Village Council - workshop

Alright. Good afternoon. We're gonna call to order this meeting of the Wellington Village Council for Monday, April 27 for our workshop on taxes. Miss Quickel, I assume this is your leading the show.

So this a session we normally have during the directions workshop. So we're very appreciative to have Cecil Jackson with the Palm Beach County property appraiser's office here, as well as Dino Matiotis. He's back in the back here. Both of them are Wellington residents. So I believe most of you may know them, but they're very experienced. And we're very fortunate to have them available to come and give us an update on what's going on with our property taxes and values this year. So I'll turn it over to Cecil.

Oh, Thank you very much, Tonya.

Can you hear me?

Yes. I'm sorry. Okay. Well, just want to make sure. Well, first of all, thank you for allowing me to be here. I'm Cecil Jackson, the Chief Appraiser. I work for Ms. Dorothy Jackson, her office. She apologizes for not being here today. She's actually out of town.

And she's been kind of busy, pretty busy. So But I'm happy to be here because, like Tanya said, I'm a resident of Wellington, and I actually love being here. So thank you, mayor, vice mayor, and city council members for village council members for allowing me to be here. So I just wanna give you an update of where we're at for 2025 and where we're looking at in 2026 for valuations, what we're seeing in trends, and so forth. So this presentation is focused on obviously the village of Wellington and the 2025 property values.

So today is, guess, the twenty seventh of right? Mhmm. I thought it was the twenty fourth. It was the twenty seventh of kept changing the date here. So I'll walk you through, you know, the latest market trends and some of the taxable values for Wellington. And we'll look at how values change over time and how they break down by property types and what it means for the tax base going forward. Okay? So we'll get started with a quick overview of the total market values and the taxable values over the last several years. Make sure I can do this right. There we go.

I actually did it right. So we'll move on some details here. So as you can see, this slide compares the billets of Wellington's taxable growth. It's the Palm Beach County's overall and shows how many properties receive homestead benefits. So it highlights both our year over year value change and how the strengthening of the residential base is here in Wellington.

Wellington's final taxable value increased from about $12,400,000,000 in 2024 to just over $13,200,000,000 in 2025, which is about a 6.62% increase, which is pretty much in line with what we see here at the county's growth, which grew about almost 8%. So Wellington is slightly just more slowly, grows a little bit more slowly and county wide average still, but we're still in a healthy pace in terms of its growth. And the net new construction in Wellington is more than $57,000,000,000 of taxable value. That's in '25, which is roughly about 5,500,000,000 overall countywide, which shows the new buildings continue to be our base here. Right?

So homesteads, parcel mix, as you can see here that Wellington has about 23,000 total parcels, a little over that, which is about 14,000 are actually homesteads. So about 62% of the properties you have here are homesteaded properties, which means that those homestead exemptions or county wide figure is about 56.2. So you see a strong home base here in Wellington, which is a I think it's a testament of what you look at in terms of overall owner occupancy. Even though we do have some residential properties that are rentals, seasonal rentals, I have a couple of those in my neighborhood, but it protects our growth and we still have a cap protection here for the homesteaded properties. So the key takeaways here, I believe, is Wellington continues to see a solid taxable growth.

It supports both the appreciation and new construction. Our growth is slightly below the overall county rate, but we benefit from a very stable predominantly homesteaded residential base, as I kind of mentioned earlier. So those factors together support long revenue stability and help cushion the impact of market swings on our taxpayers. Switch to the next section here. So here, this slide shows the twenty twenty five values by property type and you can also see the parcel counts and the market values and the taxable values.

And if I'm going too fast, please tell me to slow down because I do talk too fast sometimes. Okay? So it gives a detailed overview of what makes up the tax base behind the charts that you just saw. So the residential properties or parcels are are by far the most numerous with about close to 19,000 parcels and they carry the largest share of both the market and the taxable value. So the And I'll kind of get in the market and taxable value what that means in a few minutes.

But I also wanted to touch on the condos and the multi family property parcels or properties, they add more than 2,000, a little over 2,000 housing parcels combined with a strong market and taxable value of their own. Together, those housing categories underlie how relevant Wellington's base is in residential uses. So we have a lot huge residential base here, which is great. Also, non residential classifications such as commercial and industrial properties are fewer in number, but each parcel represents a substantial amount of value, especially on the taxable side. And also, we have a lot of agricultural parcels that stand out and they're a little over a thousand, I believe, or close to a thousand.

But they carry about several billion dollars in market value, reflecting the importance of the agricultural area here in Wellington. Vacant land, tangible personal property, we've kind of talked about that a couple of times, Jeff and I have. And other categories round out the base, each combining smaller but still meaningful amounts of taxable value. So the takeaways here, I think, is the most parcels are residential, but some of the highest values per parcel still sit in commercial and industrial and the agricultural classes. And the taxable value column shows how much of the market value is actually available to support services after exemptions and limits, right, and classifications.

So overall, I think the table highlights a broad diverse mix of property types supporting Wellington's physical position going into 2025. So I think it's a very strong base compared to a lot of other municipalities here in Palm Beach County. You can see here for this pie charts, this is a breakdown of the taxable properties and the market value properties. The chart on the left shows the properties that are worth in on the market. So if those properties we we built in 2025, this is what you will see the majority of those properties would be.

It shows how that value translate into taxable base after exemptions are applied. So the pie on the left is you could see about residential properties make up the largest share of the market value, which accounts for about three fifths of the total amount. This is just substantial amount of value. And the agricultural is also a significant category, which represents a large portion here in Wellington as well. The commercial multi family and condos and smaller categories like industrial and tangible, as I mentioned earlier, make up the remainder which illustrates a very diverse property mix beyond just housing, which I think is a is a great thing.

And on the taxable side, as you can see on the far right, it shows a larger reflecting how exemptions and assessment limits affect other property classes differently. So those agricultural values represent a small percentage of taxable value than it does of the market value, which highlights the impact of special classifications in agricultural treatments that you approve here as well as our office we approve for when folks apply for agriculture. Exemption they're applying for, from cows, bees, horses.

Explain to people who are watching how that works. Why the market value is higher than the taxable value for those Great

question, Mayor. So the market value is the true value that we feel as of January 1 of each calendar year, what that property would sell for in the open market. And the taxable value is the taxable value of properties minus their exemptions, homestead exemptions, agricultural exemptions, wood or or veteran's exemptions and so forth. So it's basically a net of the market. So once you minus off all those exemptions that people apply for, that's what you get as your total taxable, what people would actually pay for in taxes. Does that answer?

That works. I was just explaining to people who might be playing at home.

Alright. For folks at home, I hope that answers your question. The mayor's question. So I think Wellington's tax base is anchored obviously with residential properties. And it's a very very robust market here.

Mr. Jackson, can you also characterize vacant? The definitions in my documents show that vacant is really property that's due to be transferred, not necessarily property with no structure on it. Correct. Can you clarify vacant for the home audience?

Yes. So vacant properties are essentially properties that are actually without any type of use. So it's it could be a large four or five acre tract of land or something larger than that, that actually has just been considered vacant until actually used. So our our our the property appraiser's office would look at that as of a vacant property, what it would sell for the market. So if the market value is still this until it actually transfers into ownership.

Now, I know a lot of folks actually do have exemptions on some vacant property because they use it for a number of things and those actual values would actually be deducted as well. So the well, excuse me, the exemptions would apply to the taxable, but the vacant land is just vacant land. Thank you. Yes, sir. So those the differences between those two pie charts underscores how state law and local classifications that we just talked about can shift the burden property types and whether the market value looks similar.

So as you can see, there's a huge difference that can occur here. And I think the mayor kind of touched on this a little bit about the market value and the taxable value. So from this chart shows that Wellington's total market value from 2017 to 2025, we don't have the '26 numbers just yet. That'll probably come out late May. And we'll have those numbers for all the cities in the county.

Preliminary numbers was that around May 27, so just around the corner. So we're working on that as we speak. But the orange line represents the market value as we just spoke about earlier. What properties are worth on the open market, I kind of mentioned that. And then the blue line also shows us we just mentioned earlier, the exemptions, what it would be taxable.

So you can see the huge spread of steady upward period of where the properties laid flat from 2017 till about 2020, 2021 when COVID kinda kicked in, and we had a lot of folks who moved to Florida and a lot of folks who wanna make this a permanent home. So market values kinda took off around that time, usually nationwide, but in particularly here in Florida. So we saw a huge massive increase and you could see how the grad the chart gradually climbs. So the market value climbed from 2017 about almost doubled in in terms of value. So that's a that's a huge swing if you if you look at that.

And and now also the taxable actually swings up that way as well. So you're looking at a double of not double taxation, but double value, but also the increase of the the assessed values, which I think is a a testament of how Wellington is a very steady and prominent city that people want to actually come and live in. I know my wife loves it here, and she said she's never gonna leave. So unless she finds something that's a bit better or not, that's

not case

We're glad you're stuck.

Well, thank you. Things aren't cheap, but hey, it's not cheap any and nothing's cheap anywhere else any so so I kinda mentioned the twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two market, how it reflects how the market has taken off. So we're monitoring that very closely as well. We actually still have about the same number of properties that transferred in ownership that we verify, roughly about 18 to 21,000 properties sell in the countywide each year. And we do a very good job, I believe, trying to make sure that we verify that this property is an arm's length transaction, that people know that when we're putting out values for properties that we are actually supporting that with what we see in terms of the market.

So we're very happy about that. And I'm gonna touch a little bit on the new construction, if that's okay with you. So in terms of new construction for the '25 tax roll, the net new construction was about $85,000,000 in taxable value. Okay? So that means that was new value that was gonna go added onto the to the tax base. And that's I hate using this term, but it's kinda gravy. You know, it's it's a it's a win win for everyone. I think last year, our total taxable value county wide is $5,800,000,000. And I think we'll probably be close to that this year in terms of new construction. So we're seeing a huge growth of still here in the countywide as well as here in Wellington.

I know the '26 tax roll, I asked for some estimates this year. We're looking at about $78,000,000 compared to last year. So we're down about almost $5,005,000,000 in value. But that's still $773,000,000 of new taxable value that will go into the tax roll that will be added to your to your assessments as well. So the overall decrease was about seven, but it's still the net was a decrease because there's some demo rental numbers for me this morning. There's a lot of demolitions, but there's a lot

of new

added value. So the stuff that was demoed, we do a plus minus and the net is is that number. So it looks pretty promising. So we also found about single family residential construction here increased and rose about $27,000,000 from '25 to about $45,000,000. So that's a huge chunk of the new construction here we've seen here in Wellington.

But also the agricultural new construction that you mentioned earlier has the opposite direction. It was decreasing from about $41,000,000 in '25 to about $28,000,000. So there's not a lot of new growth on the agricultural side, but still it's $28,000,000. So and I think there's one new subdivision plat, and I meant to I meant to mention that, which was Lotus Wellington. It's approximately about $23,000,000 in market value that we have on it currently.

I know there's a lot of other outparcels and some other things that are going on over there. But as soon as that gets fully developed, there will be a lot more growth, and we'll be picking up a lot more new construction and value new construction. So it's looking really promising, and I really like that restaurant there. So if I could ever get a reservations, it's very difficult to do because I don't like going to Palm Beach Gardens. So And my wife doesn't either, so And let's see. I also I'm kind of at the end of this presentation. I know, like I said, I talked kind of fast, but I know there's a couple of questions you probably have about some legislative issues about eliminating the property taxes and so forth. And hopefully, I can answer those questions. But we're keeping an eye on that, a very close eye. Dino has done a tremendous job.

I think he sent over a power a link for the Power BI dashboards of those proposals. I think there were like seven or eight of those originally. We're in we have eliminated all but three of those proposals. I think it's a house bill two zero one, two zero three, and two zero five are still on our dashboard that would show the impacts of what properties if they eliminated property taxes, how that would in fact affect the city of Wellington or village of Wellington and and the counties in whole. So I ran a couple of numbers this morning too because I was kinda curious.

And based on those three bills and I'm let me back up. It's house bill two zero one, which is eliminating of make sure I got this straight. It's how this would impact so let me back up before I say anything else about this. All these proposals do not eliminate school taxes. Fire or police. Okay? Those are still have to be funded. That's part of all the proposals that were given so far by the folks in the legislature. I know the house had these and some of them shouldn't have sent it. I think now that they're regrouping this week and they're having conversations about possibility of what they're gonna put maybe on the ballot in 2026 or November of possibly eliminating property taxes.

But House Bill two zero one was sponsored by representative Still. And in summary, it was a constitutional amendment to exempt homesteaded properties from from all non homes non school ad valorem taxes. So basically, anyone who's homesteaded, they would ask me how would that would eliminate your They would essentially eliminate property taxes. And I'm like, that's that that could be a huge a huge factor. So I would look and say, for the first year, how that would affect the city of Wellington or the village of Wellington, you're looking at about a $12,900,000 reduction in revenue.

That's a pretty big chunk of money that that was actually would happen. The other house bill was two zero five and I believe that one was also eliminating values, but it's for it's for the fully exempt homesteaded properties of folks who are 65 years or older. So they have to be permanent residents, have to be 65 years of age or older, and they have to have the property would like I said, have to be homesteaded. They would be exempted from taxes, all but non school taxes, and police and fire. And that would affect would be about a 5,200,000 reduction, I believe, in revenue, which is pretty huge since there's a lot of seniors that live here in the village of Wellington as well.

And the final one was House Bill two zero nine, which is also would eliminate property taxes, but it's based on property insurance relief. So those properties would have to be qualified, would get an extra $100,000 reduction in taxable value minus the non school property taxes, reducing their tax bills for the county. So how would that look? So the assumptions would be the homes the homeowner must be have a qualified insurance policy. They have to have imperial insurance policy and they require them to have a verification that they actually or it's ongoing and it's annual.

And that $100,000, if it was applied, would be an elimination of about 2,900,000 in revenue, almost $3,000,000. So those are some pretty big numbers.

Does that 100,000 increase the homestead cap from 50 to a 100 if you have homeowners insurance? I didn't quite follow the track of that.

I believe so.

I can't

find that.

I had it this morning. I can't find it again. Yeah. So

they would get an extra $100,000 $100,000 deductible deduct from their taxable value reducing their bills from from the county and and from here as well. So they but you still have to have law enforcement and like the other things. But yes, a $100,000. Yes, sir. Okay. So those are some pretty big numbers, I think, for those three proposals that are still out there. Not saying that any of this would actually pass, but those are three big numbers that I think that you city council members would probably wanna be aware of and that keep an eye on that would possibly maybe on about this year. I'm not sure how that would work.

Those were all the house bills. Nothing came out of the senate this year. Right? So when they go back for when they go back for the second special session, they're gonna if they have one, they're gonna talk about property taxes. Exactly. Okay.

Yes,

sir. You're absolutely right. Any of these three taking the lead at the moment?

No, ma'am. Not as far as I as I know, and I don't I think Deanna can say no. Miss Jackson has been monitoring those as well. Nothing has been has come to fruition or there's nothing bubbling out of these these these talks so far. So the mayor's right. I think it you'd have to go back and forth and see if if someone wants to support this and

if we get some kind of votes. So

And it's been going back and forth.

It's just

It's it's been a a contention. I can tell you folks back in North Carolina and some other states that I'm friend friends with, your assessors, are now going through the same similar scenarios. So they've had some actual counties that are had delayed their reassessments annual just to see where they may be in the future and to contemplate these type of scenarios if they were eliminating property taxes. So it's affecting a lot of tax basis. It's affecting a lot of offices nationwide, especially here in the South that are considering something similar to some of these proposals that have come out from these representatives.

Questions for mister Jackson? Thank you for your

I do have a

question. Yeah.

Sorry. Your your friends that you talked to in North Carolina and other states that are facing a similar situation if it does occur, have they had any strategies to overcome those deltas and the dollars? Like any types of scenarios that they've talked to you about?

Yes, sir. Well, unfortunately, for some

of them, I'm

gonna take these glass off because I can barely see

out. Is that they're talking about basically a shell a shell game. They're gonna if the values are private tax are eliminate either if there's a reduction or if there's a a delay, they're talking about possibly raising millage rates or tax rates

there

to compensate for some of the losses because they know that infrastructure still has to be in place. There's things that still have to pay for their services that still need to be need to be still, you know, trash pickup, police fire, those type of things. And they're all scratching their heads like, what are what are we gonna do? So it's a it's a the million dollar question that used to be $64,000 question. It's now a million dollar question that he wants to try to figure out. Yeah.

And Tallahassee hasn't talked much about replacing that money. They talked briefly about sales tax since they realized how big that number has to be to make it fixed, which they don't wanna talk about 20% sales tax.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm obviously not Tallahassee, not what those represents. But I can say that it would be very difficult as a non homeowner in state of Florida to probably wanna be in Florida or even wanna live here. I think that you would shift this burden to the non homesteaded properties, commercial, industrial

Rentals. Who don't live Rentals.

Secondary homes.

Yeah.

Secondary homes, and those folks could they could see a big increase in what they would have to pay if if at all if they're not homesteading. Mhmm. So and you can't homestead apartments. So who who would pay the who would pay the difference on that? Probably a renter. You know, they'll pass the buck. That's my theory.

Yeah.

I can't say that for sure, but someone says, hey. I gotta go up $500 on your rent. Why? Because I gotta pay taxes, and my tax bill's $6,000,000 a year. Mhmm. They're not gonna they're not gonna eat that. I can't I can't imagine someone who would do that. I wouldn't as a property owner.

So No. They're gonna pass that directly off to the tenants. That's why they have tenants.

Exactly. Exactly. So there's a lot of lot of lot of discussion that's been going on for a lot quite a while. So there's a lot of folks in other like, sort of other parts of the the country that are facing these kind of same kind of scenarios. I have a lot of friends who are city managers, assessors who are eliminating some of their positions because they're not getting funded for certain certain parts of their office because they're trying to cut back. So there's a lot of things that are we have to work a little bit harder, smarter than harder,

if that makes

any sense. So It's puzzle. Other other yes. Other avenues to try to make up for some of the losses. But fortunately, we work for a pretty good property appraiser. She's she's pretty good with her butt. She does a pretty good job of keeping us straight. And I can tell you she doesn't spend any money unless she has

to. We have one of those here too. Yeah. She's really good

at it.

But she's very good at her staff and she's very good to us and Dino and us. So we're very happy to be working for her.

Any other questions? Appreciate the presentation.

Well thank you. Going to talk kind of fast, but I'll hang back for a few minutes if you want.

We all listen quickly, so it's okay. Did you wanna chime in on the end of mister Jackson?

The only thing, in the agenda item summary, there's a link right in the middle, and that's the dashboard that Cecil was referencing that they have to these various bills. And it has all the municipalities in Palm Beach County, but you can just select Wellington and see the calculations he was discussing between the 13,000,000, 5,200,000, and $2,900,000 losses.

Yeah. Was using that this morning, but I cannot find the link again. If someone can just resend the link Sure. Separately. So it's not buried in other things, that'd be great. Mhmm.

We'll definitely do that. I appreciate you allowing me to come and and speak. It's great

to We all need to hear what's going on. It's important. Thank you. Thank you. See some people at

the gym hopefully in the morning.

See you the morning. Got a short ride home.

Yes. To stand I could could almost walk here. So

thank

you very much.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Alright. Mister Barnes?

This brings us to next item, which Ms. Cripple will also cover for us. And I'll be here to provide any background and context.

If we could if Ken could come and bring up the other PowerPoint, we have another PowerPoint to go through briefly.

Is this tab c of the book? Because he was a and b?

I don't have the book.

Okay.

It's just the second agenda item.

Alright.

Thank you, Ken. Oh, and the clipper, if

you can find.

I thought he kinda covered that, but that's okay. Alrighty.

So here we're looking again a little more detail on the property tax roll. This is based on the tax roll we currently have, 2025. And so the first slide that we have here shows the number of parcels, the number of acres, the market value and the taxable value, the new value. And you can see by the pie chart, we show he had 62 percent, from these numbers we have 64%, but that two third is homesteaded. So any of these bills that talk about dealing with homesteaded property, we will have a significant impact.

That's the takedown from that. Now, when you look at it a little more in-depth, the difference between the market value and the taxable value, if you look at the listing at the bottom, or you can see the biggest part of the pie chart, single family residential is by far and large the number one category that makes up the taxable value that we receive. Dollars 7,660,000,000 of our total ad valorem comes in from single family residential. And if you add up all the other four, multifamily, equestrian, agricultural, commercial, and vacant, still that's $5,000,000,000 far under the 7.66. So anything for single family has a significant impact on Wellington.

We are different from a majority of other municipalities in Palm Beach County because we are so heavily residential. It's wonderful, but we do not have the commercial base or other base that some others do that vary how the impact of these potential bills hit us. So it's critical that you understand from our budget perspective how that impact is different for us. Then if you look at the ad valorem taxes per acre, again,

you

see which category, how they're paying on a per acre basis. It's just interesting to see from that perspective. Again, the highest ones are the single family retirement, again, multifamily residential, those are all the residential ones compared to the other ones. They are paying the lion's share of this.

What does retirement mean?

That would be like Wellington Bay.

Okay. It's a bigger number than I would have thought.

Yes. And I neglected to admit Ms. Wadley is joining us by Zoom, and she prepared a lot of this information and works very closely with the property appraiser's office on this. And again, looking at the taxes per acre, you see how the breakout and this is comparing it to the agricultural and the equestrian on here to see the difference in where it comes from, from that perspective. So again, great value with the Equestrian, but from a market perspective. But in the taxable value, again, it goes to the single family residential.

And we had someone presented directions a couple of years ago that showed the map of the per acre value, the taxable value you get from per acre, and it's obviously higher on multifamily because you get more taxable units on there. And single family is the same, but Equestrian was very low because it's a very small footprint of taxable value on a very big open property that's all exempt.

And their exemption is correct. Right. Huge impact. And then, here again, it's just yet another breakdown from where you can see by all the various properties exactly how many and what they're paying from that. And Cecil brought this up.

One of our biggest concerns from these bills is what it can do to the other types of property by shifting if the changes, what they will bear on that if it's taken away, if the exemptions are given to the single family in the homesteaded. There's a disproportionate shift that could potentially land on the other categories of properties. And that, again, would not be favorable for them. We'll leave you with this information, but again, this is what we use to monitor and make our recommendations. And that's where looking at the budget going forward, which is the next agenda item on here, again, is summarizing the same information, our concerns from that perspective.

But if it's good with you, I'll roll into the long term financial plan. We've used some of these assumptions for our recommendations that we would provide to you. The long term financial plan elements, we go through an executive summary, the financial condition assessment and market analysis, the revenue and expenditure forecast, the fund balance analysis, capital improvement plan and the financial policies. Those are listed starting on page one-four of the document itself. Over on page two-four, the annual long range financial plan updates, Here, we talk about the various analyses, forecasts, plans, and studies, and policies we consider when we prepare the long range financial plan.

On page two-seven, we have the financial condition assessment. We look at a number of financial condition assessments and market trends that we summarize. And here you'll see the ratings for those if they're favorable, unfavorable, or inconclusive, and how they're trending in the various funds. We monitor these. They can change from year to year depending on actions.

They're heavily impacted on if we have issued debt. We've had most recently this last year, some have turned unfavorable because we issued the bonds for Wellington Athletics, even though we'd have the payment from the license agreement with them, it's still the sheer fact from one year. And we had very large capital expenses in the last year for both the construction of Wellington Athletics and the aquatics facility. Those $60,000,000 in projects right there, that is not normal for us. So that one year makes a swing in some of these assessments.

But again, when we look in future years, you can see those trends change. So just because you see unfavorable does not mean that it's that kind of serious that can be impacted by big things like that coming in one year. Then over on page two-ten, we summarize the financial forecast. We look in at the revenues that we have, and again, we're looking at 2025, what we have right now. Our discretionary local sales surtax ended 12/31/2025, so we will no longer be collecting that.

We've ended the utility rate increases of 10%. We had those three years in a row, and we're projecting that to go back to the 3.5% in the upcoming budget. And then ACME, we had the increase last year. The current per unit assessment is $275 and we are projecting to remain at that. And if you recall, we have the ten year project, the stormwater improvement program for all of the pump stations.

And that was approximately 38,000,000 to $40,000,000 that we anticipate over ten years for those improvements. So that's spread out over time. And then the solid waste assessment, we're proposing an increase of $5 per unit on that, which is a very small increase. But again, that fully covers the contract on that, and it would go up from, I believe it was 03/20 to 03/25, and February to $2.40.

And I think that bears noting that when we do our solid waste, we don't have caps on your size. Can have that. Lot of places put a cap on how much we'll pick up.

Correct.

We pick it all up.

That's correct. Alright, then on page two.

Just a quick clarification on that. Do have a limitation on size, we don't have a limitation on quantity.

Okay. Explain the distinction.

So it's basic well, there is a difference. It's not just a distinction or a difference in this case. So you can only have up to a certain size in terms of what the grapple truck can pick up. So if you have stuff over six foot long, need to cut it down. But we don't have a limitation on volume.

Rule of thumbs like size of refrigerator? Yes, that's good. I've been told.

Unless you have like a commercial double size that's like 10 or something. Yes.

Yes, that's not me.

All right, so the real meat and potatoes of the long range financial plan is pages two eleven through two thirteen. These are our specific recommendations that were based upon. And our considerations that we are not including any considerations at this time for changes in the ad valorem assessment. Nothing has happened yet. Legislature has not officially done anything. So until we have something concrete to work on, we don't make that assumption. So these can change very dramatically if something happens.

And the potential swings are very big, too. It's hard to plan for between 0 and $13,000,000 being correct.

And then also, we do not include changes for potential annexations, other changes in development until it has actually happened. And you heard Cecil mention Lotus is just now coming online. We've been talking about Lotus for years and years. So there are other developments that are being discussed. Those are not considered in our projections going forward because they have not happened yet. So until we see it on the tax roll, we don't make assumptions about those kinds of things.

I'm sorry, when you do make an assumption, it's based on each individual dwelling unit or when you reach a certain portion of the overall

Well, like for a new development, whenever it's about to actually come online, the development takes years before the properties are actually there and put on a tax roll. So we don't make an assumption about those x 100 additional homes until they're actually on the tax roll. We know that.

Related to that, just to clarify as well, from Mr. Jackson's presentation when he talked about our overall total property valuation, you had property valuation and you had new construction. That's the new construction portion is that those are not yet on the tax roll until they just happen to be on there. So they haven't had the full year to be on the roll. But we are getting the benefit of it once there is a new construction portion. And to Ms. Quickel's point, it is gravy in that it's not part of our original assumptions, but when we get the valuation, then we adjust down, adjust accordingly to reflect the new construction value that's been added.

So what we're looking at are our specific recommendations. We have three one time funds that we will be dealing with, and some of these you have heard about before. One of them actually, I think probably all of The sales surtax funds, again, ending and they ended as of 12/31/2025. Our remaining collections that came in are approximately $7,000,000 Then the proceeds from the sale of the 10 acre site, that sale price of $11,000,000 we expect these funds to be received during the next twelve months. We did talk about this last year, but again, that's why we don't make assumptions until it happens, because it hasn't happened yet.

And we do expect it to be hopefully soon. And then the sale of K Park, again, we have the $47,000,000 that we expect to be received sometime during the next twelve to twenty four months. So specifically for the sales surtax fund of approximately 7,000,000 to $8,000,000 we're recommending replacement of the $7,000,000 that we withdrew from the Facility and Infrastructure Reserve Fund for the Aquatics Complex construction. The Aquatics Complex was intended to be built from sales surtax funds, so we're recommending that 7,000,000 of the excess sales surtax funds that were collected go back to that facility and infrastructure reserve.

Because we laid out the money before we collected it.

Correct. And then out of there's some portion between 7,000,000 and $8,000,000 that remaining roughly million dollars, we recommend allocating any remaining sales surtax funds to the athletic field improvement capital project budget following completion of all current projects to actually close out the sales surtax fund.

And that sales surtax, is that the penny tax?

Correct.

Everybody's referring to?

And that's what that money was designed for, infrastructure capital improvement projects. Correct. So that's where it belongs.

Okay, so then moving on to the 10 acre site proceeds, the $11,000,000 We recommend $10,000,000 from the 10 acre site proceeds be assigned to the rate stabilization fund. This is a fund currently that stands at $2,785,000 and the purpose of this fund is to offset the need for future rate increases. And again, based on the legislative challenges that are being discussed right now, we recommend increasing the rate stabilization fund to a minimum of 1 mil. And the process for doing that by assigning up to 50% of excess unassigned fund balance each year before assignment to the infrastructure facility and infrastructure reserve to increase this rate stabilization reserve to a minimum of the 1 mill account. So right now, that fund stands at the $2,785,000 Again, when the 10 acre site closes, we recommend taking 10 of the $11,000,000 proceeds and putting in there.

That would bring it to basically almost $13,000,000 That's basically 1 mil of your 2.4 7 millage right there.

That helps us with a soft landing in case taxes get directly Correct.

That's the purpose of the rate stabilization reserve.

It's the

Right. And it gives you some time to figure it out and see what the potential impact is. So that's our recommendation. For the remaining $1,000,000 out of the $11,000,000 proceeds of the Tenneker site sale, we recommend that go to the athletic field improvement capital project budget that had been talked about originally from those proceeds as well.

Right, because we talked about using $1,000,000 from that sale to improve the football field at Palm Beach Central so they're on equal footing with Wellington High School because the school district is certainly not gonna do it. So because there are kids, we decided to put money into their fields. They both have equally quality fields.

So that one and then there'll be some amount from the sales surtax going to the athletic capital project. Right. Then the third area is the sale of K Park. So we're recommending assigning up to $15,000,000 to the rate stabilization fund. So that would bring you your 12 that we just put in there for you.

The 10 goes over, plus the 15 would give you almost your full 2.47 mils as a cushion to deal with for consideration. And again, these recommendations, this would actually happen through budget amendments and the budget process if you wish to pursue this, and when these actually sales transpire. These are all council determined. Council votes to put it in, council votes to move it, take it out, and change it. So this is all controlled by you if you do this.

None of those votes are happening today,

just to be clear. Correct. Is discussion only. Again, these are things when we do these long range financial plans, we look out five to ten years to try to come up with things for you, for your consideration.

And for the new people, we're going to have a lot more discussion about the budget. It's going to seem like a lot more discussion about the budget.

That's Between

now and August and September.

Then and plus, all of these funds that are being discussed in here, the facility and infrastructure reserve, the rate stabilization, the athletic field, all of those are outlined in your audit as well. These are funds that are designated by council, so they're listed in your audit, so they're maintained, again, by your action and votes, official votes. The second item, so after the $15,000,000 we recommend appropriating $22,000,000 for strategic capital investments. Again, these would be specific projects and things that you recommend, When we put that aside, it would again be another reserve fund for your choice. And then appropriate $10,000,000 to the ACME improvement stormwater pump station improvements plan.

That overall budget, again, is in the $40,000,000 range. We have put some funding in there from the Straub collections last year, and we are actively seeking grants for that. And we have the one legislative appropriation from last year of, I think it was $650,000 and then our legislative appropriation for this year is still active, but it's not final yet. And I think it was down to three twenty five to see.

Three twenty five in the Senate and still I mean, six fifty in the Senate, three twenty five in the House.

And so we'll see what ends up with that, fingers crossed. So then our final other recommendations that we continue the annual utility rate increase in accordance with the we use a utility rate consultant to annually review the utility finances. Our current rate resolution calls for our annual indexing to be the greater of the water and sewer maintenance index, or 3.5%, whichever is greater. At this point in our review of the utility, and we have done this in one previous time, rather than go with the water and sewer maintenance index, which right now as of March stands at 5.03%, we believe we can go with the 3.5% for the annual indexing. And again, we look out so that in the year after that and the year after that, hopefully we don't drive you to higher rate increases with that, but we think we can do that.

There is one bill we have seeking legal clarification on that was just approved. I think it was I've got it written down. Anyway, the bill number that has to do with the surcharge for utility service in the out of bounds areas, which is the what we provide for part of the Village Of Royal Palm Beach area. And we charge right now a 25% surcharge for that, and we're unsure if we will continue to be able to do that or not. Even taking that into consideration, we think the 3.5% will be workable for the upcoming budget year.

And we'll confirm that with you at the May 12 meeting. And the reason we're doing that a little bit early, our meter replacement project will be starting in July 2026. And that's where the majority of everyone in Wellington over the next probably eight to nine months will be getting a new meter. We will be sending out letters on the four billing cycles during the month of June to all the residents outlining that project and telling them about that. But then we will also, for the month of July, we will send out the official notices of the annual indexing, and that we think will be at the 3.5% for the bills beginning October 1.

The meter replacements are going to take nine months?

Something like that, nine months to a year.

Faster than I thought.

Should be done within the next year overall. So then moving on to page two thirteen, we will continue to apply for financing for utility capital projects from the State Revolving Loan Fund and their debt forgiveness program, if available. An upcoming project that we'll probably put in an application for will be the membrane project, and see about findings for that. You went with us through that as we did this for the meter replacement project. It is not a fast process.

It takes about a year or so, but we'll start that. It's low interest funding, and it's good for the utility. Then we're continuing moderate increases in the solid waste, again, to finance fully fund the contract for that. We will maintain the ACMI Improvement District assessment rate at its current rate of two seventy five dollars per unit. And then we're looking at various generative artificial intelligence technologies to impact our municipal operations positively to enhance efficiency, and we keep doing that.

Just remind people what ACME is for, in case they don't know.

ACME, our our storm water improvement, and road maintenance, that assessment covers that. So now moving on. My notes.

At $275

per unit, is that over the course of the year, or what is that type

of It it's on the nonavalor portion of your tax bill. It's per acre, basically, per unit.

Thank you.

So most homes just pay the $2.75 unless you have multiple acreage.

Got it.

Then looking moving on to page four dash four. Section three is all the financial condition assessments. I highly we're happy to answer any questions if you see anything you have a question about in there. These are things, again, we work with our auditor on this as well, but a lot of information in there. On page four-four, we look at the assumptions and projections for the five year forecast, and we make a projection going forward here for fiscal years 'twenty seven, 'twenty eight, 'twenty nine, 'thirty, and 'thirty one with this.

Now, I can assure you this will change. Again, this is based on our assumptions, but they're a limited group of assumptions. But this helps us with our planning and why some of the recommendations we make are where they're based upon with that information. And we use very standard amounts for our increases in the various revenue sources, like for ad valorem taxes and things like that, as well as our assumptions for the expenditures as well. The five year forecast, again, does not include potential changes regarding the ad valorem taxes or other changes mandated by the legislature, and it does not include potential changes from development, including annexations for new construction.

We only put these in when they actually happen.

Right. Then you change the forecast.

That's correct. And then their section starting on page four-five includes the PowerPoint we just went through and the potential impacts from these various legislative changes about ad valorem tax collection. Then on page four-eight, we have the ACME fund. The focus in ACME remains the ten year storm pump station improvement program, and we'll continue working on that and actively applying for grants. Then page four-nine, we look at the utility fund, and we make five year projections again for the utility fund as well.

And again, the most biggest project coming is the Meter Services project, and it was House Bill fourteen fifty one I referenced about the potential change to surcharge for the areas that we serve beyond the utility boundary. Then on page four-ten, we look at solid waste collection, and we again go forward for the five years for it and show the proposed rates at the bottom of page four-ten that we proposed at this time for that contract. Very nominal increases going forward, so we're very pleased about that. Then we close out section five-two, which is our fund balance analysis, and counsel has a target for unassigned general fund balance between 2530% of the subsequent year's general fund expenditures. This helps provide for sound fiscal management and is the cornerstone of our rock solid financial analysis.

And as we have seen through multiple events and emergencies the last six, seven, eight years, having strong financial resources gives you the ability to do things and it provides continuity of operations and gives you options that a lot of other places do not have. When we have emergencies, it is very easy to spend humongous amounts of money very, very quickly. Yes, most of it gets refunded through FEMA, but that takes between three and five years for those reimbursements to happen. So it is important that we have options to carry us in the meantime.

Part of the reason that we do such a good job on storm cleanup is we can afford to get it done quickly because we have the money to do it. And it takes, like you said, five years later, we get some of that money back.

Correct. And it is a process.

But you guys do a great job, by the way, because you've got to document everything to get

We that money have an amazing team who works on that. And speaking of that, Christine, Ms. Fisher is here. She's participating by Zoom. Ms. Acevedo also. And all of our departments work very hard to help us come up with these recommendations and how we manage financially. We'll be presenting the draft fiscal year 'twenty seven budget very soon to you, and we understand the responsibility and strive to give you accurate planning information to help you make sound decisions. Section six, on page six-two, you have capital planning information. This is an area that greatly impacts the overall budget.

And again, we just have come off some of our busiest years with $60,000,000 wrapping up between the construction of the aquatics and Wellington athletics. And the next this budget upcoming year would be much more normal. But it is important to remind you that a lot of those are big, flashy projects, but a lot of the capital projects includes the routine work year in and year out, such as major maintenance work that is truly the backbone of our infrastructure here. We continue to incorporate the pump station improvement program and as well as our other projects from road resurfacing, pathway maintenance, neighborhood pipelining, updating neighborhood parks, replacing roofs, HVAC, painting, pressure washing, landscape maintenance, utilities and more. These are the projects you most often see and will notice if there is a problem.

Then closing out section on Page seven-two are the financial policies that we observe and have summaries of those for you. We're happy to answer questions. It's a lot of information to look at, but this is how we frame the budget that we work on to present to you. And thank you, Christine, very much. Christine puts this amazing document together, and we work very hard on that. But it's based on our audit, as well as the financial analysis we get from our audit. So go ahead, answer questions.

I'd encourage everyone to read it in detail, because you guys put in a lot of work in this, and it really, it explains so much of what most people don't understand how this place runs and why we do what we do and how we do it and where the money comes from where it goes and why it goes. So this is a good document to spend some time with. This book is a good book.

The recommendations again, you hear us talk about, you've heard it year in and year out. I remember Vice Mayor Antonia when you and Ms. Silvestri two years ago, the First Directions Workshop when you heard that, but we're very consistent with that and try to keep it very consistent.

Miss Quickley, do have a question. Mhmm. In our book, we're showing the total values by property type. And we're showing that single family residential at 56%.

Mhmm.

But mister Jackson's pie shows 61%. He And then multi family, we're showing 12% and he's showing 4%. So I'm just wanting to know where's the discrepancy here. Shouldn't they be correlating if it's from the county?

He has the most updated information. We're using the past year's tax rolls, that would account for part of the differences in there as well.

Any other questions for Ms. Quigle or her team? Thank you for being here by Zoom. Always good to hear you even though you're not speaking. We know you're there though. This is great. I'm going to be reading a lot of this. And I'll have a lot of

questions for you. Well I know the League of Cities gave a lot of information the impacts from some of the ad valorem potential changes and things. But this is why for us, we feel it's critically important because of our residential focus and the homesteaded part of the community. Is

that the whole thing? You got more time than usual. When we do directions, have much less time. Doing it separately, it's expand a little bit.

You have more time.

Don't have to be so rushed. Is that all we got,

Jim? That's all we have this evening unless you all have more questions of miss Quickel or the team or anybody else here.

We will have plenty once we start reading through all this stuff in detail. I think we are good for now.

Think the biggest thing is that I think going forward we just need to look at all the different things that go into what we do when we have to do the budgeting. And the biggest issue is the unknown as to what's going to happen with property taxes and what's going to happen, you know, essentially whatever does get, if anything gets on the ballot in November, that will not be effective until the following year. But clearly, when we do our budget, we don't just look at a single year. Particularly when it comes to capital planning, we look at five years. So it helps us plan ahead.

So that of course will be a big impact to it. Similarly, I think one of the other things we have to look at is as we prepare again to look at budgeting is to look at the trade off between any property tax or revenue issues and level of service because there's usually the trade off that we have to figure out and whether that's on core services, whether it's parks, public works, public safety or what we call the add ons, community add ons, have you, whether it's additional programming and that type of thing. And those are just the key things that I think we've got to pay attention to over the next several months as we go through that. Certainly if you all have specific issues related to capital projects, I encourage you to let us know in advance so that we can factor that in addition to what we would normally come back to you on based on last year's five year CIP that was approved by counsel. Some of those will stay on schedule.

Some of those will be delayed for a number of different reasons whether it's delayed grant funding that we were pursuing, whether it's a change in priorities from the department's perspective if something became more critical and superseded what was previously scheduled for the next year or two or ultimately if we have a change in programming that then necessitates something else. But we will provide those to you in the course of several workshops. And we're still possibly looking at still having a longer half day, three quarter day session. But at this point, we're going to try and have these in this nice kind of bite sized pieces because I think it might work a little bit better.

It's less exhausting to do them in pieces than what

Well, that's

the thing. It's like a band aid. You rip it right off and you're done for the day.

Well, was told that the longer you sit down, the less you have the ability to think because you know I guess something, well maybe that's if your brain gets numb but it doesn't. Anyway, so we're going to try and keep you guys seated short, bite sized pieces, timeframe should be shorter and keep the questions focused on the topic of the day.

When are we going to start that roundabout, Mr. Engineer?

In June.

June. Thank you.

I think we should strategize

and see what it looks like with $13,000,000 less to work with just as a worst case scenario, just to see how that plays out. What does it look like with all the different numbers that you've run?

So there's a I think it was Senate Bill thirteen forty nine that was passed that requires starting 01/01/2007 that you make a 10% adjustment in your budget, and you have to put that out, and put that information out. So again, going back to what Jim said, the next budget you're going to be focused on is for fiscal year 2627. None of the proposed ad valorem changes would take effect until the next year

All year.

Which will be 2728. Right. Because that'll be the '27 tax roll. We'll be working on the '26 tax roll, which by I think you said May 23, we send out that memo to tell you what the projected taxable value is that we'll be basing those projections on. So that's the first one that we'll take that budget that you approved for '26 and make that 10% calculation based on that. So that law is in place. That was signed by the governor, I believe, last week, and we're already looking at what we have to do for that.

So in other words, we don't have a choice anyway. We have to be prepared.

Well, think, yes, it's a

good idea to get ahead of it regardless as to

And I think, we have as you can see by the recommendations in the long range financial plan for the rate stabilization fund, that's where we're putting that funds in place to help you if those things happen to how you figure that out.

Got it. I like that. Thank you.

Did we skip C, where we talk about council priorities? Priorities? Are we

doing No. That is it was Mr. Barnes has sent that email out because it was really based on that same PowerPoint presentation. And that information is also what we gave to staff for them to work on their budgets as well for the budget we're putting together right now. And so that staff understood the potential impacts that we're being faced with some of these potential changes as well. Okay. Again, the focus is everyone understanding how Wellington is different, that the residential and homesteaded impact has so much stronger here than in other places and seeing why that is different for us.

Other places can absorb it easier than we can.

Really heavy on the residential.

And where their revenue currently comes from is so different from the proportions of where ours come from. That's the other part that's very different.

I think it's obvious. You see what we're looking at. We are unique.

As far

as the

millage rate, the 2.47, it's all or none, meaning that you can't have certain different rates for different categories? Correct.

Gotcha.

And right now, basically, just for planning purposes based on the current budget, one mill is about $13,000,000 Mhmm. So correspondingly, a tenth of a mill is 1,300,000.

Mhmm. Okay. You guys have anything?

No. No.

If we got no more questions, we are adjourned. Thank you all.

Thank you.