Right.

Good evening and welcome to the tentative budget hearing of the Boca Raton City Council.

It is Monday, September 8th, 2025.

The time is 6 p.m.

Will everyone please rise and join in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the pledge of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Ms.

Siddons, will you please call the roll?

Mayor Singer.

Here.

Deputy Mayor Knackless.

Councilmember Drucker.

Here.

Councilmember Thompson.

Thankful to be back.

Councilmember Wickter.

Here.

All present.

Thank you.

And tonight is a public hearing on the tentative budget and proposed millage rates for the 2025-2026 fiscal year, which starts October 1.

We'll begin first with a presentation of the proposed millage rates, the tentative budget, the fire assessment, and user fees.

Mr.

Brown.

Thank you, Mayor.

Financial Services Department, Jim Zervis and Sharon McGuire are going to make the presentation on the tentative budget, proposed millage rate and capital improvement program for the fiscal year 25-26 budget.

Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Council.

Sharon McGuire, OMB director.

I am going to briefly go over the 25-26 proposed budget.

And this budget has not really changed, hasn't changed since the workshop presentation that Mr.

Service did.

But so you'll see some of the same stuff.

And as a reminder, we did uh extra this year on um extra work on trimming the budget and making sure that we are presenting a balanced budget and especially in the general fund.

And we were able to reduce some expenditures by about two million dollars in the general fund.

Um we always start off with the vision, mission, and values.

The vision is a world-class community where modern amenities and innovative innovation break embrace safe, beautiful, charming neighborhoods in a vibrant economy, enriched by exceptional recreational and cultural offerings.

Um the we also have the strategic focus priorities of community safety, financially sound, vibrant economy, quality of life, world-class services, transportation and mobility, and growth management.

And we um consider all of these as uh as we produce the budget, and you'll see places where we show how the direct relationship is.

We are also able to do the balanced budget with a slight decrease in the millage rate.

So next year's millage rate is 3.6649 compared to 3.6734.

Uh we also kept the fire assessment fees consistent with the prior years.

We're not raising the fee from the residential fee from 155 to remain at 155, as well as all the commercial and industrial rates will remain.

This is a chart that shows the history of our assessed valuation for next year.

We um have hit the 40 billion dollar number, which is uh 7.5 percent increase.

And this is a chart showing our new construction and we have 700,000 of new construction.

I know Mr.

Wigner showed some of this in his presentation.

The tax rate and assessed value, and you could see that the assessed value has been going up and the rates have been staying pretty close to the same or decreasing somewhat the millage rates.

Every year we produce uh a brochure, and um I'm the tax broad shore, so we like to show some of the information from the brochure.

I'm hope you you all receive them to your homes.

And this shows the total annual property taxes that a Boca Ratone resident will pay.

And there's many other taxing agencies.

So for every dollar that uh Boca Ratone residents pays for taxes, uh, 21.55 cents go to Boca Ratone.

Uh in there we also show that for an average home of about 500,000 and what their bill would be for next year based on the proposed rates.

And um the Boca Raton uh operating and debt will be going down from 1,006 three to 1,649.

There's a chart that shows our competitors or not competitors, but cities that are around us with us that offer basically the same services, full service cities.

And you can see we are by far the lowest tax rate in the county or in the neighboring cities, and probably in the state.

This shows the fire assessment fee and where we are in relation to our other neighbor or neighboring cities, and we are 155 dollars as opposed to like Fort Lauderdale, that's up to 403.

The brochure also shows our water and sewer rates and how we are the one of we're pretty much the lowest water and sewer rates for the for the cities near us.