Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Gulfport City Council held a workshop on June 18, 2026, to discuss the potential impacts of House Joint Resolution 1F and other recent state legislative actions on the city's finances. City Manager Jim O'Reilly, along with council members, presented the details of the proposed constitutional amendment for the November 2026 ballot, which would significantly expand the homestead exemption, and facilitated a discussion with the public on the likely outcomes for city services.
Eleven thirty-four. Welcome. Welcome, and I am so glad to see a lot of faces out there that I don't know. Um, I think tonight's presentation will be fairly brief and fairly to the point, and you'll have an opportunity to tell us what services you might like to cut. Actually, it was called Gallport Twenty Fifty. And one person told me that he thought that we should um cut the number of ballparks that we have. And then I had about twelve people each tell me two or three things they thought we should add. So I think I came out about two million up instead of anything down. So you can imagine how that happens. So this is a little this is um going to be what we call a workshop. And we, you know, maybe doing these, you know, eight, ten times a year. Um, we will have a presentation from our city uh first. Um then the council will be able to ask questions and have discussion if they'd like. We will be taking public comment. For those of you that routinely attend, you know, public comment is not a question and answer period, it's an opportunity for you to go on the record and say whatever you want, and then if you leave your your contact information and you have a specific question, we can get back to you without a doubt. I'm very, very responsive on email. Um so with that, we're gonna kick it off. Um first we're gonna do roll call, and then we'll turn it over to our city manager. Councilmember Early Council Member Donch here, Vice Mayor Shaw, present, council member Webb, present, Mayor Love here, City Manager O'Reilly, City Clerk Kerrico is present. So one last housekeeping thing. Um, number one, if you're any chance that your telephone is on, please make sure it's off. And the second thing is if you you miss something and you need to have a discussion with the person next to you, just take it into the hallway. We're like a fishbowl. I hear every single whisper up there. I might not hear what the person next to me is saying, but I can hear everything up there, and it's distracting. So thank you so much. And if you will, city manager. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, um council and the public is very well aware of the legislative action that took place about two weeks ago in regards to expanding different versions of this, and this is why we're here tonight of what this is tax reform, save our homes, just all types of different variables that have been put out there. Well, as the city, we have to do it from a factual standpoint. One thing that you'll see attached to your agenda this evening is the actual joint bill that was adopted by the legislature. That way, that's facts, and I'm they covered those points, those significant bullet points. And I just put this in framework, I just want to make two points. We're talking about just adulum taxes this evening. Adulum taxes in the city of Gulfport make up approximately 32 percent of our general fund budget revenue. It's about 6.9 million dollars of a 21.8 million dollar general fund. The city of Gulfport has not raised its millage rate since 2012. We actually in 20 fiscal year 22, 23, we actually lowered it a bit. So this has been consistent. We've been in a range to where we are today at 4.0258 from 3.66 over 16 almost 16 years ago, and that was legislative action that was taken to lower the millage rate based on a reduction in revenue, and that was at a different property value. Well, subsequent to that, the city lost great amount of property value and has gone through some inevitable swings.