Good evening and welcome to the September 23rd, 2025 special meeting.

I'd like to call the special meeting to order, and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance by our city attorney.

Jen.

I pledge the allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God is all with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, I'll just start with is anyone in the audience wish to speak on an item that is not on the agenda tonight.

Seeing no one, uh, we'll close that uh citizen input and go to new business.

Uh this is adoption of fiscal year 2026 final millage rate and fiscal year 2026 final budget.

The first one is resolution 25-24, which establishes the fiscal year 2026 final millage rate.

Jen, can you please read resolution 25-24 by title only?

Resolution 25-24, resolution of the city commission of the city of Dunedin, Florida, adopting the final millage rate for ad velorum tax revenue for fiscal year 2025-26 at a rate of 4.1345 mills or $4.13 per thousand dollars of assessed property value and providing for an effective date.

That was resolution 25-24, read by title only.

So moved.

Second.

Okay, and I'll go to staff presentation.

And we'll start with uh city manager.

Do you have some comments?

Yes, I do.

Thank you.

And good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Commissioners.

Uh this is a special meeting, as the mayor said, of the city commission in regards to the fiscal year 2026 budget.

The um uh I just want to make a couple comments about the process because this evening is usually relatively uh short meeting, and a lot of work has gone into this budget.

Uh this is the culmination of about nine months' worth of work at a minimum, uh, beginning first of all with staff uh reviewing line item budgets and making proposals to the city manager's office, uh, and then some back and forth with staff between the city management's office and finance department and staff.

Uh then we put together a draft budget uh and we submit that to the city commission, and that was done in June and to the public as well.

So there have been a number of workshops regarding the budget, and those are day-long workshops, those are eight-hour long workshops.

Um the um and and that's this is all predicated upon the work that was done by the by the uh Board of Finance as well.

The Board of Finance saw the budget several times.

They heard from several uh department directors regarding the budget and some of the some of the items within the budget, and they make their recommendations to the city commission, which they did in I think it was August, the August meeting.

Yeah.

So and that was that first budget uh workshop, and that was August.

Um the first budget workshop was uh July 18th of 2025.

There was a uh substantial follow-up, as you recall, in regards to all of your questions and comments in the follow-up letter, and that is of record in the uh the city commission's um uh on the excuse me, the city's website.

Um we uh convened again for a second budget workshop on the 6th of August of 2025.

Again, there was a uh to address the follow-up.

Uh there are additional questions of the city commission.

We saw aid to organizations.

Uh we saw you looked at the pay plan and supported it in terms of merit-based increases to the to the to the employees.

You looked at the proposals for some reclasses and so on and so forth and supported those as well.

There was a follow-up to that one and uh as well, and uh uh we provided that in our um our package for you.

Um you had your first public hearing on the budget, and that was uh December, excuse me, September 11th of 2025, and then this evening is the second public hearing and adoption of the fiscal year 2026 budget.

As I said, in the evening period, a lot of uh work has gone into this budget.

Um it is uh uh submitted to you as a proposed tentative budget for fiscal year 2026.

And uh I know that Les has a very short presentation for you this evening.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, we'll turn to Les.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners.

Les Totter, the Finance Director, and I'm here with Gene, our budget manager.

Uh the fiscal year 26 budget has been prepared in unity with our priorities set forth in our City of Dunedin Strategic Plan.

This is a final hearing on the 26th budget.

Uh the city has had several workshops, as Jennifer just mentioned.

The city's fiscal year 26 proposed budget was delivered to the city commission and the board of finance on June 30th this year, and we we had two workshops as Jennifer mentioned on July 18th and August 6th.

The millage rate of 4.1345 mills is uh 5.43 percent more than the rollback rate of 3.9216 mills.

The rollback rate is this is the rate that would generate the same amount of property tax revenues as approved for the prior year, less less a few allowances when the tax base increases the rollback rate is less than the prior year's rate.

The city commission held a public hearing and adopted resolution 25-22 establishing a tentative millage rate of 4.1345 mills for the fiscal year 2526 budget on September 11, 2025.

A millage rate of 4.1345 mills is the same rate that our cities had uh for the past 11 years.

Uh the rate will generate uh 17,850,000 dollars in the general fund, and that's budgeted at a 95 percent collection rate, and it will generate 1 million one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars for the city's portion of the CRA's Avalorium TIFF revenues.

Staff recommends approval of the final millage rate of 4.1345 mills for fiscal year 26.

Thank you.

Okay, questions for staff on this uh Vice Mayor.