Good good afternoon.

Welcome to the special city commission budget meeting for fiscal year twenty-six-twenty seven.

Um I'd like to call the meeting to order.

And first we will have an invocation by the city auditor and clerk, followed by the vice mayor leading us in the pledge of allegiance.

Thank you.

Those who can stand, please stand.

Heavenly Father, we affirm our faith in thee.

We seek your divine strength, wisdom, and guidance in the deliberations that affect the lives of each of the citizens of our community.

In that name we pray, amen.

I project one individual.

Okay.

Um are there any changes to the order of the day?

No, Mary.

Okay.

So I'm going to ask Ms.

Griggs to recite the pledge of public conduct.

Thank you.

And then we will have citizens input.

Thank you, Mayor.

We may disagree, but we will be respectful to one another.

We will direct all comments of issues.

Okay, thank you.

And we have three people who have signed up to speak for three up to three minutes each.

David Lowe, Kelly Brown, and Martin Hyde.

And as usual, please state your name and whether or not you are a city resident.

Okay, Mr.

Lowe.

Uh David Lowe, uh City resident, and still unfortunately unpaid.

Uh commissioners, I had not planned to speak today.

I've been here for two days, and frankly, I thought the budget, Kelly and Nick and all involved did a tremendous job.

That said, I would be remiss if I didn't say something.

Within the last couple hours, we have talked about money aside, the McCowan project, Bobby Jones Clubhouse, and the Performing Arts Center.

Three very different projects, but I think they raise a common question.

Do we understand the frictional cost of indecision and start and stop decisions?

Those costs don't appear in spreadsheets.

With the McCowan, the housing authorities trying to move ahead with a major project facing uncertainty about a piece of their plan.

With Bobby Jones, we've had years of discussion about what should happen there and with the clubhouse.

And with the performing arts center, we have spent years studying and debating the city's important civic assets.

Just last week I heard a commissioner speak about conversations she had had with three performing arts uh experts, and the opportunity that they saw as ripe for that opportunity.

Those are real costs, even when they don't show up on a spreadsheet.

As you make decisions, please be mindful, not just of the cost of saying yes, but the cost of not deciding, delaying or repeatedly changing direction.

And particularly as you begin work with Ms.

Fryley and establishing priorities for the new period of city leadership.

I hope the Commission can gear clear direction on major projects and then allow the organization to move forward.

Clarity has value.

Uncertainty has cost.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Lowe.

And Ms.

Brown.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Kelly Brown.

I am a city resident.

I too have enjoyed watching the proceedings from my office at home for the last two days, and thought it was very well run.

I have a couple of suggestions of things I'd like to see in the future, but I'll send that in an email later.

I am here as the president of the coalition of city neighborhood associations.

I'm here to represent them as it regard as in regards to the neighborhood grant program.

The grant program represents 40,000 in the city budget.

This program has been the key to building community and keeping neighborhoods.

Sorry.

Keep going.

Neighborhood residents.

I'm like, I wasn't that long ago.

Neighborhood residents involved and informed.

This program has been in place since 1998.

In 2023, the city reduced the funds from 50,000 to 40,000.

For the first time, the grant program used all of the funds in Cycle A in the 2025-2026 cycle.

This gave 18 neighborhoods the ability to communicate, hold events, and improve their community with these much-needed funds.

City staff has made adjustments to the program this year to allow for more neighborhoods to participate with no increase to the total funds allocated for this expense.

The majority of the neighborhoods in districts one and three, as well as some in District 2, have very limited funds.

They would be unable to continue to build community without the grant program provided to the neighborhoods.

Most have to pay for meeting room space in order to have neighborhood meetings, as free space is no longer available for use.

Many neighborhoods do not charge a membership fee to be included in their communications, events, or meetings.

The grant funds are their only opportunity to afford to keep their neighborhoods informed and included.

The city comprehensive plan calls out the importance of inclusion of neighborhoods in decision-making processes.

Each of you have attended neighborhood meetings and know how important these funds are to our neighborhoods.

Please vote to keep the neighborhood grant program in the budget for 2627 to continue to allow volunteer neighborhood associations to stay connected and build community for the future.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And Mr.

Hyde?

Yeah, I just didn't want to crown anybody out there.

If they don't mind sitting next to me, I don't mind sitting next to me.

As long as I don't have to follow you, Martin, I'm good.

Well, anyway, uh good afternoon.

We have had a couple of days.

But I do come bearing gifts.

I bought you a calculator, which I've got instructions on how to use.

And uh I also bought a paint by numbers set as uh clearly actual numbers aren't really your thing, as evidenced by the following points.

21.4 million dollars on health insurance, which is over 20,000 per staff member, with no staff cost increase this year.

Over $9 million in post-employment benefits, $6.6 million on IT, losses at the Van Wezel and Bobby Jones coming to collectively close to a million dollars.

But the best part, your part, the quotes uh all today include Bobby Jones described as a gym by one commissioner, the parking department, which contrived to lose 100,000 on 6.6 million in revenues described by another commissioner as doing a stellar job.

The possibility was mooted by another commissioner of a different story to tell on parking, which presumably means the stories of merchants going bankrupt as people are priced out of coming downtown.

The finance director said at one point, we're keeping our heads above water, which gave me the obvious punchline for taxpayers, drowning under the largest ever tax bill in the history of Sarasota.

Talk of the uh by the 220,000 a year plus Van Wazel director of a new performing art school, which you haven't got any money for.

Um the parking manager's response on overtime costs is one of the most honest ones of the day, because he said, quote, I have no one, I have no idea.

Which was at least honest.

And one final quote is the leave the mayor to the best one, um, again, relating to uh to Bobby Jones.

Um quote, you're doing really well.

If losing 400 grand a year is doing really well, I wonder what actually breaking even might look like.

So here's the old saying, right?

You couldn't make this stuff up.

But sadly, for city taxpayers.

It's all true.

Thank you, Mr.

Hyde.

Okay.

Our only agenda item is, and the main reason for being here today is to establish the preliminary millage rate for the City of Sarasota, Golden Gate Point Streepskate, and the downtown improvement district for fiscal year 2026-27.

And uh Financial Administration Director Kelly Strickland is going to make a presentation.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Good to be back.

Did you get a chance to leave?

I did.

So today, um, as the mayor said, I'll just recap.

We're here to discuss the changes that the City Commission Um expressed during the workshop for the proposed budget for 2026-2027.

Um we're also going to review the project status of various projects that um are future.

And then also the primary reason is to adopt the maximum preliminary millage for fiscal year 2026-27 proposed budget.

So the changes to what the workbook that we gave you that we presented, we talked about there is an increase in the transfer from the CRA to the general fund to cover the cost of personnel.

Uh the increase, it it's a we left it out.

It was an incorrect, it was an error that we're correcting.

The general fund transfer for revenue increases 20,220.

The community redevelopment agency expenses increase by that same amount.

We're leaving the project in there, but we're taking out the funding because that is has not been decided at this point.

Um another change that we heard during the workshop was that the um citizens with disabilities, that the fund balance is very low.

Why isn't the general fund funding the closed captioning?

So we made that change to move approximately 32,000 from the citizens with disability fund into the general fund unclassified.

This is a slide that you were presented at the end of my presentation yesterday morning.

And these are projects that are out there that that the commission has been discussing, but we don't have funding at this time for.

Sorry, Bay Park Improvement Board.

Excuse me.

Park Improvement Board.

The Sarasota Performing Arts Center is paused at this time.

Um the downtown master plan study is paused.

Uh, the water transit is paused, and the affordable workforce housing initiative is paused.

And per your discussion earlier, you'd like this to um give staff recommendations on that.

So I've repeated that information with a slide with a title that the commission approval, the commission must approve these recommendations.

So I'm asking for that at this time.

Okay.

I'd like to turn to the city manager Fryling because I believe these were her recommendations, so we would like to hear from her.

Yes, so the recommendation to pause these what I call larger generational projects is because of no other reason than the referendum that is scheduled for amendment three to be considered by the voters of Florida.

Um that doesn't mean the projects aren't important.

It doesn't mean that we haven't invested already a lot of resources into pursuing these.

It just means that we have an unknown future.

And because of the unknown future and the impact that this is going, this the vote could have on the long-term financial stability of the City of Sarasota, it is my recommendation that we just pause these at this time until we know the results of the referendum.

And then we're going to have to come back, depending on whether it's a vote yes or vote no, and we're going to have to have some, you know, serious conversations one way or the other on how we move forward on some of these.

Um I don't think it's all bad news though.

Um I think you know, we're going to continue to have conversations with our partners involved in these projects.

We have a joint county city commission meeting coming up in September.

Um the referendum is number one on the agenda.

Um so all these things are gonna fall in line, and you're going to be given more information in the coming months so you can make an educated policy decisions on each one of these projects in its own right.

But not knowing what the future holds and not knowing that these are really big projects, not just in terms of money, but time too.

Um, it is my recommendation as your new city managers that we do do a pause on these until we get past November.

And if I can just add one quick thing on on the Bay Park project, um the Bay Park Improvement Board, as Ms.

Strickland talked about, already approved the phase three, and the city has already approved the phase three.

So you're not voting on the actual approval of that.

It's just your um motion to approve phase three was based on the county also approving it.

And the county has not approved it yet.

So I just want to make it clear if the county does um approve this project, it's already been approved by our commission.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

Okay, so I'm gonna ask again, Ms.

Fryling, leaving out the Bay Park for a minute, the other four line items.

Would a motion be appropriate to approve the pause until we until after the November election, at which time maybe we can ask you for a timetable of when you will come back to us with recommendations for each of them.

Absolutely.

Is that makes to yes?

Yes, it does.

I wouldn't check with Commissioner Alpert.

Oh, Commissioner Albert, any thoughts?

I think Yeah, I think we should take them one at a time.

I don't think that they uh ought to be, you know, put in a batch because I might vote differently on each different item.

And I wanted clarification also from uh either uh Ms.

Fryling or Ms.

Jorgensen whether if the performing arts center is paused, does that mean we're still not working on uh uh the contract that we've been working on for months and months and months?

I you know, I don't want this to just sit and not be uh taking steps to move forward.

No, that's actually uh a great question, Commissioner.

We are actually still working on um the amendments to the contract that we have with the Performing Arts Um Foundation.

Um Ms.

Jorgensen has been working with that.

We actually just met with them um last week to talk about those changes.

So we'll continue to work through those changes and bring that back to uh this commission at a later date.

So no, that that those conversations are still occurring.

Well, how can that be though if we're saying it's paused?

If we say you know to staff something is paused, that would indicate to me that we do nothing further until it's unpaused.

Well, I think that in this particular case, if you want to do each one of an individually on the vote, like for example, the affordable housing project, um, you know, there was steps um that were set out what the next steps would be for those.

Um we're not gonna move forward on those, but we still have a letter of intent that we can we can extend that I can extend for that to make sure that we don't lose what we've already accomplished.

So it's not we don't want to go backwards and start over.

It's just we want to make sure that there's an understanding both within the city organization as well as our partners externally that we don't have any intention right now on moving forward.

Really, what I'm talking about is financial discussions moving forward.

You know, how are we going to pay for this?

What's the next phase in investment?

You know, are we going to move to that next definitive step in a project where it goes from conceptual to okay, we're going to do it, right?

And those are the things that I just don't see how we can move forward without knowing the results of the referendum.

And I will continue to communicate with all the commissioners and the entire board as we move forward on what those steps are in terms of like the performing arts center.

That um agreement, uh Ms.

Jorgensen has already been working very hard on that even before I arrived.

There's no reason not to finish those things and close them out.

But moving to the next phase of these projects is what I'm recommending when I say pause.

What about though the affordable housing initiative in terms of they don't want to lose the opportunity to be able to purchase the credit union property because we've already, you know, we we already have, as you said, this letter of intent that we don't want to throw a monkey wrench into that because whether we move forward with affordable housing or we do not, we're better off having that additional property so that if we decide we're not going to move forward on affordable housing, that we have like the whole block to sell if we're going to resell that property, and I don't think we lose money by acquiring it because we would be uh taking back a lease.

So then so I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Commissioner.

No, that's all right.

I don't I I'm I I'm finished.

I just don't want to again uh throw these things into jeopardy.

Um should the you know referendum not pass or should we figure out a way to pay for these things?

Yeah, I think particularly for the affordable housing initiative, um that was what I was talking about when I said that we have we're currently we currently have an a letter of um letter of intent with them, and we've already been discussing with extending that to be so we can get past the referendum deadline, which still allows us the opportunity to move forward on the acquisition of that remaining piece of property without us committing additional dollars to do it.

So that's where we're at right now with that one.

So that one, the letter intent is in the process of we're having conversations with that particular owner of that last parcel, Commissioner, um, and making sure that the letter intent is extended by both the city as well as with the um current property owners just to get us passed um this fall and this winter, and then we can re reset that conversation after we know the results.

So we're not going to give up that leverage that we have for that particular piece of property.

We will still have it as part of the extension of the LOI.

Vice Mayor, um I suggest that we stop conversation now about all of them together and entertain conversation about one at a time, identifying what we will continue to do and what we will not do during the pause.

So take it away.

Good idea.

Thank you, Commissioner Ulrich.

Vice Mayor.

Okay, so how how do you want to handle this?

Is somebody want to make a motion about the Bay Park?

Well, I think a motion is premature at this time.

I'd like to uh first of all, for the Bay Park, I don't think we need a motion because what the city has already approved phase three.

And until the county takes their action, we're not gonna be doing anything.

I think we move right to the spec and identify what we'll continue to do and what we won't do during a pause.

But that those pieces of information should come from the city manager and the deputy.

Um perhaps there should be a motion instead to ask the city manager to specify for us what would be moving forward with each one of those projects and make that available to us before the date when we finalize the budget.

So we will have that information to approve or disapprove before the budget.

Does that make sense?

It does.

Uh that would make sense to me to uh give that direction to the city manager.

Yeah, um Mayor, either one of those options works.

Um I can go through each one of them where we're at with each one of them, or we can bring this back.

None of this impacts the current budget that's before you.

Um there's no there's no additional funding in the capital budget or the operating budget for these things.

This is really more a philosophical, you know, what do we do in the meantime before we hit the November vote?

And so we can certainly I can provide something back to the board before the budget is approved and say, okay, this is what we've done today.

This is what we're going to continue to work on, and but we're not going to go past the stop.

And I can provide that for each one of these.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner Alpert.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree with that.

That gives, you know, that way we have it, you know, um that you know Miss Frowling doesn't have to do this off the top of her head.

It's delineated.

We all understand exactly what's going to happen, and I think that makes sense.

Okay.

Uh you want a motion?

So we wouldn't vote today.

All right.

Okay.

Well, I guess the question that Vice Mayor asked, do we need a motion that we are going to ask Ms.

Fryling for to provide that information or just consensus is sufficient?

I think to be clear because of where we are, give her this let's do a motion.

Okay.

Let's get a motion and make sure everybody's on the same page.

Yeah.

Um I'll try a motion here.

Uh direct the city manager to bring back to the commission.

Um what we will what the city will continue to do and what the city will not do on the following projects during a pause.

SPAC, downtown master plan, water transit, and affordable how workforce housing.

And and by a certain date.

By prior to uh the budget hearing.

Vote on the budget.

Okay, budget hearing.

Is that sound good?

Does anybody want to second it?

I'll second it.

Okay.

Motion by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Ander and Kotch.

Uh is everybody understand what the motion is?

Yes.

Do we want to discuss it?

No.

I think it's wise to take this action.

Okay.

Um Commissioner Alpert.

The only thing I was I was going to add, we had talked about um and Commissioner Alricky had mentioned this, that they would also outline what's you know, what's been done, where we are, what will be done, and um, you know, during during the pause.

Okay.

And what will be delayed.

Yep.

So we're going to do a roll call we all roll call no buttons today since the vice since commissioners on the Does our motion need to be revised?

No.

No, I don't think so.

No.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Um Albert.

Yes.

Okay.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Betsy?

Yes.

Ulrich?

Yes.

Trice.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Um so that takes care of the first item on your list, Ms.

Strickman.

Thank you.

So our proposed city budget includes the changes that I mentioned previously, the increase of the 20,000 from the CRA to the general fund.

Um also the 32,000 has been moved, the expense for closed captioning from citizens with disability, which is a special revenue fund to the general fund.

This schedule has been updated for those changes.

The total proposed budget for fiscal year 2026-27 is 322 million,363,899, which is a difference of 18,788,518 from the previous year.

These are the budget issues that are in this budget.

There are five positions in here along with the 40,000 for the neighborhood grants.

So at this time I would uh they are included in the budget currently.

If there are any that you would like for us to remove, this is the time that you would tell me.

Okay.

Uh commissioners, does anybody want to remove um any of the items from this list so that they are not included in the budget?

Okay.

So I think we just um Mayor.

Yeah.

Just clarification, because I don't you know I think it might have been mentioned, but I don't remember it, is that um the city manager said that none of these though would be filled um until we knew the results of the referendum.

She's correct.

Yes, that is correct.

Okay.

Oh, it's on the bottom of the screen.

Sorry, I just I just saw that.

So I'm I'm fine with that.

Can I have a motion then to accept all of the budget issues that have been proposed for the budget?

So moved.

Second.

Motion by Commissioner Ahern Koch, seconded by Commissioner Batti to accept all of the issues to be included in the budget.

Um so Ms.

Strickland, we're winning a roll call for the case.

Oh, sorry, we mean we need voting.

Yes, please.

We need the vote.

Yes, please.

Aaron Kotch, yes, Betty, yes, all right, yes, yes.

Alpert.

Your voters.

All right.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Sorry for forgetting that step.

Um so Ms.

Strickland, you're up.

Okay.

So this is the main reason we're here tonight.

Um we I am asking that you vote to set the preliminary millage rates.

The millage rate that you set tonight.

We will have two public hearings in September.

At that time, you could lower the rate that you set tonight, but you cannot increase it.

Um this is a I think a very good story of our budget that we are presenting this year.

The operating millage, we are proposing the same millage as we had for the previous year of 3.2730.

The citywide debt service is going has a decrease for this year.

We are for fiscal year 2627, we are proposing 1305 mills.

For special districts, the Golden Gate Streetscape, their operating millage is not changing for fiscal year 26-27.

However, the debt service millage for fiscal year 2627 is decreasing slightly.

The rate that we are proposing is 0.4977 mills.

And then lastly, the downtown improvement district, the millage rate is 2.0.

Okay, thank you.

Um if there is uh acceptance of those numbers, I believe that we can take a single motion with each of the five numbers.

Mayor, I have a motion.

I move that the city commission maintain the current millage rate for the city operating millage and thereby set the maximum millage rate for fiscal year 2627 at 3.2730 for the operate city operating millage, and 0.1305 for the citywide death service millage, and 0.6148 for the Golden Gate Street State Streetscape operating millage.

0.4977 for the Golden Gate Streetscape debt service millage, and 2.000 for the downtown improvement district operating millage and direct staff to submit these preliminary rates in accordance with the TRM process.

Second.

Okay.

Motion by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner A.

Hearn Kotch.

Um is there any discussion?

So roll call vote.

Thank you, Mayor.

Betty.

Yes.

Or yes, price.

Yes.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Albert.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Did and I did announce who made the motion.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, Commissioner A.

Kotch.

Uh I just wanted to add that um I coincidentally just was made clear to me on one of the changes here that you had for the closed captioning.

Um, just a point of clarification that it the closed captioning is only for the city commission meetings and not for the planning board meetings.

Yeah, we got some clarification.

I didn't realize that we stopped doing the planning board.

So it's just the city commission that does it.

We use the closed captioning machine for everyone else.

So the city commission is the only one that has the actual closed captioner.

And and I would personally recommend that we consider looking into closed captioning for the planning board because of obvious reasons that that is they're involved in a lot of big decisions that we make that also sometimes go further.

And this closed captioning thing, not this one, but the other thing is really not accurate.

At all.

Yeah, well I hate that's not this decision now.

I just wanted to add that point of clarification because the item is in front of us here as a consideration.

Okay.

Anything else for the agenda?

Um other matters administration from I just wanted to thank Ms.

Strickland and her team, um, everybody, all the departments.

It was a big task.

And Commissioner Alpert does have comment.

Yeah, I have a question on taking the eight million for account hours out of the CIP.

Is that going to throw a monkey wrench into that project in terms of uh making sure we move forward with that?

Um no, I shouldn't.

We're still having to do the market study on the what the um revenue would need to be charged for that parking garage.

So that stuff is still in the works.

And once we have all the information, we'll bring it back to the commission for review.

It was simply a placeholder for us.

Okay.

Okay.

Anything else?

I would just also like to add a thanks to Ms.

Strickland.

She spent a lot of time with me personally answering so many questions.

And everybody, Dawn, everybody, staff.

I know you've been working on this for months, and we really do appreciate your efforts to cut cut cut.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think I'd uh like to echo the sentiments of uh the commissioner and the vice mayor and uh Commissioner Aaron Coch as well.

Um fabulous job, uh very comprehensive and informative and uh you know very thorough.

And thank you to you know all the heads of the departments and the jobs that you all have done.

Um you know, to the uh vice mayor's point making the cuts that you made, I'm sure they were were tough.

And to the to your staff as well and whatnot, and to our current you know, city manager and uh deputy city manager for the work that you you both did on this as well.

And uh again, I'd be remiss if I didn't uh mention uh Mr.

Bullock as well and the work that he did and in helping us um get back up, you know, bring our reserves back up to to where they are.

And uh I'd like to thank my family.

Okay.

Anyone else have anything to add?

Um we do have technically other measures.

We don't have a motions on the other, yeah.

Well uh what other uh uh on the uh Golden Gate and that was in that motion.

That was all in the older one?

Yes, I didn't hear that in the districts, yeah.

Yeah.

Um so any other matters?

Yeah, any other matters to bring up today?

We addressed that before we do.

We do have a uh commission meeting on Monday.

So uh anything we don't bring up this afternoon, we bring it up on Monday.

I uh yeah, I did put the uh sidewalk connectivity piece from the CRA in the office for y'all to look at to see.

Just wanted to say that.

I meant to do it last week, but I didn't, sorry.

And and I did want to thank uh Ms.

Strickland and also Ms.

Fryling for putting together a really uh I don't want to say easy to understand budget, but it was well enough organized that we didn't tear our hair out and made the last two days reasonably comfortable.

Sounds like a question mark.

And and thank you again, Ms.

Strickland, for your uh your stamina.

So uh hearing no other things, uh meeting is adjourned.