Okay.

There's no such thing as ending on time, unfortunately.

Um but we do start on time.

If you haven't double-checked your phone three times, please do because we don't want to hear it buzzing or beeping or music or anything like that.

And then the other thing I just ask is that if you have the need to have a conversation with the person sitting next to you, that's fine, but do it in the lobby.

Okay, because we only want one conversation going on at the time.

Uh so with that, I'm gonna I've called the meeting to order now, and we are going to start with our invocation by council member Nancy Early, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Good evening.

My quote is from Harvey Milk, American politician and first openly gay man to be elected in public office in California.

It takes no compromise to give people their rights, it takes no money to respect the individual, it takes no political deal to give people freedom, and it takes no survey to remove repression.

I pledge allegiance to the fly on the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under individual liberty and justice for all.

Super.

So roll call, please, city clerk.

Councilmember Early.

Present.

Councilmember Donch here, Vice Mayor Shaw.

Present.

Councilmember Webb, Mayor Love.

Here, City Attorney Salzman, City Manager O'Reilly, City Clerk Carico is present.

Super.

So tonight we're gonna start off.

We have two presentations, and the first one is gonna be what's called, it's a mouthful, utility rate sufficiency study.

So I don't know Andrew Burnham, but I assume he's here.

Oh very good.

Oh, yes, I recognize you.

All righty.

So if you'd like to come on up and give your presentation, that would be great.

And I see one of our city employees in charge of billing department, Sonia's here also.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

Um my name is Sonia Levert, the director of utility billing customer service, and I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce Andrew Burnham.

He's the vice president for Stantech.

Um he has worked with the city of Gulfport for many many years on our utility rate sufficiency studies, and he has also worked with many communities throughout the state of Florida, as well as many of our neighbors in the Tampa Bay area.

Umrew and his team have worked for several months looking at our utility infrastructure, financial information, and the future needs for the city of Gulfport.

So with that, I would like to hand this over to Andrew Burnham.

Thanks, Sonia.

Thank you.

So good evening, Mayor, Commissioners.

Uh so I do have a brief presentation that summarizes the in-depth analysis that Sonia mentioned that we went through to analyze the sufficiency of your utility rates to meet your identified operating and capital cost.

And so that's really what's at the crux of the conversation today.

So I always like to start the conversation with a bit of context and history in terms of refresher.

So as Sony mentioned, we've been working with the city for several years now, trying to make sure that we can provide the highest level of service at the lowest possible cost to our residents in the near term and the long term, meaning sustainably funding our infrastructure, covering our operating cost, investing in infrastructure that saves money on the operating side, which for us means trying to reduce the volumes that we send to the city of St.

Petersburg for treatment and disposal, so investing to try to save money.

And through that process, you know, we've made a number of recommendations over the year.

So just going back to 2023, that was the last time rates were restructured.

There was no increase in utility rates that year, but a rate restructuring that some of you may remember where we removed a minimum allowance that was in the fixed charge, and so people really just paid for what they were using to make the rate structure more fair and equitable for what folks were using.

And then subsequent, and as part of that, there was a three-year rate plan adopted.

The first year was no increase, but that rate restructuring change, but then two years of increases following that.

So on the stormwater fee, it was a about a dollar each year, two dollars in the first year, and then eight percent on the utility rates.

And then as we move forward through that three-year plan that was adopted and implemented, we then embarked upon establishing a new three-year plan, which is what's in place today, and that's that second box to the right, where we had a rate adjustment for 26 that was implemented of 8% per year for the water and sewer rates, $1 on the stormwater charge, and then the approved increases for 27 and 28 are the same amounts.

With the exception that in 28 we start to get to a lower level of increase.

And so since we've been doing these updates since about 2023, we've been showing that as we kind of sustain this plan and stick with it, we start to see a lower level of increases as we catch up to some of the lack of increases that we've had historically on the utility rates.

So things start to stabilize a bit.

And so that's kind of been the long-term goal that we've been trying to achieve is a balanced approach, softer annual adjustments, you know, trying to spread things out as much as we can, but making sure we're funding the needs of the utility for investing in capital and operations to sustain services to the residents and businesses of the community.

And so that's really what the conversation's about.

And so we use a very detailed analysis that embodies a lot of the information that Sony mentioned.

How much cash balances do we have in the bank?

That's the top left graph that says operating fund.

And we want to make sure as the the black or the gray box says we maintain minimum reserves.

At least two months of operations and maintenance expenses, ideally a little more than that, about three months to be in keeping with accepted industry practices and to give us some buffers.

And then we also want to make sure in the top center graph that the revenue that's coming in from utility rates is covering the expenses going out for operating and capital cost.