That's what my conversation was about. It wasn't about the whole sports complex deal, the land spot. It wasn't anything about that. It was just a temporary proof that we were going to have constructed in the city because we had a demolished barrier for the base.

Mr. Chair.

Ms. Attorney. I want to clear something up or a clarification. The code does allow you to talk about THE OTHER PROJECT. YOU WON'T TALK ABOUT ANY OF THE NEGOTIATIONS, BUT YOU CAN DISCUSS THE PROJECT BECAUSE THIS IS A PUBLICLY NOTICED MEETING. NEW SPEAKER OKAY. THANK YOU.

NEW SPEAKER IF I COULD RESPOND. NEW SPEAKER YES, ABSOLUTELY. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, AND THANK YOU, MS. LENIER, JUST FOR CLARITY, AND I'M THANKFUL FOR MS. WYNN BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT TO ADDRESS IT UNTIL NEXT WEEK'S NOTICE MEETING. BEFORE WE DO THAT, THE BOARD, HAVE WE MADE A DECISION ON NEXT WEEK'S NOTICE MEETING BECAUSE THEY SAID THE CAPITOL MEETING IS GOING TO BE TUESDAY, WHICH AGAIN I

put for the record is election day.

So if we're still going to go forward with the meeting, we need to let staff know tonight. If nothing's changing, we proceed. If we are going to move that date, they need to notice it, especially with that being one of the most important pieces for the capital meeting. And to answer your question, Ms. Lanier, the reason I brought up the land swap is because the Tate's parcel has a piece of land that will be swapped with the school board. And that will impact the placement of the pool if we do the land swap. Because remember, we're swapping the school board land at the just north of City Hall with a piece of the Tate's land. So that land swap has implications in regards to where the placement of our pool is going to go and what's going to actually happen with the Dan Calloway pool that we're going to build. That's why I brought up the land swap in regards to the school board and the approval.

Yeah, and we were looking at the same spot it was from the very beginning. So by the basketball goal, basketball place where the pool was initially over at... And I mean, I take because we were having this talk about the land swap and we didn't want all that to get involved. So, yeah.

But regardless, that was all that was all part of this. You're 100 percent right. That was all part of the conversations that we've had with previous administrators. So that that was something that we talked about. But just to make sure it's expedited now. that the city manager knows and staff knows that we need to expedite that pool and bring that back to the community, bring some type of rendering and move forward with it so that the land swap doesn't play any role in regards to this.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. Just one last question for Mr. Bailey. Are you taking into consideration the potential land swap that would impact the land at Tate?

Yes, sir. And that's what's held up the master plan a little bit, getting that land identified. It was only about a month ago the last moving of lot lines happened. We all agreed. And Gentile's office went forward with a master plan on Callaway. We all locked it in. And so now we can advance from a master plan into a site plan sufficient to turn into development services for the entitlement process.

Okay. You hear the sentiment of the council? We want you to move expeditiously on that and keep us updated every two weeks at council meeting. Thank you. Any other questions for recreation? Okay. Hearing none, it is nine o'clock and I said at nine o'clock, I want to start talking about some extra dates. We have about, I think 14, 15 departments that you say, Mr. Wilkin.

Yes, 14.

OK, we've done three tonight, so we have 11 left. If we do three a night, which I think would be reasonable, don't want people to burn out and not be as alert as as we should talking about numbers. So we need to identify. For the. And on average, three a night out of the 12 we have about 11 left. So do we want to first, Mr. Attorney, how much time do we need to advertise budget workshop meeting?

A reasonable amount of time would be 48 hours. 48 hours?

Yes, 48 to 72 hours.

OK.

so if if we had one more this week and three next week if we had one like thursday okay what about next week um would y'all be right from the conference what about monday we could do we could do tuesday thursday OK, would that give us enough time to do another meeting before I think Mr. Sherman is September 8th, that that you say that we need to have everything wrapped up?

When the meeting on Tuesday on the 18th, so on the 18th, are we going to change that to that?

Remember the are in operation, I'm sorry. We have decided that. We're not going to get burned out at the but here we should have started long ago. Yeah, I know.

So but what we've decided to do is not know.

So what we've decided to call the woman Miller and this is some time. You're very excited. OK. Wait, wait. We decided We didn't do them at all, man. We have 11 more departments. We're averaging three a night, so we need at least four more nights.

Mr. Chair.

Yes.

We don't believe that we need four nights. And Mr. Sherman can explain why.

How many nights? Because we have 11 departments left.

Right, but you're now into all your small departments. So you've got, you know, you did public... your next large one would be public works. And then after that, you know, you're talking all the real small departments. So to be honest with you, I took an hour tonight.

Yeah. You, you probably would be only need one more night.

Cause Ms. Jax took a half hour. I took an hour.

Let's play with two.

So I would say let's set one and let's see how we go. And.

Okay. Can I interject? So Mayor Lawson's concern was Tuesday is election. Can we start it at 7 since election time ends at 7? If that's a concern, or we can still have it on Tuesday.

Yeah, well, we have one scheduled, which is unrelated to the operations. It's the capital improvement. I mean, the capital budget. Am I correct? On the 18th.

The 18th. If you want to move it off the 18th, we just need to know we can move it. But the 18th was strictly capital.

Strictly capital. So she, Councilwoman Davis-Preneur is suggesting that we just start it later at 7 when the polls close. Then you're still going to want to leave it at 9.