Eleven thirty four.

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.

I make a joke of that only because I did that at Gulfport 2050.

I asked everybody to um tell me, you know, what services I think could be cut as we were projecting.

Actually, it was called Callport 2050.

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 12 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.

Opportunity to be a little bit less formal.

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 we're gonna 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.

Council member early, council member Donch here, Vice Mayor Shaw, present council member Webb, present, Mayor Love here, City Manager O'Reilly, yeah.

City Clerk Carico 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 gonna cover those points, those significant bullet points.

And I just to put this in framework, I just want to make two points.

We're talking about just advoam taxes this evening.

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 reduction in revenue, and that was at a different property value.

Subsequent to that, the city lost great amount of property value and has gone through some inevitable swings.

So that those two things I think put this in context of how important this is to us as the city.

This isn't just this tax bill or homestead expansion bill.

There are the legislative actions that have been taken over the last two years or so that impact us also when we put the budget together.

House bill, House resolutions, joint resolution that we're talking about, the expansion of homesteading things to that effect, which is the bill attached to you to your package.

Property tax reform.

House bill is the local government finance budget transparency and reduction requirement.

What that does is require you to go through an exercise to reduce 10% of your budget.

Yes, ma'am.

It's an exercise to imagine what you would do, not actually doing it's an exercise.

I want to stress the word exercise.

You're not required to reduce your budget.

The next item is House Bill.

It's at Florida statutes actually now.

It's Florida Statute 166241, which basically prohibits you from reducing law enforcement spending more than five percent.

Now put those two together that when we do the exercise, law enforcement public safety are basically been provided for.

Now the bill only applies to law enforcement, but we've kind of grouped them together because the expense of public safety also fire and EMS.

This is also House Bill is where we can spend our money in regards to green policies, resiliency regulations, things to that effect.

And the reason that's on that list is we do participate with Duke Energy in a trade-off program with solar issue that we did.

That was one issue the mayor had brought up last year.

Um addressing that in this year's budget, so I just want to make sure we touch base on that.

So it's now, if I'm clear, my understanding it's now illegal for us as a city to participate in net zero.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, and this, of course, is the House the joint bill.

It's called the Save Our Homes from Excuse This is now.

Understand these are the names that these people give this to.

Okay, I have to clarify that because I know the council member from Ward 3 is dying to talk about definitions and commentary in regards to keep it how they how they were built.

It is worth saying that there is a lawsuit out about um fair language for the ballot summary and the ballot title.

What this does is of course, as everyone is here this evening to listen about, is it sets a constitutional amendment to be voted on in November's election, general election, a ballot question providing for which about the constitutional amendment that has to be adopted by 60% of the voters to address what we're gonna about to get into the highlights are the proposed constitutional amendment addresses, expand the homestead exemption to non-school taxes, limits, future assessments, and increases on non-homesteady properties, and major potential revenue impacts for local government.

That's where I know you'll share with that.

This is where we have to I'm gonna ask you to stop just one second.

I know you're talking to us, but I know we have a lot of people here too.

Can you all hear him out?

No, he turns out.

I can't okay.

Yeah, I don't know if you can raise the mic a little so when you turn it will be more effective.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I apologize.

I know that so on the proposed constitutional amendment addresses, there is a lot of information out there, and I appreciate that.

I think it's worth pointing out that these are the three things that ended up in the constitution and the joint resolution.

So anything else that you've heard, like funds or things like that, those were amended out of this bill.

So there's no going to the state for a fund for support if you don't have enough money to provide basic services.

Maybe I'm gonna give you the bullet points exactly right out of the legislation, is reduces the annual assessment, increase cap from 10%, reduces it from 10 to 5 percent beginning January 1st, applies to certain non-homested properties, including residential properties with less than nine units or fewer, nine units or fewer, excuse me.

Also applies to other resident properties not already covered by existing home settings assessments, applies only to non-school district taxes.

Schools will not be impacted by any of this legislation, assessment may still be adjusted, is just value after certain ownership control and property changes, no money.

Keeps the $25,000 homestead exemption for school district levies.

So you still get your $25,000 homestead exemption on your school taxes.

But the school taxes are not impacted by this bill, other than what you already have.

If you look at the bill in the agenda package, you'll see there has been no changes to any other parts of the bill.

There's no strike underline other than what pertains to this legislation we're talking about this evening.

Creates a larger exemption for non-school district, and that's I think why everyone's here this evening.

Increases the non-homestead exemption to $150,000 beginning January 1st, 2027.

So that'll be the assessments and the ad billarm collections for fiscal year 27-28.

We will be preparing this year's budget is fiscal year 26-27.

So it'll be voted on in November.

If it's applied, it would start in January for next fiscal year.

Increases the non-homestead exemption to $250,000 beginning in January 1st, 2028, establishes a different exemption structure for new Florida homesteaded residents.

And I know Councilmember Webb has comments in regards to the creating a two-tiered led.

We're very candid.

Florida is very apt at creating different types of taxpayers.

We have taxpayers due to our save our homes caps that pay in the house that's almost exactly the same next door.

It's when it was bought, is paying an exorbitant amount compared to someone who's lived in the home quite a few years, and this dispels the rumor that, and I want to touch on some of these that dispel, you'll hear that this saves people from getting pushed out of their homes.

Save our homes keeps you in your home.

That was the intent of that.

How so?

Because it managed your property value can only be three percent assessment decrease.

Okay, and um, for those of you that not attended, we don't really do a question and answer here, but I just did a whole thing on the on Tuesday, it's called Take Two on Tuesday, it's specific to save our homes, so you can find that on the website or the Facebook page.

Thank you, Mary.

The existing Save Our Homes.

Yes, yes, because there's already one program that's called Save Our Homes, and this is called something much longer than that.

Save Our Homes exemption.

This is a bogus title, but save Our Homes exemption's been around forever.

And the save Our Homes exemption is is it is in the bill that exists that's being amended.

Revenue reflection.

Appears to add balloon levied by this is the actual bullet points also.

Ad form by municipalities.

All revenues to, oh, excuse me, I can tied to for public safety, including law enforcement, and services levels.

Allows funding for the education.

Excuse me, yes, for education for public schools.

Allows my paper.

Okay, no, that's right.

The um allows for a mature natural resource project, the maintenance of stormwater, and also roads and bridges, including flood control measures, allow social local bonds and other debt service payments for authority purposes and existing bond debt obligations.

Allows funding for retirement benefits, obligations for local governing employees, and allows funding for municipal operation and administration and expenditures approved by the municipal governing body unless prohibited by law.

So what you just listed is all the things that we can use that money for.

Anything else that we're using it for or have in the past or other expenses, we cannot use the taxpayer money, which is not an issue for us.

Because we don't even collect enough to pay for law enforcement, right?

That's correct.

What that does is basically say you can spend, and the one that's pretty broad is the last item, allows govern as long as the council votes to do it, that it's government operations, so it doesn't white and then until you get to the issue of money, it allows you to operate a library and fund a library or recreation center, and that if you had extra advalorum to actually use in the debate, um this was an amendment added by the Senate sponsor along with um adding the exemption for or allowing the uh funding of public edges uh public schools and education, and the reason why they included unless prohibited by general law is so that in the future legislature, legislators, or legislatures could pass a general law that prohibited our ability to spend money on certain items without having to go back to a ballot amendment and have and put it before the voters.

So now so that shifts control from what we can spend money on from us to Tallahassee, and that is explicitly stated in the record, mayor the next.

This is the exercise, the 10% exercise.

I know that Councilmember Donch and I talked about at length that basically this item right here requires a public budget reduction exercise that identifying possible 10% budget reductions without comprising essential services.

Well, we're gonna get to the next slide, would address essential services.

Now the next series of items that you'll see we do.

We do these now.

We have a very aggressive budget book that's over 300 pages.

We itemize, we show past historical actuals, all those type things.

We also post it as soon as it's published.

It's required by July 15th to give that to City Council.

At that point, the proposed budget will be on the website.

Then discussions will take place up till its final adoption in September.

And each of the changes that are revised or made, then council would it would be replaced on till adopted, and that's development of conditions for posted by January 10th.

So that is received budget amendments, are also posted.

We do that now on our website.

The budget amendments that you may implement during the course of the year are posted on our website.

That's a requirement, it's a present requirement of state statute.

Requirements that add impact fee requirements.

One thing we have minimal impact fees here in the city of Galport because we are built out.

When you see a home rebuilt, they've already paid that impact fee due to the fact they have a sewer connection or they have a utility connection.

There's no one building on a vacant lot where we would have to do now.

If you had a redevelopment opportunity and someone increased traffic, so those things, those are the restrictions that are in place.

This will be effective in 2020 next year.

So and so we're getting a one thing that I need to stress this evening is we're getting ahead of these things.

This is a lot of things that will take effect next year, but my goal is to leave you tonight with the idea that you this will give you 15 months to make adjustments to your budget.

So it's not what's happened in the past in state government that they put a mandate in, it passed, and you have to implement it, and it gets pretty draconian.

I'm sorry.

A really good point that you have made with me repeatedly, and you don't have a slide, but you know, just in layman language, if you would address the fact what that 10% reduction, it's not off of the big number.

Right.

I'm gonna get to that.

I have I do have a slide.

I'm sorry, no.

Um this is where you spend your money as of this year.

This is where your money now.

You'll see you can blow this up, but if you look in our budget, which is online, adopted fiscal year 26 budget.

This is where your 21.8 million dollars of your general fund goes.

And a lot of this is it's very simple in the fact that it has revenues.

That's where we get the 32 percent of that 21.8 is made up by advanced taxes.

It then lists all the places that you spend them, those dollars, public safety, recreation, libraries, those are all itemized, departments, leisure services, and those are categoricalized, but the total is of the city's general fund budget as of today is 21.8 million dollars.

What may I real quick?

Um, when uh the house sponsor was asked how cities are supposed to make up the gap and their advalorum revenue, he encouraged cities to um consult the 2025 local government financial information handbook in which we could raise communication tax, we could raise fuel taxes, we could we could raise insurance license taxes, we could um add a lake belt management fee like other counties.

We could increase mobile home hookup fees, we could add local discretionary sales sales surtax levels, we could increase food and beverage tax, we could um add a municipal resort resort tax, and we could add communication taxes along with 10 minutes of other kinds of fees and taxes that could be added to all of the bills that you are currently paying.

So that was his suggestion, and that is from the that is from the legislative record of how he suggested cities.

2025 local government financial information handbook, it was published in February of 2026.

Yeah, and uh there's the city of Galport.

We when we went through this in two thousand eight with the downturn the economy, and we lost thirty-eight percent of our property value.

We looked at we have adopted a lot of these.

You do have a utility tax, you do have a communications tax.

So the and you'll see on your sheet that that in your budget, those are sizable contributions to the city.

Now they are, they are also regulated by legislation by state law, and how big they could be.

Utility taxes.

That's how you can subsidize it or supplant.

You have a $6.9 million.

Now you have right now you have to plug basically a 14 million dollar hole.

How do you do it with those items that you just mentioned referenced council member?

The Senate sponsor suggested raising millet rates to 10% because that's our ability to do as a city.

Exactly.

And we as we maintain, we've took pride in the fact we've maintained our village rate.

So that as I spoke of early on, since 2012, we have not raised our millage rate.

We actually lowered it with three years ago.

The exercise the mayor was discussing.

You have to do an exercise that identifies ten percent savings.

The ten percent on that would be for round numbers, two point two million dollars.

But before you get to the two point two million dollars, you have departments that I'm trying to do it without becoming judgment towards the two departments.

You have cost that have to be paid.

You don't have by statute, you don't have the authority to lower spending there for law enforcement primarily.

For all the public safety, correct?

No, it's only law enforcement, it's covered by the legislation.

Okay, but I don't believe anyone has brought forward that they wanted to reduce public fire and EMS.

So we kind of group them together because that's a pretty sensitive subject.

Um so your total budget is 21.

So I take eight point million eight point eight million dollars off the twenty-one.

Now remember, I have to save two point two million dollars.

So you're now you're at 13 million dollar budget, which you need to find that two point two million dollars.

Mayor is that what you're so that's not 10 percent anymore.

No, ma'am.

And that's the big issue.

But this is just an exercise, it's an intellectual exercise that actually has no bearing on spending.

Ex yes, and that's what I wanted to stress.

That's no that's why I wanted to stress that we did we will do this exercise when we start the budget process in next year.

The I just wanted you to understand not that to think about it, that this is what the constraints we're working under.

It is a practice thing, like I've in the city that I'm working in and in the department I'm working in, you look at your budget and you look at every line item and say, where can I save 10% from my department's budget, and just that, just so that each department is ready, you know, to be able to look at different things, and that they're prepared that that could be something, but it is just practice dry run.

Every time that you talk about it, you say like just remember this is not the budget.

This is just practice.

And the other thing is, I mean, the state is facing a one point eight billion dollar shortfall next year, according to Amy Baker and the um revenue estimating conference and six point over six billion dollars the year following, and so all most governments are practicing belt tightening intellectual exercises right now to figure out how to reduce spending because everyone's anticipating a revenue shortfall over the next few years.

It's cyclical.

Um, our city manager has been through it twice in your tenure, sir.

Yeah, so that is the foundation of the exercise.

I didn't want we're not at the point yet, as you spoke of, to start getting into you know the comment was made to me many years ago.

We're not yet counting paper clips.

The this is some background information also that the number of homesteaded properties in Gulfport are 3,000, 3,917 of their properties of that, that makes up 49% of the properties in the city of Gulfport.

And I'm gonna get ahead of myself a little bit, but this is something that makes this a very and I talked the other night a little bit about when we started planning for this.

This is where it becomes a very political issue.

You will reach a point where, if adopted, 62 point, six percent of your residents would be exempt from property taxes.

Of that 49%, 62% of that would be exempt from property taxes, based on the assessed value of their homes, and the applicable homestead exemption in year two, that's your year two.

I'm sorry.

Can I interrupt you?

No, so that's really really important that you just heard what he said.

Of our property owners right now would not be paying taxes, and some of you seem to be surprised and like, wait, what?

That's why I keep encouraging you.

Look at your tax bill, look at your tax bill, look at your tax bill.

Now, if you've only moved here in the last couple years, you're not gonna be in that 62 percent.

But if you've been here a long time, you are not paying taxes on the true value of your home due to save our homes exemption, okay?

You're not paying anywhere nearly enough, and I went out there and I used my own example.

My home, probably I could sell it for 450 in 24 hours, okay?

Because I bought it for 85,000, all right.

So I'm paying taxes based on 160,000 because that assessment value cannot go up more than 3% a year.

So if I'm paying taxes based on 160,000, and come January, my homestead exemption jumps to 150, then that means that I am going to be paying taxes based on $10,000, which I calculate to be $42.

Those are real numbers, guys.

That's why I'm pleaded.

Some people are going to are not going to do nearly as well if you haven't been here a long time.

But for those of you that do, so that's a point the city manager is making is 62% of us aren't going to be paying taxes within the next two years, but the other folks are going to be carrying the entire load themselves.

38% of the people.

Let's see how well that goes over.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but I feel like that's important.

Yes, ma'am.

And it's homesteaded.

Understand that we're discussing homesteaded properties.

So city manager, am I correct?

That currently, so 49% of our homes equals about 3,900 properties.

So then 51% are non-homesteaded, so that's about 4,200.

Yes.

So we have about 8,000.

Yeah, I think it's about 7,500 years.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

And understand this is also this reflects kind of minions that are homesteaded and other not just single-family homes.

So the next item is the addressing of the law enforcement aspect.

Was prevent the city from reducing law enforcement spending more than five percent without appealing to the state legislature.

And or the gut, not the lead, the attorney general, I'm sorry, not the legislature.

They created it.

So, and I'm gonna get to the so you have to provide, you cannot cut, that includes officer training, equipment, programs, but you have to make those available, and you do those things.

You do fund your police department completely, and that's what if you look at the sheet that's pretty broad, you'll see the correspondence between six point nine million dollars in ad velorum versus eight point the combination of police and fire, what it actually cost.

Because I'm gonna get to a slide that kind of puts it in perspective.

This slide, I know it's hard to read, but it shows the increased cost related to public safety over the last 10 so years, and it's grown.

I'm not gonna, you know, we ask for professionals, we uh, and it's not unique to the city of Gulfport.

We're in the process of labor negotiations with the respective for collective bargaining agreements with the respective representations, representatives.

Uh we anticipate next year, somewhere to stay competitively competitive in the market for law enforcement and fire EMS, approximately a nine percent increase, salary increase, and that is to keep it in line with the middle of the pack.

We always talk about this, about our our pay scale is in the middle, third, and this would make you comparable to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department, and that's in the past has been who officers for lack of pay would go to.

I mean you can see on your slide that where the growth has been, and I mean we've increased things, we've added extra officers over time over this 10 years.

It's not just oh, it's all pay.

It's employee you have additional paramedics because now you have besides just a basic life support truck, fire truck, you also have a rescue unit.

The city expanded services.

It's a get it's better for the residents, it was an improvement for the residents.

We added a school resource officer, which is subsidized for nine months by Pinellas County School Board, but you uh added that officer.

You also not you, that's rhetorical, the council also ordered added a marine officer, so we've added positions which contributed to this growth, and those were positions that the community, yes, which we can now not do, which we can exactly subtract because of the back the blue bill from 2023.

Exactly.

That's why I wanted to touch on that bill.

Um greenhouse and gas emissions.

Can I interrupt you?

Yes, ma'am.

So I'm when I'm looking at what's simply listed as fire.

Between 24 and 25, that was a huge increase.

Is that because that's when we really started replacing EMTs with paramedics?

And paramedics make substantially more money than EMTs, they make five percent more.

Okay, thank you.

But what you did is you added paramedics because you added the rescue vehicle prior to that time, you only ran a truck, a fire truck to calls.

You added a rescue truck that now has to be staffed.

Okay, and it's long term it pays because your truck does not get wear and tear on these brick roads and such like that, plus you get put two merit paramedics on a scene of a call.

And one thing that we identify here is a fire truck.

We just got done paid almost a billion dollars for a fire truck, and the lead time on that is a lot of inflation built in in that lead time from the day you order it.

Chief, how long did it take you to get that?

Three years to get a fire truck.

Three years, and since that time there's been consolidation, and now there's one family who makes all of the fire engines, and so and they're what like 1.5 million now or 1.3 million now.

So the cost has increased it significantly.

So, what this bill does is, as we spoke of earlier, prohibits governments from participating in net zero policies.

I think, and this is just my observation, and of course I may be wrong, correct me, Councilmember Webb if I'm wrong, that this is tied a lot to where the doge discussion took place.

You may remember last year we cities were getting doged.

You know, Chris did a great job of answering all their questions.

Good job.

You did not become, you know, the headline on page, and some of you will know what I'm saying.

You are not the headline saying the city spends this much, and you know, that's also, and I'm not to get off topic.

That's the doge in government efficiency, department of government efficiency.

I think in Florida they call it FAFO, and don'ts don't say what that stands for.

Okay, oh, okay.

No, that's just that is actually what he has.

But his theory was.

Sure.

And then and the department of government I I like to stay with the department of government efficiency.

I probably don't get bleeped on the television for that.

The um one thing that these are things that they're now legislatively put in place that the doge questions were asked.

You know, there's a couple other bills that are not humane tonight, but we'll talk about how we're going to address those because they've been adopted and they are from the fruit of the for lack of a better term, the fruit of the doge tree.

Councilor, my am I correct?

Yeah, yes, sir.

This was a combination of, and we we footnote this for a reason.

This isn't Jim O'Reilly or Chris Cadell or David Mather or Shannon Farrell making this up.

This is Florida, and I know many of you participate in the Florida League of Cities.

They did a deep dive with the impact to city governments throughout the area, and also the state of Florida.

This was published in the St.

Petersburg, Tampa Bay Times.

I'm old, so I still call it the St.

Times, but is this the quote?

A Florida League of Cities Analysis released Thursday, found smaller cities could be particularly hard hit.

It identifies 85 cities that would break be able to not be able to fund public safety at the same level, even if they eliminated every other service funded by property taxes, these municipalities of the area.

Well, you added in the area, include Largo, which is a much larger city than ours, City of Galport, Temple Terrace, Seminole, Tarp and Springs.

If you look at this sheet that Justin handed out on the right hand side on the top, you will see the impact.

And I'm just rounding today, but you collect six, seven million dollars, and it's eight eight and a half million dollars for those services.

What's left to pay for your libraries?

And I'm trying to stay away from the dramatics of that answer, but you how would you pay for libraries, recreation, senior center, gems?

I mean, we outline that on the sheet.

You don't I don't even know if you could cut enough to even, you know, you're you're besides the 1.1 to 1.8 million dollars that you would lose in Ad Valorum by legislation if the constitutional amendments passed, you also are still consistently having to make up the two million dollar shortfall.

Yes.

City manager, where do you currently make up the $2 million shortfall for um payment?

If you go back to the revenue and expenditures, that's where you look at you the taxes and the pilot from the enterprise funds, the um enterprise funds, cost associated with sharing cost of that or the enterprise funds.

Also, also though the ad the communications tax, utility taxes, those taxes that you had spoke of that the legislature said to levy, we've been levying them.

Okay, and excuse me.

We don't have much less.

No, and that's the exactly, and you're tight right now, and that's gonna segue into that.

I mean, Councilmember Shaw, you remember those days?

You know, the enterprise fund, you know, has to sometimes support the general fund for the you know it's some of the parts the good of the whole.

Yes.

Um so I spent a lot of time listening.

I spent actually 20 hours listening to debate and questions on these bills, and here's what the house sponsor said.

The state will not be backfilling any revenue gaps.

Cities will have to make decisions.

Do they choose to have their law enforcement, or do they request the sheriff's office to provide law enforcement?

Are they going to exist as a city in the future, or are they going to fold into and merge with another city?

Um, they're gonna have to make business decisions for their citizens.

They're gonna be hard decisions that are going to have to be made in the future by cities for the taxpayers of Florida.

So those were to the legislature's idea, the bill sponsors' ideas.

That I think is what we're here to talk about this evening, Mayor.

That economic impact, those two impacts, you're already short, and now we're gonna exacerbate the issue by 1.1 million dollars the first year if this is successful, and two and 1.8 million dollars the second year, and that's why it's so important that all of you are here and listening.

And you know, I mean, do I read all the stuff out there that's you know saying that this is you know, oh, they're we're we're trying to scare you.

I mean, all of our numbers have been on the website forever.

So there's no surprise anyone can look.

The reality is that if this passes, the state is telling residents, we don't care that you chose to live in Gulfport because they have parks and pickleball and tennis and dog parts and a Houston museum and a rec center and a um senior center in a library.

We don't care, we don't want you paying taxes, okay.

Figure it out, and they're not, you know, really helping us figure it out because just like council member Webb said early on in these presentations they kept referring to a fund that we could go ask big daddy for money, okay.

They didn't fund it that they didn't fund it, so that's kind of an interesting concept in itself.

So, when I make pleas and I ask you to please look at your tax bill.

I mean, just simple math.

If you're you're gonna pay taxes in 27 of 100,000 less on a millage of about 11 uh 11 1.1, you're gonna save somewhere around $1,100 or less.

Okay, and so that's something every one of you has to decide if that's you know, in your best interest to do or not, and then you vote what works best for you.

I get that.

I'm not trying to tell anyone how to vote.

We're just trying to tell you what we're looking at.

So we're up here, we're gonna have to make some really tough decisions if this passes.

Mayor, can I proceed?

I'm sorry, no, no, just wanted to ask.

This is uh we're right back to you know, the number of parcels.

I wanted to re-emphasize this slide because this is where the this disparity becomes you all, Russia.

Hopefully, Justin gave you all handout how to explain how this works.

Um, and we can act if you have any questions later.

But I this is the we had started you and Councilmember Webb and I had started this when that first day, and uh it's very similar to something you're gonna see throughout municipalities in this area, the cost, what the impact is, year one, year two, and what would be necessary to offset, especially the slide previous slide, two slides ago that showed the cities that have a negative balance and call it in public safety spending that addresses it right there.

Um sorry, so um Mayor, what one thing that I wanted to share with you all this evening is now that we've completed this exercise this evening and as you spoke of it is an exercise because we as the city government cannot address emotions, political opinions, or political statements that there's one out there already today that is like so dis and I'm not gonna get into it because I'm doing that, I'm doing exactly what they did.

It's so disingenuous, you know.

How can you say there's not gonna be impacts?

Not this year.

Well, that's a you know, I love that statement, that's a slide, and you know what I'm talking about.

You saw it, I know that, is it says there'll be no impacts issue.

Well, there's gonna be impacts.

We have a flat property value for two years in a row due to as we spoke of before, contributing factors, older housing stock, um, older condominiums, um, things to that effect that have kept our property values at this point flat.

Now, long-term, will we see a rebound?

But remember, it's gonna be capped.

So there's the other issue.

You're still increasing, as these properties come back, they're gonna get that homestead exemption.

And unless they move here in three years from now, you know, but if they own that house today and they're rebuilding it and they're replacing an eighty thousand dollar frame cottage with something that's 1.2 million dollars, and they own it today, they're gonna get portability.

So we're not gonna see the great, you know.

Oh, when they rebuild, you know, we we've had this conversation.

When we see these new houses all get built, these folks are maintaining their homestead exemption, the property you and I are familiar with, they're moving right back on the same property.

They never gave up their homestead.

They may have lived somewhere else due to reconstruction, but they didn't give up their homestead property.

The other item is we have the staff has done a Shannon and David and Chris have done a great job.

We've identified our goal this year with your budget.

Now, with the uh we know we also have to pick up, and I'll use the police, and I'm not picking on Chief Fern, they do it, they're a professional and they do a great job.

The collective bargaining with their labor representatives will anticipate adding $230,000 to the police budget, then that's people cost the associated that their contract will require us to increase our police budget by about $230,000.

So that ask exasperates the issue again.

Fire is gonna be in the same position.

I'm not arguing with the bargaining units or collective bargain agreements, but that's just the world that we're working in.

One of the tasks that we're gonna apply as we go forward now after tonight with the budget process, is to you've got to do something, you're gonna have less employees.

I'm gonna I'm just gonna be put it out there after tonight.

We have vacant positions that we will not be filling.

Yeah, you're if they are there, they've been like I at very candidly, I do need an insistent.

I mean, I have some, you know, to talk to the public.

Um, but there's other positions, I'll use the example, and a lot a lot of people enjoy our parks.

Well, as I if I lose positions in the parks department, maybe instead of cutting the grass once a week, we cut it every two weeks.

I know that sounds very cliche-ish, but that's a react, that's a result.

And I know people, you know, park maintenance is on this list.

Well, of course, that's something we pride ourselves in having very nice parks, very nice playgrounds.

Well, I can only mow it so many times with so many people, and I'm not so, and I also then I'll be asking the employees that remain for do more, because the public still has an expectation of service.

You're in the business, you council member.

The public doesn't change their expectation, do they?

Right.

Some corporations do.

They cut admin, they cut the people, everything else is.

And that's our goal is to keep the next year's budget within that 21.8 million dollars because I also have to reward with a cost of living adjustment.

Inflation has now risen to four, and I'm trying to stay out of the national politics and all that, but inflation has risen to 4.2%.

So we're gonna have to have that conversation about a some type of cost of living adjustment for the employees that are left.

So I'm just putting the things out that we're gonna work within, but my goal is as of today is to maintain the 21.8 million dollars, and then make that the baseline.

You will now have after tonight, you will have, depending on what happens in November, you will have about 15 months to talk about where do we do offset?

Maybe you know is a reduction, and we've all seen the things in the articles, I'm not telling you all anything, you've seen it.

You know, is it lower hours of operation?

Is it less programming?

Those are all discussions that you would say as policymakers will hear from us.

City manager, I have a quick question.

Um, may I?

Yes, um, so you spoke about rising personnel costs, um, rising capital.

I'm assuming there's also rising capital.

We talked about uh the fire engine costing more, I'm assuming other um capital expenses and roadway work costs more year over year, right?

So, and what's in since the hurricane our property value has been uh we haven't seen an increase in property value.

That's correct, so we're not collecting more um avalorum taxes than we were two years ago.

It's about level, right?

Even though our expenses have been increasing.

Yes, and that's exactly two years ago.

Your property values immediately following because now there were still properties that were hadn't been determined or decisions hadn't been made, you grew about 3.2 percent.

Okay.

This year, you're 0.72 percent, less than one percent.

So yes, you're flat.

And what's the increased cost for personnel?

Up year over year about it, depending on the labor contracts.

I uh three to six percent, depending on inflation mostly, what the contract, what the markets bearing for contractual, and that's the big issue.

We're driven by what's the market bear with, but there again for the general employees, we've tried to keep it consistently tied to the inflation rate, so the perception that cities are collecting more and more revenue and then expenses are like and they're like somehow pocketing the money, that's not what we're seeing in Gulfport.

No, I think you know that's not a realistic statement, and I know there's some other cities that put some messaging out there, but that was done by the elected officials, not by staff.

What's happened is the, you know, a gallon of gas, to use the bad topic, increase cost us.

But your police your expectation is that police car garbage trucks are gonna still run the same amount of time.

Well, if fuel is a dollar more a gallon, there's a direct impact to my operational cost.

So the inflation affects the city.

We buy things in the marketplace, we have no magic bullet, we you know we buy computers, yes, we get a good chair out.

Yeah, I can't, I can't remember the chair, the chair dates back to 1993, but they've been reupholstered, so we have it fiscally responsible.

Okay, so that's those are the type of things that we have to work with.

But I would not bring you a budget next year saying, okay, let's make it higher than 21.8, because that's unrealistic.

Where does it?

I mean, to as you spoke of council member, this myth that government, if this government was gonna be bloated, you would have raised a millage rate a long time ago.

Your neighbors next door brag about lowering their millage rate, their millage rate when I became the city manager was over seven.

Am I correct, Councilmember?

Okay.

Yours is three or so, two point eight or so.

No, you know, is reference points.

We have not, you don't have a new city hall.

Correct.

I mean, you know what I'm going with that mayor.

I mean, you were there, you know, who's getting these.

We have it.

We've put the money in 70% of your budget is people.

Because what do people do?

And I am so proud of them, and it's a tough night for them because they're here in the security.

They don't know, is 70% of your budget, general fund budget is people.

Of that, people provide the level of service that the community has asked for over time.

There's a cliche in your book that I've been using for 20 years.

There's a lot of things in your budget that are culturally and institutionally in place.

Am I correct?

Council member, you've lived here, you know, 30 years.

And if there's a lot of things that got added, or you know, are we open for recreation on President's Day?

Yes, you know, uh, because schools are in, so we have to be there.

I say we, but I mean, council, you know, the and it was different councils had different priorities, but those priorities became cumulative, and that's all I have.

So I'll start with my if unless directed differently, we'll start with the 21.8 million dollar baseline and give you something to work with from there.

Okay, um, before our city manager sits down.

I know I asked my questions as we were going because I thought there were points that needed to be clarified, but I want everybody here to have an opportunity to ask your questions.

If you have any first, then we'll have our discussion and then we'll open it up for public comment.

So in speaking order, Councilmember Early, anything else?

Um, I don't have any questions.

You've cut me well informed, and thank you for being such a good corporate steward.

I know it's not corporate, but a good fiscal steward.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions now.

They'll come up eventually, but okay, this is all we have for now.

If everyone would understand that that we all meet with the city manager, and we we all you know discuss this every single week, and we're trying to understand the impact of this.

Many of us are involved in the Florida League of Cities and the Suncoast League of Cities, and um, and we're doing our very best to keep abreast of all of this.

I mean, ultimately it will be up to the voters, and if 60 percent uh of the voters approves this, it will be in the constitution, not like the economic downturn in 2008.

Right where we knew there was going to come an end to it.

Once it's in that constitution, that's that's that's what it's going to be.

So, you know, the importance of this presentation and for people being aware of this so they can become aware and comfortable of how they wish to vote.

This this was really extremely important, I think, to every one of us, because we're going to all of us, not just up here, all of us are going to have to make some hard decisions about what's really important to us in our ongoing budget if this passes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, City Manager, you mentioned portability when you were talking about people moving out of their home for reconstruction and then moving back.

For people who don't understand what portability is.

Could you explain that and how it up relates to this?

Okay.

Well, portability allows you the same growth that you had in your pre-existing home.

Okay, tax-wise, it's a simple way to put it.

Okay.

Um, if I move across the street from a $50,000 house and it only grew by 3%, and that's then I'm allowed there's a base price on the house I just bought.

I've made back to the date I started my previous house, and I'm about to tag that 3% is applied to that property.

And this bill does not impact or this uh proposal does not impact portability.

So it continues to be to expand on what if I council, if you have a question, is where the issue is.

I think it needs to be clear to the public and people that are paying attention.

This bill did not impact any other provisions that the state provides or the government provides.

I don't want to say state, but but that we legislators legislation and statute, you the home state if it's if it fails, let's we could not judge it, but if it fails, you're still getting a $50,000 hope set exemption.

You're still maintaining all those save our homes caps, all those things will stay in place.

As I know counselor, like say what this does is just tell you where you can spend your money and how much you're allowed to collect.

Yeah, I'm not trying to oversimplify it, but yeah, because you're still if you look at the legislation, the bill that I provided to each of you, there's not a lot of strike and underlines.

It's all new text.

Yep, that the underline.

Yep, exactly.

There's not a lot of strikes in there, is there?

No.

And that's why I wanted you to have the bill.

It's not what Jim O'Reilly thinks, it's not what you read in the St.

Pete or newspaper, or commentary on Spectrum or something.

This is what the bill says.

I know we don't usually give you the whole bill, but there's you know 30 pages of, but this is what it says.

And council member the Webb spoke of the litigation.

It has started, and it's exactly what we thought it would be.

And she'll talk, I'm sure, more about this about the definitions.

What's missing in this is definitions, really.

What and usually if I brought the other day I brought you uh legislation, what was it?

Was definitions.

Your bill, you I bring you a bill, a zoning bill or something, it says change definitions.

This did not do that.

And I and I have to gauge how I explain it, because there are different opinions, but I'm just talking to facts, and that's why you have the bill.

Don't take my interpretation of it.

As the mayor spoke of look at read the bill.

If you have any questions, the staff's available, and look at your own tax bill, city manager.

Yes, the house sponsor, like I said, suggested that we look at fines and fees and um leverage and taxes and other kinds of um utility surcharges and things like that.

And I know in the past you've referred to those as regressive.

Can you explain like who pays okay the difference between who pays property taxes and who pays?

Sure.

No, utility tax because we call it that.

Sure, when I refer to some of these taxes as being regressive, if someone has, and I'm just gonna use round numbers for discussion purposes.

If you pay a 10% utility tax, or I think it's Chris, is it 5.7 on a communications tax on your phone, things like that, your five percent, uh 5.7% or 10% on your hundred dollar bill is a ten dollar increase.

Someone may who's maybe economically chained challenged, that ten dollars is more important than the ten dollars to someone who's not economically chained.

Is a nice way to say it.

Okay, I don't want to use certain terminology that you know people know what I'm saying.

Yeah, you know, a loaf of and when we you know, uh I grew up in a business in this environment, and we always talked about it, like I simplified it down to mowing the grass twice a week instead of once a week.

This is a loaf of bread.

Loaf of bread costs the same, I don't care how much you make.

Yeah, but what you expend of your income to buy that loaf of bread is the regressiveness.

Is that okay?

That's that's perfect.

Thank you.

And so, and it also so renters also pay utility tax when you pay.

Anybody that uses a utility, if you turn the power on, I'm getting something.

I mean, not to be facetious, but or you have a water bill, or you anything like that, or those are things that we are already taxing.

That's what makes this so hard for us.

We don't have a lot of those options.

I'm not trying to point any of that.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, and you can and the mayor and I talked about this today, Chris.

If there's if you take your budget book, and we talked about surcharges, that section of the money here it is.

The propane tank that's sitting in front of you know the convenience store across.

I was gonna call it Lowe's, right?

Yeah, the propane tank sitting across the in front of the convenience store.

We're taxing that.

Now it may only be six thousand dollars a year, but it's still it's taxed.

The propane tax that they talk about in those places, we're taxing it.

And one one final question.

Sure.

So they talk about um could uh this the health sponsor and starting in uh minute 36 uh of this of the house debate the first time taught said that or in the question answer.

He um he said that we would have he implied that we could switch to the sheriff or use a more affordable fire service, and I had a question about the fire service because that's specifically linked to property insurance.

So if we went, and this is not saying that we would do this, but if we went with a different, I know that fire services impacts on the ISO rating, which impacts personal homeowners, property insurance.

What would that look like?

Or can you talk a little bit about it?

There's two aspects to fire EMS emergency medical services.

We receive funding for a percentage of our paramedics through Pinellas County emergency medical services, but their funding is also based on Advilorum.

So I don't want to get it.

Fire is you pay for fire, but the idea is that you have ex you have officers, fire office.

We've made a conscious decision to just bring on paramedics, and they may cost 5% more, but they provide you a different type of service.

They can fight fire and also perform medical emergency tasks.

What your the could you outsource fire?

You could become almost like a fire district does that someone pays when we try attempted years ago to annex into the fire district because the people in the unincorporated area were not happy with, we did it cheaper.

We were cheaper than the fire district, that was why they came to us, and we applied our formula of number of houses versus how much we were spending, and we were about two-thirds cheaper.

Okay, there were three bidders, the fire district, city of Gulfport, and this is the South Pasadena Fire District, and I know your former colleague was not happy with me because we bid it, and the third was the city of St.

Petersburg.

What does the city of St.

Petersburg do?

They can bid lower.

Why?

They're spreading the problem.

The cost is spread out, they have more capacity.

When they talk about bringing deputies, you will buy what level of police protection you would want if you want now.

I made a comment, and some of you who were involved have heard me say this each year.

Are there other options?

Yes.

The city of Galport has elected to maintain its own public safety.

I know from myself, and it's someone growing up here.

I'm sitting up here, we have never gone near that topic.

Your police department is in your city charter.

It requires two things, and I'm just putting this because you're we're gonna hear that.

Let's buy the sheriff.

It's not as simple as just saying, okay, Chief, you you pack your stuff up and we're gonna paint the cars green, and now they all wear green uniforms.

No, you have to do to change this.

You would have to have a supermajority vote of the council of an ordinance creating this referendum.

Subsequently, you would then have to put it to the voters because the way the ordinance is written, and the charter in the ordinance code of ordinances, police protection must be provided.

Correct me if I'm wrong, must be provided by employees of the city of Gulfport.

That's the crux of when people say, Oh, it's not as easy as just contracting with the sheriff.

Exactly.

It's you know, it all that's the process you would have to go through to even entertain.

Now, there's other issues that are gonna probably surface in Pinellas County.

Is the sheriff gonna have capacity to take you?

We found out with the with building.

Now he has to give you a certain minimum level, but he may not have the capacity to give you the level you have today at a cheaper price.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I want to clarify that again because when the word gets out there that we have to seriously look at how we're gonna cut things, there's going to be some people that are gonna say, Well, we can cut the police, okay, and that that could create a lot of fear among residents in Gulf Ports.

So let's be real clear, the city council cannot make that decision by itself, okay.

If we were ever forced to that and said, Well, maybe we have to ask the residents, it is the residents who would make that decision, okay?

It would have to be a referendum, and we're not there, and we don't we hope that we're never there unless that's a feedback that we get from the public.

So here's what's gonna happen now, right?

Mayor, can I finish?

Oh, I thought you were finished.

No, no, I was finished with my question.

Last question, but don't you like to do questions and debate with us at the same time?

Okay, so couple things.

Um, they added an allowance for municipal operations and administrations and expenditures approved by municipal governing body in the debate.

They defined this.

They were asked, would this include the public libraries?

Yes, it would.

Would this include public parks?

Yes, it would.

Would this include um animal control?

Yes.

Code enforcement, yes, mosquito control, that's a special district, but the bill sponsor in the Senate thought, yes.

It would include public housing programs, it would include county health departments, and it would also include um property using property taxes for running elections.

So if people say that it would cut those things, that is incorrect.

Um, it's important that we have facts on the ground.

What it would do is it would reduce the amount of funds that we have so that everything's fighting over the same smaller pot of money.

Um, and that's really important, and that's part of the, and that's why you can't just read the bill to get a clear understanding.

You also have to listen to the discussion about it.

Importantly, there isn't inequity in property taxes.

I mean, there is, you know, I my neighbor paid $50,000 for the same house that I paid $150,000 that my neighbor, two blocks down, paid $500,000 for.

We all are homesteaded, we all get $50,000, up to $50,000.

Um, uh, and if this is done, and and we also have a process in the constitution that uh we have we have a commission whose constitutional mandate is to propose tax and budget options to strengthen our families and our states' financial positions.

So the taxation and budget reform committee meets every 20 years.

It is forming in December December, it'll start forming.

So this is professionals, not politicians, who understand the complexities of tax code and budgeting that um that are appointed by it's a 25-member appointed commission, and it's their job to do to make tax policies that really make sense for most Floridians.

And so it's important to know that this isn't our only shot at property tax reform.

But if this passes, as the city manager mentioned, this will require a constitutional amendment to undo.

The last time our legislature, and and which means that either that the easiest way to get to there would be to go back through the legislation, do another house joint resolution.

The last time the House and the Senate voted to reduce taxes was in 2009.

That before that, and that was temporary.

In the 1980s, I don't have my notes in front of me, but it was a long time.

And so this isn't something that's easily done politically, and then it has to go back before the um back before the voters to get a 60% vote to increase to reform this all over again.

Also, as I mentioned before, that G, unless prohibited by general law spending, that means that we shift authority for what cities can spend from just our diet and here to Tallahassee.

So Tallahassee could pass a general law saying we don't want you to spend money on pickleball courts anymore or senior centers or whatever.

I mean, I'm just hypothetically speaking here on anything.

They could pass anything into general law, and that does not come back before you.

So I'm talking more about the process.

That just becomes our new reality.

So this not only changes property taxes, it also changes who holds the power to determine how we spend money here in Gulfport.

And um, and I I really want to thank you for your thorough presentation and thank you all for coming today.

Okay, if you want to have a seat, it's okay.

No, I it was my question since you were.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

We went from questions to discussion.

I didn't see that coming.

All right, so what I'd like to do now is all of you have been sitting here patiently.

We're gonna do like a public comment for anyone who wants to speak, you can say whatever you'd like on this topic.

We're not talking about other things right now.

You'll be limited to three minutes.

Um, for those of you that have never been in public comment before, come on up here and ask your questions.

Be sure to leave your information with the city clerk on how we can get back to you.

I only ask that you tell me give us your name and if you're a resident of Gulfport or if not another city.

Um I would love to hear your ideas where we need to cut these funds, okay?

Because we have to cut funds if this passes.

So I want to hear what your thoughts are on it.

And for those of you that haven't been here before, we don't boo and we don't applaud, okay?

You know, we're just really respectful, and we only have one person talking at a time.

So if you want to speak, raise your hand.

You're gonna come on up and give your name and your city of residence.

So April Thanos, Teresa, you're gonna run the clock, right?

So April Thane is Gulfport.

And a couple things.

I noticed on here it had longer permitting and inspection turnaround time.

And I was reading the stuff that um council member Webb gave me, and they're actually cutting what we can charge for permits.

So instead of being based on the value of the project, it's gonna be the cost of inspections.

So that's gonna drastically cut the amount of money we have for that, and then for some of the things, like when they talk about putting extra money, you know, charging more for things.

Some things like if you if you charge more for something that's in an enterprise fund, and for us that would be utilities, sanitation, the marina, that pretty much has to stay in that enterprise fund.

You're only allowed to bring a certain portion of that into your general fund.

Isn't that correct?

Did they pass that or was it sure?

No, they were gonna cap it at 10%, and at this time you only take 5%.

They did not capture that.

They didn't pass that cap, but they talk about it a lot almost every time.

So that could easily come up again.

And the other thing is we have a lot of big projects that we have to do, and if we have to cut back on just running the city, that means we're not gonna have the extra that we need for matching grants in order to fix our sewer systems and and do the senior center or anything else.

And theoretically, you could charge people to use the senior center and make it or the rec center or whatever, and you make it, you know, new neutral revenue source.

But probably nobody could afford to do it then.

And so you know it it's really not practical to think that you could make people pay for the services that they're getting in it in a relatively easy way.

So you guys might not be able to tell people not to vote for this, but I would recommend nobody vote for this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Who's next?

Show of hands.

I see in the back, yes.

And as you come up here, if you'll leave um her uh way to contact, I will get back to you to make sure you were clear on that point.

I'm Kathleen Kidwell, and I'm a golf court resident, of course.

And I just want to I don't recall you saying what the total revenue is that Gulf Port brings in for total taxes between homesteaded properties.

Six million, it's on that slot.

It's on the right there, it's the first number.

Six million, $6.9 million.

That's it.

Okay.

Um if and then there was 8,000 properties.

So if 3,917 properties are homesteaded, that's 49% of the properties you mentioned.

My taxes are $6,500 a year.

I guess I'm average, I would say.

Um times 3,917 properties, that's $25,460,000.

And then the remainder 4,083 properties that are not homesteaded, if they're paying $6,500, that's another $26,539,500.

So it just doesn't make sense to me.

Okay.

I'd love to talk to you because you're making a lot of wrong uh misstatements, but I'll I would love to sit down with you.

But this and we don't do that in terms of you can raise all the issue.

And that's fine.

I just wanted to make that statement because it's just not adding up to me.

And so um, yeah, and then the other comment I wanted to make just while everyone's here, is the animal control is not cut, but I hope the city plans to do something on rat control because rats are overrunning golf court, and that's all I want to say.

Thank you.

Thank you for reminding me who you were, too.

Now I know.

Yes, Rob.

Robert Rubin, Gulfport.

We've been talking about budget cuts and things like that.

But what are we doing about raising money properly for the city?

For example, we had uh some referendums that were passed in March by the constituents for new leases and things for the buildings we own.

So I want to make sure that's being taken care of for fair market value.

Okay, this is these are not nonprofits, these are not-for-profit companies, and they have to be taken into consideration.

So that's one of the important things.

That's what I got to say.

We're following the letter of the law.

Yes.

Next show of hands, please.

I can't see any hands.

Nobody else has anything to say?

Yes.

So worst case scenario.

The thing passes, we can't, we can't fund the the police department, the voters vote and say we don't want to get rid of the police department.

Does golf port go bankrupt?

Okay.

It's so hard in this, uh it's so hard because we don't answer questions, but it's a difficult scenario tonight.

Albert, we have not raised enough in advalorm taxes to fund our public safety for many years, okay.

Okay, that's why we that we have other sources of revenues as well, and that's why our budget is this thick, okay.

Okay, and we'll be starting to talk about that, but we haven't done it for years, we have not uh raised enough in taxes to fund it.

Next question.

Yes, please.

Or it doesn't have to be a question, of course, just to comment isn't is well.

This is a comment, okay.

I see this as a power grab by the state over the community, and I don't want to see that happen to on to go for it.

I see this as a way to become less than we are, and I don't want to see that happen, so I will be voting against this.

Okay.

Who's next?

Kelly.

Good evening, everyone.

Kelly Rott, living golf boat.

So I don't have anything really to say other than I'm listening to some of the questions, and I believe Albert missed something which you clarified.

It would be helpful for me and I'm sure many other people, if we could put together a list of the questions that are coming up, and maybe that goes on the website so that we can read it and go, Oh, I didn't think of that, or I didn't understand that, I didn't hear that in the meeting because there's a lot being said here tonight that, and I'm glad that everyone's been speaking and clarifying because I missed some things myself.

So if we, you know, once we get to some point with all of this, if that could become public information for us to read, that would be super helpful.

Once there's gonna come a certain point where we're gonna kind of be muzzled and not allowed to say a whole lot, um, we're safe tonight, okay, but that means we can't say it from here.

But I know I I respond to sometimes as many as 40 50 emails in the course of one day.

I'm very responsive.

So emails to me, Klove at my golfport.us is one way to get your answer.

And also, if nothing happens here tonight, except all of you go home and go to the website and look at the budget, it's all there.

Look at it and then come back with your you know, specific questions after looking at that.

And we'll be having several meetings.

We already know on August 6th, we're gonna have a workshop on the budget.

Come with your questions, your thoughts, your ideas in advance.

Share them with us or come and make comments, see how we go through it.

We won't be voting on the uh budget at that process at that meeting, but we will be initiating the conversations.

Okay, thank you.

Who's next?

Yes, yep, Ms.

Hamilton, I'm done.

I'm Kim Hamilton, I live in Gulfport.

Thank you all for a fabulous presentation tonight.

I appreciate it very much.

Um, so two things I want to uh just state.

Um, City Manager, I don't know if you have in your forecasting uh the Stetson area and the um the massive 50 you they own 50 units in our area that are not being taxed, and then since Council Webb uh's last meeting, they bought three more properties, so therefore their real estate taxes are disappearing in front of us.

So I I didn't know if that was factoring into your um your budget, and are you like estimating another five to ten units just disappearing off the tax rolls?

That was my first thing.

Secondly, I don't know what the policy is for the city government, but and by the way, that's like 20 million dollars worth of real estate taxes, we're not.

How much is that?

I can't even remember, but you'll come back to me with that.

Um I don't know if canvassing is the right word I want to use, but is there an opportunity for volunteers in uh the city to go door to door to talk to people about uh the budget?

Um maybe invite them to a bigger forum than this that could house a lot more people if they're interested.

Uh, maybe we have a sheet that we can, you know, talk about.

Is there if there is such an opportunity to go and and talk to other people in our neighborhoods or have you know um conversations that are not so structured so that we can educate others.

Um, I would love to know if we we can do that.

So I appreciate your commentary on that.

Thank you.

Okay.

The residents have total freedom to say anything they want.

It's the elected politicians or elected officials that do not have that same freedom, but you can say anything that you want door to door, however, you'd like to organize it.

Who's next?

Who would like to say anything else on this topic?

Seeing none, Mr.

Wolfgang.

Thank you, Mayor.

Wolfgang Dining here at Gulfport, Florida.

Uh, what frightens me about this bill is uh the state of power grab.

Um, ever since um I moved to uh Gulfport, I've always believed in home rule because I've often heard that term home rule and how important it was.

And it seems to me at this point the state is trying to steal our home rule.

We've seen it recently with their uh DEI mandates that we're not allowed to do things we'd like to do, and I think we're seeing that now with this uh new legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Before I say no more and go to uh e-common, is there anybody else?

Do we have any e-comments city clerk?

Uh yes, I do have one e-comment from Valerie Welch, who's a Gulfport resident.

Uh it says Gulfport library comments.

Please take note that the Gulfport Public Library serves the entire community of Gulfport from womb to tomb as well as all residents in Pinellas County.

Any citizen with a library card in Pinellas County can borrow and use the services of our library through the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative, thereby expanding the reach of literacy and knowledge and culture to a greater number of individuals.

All service, all services and programs, adults, teens, and children, as well as free internet and databases provided throughout the year are free to the public.

I believe in libraries and especially the mission of the Gulfport Library.

Valerie Welch, past president of Circle of Friends of the Library, Gulfport Library, five years, current manager of COF bookshop six years, former librarian 16 years, former board members 17 years.

Thank you.

Okay, before we close tonight and we adjourn this meeting, I'm gonna give the council one more opportunity.

If there was anything, I know some people just ask questions, but if you have any closing comments that you'd like to make or anything else in speaking order, you would be first.

Thank you.

Actually, my question is for you, Councilmember Webb.

Um, if if someone didn't have 20 hours to watch, I'm sorry, if someone didn't have 20 hours to watch, what what do you suggest they who did it?

Because I've been asked, and I thought, I don't know, but I would ask you.

That is a great question.

What I could do is I will go back through my notes and pull together a highlight reel of information that clarifies commonly asked questions and where the minute marks are.

So I'm thank you to do that for you.

It'd be helpful in other general ways.

Yeah, that's all I had.

Thank you there.

All righty.

I don't have anything else.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Okay.

Uh only to say that as the mayor said that uh she's she's always available, phone, email.

That's the case for all of us here.

So please reach out with any of your your comments and questions and concerns.

Thank you.

Okay.

Councilmember Webb.

I really appreciate you all being here.

This is a very, this is probably one of the most important votes you'll take.

Um, and I really appreciate you taking the time to get informed.

Some of you asked quite things of us that we can't do, because we can't make inferences.

We were very careful with how we spoke about this.

Even now.

Um, we can educate, we cannot advocate on this.

We are we lose the ability as council as a council member to educate to even educate once we have official ballot language, which we don't because it's held up in court right now.

And so and the difference between educate and advocate is here is what we spend our budget on our money on.

Here's what we pull in, here's what we push out.

And so having being able to make inferences like what Albert did is beyond what we are able to do in our official capacity.

However, as individual residents, we can educate people as long as we are doing it, as long as I do it as Jennifer Webb, resident of Gulfport and not Jennifer Webb council member, and I make very clear what my intent, what you know how I'm speaking to you.

So that's one of the things that I do not lose my freedom of speech just because I get elected, thankfully.

Um but I can't exercise that freedom when I'm up here, and so it's um, so that's why we're very careful with how we talk about stuff up here, and that's why I took the time to listen to the debate because I wanted to be able to quote stuff and not say it from my mouth, but say it from the bill sponsor's mouth so that y'all had a fuller idea of what was going on.

Somebody asked about so that's so for question and answers on the website, we would not be able to make um inferences, and for canvassing as individuals we could.

Um, as elected officials, we cannot, our constitutional officers cannot.

Um, and so and I know that the mayor wanted to address the where's my tax money going.

That's such a good question, and I don't know if she's still here, but um, we don't get all of what you pay in taxes, we get a small portion, and I'm sure she's gonna go into that.

I I wasn't necessarily gonna go into that tonight because if any of you watch um the take two on Tuesdays that I do, I've done three sessions about this proposal, and in the second one, I went right there and I pulled my own tax bill and I gave you all the numbers because I was hearing more and more.

Oh, you know, this is gonna save our seniors.

Well, I am a senior, and I am homesteaded in the same property since 2012.

Okay, so I'm a classic example of having a 450, $500,000 house, and I'm paying taxes on 160,000.

By the time I get that extra, as I said, I would then be paying on 10,000.

That means that basically I would be paying at that point to the city of Gulfport, the city of Gulfport, $42.

Now, my whole tax bill would be greater than that because we're still gonna pay um school tax.

So I'd be paying about a thousand thirty-six dollars, I think, from recall is what my tax bill would be.

So I think there's a huge inequity in the way our tax bills are handled.

And um, I listened and I watched all the um bills being presented, the tax bills, and um there were some that I thought were better than others, but those were debated and talked about, and we knew about those sometimes in some cases for weeks if not months.

This particular tax proposal was presented on a Friday.

It went in front of the Senate and the um House of Representatives on Monday, and the vote was Tuesday at about one o'clock.

Fast, fast, fast.

I did watch the Senate hearings until about 8:30 at night, and then I was just so exhausted I went to bed, but I watched and it was quite the experience, and I had never um been through that before.

But again, please look at your own tax bill, okay, and then figure up what would a hundred dollars additional homestead exemptions save you.

Okay, and then I don't know what questions to ask because as people came up and gave public comment, you notice nobody suggested it where we might cut services, you know.

You know, so I can't really go there because you didn't give me any ideas, but it's gonna happen.

I mean, we have no nothing more we can do about it.

So please look at your tax bills.

I asked people to bring their tax bills in today if they didn't know.

I also addressed Save Our Homes because I found out so many people don't know what Save Our Homes exemption is, all right.

Nobody came to see me during my office hours today.

But it's not too late.

All right, look at your tax bills.

If there's anything you don't understand, my experience was 33 years as a real estate broker, so I'm really good when it comes to reading tax bills and being able to being able to show you what you're getting and what you're not.

So we're gonna end this for tonight.

I'm gonna invite you to come to all the additional meetings.

The next couple of months are gonna be dealing with budgets and most importantly, the workshop, which will be on August 6th.

All right.

With that I say, and I'm not rushing out of here.

If anyone has any questions for me now, but the meeting is now adjourned.

Thank you.