City Commission - workshop

ALL START? ALL RIGHT. HELLO, EVERYONE, AND WELCOME TO THE CITY SOUTH MIAMI BUDGET WORKSHOP. IT IS TUESDAY, JULY 21ST AT 4 P.M. ON THE DOT. NO, I'M JUST KIDDING. MADAM CITY CLERK, CAN WE CALL TO ORDER? OR, SORRY, CALL THE ROLL?

YES. VICE MAYOR COREY.

PRESENT.

COMMISSIONER BONICHE. HERE. COMMISSIONER KAIGE. HERE. COMMISSIONER RODRIGUEZ. HERE. WE HAVE QUORUM.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. IF THE COMMISSION DOESN'T MIND, I'D LIKE TO MOVE ITEM C UP TO THE TOP SO THAT THE BUDGET AND FINANCE COMMITTEE CAN GIVE THEIR REPORT AND GET OUT OF HERE IF THEY'VE GOT SOMEWHERE TO BE.

OKAY.

ALL RIGHT. IS REPRESENTATIVE FROM OKAY, GREAT. COME ON UP, PLEASE.

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for having me today. My name is Chance Rivera. I currently have the distinction of being the chairman of the committee, so I do appreciate that title that was afforded to me. So first of all, let me start by saying I do appreciate the other committee members. Melissa Lesniak, Justin Puente, Dick Ortega, as always, the infamous Jay Miller, and the staff, Alfredo, Jackie, and Alex, for their help in this process. Just as a comment on participation and commitment, we did have great attendance through all the sessions. There was lively discussion, and you can tell engaged citizens there. So I know you've received the material. I won't go through all of it and read it to you, but if it's appropriate, I will hit on some of the narratives that kind of flow through the activity. If there's anything that the commission wants me to hit on as part of this process, happy to do that. Interrupt me at any time, and we'll take it from there.

So we good? Yes, thank you.

Okay, so... We're going to talk revenue first, as always, or as part of the narrative these days, the property tax reform. Speaking to how that's going to unfold here in the state, you're going to see thematically through our recommendation is to be wary of that. Obviously, you are. I was here at the CIP discussion. I know it's inescapable to see it not only in the news but elsewhere. But it does run through the recommendation in that if we lose revenue, then we have to consider expense management and debt. Debt is the other narrative that runs through here and being cautious around debt with the bond that we have, using that bond appropriately. And I will say that there was quite a bit of discussion at the committee relative to the committee's participation in discussing what applies to that debt. So as always, we appreciate having this involvement in this process. But as you'll see a little later on as we talk about redoing City Hall and that project, just want or hope to be involved as part of that process earlier on. We see that moving fairly quickly. We also see some other things in that that we'll talk about later. So from a macro perspective, revenue, debt, just keeping that top of mind as we go through the discussion. Fair enough? OK, on the millage side, I think obviously we did not recommend an increase in the millage. We also didn't recommend a decrease in the millage. Again, thematically, I think we're fortunate that we live in a city where property values continue to go up and we benefit from that. But the millage rate, we're recommending stay the same. From a transparency perspective there are two items within the recommendation one is to establish the funding tracking mechanisms Certainly helps us to have line of sight on those budget items and see how they go through the budget process and be able to ask questions easily about them and track them We're getting at some of the some of the expense side of the recommendations on the underlying side You know everybody appreciates the underline it looks to be a wonderful addition broadly to our city South here, but there is quite an expense that's being added as part of the underline on the maintenance side of that if you add that expense and you add some other expense that we'll talk about later without being funded With the potential for property tax revenue being decreased, those are the types of things that ideally the commission will maintain a leverage point with those demands so that maybe we can avoid or kind of change some of the obligations in the future. So that $300,000 for the underlying is obviously an obligation for the period, 2027 period. But beyond that, we would probably like to see some way either that we look at taking that on ourselves, because we have our own maintenance people, right? versus giving that up to the, I think it's the friends of the unaligned, whoever's supporting that. So that's on the unaligned side. The business district, obviously, that's a no-brainer. We want to see that continued supported. The general obligation bonding projects, this particular item is more about, as I mentioned earlier, being exposed to the considerations of the things that we're going to spend that money on. We have an example of that later with the Dante Fussell Park building, But having an understanding of when to use debt, the right time to use debt, there are several members of the committee that would like to engage or offer the commission an opportunity to engage with them as part of using that debt. Right here, the general obligation bond funding, within the budget there's a $3.8 million building that's a part of that. The committee is recommending possibly looking at deferring that particular spend. The project doesn't seem to be ready anyways with the fire lane issues and some other things that are happening. That, as an example of a potential good funding for a bond, is not something that we would take on right now, given the unknowns on the revenue side. So that's on the Dante Fussell side. City studies and long-term planning, as we go through this process, we do see that we spend money on studies, which is great. Everybody should be informed. What we would like to see is, A, the studies. That would be great as part of our process. and B, weaving those studies into the master plans, right? So, you know, as we appreciate on the park systems, for example, there is a parks master plan, right? We bought a park or we're going to put in another park. That should go back into the master plan and some impacts to whatever the master plan should be applied in an amendment or something like I'm not prescribing, we're just suggesting that we do spend a lot of money on studies and would like to see the results of the impacts of those studies applied and the decisions in the master plan are here.

And I know that that does happen.

But there's several line items in the budget. It just jumps out at you. You spend all that money. Stormwater utility. This is an item that seems to be another no-brainer. The piece of this no-brainer is, okay, you know what? It takes a long, but it did. We're here now. We need to get it resolved. Stormwater is important. It's going to continue to be important. All of that comes with that. So I don't think that requires much discussion. City Hall Redevelopment Project. So this one took quite a few sessions to get through. The team was afforded the opportunity to meet with floor 13, is it? 13th floor, the developers. There was a lot of questions and discussions about the county participation here. It did seem a little early for us to be involved because the county's not committed to the library or whatever the library issue. In addition to that, the additional floor that's contemplated in the budget, but more importantly, the $10 or $11 million that comes out of the obligation to the city and finding money for that, right? Again, I was at the CIP meeting. I know you guys are cognizant of the fact that that money will have to come from someplace. as part of this project, but it just seemed like we were really early on. The basic financial review that we didn't have was not informed with those decisions, so we really couldn't apply much intellect to it to make a recommendation, but we would like to still be involved, even though our particular review process is coming to an end, but still be involved in that project at any cost. Prescribed meeting we would come in and take a look at that to help and offer the Commission any any assistance in making those making those decisions Committee community engagement so we do a lot right and we recognize that as part of the citizens committee that we do do a lot but it doesn't seem or at least as far as i was concerned and the rest of the picture it doesn't seem to get out into the community how much we're doing right we do spend a lot of money on parks we do spend a lot of money on on improvements to the city we have a great police force we have great municipal services. We're hopeful there's a way that we can come up with promoting ourselves somewhat so that the citizens understand that U.S. Commissions are doing your job. We appreciate the job that you do. We appreciate the job that people do in the city, but our money is being well spent. But it doesn't seem to come out. The community newspaper is one avenue for that, but we should be touting all of our successes because they're tremendous. I think we're really fortunate to be in the city and have the guidance that we have. On-demand transit services, this is another one that seems to be, to a degree, unfunded, right? So if you add this item and the underline, which this is $200, the other one's $300. That's a half million bucks that's unfunded in 2027. We'll certainly pick up the tab for it. But there were some discussions around the use of this. how it was promoted originally as part of a larger state transportation funding opportunity, how that's going away, and who's really using this, and can that money be used elsewhere. It's a little earlier on. The analysis was not complete yet as we came up with this recommendation. But an example of unfunded expenses that we're going to need to come up with possibly in a deteriorating revenue scenario. That's basically what I have as part of the recommendation. Is there any questions?

Any questions from the Commission? I do. You're recognized.

Thanks, Chase. I really appreciate everything you and the Budget and Finance Committee have done. I've been part of that committee. I know how it goes. It's a lot of work and you guys put a lot of time and effort, so I appreciate that. I know this year's budget is a little bit in a question mark due to the impeding tax reductions. We don't know what's going to happen yet. We don't know whether voters are going to go with it, but we've started to look at that. I think that one of the things that most of us did when we first came on board was that we knew we wanted to redevelop and get a lot of the commercial revenue up to help fund a lot of these things that we have going on. You know, it'll be interesting seeing how it proceeds here in the next two or three years as we can continue some of these projects and to see the impacts of the tax revenue bill. When you guys sat down, you said you didn't really see too much of the 13th floor. Is this like previously? Is before the term sheets were allocated? How was those discussions with 13th floor? I didn't know you guys had met. That's pretty interesting to me. Do you know like where in the process we were when you guys discussed it?

It had come up as part of our regular sessions that we were considering this, specifically after the CIP meeting. And there was a suggestion that we could get the developer in at our next session. And that was able to be accomplished. He came in, smart guy. Obviously, he didn't tell me that. just the finances that we looked at as part of that were not baked. So some of the members of the committee have a lot of experience in this type of development and poked at it pretty hard. And we landed on, well, this is, a little early for us to get involved because of the county commitment and what that would do if the county doesn't step up or when the county may step up and what's that do to the timeline. There just seems to be a lot of open switches within that discussion. What was interesting is obviously the commission has the opportunity to take an off ramp there if the deal doesn't pan out the way that we think it's going to pan out. One of the things that happened in the ordinance that was passed last year is that some of the language was changed on our committee's responsibilities. And there was some strengthening of language around advisory. And the committee takes that very seriously. So in the discussion was, OK, if we're going to get into these types of deals where there is this complicated or sophisticated financing involved, then certain members of the committee and the committee as a whole would like to get the opportunity to look at that. But those deals happen fast. It may not be the opportunity to do that all the time. And we understand that we're in an advisory role. But I believe the commitment there was that as that artifact develops, as decisions are made with the county or with the library, and there are meaningful progressions within the financial analysis of that particular development, that we would call a meeting and we'd be brought in to talk about it and see what the impacts are. Is that fair?

Oh, that's perfectly fair. We're pretty close to that point right now, so we might have to schedule that pretty quickly. Just good to know.

Happy to do that.

No, I think that's all I have, Mr. Rivera. I appreciate your time, and thank you for all you do for the city.

Sure. Commissioner Rodriguez?

Hey, Chance. How you doing?

Good.

Again, like Commissioner Kaya said, thank you for everything you guys do. I'm sure it's not easy. I just wanted to mention one thing. I tend to agree with the board's advice on the underlying. I actually made the, when the CEO was here, I asked him, what if we did our own maintenance? Because my main question was, if they do a graffiti, let's say on one of the columns, how long are we going to be waiting to get that cleaned up? But they weren't very, so what I'm advising to you is their response was basically not very open to that. But it would save us a lot of money.

There was some discussion about our actual liability there. I think our commitment, if I'm not misspeaking, is voluntary. So there's some leverage there. Again, I'm not in a position of negotiation, but if we're voluntarily paying $300,000, I can voluntarily pay $150,000.

Correct. Yes.

Or $400,000.

Yes.

I appreciate that, though.

Thank you.

Commissioner Beneach?

It's funny that you and I, of course, are stuck on the underline. I agree with you. It's a complete voluntary thing. The thing nobody ever says out loud is, do you get shamed when you say you don't want to be part of it? Because everybody else is doing their part well. I don't really care what everybody else is doing. I agree with you guys and what you wrote here. Like, hey, we need to scale this back. It's so much money. And when you think, like you said, we take it over, OK. If we take it over, what does it cost us?

$100,000?

then does it become, OK, we're not going to take it over? Because I can understand that's not what they want. OK, then that's what we're willing to pay. So I think that for us, that's going to be a very robust discussion. And I find it very interesting you guys landed, I think, where most of us have landed. So I appreciate you guys. I know that this is probably the most unsexy. of the committees, but probably one of the most necessary. Thank you, guys.

And I'll take comments from Alfredo, but we get engaged. I think we're an engaged group. We put the team on the spot quite a bit. We're engaged, and we do appreciate you guys, this level of transparency that is supported by the commission.

Thank you. And yes, I just also wanted to take the opportunity to thank you and the board, particularly you. You've been very diligent at our CIP workshops. You gave a great review. I think a lot of people up here are in line with you and the topics that you discussed. Obviously, transportation, the building of Dante Fussell, things like that are all things that have been on our mind, and we've been trying to find creative solutions. If situations change from a revenue perspective, we're going to have to get even more creative. So we definitely appreciate all the feedback that you have here. And to your point in process about being engaged, I would love to see and hear more from particularly you or anybody from the board as we're making these decisions. I know right now it's just your obligated time to give the recommendations, but it still carries a lot of weight with the service that you provide. So if you're able to come up when we're making these decisions, I think everyone here would find it beneficial.

Thank you for that. Appreciate the offer, and we'll take that back and figure out how to pull the bat channel, right? You know, if you need something or want that kind of advice, then we'll definitely do it.

We may not have the money for the bat signal this year, but maybe, yeah. Sorry, yeah.

Is that part of the 300 maintenance?

Sorry, go ahead.

No, Vice Mayor, I certainly want to take the opportunity to thank Chance and the rest of the committee for the time that they spent. Obviously, there's a lot of detail that's provided. Departments come in and present both the CIP and operational. So sometimes when you're in the weeds, things may seem obvious to you. But when somebody comes from the outside to see something, it may not be as obvious, or there's a certain perception or an observation that we sort of miss. So I appreciate that feedback and the exchange that occurs. And some of it is educational. Oh, this is the reason why. And then they may go like, oh, OK, well. And then you go like, you know what? Maybe that needs to be communicated better throughout the city because if they're reviewing our budget and they have a certain perception, we're not doing a good enough job in communicating maybe the why. So I appreciate the work and the effort.

Thank you. Thank you very much. No problem.

Thank you for the time.

And we'll go ahead and move on to item B, which is the proposed budget.

Yeah, Vice Mayor, we'll be presenting something to give you an overview on some of the significant highlights of the budget and some of the changes. As you know, there's a lot to the budget. This process starts early on with the department submitting department worksheets and some of their priorities and things that they need to continue what they're doing and or improve on that. So we go through a long process of that. On June 1st, we get our preliminary assessed value from the property appraiser. And then on July 1st, we get the final taxable value. And then we deliver a budget to you. I deliver a budget to you with some recommendations for you to consider. And we inform you through this workshop. And tonight you'll have the millage setting meeting. And obviously in September, you'll have your two formal budget hearings. After today, there'll be a lot of work after tonight as well, a lot of work between now and September as well to make other modifications. We may have some updated information that we refresh some of the forecasts or make some changes based on your direction. So obviously, the work of preparing the budget is not done until September. We certainly use some of the strategic planning exercise, and we've been cleaning that up as to, okay, where in the budget are we investing to kind of further that, and we'll unveil that with the budget in September. So there was a lot of priorities. Obviously, there's always more requests and needs than the budget. Mr. Rivera mentioned property tax reform. Obviously, it doesn't impact this budget, but we did look at this budget from the standpoint of potentially having a two-year approach to dealing with it if it happens to pass in November. And so we were mindful of that. I don't feel that there are any decisions in this budget that implicates us from a multi-year standpoint, because we haven't really set on any debt service beyond the things that we already have talked about, the bridge and the culvert. But any additional projects have not been approved. So therefore, we have not made any long-term commitment And I think it is prudent to understand what happens in November as part of that discussion because it could impact our capacity. So I certainly appreciate the departments and the department heads and finance and Alfredo and Jackie who may take 100 emails and changes to all kinds of line items. And some line items we reduced to try and find some efficiencies and other things we may have increased, depending on it. So then there's some requests that were not included in this budget, I think, just to approach this as a more conservative approach until November, potentially. So Alfredo is going to run through the highlights of the budget and certainly answer any questions. Ultimately, you'll give us some direction on some things that you want us to work on. And that'll be our homework between now and September. So Alfredo, thank you.

Good evening or good afternoon. Thank you so much. I'm going to run through highlights, overview of the fiscal year and what's proposed in this budget. You can stop me at any time if you have any questions. Some of you have already seen some of this material. I'm staying along the same lines. I may have added a couple of things here and there for more detail based on the meetings we've had. So the proposed fiscal year 27, a couple key items. Based on our 3.95, there is a resolution tonight on your agenda adopting the millage that will be advertised on the trim notice. In that, we are proposing keeping the millage the same at 3.95. That would generate... At a 95%, which is what we budget our ad valorem, $12 million, which is approximately about a million more than our last year's ad valorem. So the appreciation, along with the new construction that's come online, has given us about a million dollars of additional ad valorem revenue. Something that's been talked about and hasn't stopped since that three-day special session is property tax reform. Every municipality in the state of Florida is dealing with this. That is the conversation of everybody's budget process and the uncertainty of what's going to happen in November. Will it have the 60% approval for passage? And if it does, it's going to have a huge impact on many local governments, including city of South Miami. So just to give you an idea, this comes from the state fiscal year impact analysis, which was just provided recently. I want to say either July 10th or 11th from the state's economists. And they're estimating the first year effect, which would be fiscal year 28. Not this fiscal year that we're proposing, but next year's. It would be about a million dollar deficit. or less in ad valorem revenue. And when the full effect of the $250,000 exemption, it would be $2,083,000. So it is a huge impact, especially for our ad valorem, which is about 40% of all of our total revenue, general fund revenue. So that's the major impact. And this budget was prepared with that in mind. The idea is to keep our emergency reserves intact and keep our unrestricted, unreserved fund balance as high as we possibly can, not knowing what the November is going to bring us. So some of the budget, maintaining the 3.95 was critical, preserving balance of the budget, operating revenues with our operating expenses, maintaining our, like I mentioned, the emergency reserve funds and unrestricted and reserve, so it gives us some flexibility if needed. Alignment, we have in this proposed budget five new funds, which is something probably in the 17 years that I've been here, it's probably the most funds we've ever adopted in one fiscal year. Just to run through them, public benefits trust is probably the newest fund established by resolution by this board. We also looked at the study for the permit fee study, which changed our permit fees. In there, one of the recommendations was to create a building permit inspection fund and track all direct and indirect expenses with that fund, of which it's been incorporated in this budget that you're seeing being proposed. The automated traffic safety, we've also isolated the red light camera and speed enforcement camera into a special fund so that all expenditures are clear and can be seen what they're being used for, which is public safety. And then the two new general obligation, we have a general obligation bond. We have a line of credit that was just established in January of this year. What we decided is, and you'll see an item tonight, establishing these two funds, and it's specifically meant to account for GOB debt and GOB capital projects. It is not changing any expenditures or anything. It's just establishing the funds so that it's easily to account for and track for the future years.

Yes, go ahead, Commissioner Kaye.

So Alfredo, we have already, by authorized resolution, the public's benefit trust funds. We have the GOB capital funds and debt service fund that's being allocated today. So that's three. The building permit and automated, these are proposed for right now?

Proposed in this fiscal year 27 budget. OK, thank you. Correct. So you'll be reviewing it and we can go through that in detail, the expenditures. It was part of, again, for the building, we were just going with the recommendation from the consultant, which we in finance agree with his recommendation. I think it makes it more transparent and easier to understand. Public trust, public benefit trust. Currently we're expecting, we do not have yet, but we're expecting $4 million. I think everybody knows that's from the large scale development approval that was given by Avalon phase two. And we have proposed in this budget, fiscal year 27, $634,000 of expenditures. And I provided a short breakdown of what those expenditures are. Traffic studies, about 290 AK. for traffic studies throughout the city to Monitor and help improve those new developments come with more residential units more traffic Potentially so to help us in that and then some other Police services are also built into that To help enforce all these traffic studies some of those costs so that's 160 hundred six hundred and thirty four thousand sure Commissioner beneath

You know I'm not going to let that slide go without asking you this. Are there items that the police department asked for that we are not funding for this fiscal year? And if so, can we just get a little bit of a highlight on those and the reasoning?

Yeah, there are certainly, so some of the items as originally proposed were shifted potentially, tapping the forfeiture fund for one of the requests, tapping the automated traffic safety fund for another request, tapping the public benefit trust fund. So some of the requests were spread out through those funds instead of the general fund. There were some other requests that I had asked the police department to absorb within the department budget because there are certain line items. From an expenditure standpoint, you sort of see a trend that that fund is not being spent to its fullest extent. So it probably has a capacity to absorb. And there were miscellaneous things. Some may have been a $2,000 item, may have been a $4,000 item. So I think most of them, and we'll verify if there's any items that Maybe it was a matter of the degree. For example, five police cars, and I did four police cars. There may have been some other things that were at a higher degree that we said, you know, can't absorb it through the general fund, but let's use this other fund.

That mosquito's going to get you.

Yeah, right? I'm a magnet. There's a police department sending that. As a result of not getting everything they wanted. That's what I do, though.

Because you're a fireman.

So, but we can give you, I just want to make sure if there's something that was asked to answer your question, something that was asked that we said no and didn't make it anywhere. I want to give you that. So we'll go back and take a look at that.

Okay. Thank you. So with that, I'll continue with my budget highlights. Cost of living, 2.6. Cost of living takes effect on October 1. Cost of living is used by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. We take the average of what inflation was for last year and incorporate it in our October 1 budget. One modification that was, we have a stipend that is given to those employees that do not take our health insurance, however, do take a stipend. Historically, it used to be whatever our cost was for the employee, that's what we would adopt. This year, we're proposing that it's going to be capped at $612 a month. So that's what the stipend is so that they can pay for their share of health coverage at another plan. The total savings of that would be approximately $76,000 in this budget. So that's one of the changes from employee benefit. Also in there, we had two part-time police officer positions built in, of which we have eliminated and replaced it with one full-time, not police officer, but one full-time police support specialist. And that person's, one of their primary is to evaluate all the red light camera infractions and make sure they justify an infraction.

Just a clarification. The two part-time were not necessarily police officer positions. I remember one of them, we had all the backgrounds that we were doing, and it worked that at that window, it bogged down. You got the dispatcher handling calls and radio. So it was a part-time position to help with backgrounds and could be a communications officer as well. So I just want to clarify that they were not necessarily sworn positions, the part-time. The second one, at the time, I think it was a sworn. but because now legislation change that allows the camera, the infraction to be reviewed by somebody who's non-sworn gives flexibility. And so therefore that's why those two were merged. It was very difficult to recruit for those two and making it one position which is not sworn.

One additional police officer position was added into this budget, of which is being covered 40% by a COPS grant that we approved at some time earlier this fiscal year. We will not be filling that position until we're fully staffed, and then we can, as based on the grant, then we will start looking for the additional. But until we're fully staffed, we can actually start advertising and secure that position.

Yes, Commissioner Medici.

Is that a necessary position that we're just holding on? Or is it something that is an aspirational thing? Is that a police officer that we need that we're not getting on the street because we don't have the funds? Or is it something like, is it a want or a need?

It's a position that we have always talked about growing the department and adding a position. When this COPS Department of Justice grant came about, we took advantage of it from the standpoint that it would offset 40% of the cost. You have to hold that position. But I always said, if we're going to hire somebody like that, we're going to keep them. So yes, I'll carry the full cost of it three years after that. So yes, this is that growth. We didn't add any officers last year. So it's a position that we're adding. Our biggest issue, and you saw it earlier on some of the traffic studies being included, is quality of life, cut through, speeding. That's one of the biggest things that we deal with as a city, which it's an annoyance, but it's a good thing if other things aren't the problem. But a lot of that work is very static and creates a lot of demand on the units in service, meaning if you're in a traffic detail, those are units that are not patrolling and don't have the visibility. So that may not necessarily be from a crime standpoint, but the type of work ties up units. The other aspect is, given that we're a small department, when we're going to train, it just puts, and we don't have the luxury of putting units out to go train because then our coverage is impacted. we end up having to pay overtime. So having more staffing helps potentially to reduce overtime if we don't have to have people go and train in overtime, because we could put one unit down, let's say, right? Now we can't, so one officer helps towards that. So it's not a want, and it's been a multi-year approach that we're going to increase our workforce. This opportunity helps us offset 40% of the cost. We have to wait till full staffing. That's why a lot of agencies can't leverage this program, because bigger agencies can never be at full staffing. That's the reality.

And I'm sure that we have. So this is kind of a stupid question, but have we looked at what we're doing with overtime versus adding positions? Because I get it. We can't fully staff, so we have to do overtime. So it's kind of like, I got a toothache. The dentist is closed. Have we looked at saying, hey, ideally, so that we wouldn't have all this overtime and this kind of like restriction in being able to do the things we want to do? And I'm making up a number, so whatever. If we say we have 50 officers and 54 would be the sweet spot of where we could get things done, is that what we're working towards?

I mean, the answer is yes and no. The reason why it's yes is because it does offset. And sometimes overtime is not necessarily bad. Sometimes overtime is something that is a tool and you're using salary savings because you have vacancies. The no part is that the reality is that the reason why we have an increase is that with the challenge of recruitment, which is a national issue, I can give them five more bodies, but we're always short. So why are we going to burden the department and the taxpayer with that fixed cost of all those positions that we can't even leverage? And that's just a reality that we've been balancing. Improving our recruitment process, which we have substantially. And our ability to recruit because having five more positions doesn't do anything if that money's just sitting there All it does is increase, you know the expense on the general fund budget. So that's why I said yes and no Obviously adding one more and maybe another one Probably the next fiscal year begins to put us in a better position to handle, you know Maybe we can put a unit out for training and we save the overtime. Yeah. All right, and so But the reality is that we just had not really been in position to just say, hey, let's just give them four more bodies. Well, that sounds great, but we can't fill them. But we're increasing our fixed costs unnecessarily.

Yeah, got you.

And so over time, sometimes it seems like an evil, but it's a very strategic tool. Because it's just sitting there. Yeah.

OK.

Moving on, public works. We're adding an AD position, reclassification of human resource and risk management to a director position. Reclassifying a communications manager in the police department to a senior communication administrator somebody has been here very tenured And this budget only adds one FTE which which is that assistant director in Public Works? There were other requests from different departments and divisions some of which were code enforcement officer payroll specialist parks maintenance community center manager of which due to the uncertainty of and trying to continue to maintain a healthy unrestricted unreserved fund balance will be looked upon later in the future date when things are a little bit more certain. City attorney includes a $47,000 increase. $27,500 is based on excluded services line item. Their normal municipal retainage flat fee is going up to 3% as per the agreement. An additional $20,000 that was in the police department for arbitration, we've relocated it for transparency where all of the other costs related to litigation are for arbitration. So that was just a move at expense from police, move it into city clerk. So it's really only a $27,500 plus whatever the 3% increase for their municipal services contract. City Clerk, we had a $41,000 increase, which wasn't really an increase. We had a closed captioning system in fiscal year 25. We canceled that service because we found that we could do it better and cheaper with an AI piece of software. However, we had a contractual obligation. We worked with Granicus, which is the provider of this service, and they had a public records request management platform that we have since transplanted that closed captioning program platform with this and has provided us a great amount of flexibility when it comes to public records requests, especially for the body-worn cameras, which has been heavily seeked by litigation insurance. So it's 41,000, but it's not really an additional. It's just really supplanting the expense for closed captioning that we've eliminated through AI technology. Human resources, there is $75,000 for digitizing, as everyone knows. Personnel records, they have a huge or long life retention, as required by Florida statute. We follow Florida statute, just like every other municipality in the state of Florida, whatever those are dictated to us by statute. personnel by far is the longest. And in doing that, what we have is file cabinets of very old documents of which we cannot destroy. So in doing that, we have just decided to, 75,000 should put all of those documents real papers, physical papers, into a digital form, which will make it easier and more efficient for us to search things when needed, especially when it's historical data. And secondly, if we do relocate, or when we do relocate, we won't have to be taking six or seven file cabinets with us. So that'll save us on that time. Public Works, I guess I mentioned the AD, several initiatives. We have administrative technical skill sets. There's a lot of projects going on, constant engineering, constant more requests for improvements, traffic studies, things of that nature. So we feel that position will be a huge benefit to the department, making us more efficient, more effective. I don't think I have to harp on it again. $225,000, the underlying, we budgeted 75, which was the cost of 300 divided by four, four quarters, so one quarter. Our underlying section just came live in July. So we budgeted 75,000 to cover the last quarter of the fiscal year. Next year, it's for the full 12 months. So it's an increase of 225 based on a resolution that was adopted by this commission. So that's incorporated into the proposed fiscal year 27 budget. Mobility, something else that's been discussed. Finance Committee, they met with Francesca, which provided a fantastic report and went over in a lot of great detail in reference to our on-demand service, what it would be, what it is with VIA, what it's become since the charge started in February of this year. This is the first fiscal year where The reserved monies for on-demand service or for transit has expired. So now we will be dipping into general fund money to offset the difference between $360,000 or $369,000 and the $150,000 that is provided to us by PTP for that type of service that must be used for that type of service. So there is a $215,000, $210,000 that we will have to transfer from general fund if we want to keep operating the on-demand service program in the fashion it's in right now. And we've been doing a lot of evaluations and talking about different things that I'm sure maybe the manager will speak of later. Parks and Recreation, minor improvements or minor increases in funding. They have a new software that they want. It's a $10,000 productive parks. Reserves help them to inventory their equipment. We've also increased their special events. Special events is something that we pride ourselves on. We've been doing a great job, and everybody, I think, appreciates it. Second Saturdays, well attended, fantastic events. So we've added more money to our special events to help enhance those projects and those events. Storm Drain Trust Fund. This is an item that was mentioned by the budget and finance. We spoke about it heavily. We adopted, in 2002, a $54 fund. annual ERU, which at this point is not sufficient to continue to make improvements and enhance our stormwater drain system, our infrastructure. So in an effort to keep up, we did a rate study with Kimberly Horn. We're doing a stormwater master plan to see where we are. We have a preliminary number. from Kim Lee Horn. It is not complete yet, the study, and that preliminary number is roughly in the 222 annual ERU, which is about $18.50 per month. In this budget we incorporated and did a revenue forecast on doing the 54 as of October, as we've done for the last four or five years, and moving forward in October with a rate increase at $18.50 in ERU, which would give us approximately $1.3 million. And in that budget, we have these projects that are skewed to be completed this fiscal year under the idea that we will move to the anticipated 222 annual ERU fee amount. And these are the projects that we're hoping to implement with that improve.

Commissioner Benich.

When we're talking about stormwater drain improvements and what have you, what is our responsibility and what is the county's responsibility and what is the state's responsibility? Because it seems like, to me, as a person who doesn't maybe know how it all works is, OK, well, I pay water and sewer, so why wouldn't water and sewer fix whatever the drainage problem is? And I pay the county, and I pay the state. I see it in my taxes, blah, blah, blah. So who's responsible for fixing things when they're broken? Because when we start talking to the residents about this type of thing, they're going to want to know why and who's responsible.

I'll just, from a very global standpoint, if the conduit is that the payment goes through water and sewer, depending on where the person lives, for example, if that's what we do, that's just a pass through back to us to manage the local projects that we're responsible from a stormwater standpoint. If you live in unincorporated data and you're paying that, then that's your participation in the county's responsibility for stormwater management within the unincorporated area. So in this case, we have a responsibility to manage stormwater within our municipal boundaries. And if the money is collected through the water bill, it's just a pass-through back to us to give us those funds to support the projects that we're required to do.

So like dummy situation, there's, I don't know how do you say it, where the water goes down.

Drainage? Foam drainage? That. Yeah. So that. I got you. Thank you. Like, never.

So that's in the corner of my house. That backs up, and it's all broken. And who's responsible for fixing that tube that goes from that thing at the corner of my house to the canal where the water throws out?

It's on us. I mean, there may be sections of the city that has purely a county system, but most of those are our responsibility.

OK. So that's, I think.

Sometimes it may be as simple as just a backer truck that goes in like a vacuum and it cleans it out, because sometimes there's too much accumulation of things that have come in there. And it's as simple as that. And they might fix it, right? Or there may be something more structural related to it. So we'll certainly get that location. at a minimum go inspect it and maybe vacuum it.

Got you. Okay. So then the short answer is if it's in the city, chances are we're responsible for it. If it's part of some big monster thing, it's probably somebody else. Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Yes, Commissioner Kaye.

so if you go back to one slide it wasn't crystal clear that you are making a recommendation moving forward with the uh with the storm water allocation of the revenue through our current taxes or are we going to kind of move back into utilities which i happen to be a fan of so i just wanted to see if you were providing recommendation here today or not really yet

I'm not making a recommendation here today. However, I can see myself potentially in the future making a recommendation to move away from. So in 2018, we used to always bill on the Miami-Dade County water and sewer bill. It used to be one of the fees on the bottom in the third or fourth page, depending on how much you spend in water. In 2018, we decided to go with putting it on the tax bill. which was a process, and it was adopted in 2018 under my recommendation. Since then, it's worked, and it's on the tax bill, and it will be. The $54 will be on the tax bill. In doing the financial calculation, 1% of a total of $400,000, which is the aggregate of everything that we collect in stormwater, and 1% of $1.7 million, which at that ERU, that's what it would bring us to, it is significantly cheaper to go back to the water bill to actually collect it from the water bill and no longer be on the tax bill. So I haven't made that official recommendation, only because I'm waiting for the stormwater master plan to be completed with the storm fee, the fee study. It's only going to make more financial sense that we go back to billing it on it, which is $1.03 or $1.06. I don't know exactly yet because I'm waiting for the interlocal agreement from Miami-Dade County. But it's per bill versus a percentage of what's collected. So just that analysis is going to move us towards utility billing back the old way, I envision.

Thank you.

I predict. Vice Mayor, I'm sorry if I could just add.

Yes, go ahead. So I mean, obviously the impact of not having a program that is, I would say, appropriately funded puts a burden on the general fund. So this is supposed to cover those activities and projects that are designed to comply with. FEDERAL STANDARDS AND STATE AND WHATEVER FROM A STORM WATER STANDPOINT. SO WHEN THE RATE HAS BEEN AT THE SAME RATE SINCE 2002, OBVIOUSLY THAT PRESSURE OVER THE YEARS OF ALL THOSE PROJECTS HAVE BEEN ON THE GENERAL FUND. AND IT'S AN UNDUE BURDEN. So there are plenty of expenses and costs that are legitimate and allowable to be billed back to the stormwater. So at the end of the day, it's something that I think has been long coming because of the rate being static since 2002. And you know how many projects we do from a drainage standpoint. Now, you've got to live within your means, potentially. Whatever the rate is, if it goes to what we're saying, we need to go back and see what projects do we need and can we live within the stormwater. And that's why it's important to have a fund that's more realistic. We may do more and say, hey, we're going to use general fund money because we have problems that exceed with this revenue. But right now, with the revenue that we collect, everything exceeds that. It's just not commensurate with the work that's needed.

If I can add to that too, doing the storm study, storm drain study really gives us the opportunity to go get more grants as well. So that's, I mean, you need to have the study in place to make sure we can go do that. So that will also help all the funding that we're hopefully going to get here in the future and give us the ability to get grants so we can do more with it.

Great.

Thank you. So those are the expenses based on that philosophy of Adopting $54 as we've done for the last number of years. I want to reiterate this because it's important. And then adopting what seems to be the recommendation from the consultants of $18.50 per month per ERU and beginning to bill it in March 1st of 2027 with seven months. And that would provide us the $1.3 million needed to fund the projects that are presented in this budget, in this proposed budget. So I want to make that clear. Next fiscal year is our centennial 100th anniversary. We have put $100,000 in non-departmental to help fund some of the planning and the programming to celebrate 100 years of this great city and celebrate the next 100. This is just a breakdown of our general fund. It's a summary. The bottom line is we're balancing our operating revenues with our operating expenses, leaving us with a small $129,000 difference. But it's maintaining our $5.7 million of unreserved, unrestricted fund balance. Should November happen, we can help. That would help in offsetting 2028 maybe until we can better align.

Alfredo, just as a reminder earlier, Alfredo talked about the emergency reserve. So that $5 million you see in the bottom is on top of the $7.3 million, I think, that we hold from an emergency reserve standpoint.

Correct. And then I just left some strategic priority areas, some outcomes, engage and connect communities. resilient SOMI, organizational and service excellence, economic vitality, and vibrant community. And with that, thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Does anyone have any more questions for our CFO? No? OK, great. Thank you. So without any questions, we'll move to the presentation by the city manager, item D.

It's pretty much this one here. Yeah, item one was actually the document, the proposed budget, and then we kind of skipped to D. Great.

And I know there were some questions asked, but is there a desire, anyone in the commission, to have an open discussion now or just kind of take it all in and we'll save it for the next meeting? Let's hear it from Commissioner Benich.

OK. When we're talking about the full-time employee positions that we essentially want slash need but aren't able to fill now. I think there was five of them. Do we have them on a most needed? Do we have it on a number scale or something that if we find the funds, here's where we're hitting first, here's where we're hitting second, that type of thing?

I guess it depends if you ask. If you ask each director, they would have theirs at the top of their list.

No, I want yours. Forget them.

So it's all relative. No, each one of them has a substantial impact in the area that they're recommended for, the reality. I mean, the public works touches everything around the city. So that was sort of a citywide impact that that position will have in supporting the department. It's a proper question and it's a hard question because from a relative standpoint, for example, let's say payroll, right? I mean, we have two people in HR and the amount of work that we're doing. to try and elevate how we treat our personnel and human resources to more strategic versus transactional. Payroll is just very painstaking and has to happen every two weeks. So having somebody who can be dedicated to it and free up people to do some other work is incredibly important from their standpoint. I want to talk briefly on each of them. The community center manager is something that I've talked about. In the previous city, I was a manager. had that model, and I think it just created a champion and an owner of the facility from a programming, maintenance, you know, and a facility standpoint. Could we do without, you know, for a fiscal year? You know, we've done without for a long, long time. But would it really enhance the operation, the maintenance, you know, even programming? I just think it provides an owner, right, of that facility, and I think it's the right model to have. Timing-wise, it's from the standpoint of cost. There was the code enforcement. We've had that conversation here. I know that we have implemented a really good tracking tool that now we have reporting on a monthly basis of cases generated. And we sort of see real time a little bit of the productivity. And I think that puts us in a better position. to see where that productivity is and see where the gap is. Obviously, that activity is critically important, but when you weigh it to some other needs, potentially it may not rise to that level. But it's different priorities. Everybody on this commission may have a different priority. It doesn't mean that it's wrong. It just means that that's something that you feel should be addressed to a better level. And I think... What was the other one? We have one more. I don't know, because Alfredo closed the presentation, so nobody can see.

Was it the, oh, shoot, code? Code enforcement?

No, it was code, community center.

Community center manager, payroll specialist. And there was another one, I believe, that I just drew a blank on. Parks maintenance. Thank you. Parks maintenance. Obviously, with our parks program and bringing South Miami Park online, The way we would move people from entities, let's say somebody in the community center to assist here, there's a lot going on in our parks programming and park maintenance. It's at the top of my list from the standpoint of the look and feel of our facilities. I walk the properties, I walk with John, and certain things that I feel need to be and be at a higher level, but that requires a certain level of staffing. Now, some of these things don't always have to happen with an FTE. I mean, you can outsource some of it, and sometimes it's viewed as a dirty word, but I've got to look at efficiencies, and sometimes that may be a better way to deal with that, so we don't always have to have our own employee to tackle that. We already have that model. We have that hybrid model. We have Brightview that helps Parks Department with some of the maintenance of some of those facilities. And on the public works side, Brightview is also a partner in maintaining some of our medians and so forth. So we already have that existing model. So in looking at those positions, I always look at, is there another way of doing it without increasing an FTE? Because maybe we say, we have an option for that, but we don't really have an option to outsource a community center manager or a payroll specialist. So very long-winded answer, but I wanted to give you more thought behind why all of these have an important role in the city. And I think that we would have to evaluate, OK, if we had $50,000, where could that be best spent if we're going to increase an FTE? And so I'm going to avoid from giving you the priority list right now, because I think that requires a little bit more thought into what we're doing next. We're still having a lot of other conversations about programming and services that could influence that list, potentially. And certainly your thought process as to what you think are a priority would influence that conversation, of course.

OK. And then for you guys, there's just three things that I want us to have in mind The underlying budget I think is way too high. I think we need to look at that extremely critically. Mobility, the VIA program, what have you, I am a huge fan of having people pay for that simply because I don't want it coming out of our general fund. I don't want us not having the grant money come in be something that we cover. I think those things exist. And if we can tap into what the county is doing, whatever, then it's a burden we don't have to necessarily carry. And then I had this conversation with Chip. And he's right. I will start by saying you are right. But I still believe that we should peek in on maybe phasing in the health insurance stipend reduction for our employees, because it's something that they currently have. Whether they spend it on health insurance or spend it on bubble gum, it's something that's part of their income right now. Instead of pushing it all in at once, I think maybe we want to phase it like six months of this and six months of that. I don't know what the answer is. I just know that it worries me a little bit. So that's my take on what we have here. And of course, I'm always like community center manager. That's it.

Thank you. Any other discussion items from the commission? What was the last thing you said?

Community center manager.

Oh, you liked it?

I love that. I worked at the Coral Gables Youth Center, and we had a director. And that lady was a fire breathing dragon. And there was no fooling around there, because that lady would not have it. And I think that we would benefit from that. But notwithstanding, all the other things are important too.

By the way, I agree with you. One of the things that we spoke about when we approved our legislation was to approve the $300,000 for the first year. We had never really contributed to the underline at all. Most of the cities and counties and municipalities had, not us, right? And I think what we all agree is that let's try it one time for a year to see how it goes. If it doesn't go the way that we want it, it takes 10 days to put down some vandalism or trees are being knocked down and not put up. Let's try it first and see what happens. We all agree, by the way. I think we all agree. I think what we have spoken, though, is that we will try it for the first year and see what happens. One of the things that... Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Manager. I know we do the CIP budget pretty much in detail. Do we still have a meeting that we go over general fund detail, like where we go through a lot of the expenses from line item wise?

No, right? Is that something that we used to do? No. I mean, we present this workshop as an orientation to that and some of the highlights. And then we share the budget with you with a memo with a lot of explanation on the changes. So you have it in a written format. but we don't necessarily get into now. That's the commission's prerogative, how much you want to dive into certain line items, if you will, but the information has been provided, and then this is more of an overview for that discussion.

And just for the public record here, this is our first reading of the capital operating budget, right? So we're going to have another couple readings and workshops before we approve it, correct? Correct. Can you remind us on the schedule again?

Yeah. Tonight you're considering your millage rate. So you set your preliminary millage rate. And then you have your two statutorily required budget hearings in September. You know, between after tonight and September, you know, we'll do additional work, as I mentioned earlier. And then there'll be another budget that comes to you in September for those two hearings.

I mean, there's a lot of little questions that I have, but, you know, I'll go back with pencil and go back and start getting all the questions answered. I mean, we've been doing that. I know CIP was more of what we focused on, but I appreciate where we are right now. Thank you.

Great. Commissioner Rodriguez? I'm good. All right. OK. Well, I guess I'll just close it up thanking all the departments for their hard work. I know this is a very difficult time of year, physically and even emotionally. I know how passionate you are about the work that you do and the projects you put in. Not every item gets approved, and that's a challenge. But we'll all work up here. to make sure that everything that we can do this year, and if things get messy, we'll get creative, just to be a team with you and make sure that everything goes through. So we definitely appreciate all of your hard work. Thank you as well to the city manager. And yeah, if there's no more questions, we'll adjourn the meeting. All right, I'm gonna hit it.