Good morning.

Welcome back to this uh Tuesday, July twenty-eighth, day two of the City of Sarasota budget workshop.

I just silenced my phone, so I hope you will do the same if you haven't already done so.

And when we left off yesterday, we were just about to begin enterprise funds, and I will invite uh director of uh financial administration, Kelly Strickland, to make her presentation.

Um Commissioner Um Almer.

Yeah, Albert is going to be joining us via Zoom.

Okay.

Okay.

So she's working her way through.

And we do expect Commissioner Batti, although he was under the weather yesterday also.

So we will move forward.

Thank you.

Well, good morning.

Welcome to day two of the budget workshops.

So today we're going to start in your workbook on page three thirteen.

And then the PowerPoint slide is twenty two.

And if you take a look at your workbook real quick, on page three fourteen, I have a list of all of the enterprise funds.

These funds they're called enterprise funds because they are supported by user fees.

And we have four subfunds that make that the utility system.

The revenue account, which is where the uh general operations for the water and the wastewater system occur.

The renewal replacement and improvement account, this is where the capital projects are paid from.

The general utility reserve account, that's where the reserves are are held, and then the interest and seeking accounts, which is where the debt service principal and interest are paid.

These all roll up into one fund uh for water and wastewater.

Just a big picture for water and wastewater system.

They have a beginning fund balance of 61.2 million.

Uh revenues are projected of 65.2 with expenditures of 62.8, leaving them an ending fund balance of 63.7.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to um Vern.

Go ahead.

Good morning, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Vern Hall, Utility Director.

With me is Mark Nicholas, General Manager of Administrative Services, and Scott Woodard, General Manager of Operations.

So do you want to do this?

Uh, you want to talk about capital improvement?

Yeah.

Just go right into the we just wanted to highlight uh few things.

Um our major capital improvements right now.

We have about six million in RR and I on the water side that we're working on, about eight million on the wastewater side that are actively in progress.

These are obviously valve replacements, water treatment plant rehabilitation, changing out pumps, motors, things like that.

Uh you see the 10th and Orange Street roundabout and a boulevard of the art streetscape.

That's in conjunction with those projects we want to be there before that work happens so that we can relocate any of our utilities, get them out of the way so that they can come in and do their work uninterrupted by any activities we would do.

On the wastewater side, you see our annual sewer main rehabilitation.

That's where we go out, do the cleaning, televising, and lining of those main lines.

We have manhole rehabilitation, which we inspect the manholes and we line those.

And annual lift station rehabilitation, that's where we go in, we do uh pumps, motors, wet wells, just make sure electrical panels, those components are functioning and up to speed.

We have a portion of the wastewater comprehensive rehabilitation.

You'll see that is in the R R and I.

That's to help pay for the engineering costs for that project.

Um then we have a 16-inch force main that we're replacing on 17th Street.

These aren't all of the projects in our RRI, these are just some of the major ones that we wanted to kind of highlight, but there's typical continuous things that we're doing in the R R and I.

This next slide is from our CIP.

And of course, we have the water treatment plant that you all have heard about, the North 41 project, which I will point out we just started the final phase of that project.

Um we just started a year ago next month, and we had a two-plus-year timeline on that project.

So knock on wood.

That project is going very, very well.

Um we anticipate being finished by the end of this calendar year or first quarter of next calendar year.

Hopefully, everything continues to go smoothly.

We have our water meter replacement project, water treatment plant, or wastewater treatment plant headworks rehabilitation.

That's actually just wrapping up.

That was where we replaced the grit classifier that we talked about at one of the executive staff meetings.

Um station number two, that project is just about getting underway.

It's just gonna start.

That's rehabbing a lift station that's relatively close to the shoreline, so we're building that station up for resiliency and making that a little bit stronger.

Um station 90, it's another project on North Lodge.

Uh that's again just in the interest of resiliency and making that system better and stronger.

So that's just a uh a brief list of some of the things that we have going on.

And then this is a real quick rate comparison.

You can see we're pretty much in the middle of the pack.

This was based on the best available data at July of 2026.

And that's pretty much our presentation at this point.

Questions, Commissioners?

Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

So water and wastewater is an enterprise fund, is that correct?

Yes, ma'am.

And by definition, that means that user fees cover the expenses associated with the fund?

Yes, ma'am.

So in your presentation, you had some funding sources on the far right.

Were those all user fees?

That's our our R and I are renewal and replacement, which is one fund that we draw from.

And then we have the CIP funds, which is another fund we draw from.

Is that what their revenues are used to to pay college?

So for the for the SRF loans, we pay those loans back using user fees.

Okay.

There are no other sources of funding for replacement.

I mean, I'm thinking when something goes wrong with your stuff, it's very costly.

Yes, ma'am.

Like more than a car.

More than a police vehicle.

We have a really nice car.

Yeah.

So do you have reserves?

Yes, ma'am.

That that's why we have reserves is if something major goes.

We we have an operating budget that allows us to maintain our equipment, take care of things, and and we anticipate those problem areas.

We we've done a really good job of identifying where our problem children are, so to speak, so that we're aware of them and we have plans to replace, renew, rebuild those.

But occasionally they conspire amongst themselves and decide that they're going to go early.

So that's why we have reserve funding that if something happens unusual or unexpected, we have the funds available to deal with those problems.

So instead of calling them problem children, I prefer to call them the squeaky wheels.

Yes, ma'am.

I was I use that term because I was my mother's problem child.

But I was her squeaky wheel too.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Uh Commissioner Aaron Kutch.

Um yes.

Okay, so I'm reminded that maybe uh Vice Mayor is not aware of the 11-year program that we uh adopted.

Uh how long ago was that?

I don't remember.

2019.

There you go.

Maybe you could just uh give a brief explanation of that.

Sure.

Um of the things that we did back in 2018 is is we did an evaluation of the utility using internal resources.

And we developed a plan, and our CIP is based on that plan.

And we came to the board, we broke down that plan and explained that plan, and we requested a three and a half percent rate increase each year for the next 11 years.

And that rate increase was to cover all of the work that we had identified with the utility systems, treatment plants, water mains, sewer mains, lift stations, manholes, all those things that we evaluated that needed to be addressed and taken care of.

So that's what that program was designed for and continues to do.

Uh when we were here uh at the last commission meeting for the wastewater treatment plant rehabilitation, that was one of the objects identified in that evaluation.

And as I mentioned in that meeting, we're updating our master plan to match the city's comprehensive plan, and we're looking to go to 2055.

And that's the same thing that we're doing is evaluating those internal components, but we're also bringing in some external engineering firms to look at regulatory issues, rule changes, technology improvements, all the things that is the world that they live in.

The world we live in is is our equipment, and no one was better qualified to evaluate our equipment and come up with those improvements.

But looking into the future, the engineering firms, because that's their world, they're better qualified to look at those things and make recommendations of what we need to include in that next master plan.

Thank you very much for that information.

Yes, ma'am.

And and one of the things I think that we need to recognize is that they're working ahead of breaks and spills and problem children and uh squeaky wheels.

Because if something happens and we don't anticipate it, we can get fined.

Yes, ma'am.

And we we are very, very good at responding to those oopses, those squeaky wheels when they rear their ugly heads.

We can deal with them very, very quickly.

Our our crews are very experienced, very knowledgeable.

They've done this stuff before, they know how to do it, and they're very quick at containing.

That's the first thing.

Contain it, control it, and then what are we going to do to fix it?

Yeah.

Okay.

So the uh 10th and orange roundabout.

When will that get started?

I don't I don't have an exact date.

I can I can provide that for you.

Okay.

And just a year?

This year.

I yes, this this year.

Thank you.

Um the replacement of the 16-inch force main along 17th Street.

Where is that?

17th and about.

Uh I'm I'm I'm not sure.

I will find out.

Okay.

And lift station number two.

The rehabilitation of lift station number two.

Um many years ago we had contemplated moving lift station number two.

Um so I guess you know the commission voted against doing that.

And so the does the rehabilitation include lifting it?

Uh yes, ma'am, we're gonna harden that station.

It's it's uh a different configuration.

The way it is now, we're changing the entire wet well, the entire configuration of the the lift station.

We're gonna raise it, and then we're also gonna harden the generator that provides backup power to it.

Okay.

Um that will keep it for safe for a while then.

Yes, ma'am, that's that's the intent.

Okay.

Okay.

Um and then on page 319.

Oh, okay.

Of the water and wastewater utility combining budget statement under revenues, it says interfund transfer.

Can you just clarify that?

Uh those inter what those interfund transfers are.

It's for the debt service.

It's within the, as I mentioned in the beginning, there are four subfunds.

Uh-huh.

So it's transferring from one fund to the other.

One fund to the other.

Okay.

Um.

And then on page 321.

There's also under the expenses the last line, another interfund transfer.

This is underwater utilities.

Again, it's for debt service and capital projects.

They're their uh see what the name of it is.

They're renewal replacement and improvement account.

Okay.

R R.

Okay.

All of the fund transfers in this stay within this fund.

It's just from one subfund to another.

Okay.

And then on page 322 at the very bottom, um, it has uh full-time equivalent position going down a portion of a position.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's yours.

So one of the things that we did do is we made uh half of the position from general fund into uh this utilities, but we did find this morning uh uh issue with our total position, so we will have to come back to you on that one.

But we haven't added any personnel to the utilities, the water and sewer.

This looks like taking away.

Yes.

It does.

Uh budget man.

Tyler Harris budget manager.

Um that is the transfer of a supervisor of water services from utility building to the um regular water program.

Okay.

Okay.

I would like to point out that the CIP portion for the water and sewer is shown right here for this presentation in this workshop.

When the final budget document is put together, we will add the water and sewer to the city CIP portion, so those will be together.

But we felt like it was a better presentation to split it out here so that you have to talk about it.

And that starts on page 336.

And it goes through page 339.

And those are CIP projects that are strictly water and sewer related and funded with water and sewer.

Oh yes.

Yeah, that's but we're going to discuss that now or at CIP?

It's now.

The discussion for uh this portion of the CIP is now.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Um I was going to ask on page 327.

Again, the full-time the personnel there drops a bit.

Yes, that's uh actually just transferring from wastewater to water.

They kind of move back and forth depending on what their staff is.

I guess the percentages of what they're working on, they could probably answer better, but it's just a transfer.

Okay.

Okay.

So with within the whole department, no added personnel.

Okay.

No, ma'am.

Somebody's working a little bit more in this area and a little less in that area, so you just take the funds from one.

We've actually reduced personnel over the last few years in the utility.

Okay.

But this year there's it's flat.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Um your performance measures, it says millions of gallons of water produced.

Um it's 2,800,000.

That's actually billion.

Billion.

Okay.

And that's per year.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

And then um below that it's uh has estimated 30 um on it says fiscal year 2027.

Estimated.

And the very last percentage there, it says available treatment capacity.

That 30 percent means that's that's what's left in our capacity?

38 percent, yes, ma'am.

That's an eight.

No, mine says 30.

You were looking at the wastewater.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, wastewater.

Okay.

Um how long will that 30 per 30 percent last us?

Depends on growth in the system.

Okay, so we have a uh an estimated growth.

We anticipate that's good until 2040.

2040.

And that's why when we finish the rehab on the wastewater treatment plant, we intend to ask the DEP for additional capacity at the wastewater plant.

That gives us additional time as we identify technologies that are available that will help us increase the capacity of the treatment plant.

Okay, because 2040 is tomorrow, basically.

As in the planning window that we live in, yes.

Okay.

And there's a now there's a plan past 2040.

The the plan will take us to 2055.

That's the objective.

Okay.

Those are my questions.

Thank you.

If I may uh the uh question you asked about the 16 inch AC Force main, it's from coconut at 17th Street under the railroad tracks to Orange Avenue.

It's about 2100 linear feet of 16-inch.

Coconut.

At 17th Street under the railroad tracks to Orange Avenue.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Has Commissioner Alpert joined us?

Yes.

Commissioner Albert, do you have any questions?

I do not, thank you.

Thank you.

I actually uh when you mentioned the uh work regarding the uh roundabout and uh the uh complete street and getting your work out of the way before public works starts working.

Um it made me think a lot of people don't recognize that there's a difference between water lines, waste water lines, and storm water lines.

So who do you have to coordinate with with their storm water lines and you know when you've got projects going on?

We work with Nick and his staff and county staff as well.

Okay.

So they have responsibility for the stormwater lines?

Yes, ma'am.

And we communicate with Nick and his staff because they're doing those projects for those areas.

So we need to all be on the same page in the same loop as what's going on in that particular section.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

That was my Okay.

Commissioner Aaron Kotch.

One more question.

After the work on North Chammy Trail is finished, is FDOT going to reach the Yes, ma'am.

The the plan is once we're finished, and again, Nick and his staff have been working and coordinating with FDOT so that they are aware of the timelines.

They are aware of what's going on with the project status.

So when we're finished, then FDOT, it's their responsibility to come in and pave that whole area.

And it's from 14th all the way up to university.

Okay.

And we don't have a do we have a timeline on that?

Does Nick?

Not until after the project is complete.

So as we progress, we we just got into this final phase.

So as this progresses, we'll know more of the timeline of when we anticipate that it's going to stop, and then we can keep Nick in the loop so he knows so he can keep D FDOT updated of when their target is going to be.

It's an obstacle course right now, and I get a lot of questions about it.

And it's it's a moving target for us right now because when you start on a next phase, you just never know what you're going to run into.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

So thank you.

I think thank you very much, and I think we can move along.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bern.

Thank you.

Okay, our next fund is going to be the Bobby Jones Golf Complex, and this can be found on page 340 of your workbook.

So this detailed budget was submitted by Trune, and you can find the details of the budget on page 341.

In addition to the budget that was submitted by TROONE, we have debt service included in the total budget.

So we have a beginning fund balance of 2,151,000, anticipated revenues of 5,245, total expenditures of 5.7 million for an ending fund balance of 1.7 million.

And I'll will I'm happy to tell you that for fiscal year 26, the year that we're in now, the golf course has paid its full full debt service itself with no subsidy.

And they're also, we're budgeting in fiscal year 27 that the golf course will pay their full debt service fund.

The monthly fee that we pay to Trune is 10,612 per month.

And I'll turn it over, Mr.

Fogle for any questions.

Yes.

Commissioner Gotch.

Yes, thank you.

Mr.

Fogel, I noticed that the revenues, the green fees are up by about 200,000 projected.

Is that an increase?

Or the and the rounds of golf is the same.

So that is an increase in fees.

So Jerry Bogel Parks of Recreation.

So I did invite uh Mr.

Rhodes to come and join us.

He's with uh TRUEM and Indigo, which are interchangeable.

Uh Troom is the parent company.

And also Sparrow, who's the general manager at Bobby Jones.

So they can they're here to come and talk about the details if you want to get into the budget.

I do, yes, thank you.

And they are approaching the JS.

Good morning, Brian Rhodes, Trune Golf.

Good morning, Bobby John Sparrow at Bobby Jones Golf Club, General Manager.

So yes, uh obviously the rounds of golf have been flat.

Our rate has increased due to inflation more than anything else, and it's flowing to the bottom line of roughly the same.

In a big picture way.

Okay.

And uh why are we anticipating the rounds of golf to be flat?

Um ultimately the rounds of golf have been flat due to some economic concerns and some travel concerns or the some globally coming in, obviously we Canadians in certain areas.

Also, we've been seeing that they've been flattening out in the market wide across the country they're up, but in Florida they're flat or going down.

We've been able to hold them flat at Bobby Jones, and then pricing has been been able to offset any losses in most cases.

Okay.

Um I did the math and it's going from about 44 dollars around to 47 dollars around.

Um but there is a break between city residents and um everyone else.

Do we know what that breakdown is in rounds between city residents versus others?

John, you want to speak to that?

Yes.

So we found out last fiscal year it's about 12 percent.

City residents.

City residents, yes, ma'am.

I think that's higher than expected, isn't it?

It was 10, I think originally we thought.

Okay.

And an average golf course that's not a municipal course, what's the cost per uh to to play a round of golf?

Just in the area in general.

It's all across the board.

Unfortunately, I mean, if I looked at nationwide, it would come out of a different number than Florida, but obviously in this market, we are still at the lower end.

Are we at the lowest for for the area?

We are not the lowest.

Okay.

Who's lower than we are?

You want to speak to the competitive?

Um so I mean, there's the palms, there's uh village greens, there's we're right in the middle to about 25 different golf courses in the area.

Okay.

Okay.

And I noticed the um driving range numbers are going up.

What did you attribute that to?

Partially it's less range in town.

Okay.

It's a great experience.

And we've also set up some uh teaching programs there to certainly and then we marketed behind that with passes and different programming.

Excellent.

Um and then the Pro Shop seems to be doing very well.

The Pro Shop is in the top 10 percent of my portfolio as far as APR per round.

One of the things I do want to say about rounds is there's a finite number of rounds that we can have.

Right.

And you're nearing the top of it.

Okay.

I mean, you're doing 62,000 rounds a year.

Ultimately, my biggest golf course does about 72.

That's in downtown Orlando.

Okay.

But most of them are in that 55 to 60,000 for municipalities.

Okay, so we're shooting for 72,000.

Well, it's the same thing, right?

The more rounds that we push out sometimes, the worse the experience gets.

So I would say, you know, I'd love to see a little bit of growth, but I would not say you want to add 12,000 rounds tomorrow.

Okay.

Because the only way to do that would be pricing.

And it's going to end up being roughly the probably similar top line, and the experience isn't going to be as good for your constituents.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Great job.

Uh Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um at Bobby Jones.

You know I live right across the street and I see people out there every day.

Um are you aware that the Meadows golf course is now open to the public?

Yes, we're aware.

Yeah.

And that it's cheaper for a non-city resident to golf there than it is for a non-city resident to golf at Bobby Jones.

Yes, we're aware.

And so I'm aware of that too.

And I I just thought if you knew that you might have some internal discussion about that and how would how your rates might adjust accordingly.

I mean, obviously it kind of goes, you know, on rate is um based off of volume in a lot of cases.

When we're getting the volume that we're looking for, including, you know, in the local volume and uh in a residents.

We're actually getting more.

When we opened, we were 20 to 25 dollars higher than the meadows, and then obviously they didn't handle the storm anywhere near as well as we did.

And they closed and now they're reopening.

So I mean, I have not been over there since they reopened, but overall there's other competitors in the area that we are we watch a little more closely.

Sure.

Thank you for that.

Um just one more possible way to increase revenues a little bit.

Somebody suggested this to me that you might consider renting golf carts out to uh citizens with disabilities who are non-ambulatory and want to explore the nature park.

And Vice Mayor, we'll we'll look into that.

I mean, that may be a rover, right?

That may be something else that we do, but we'll look into that to see what is the best option to do that with.

All right.

That'd be a wonderful thing to do.

Thank you.

I have no more questions.

When the questions came up about uh competitive pricing, uh I saw that as an opportunity for you to talk about the quality of experience at Bobby Jones relative to competitive golf courses.

So I'm wondering in terms of golf magazines that may have rated the golfing experience in Sarasota.

Do you have any comments on Bobby Jones, you know, in general press opinion or golfers' opinion?

I mean, when we first opened, we were one of the top 100 under 100.

And obviously we received a few awards and nomination for awards when as uh one of the better new public golf courses.

Obviously.

I put uh awards are nice, but I really care more about what the daily player thinks and the fact that they're coming out and and back.

So I mean, everybody gets a survey when they play.

Okay.

We read every survey as he can tell you that I I get them, everyone.

So if it responds with anything under a three, I get it within the hour.

So I can come back and we have conversations and just trying to see if there's trends, if there's abilities that we can go and do some customer service and you know, hopefully stop it before it begins.

You know, obviously we've we've had cart issues out there for a number of years.

You know, we unfortunately got a cart fleet that does not handle wet weather very well and corrodes.

Uh but we've taken some steps to fix that.

So I'm a little bit out of date.

I remembered when you opened you were going to have demand pricing.

Do you still practice demand pricing?

Yes, we do.

Okay.

And obviously that has been acceptable to everybody.

Yeah, it's probably 80 percent of our markets in demand pricing.

So it's it's it's pretty much worldwide round.

Okay.

And um the city residents, how much of a discount do they get?

40 percent.

40 percent.

So when you're talking about you know it being less at Meadows, I guess maybe some of the times it may be, but some of the times maybe it's less of Bobby Jones because of the dynamic pricing.

Okay, great.

Well, those those were my questions, and it's you're doing really well, and I'm pleased to hear that about the uh opinion surveys and that you're actively on top of them.

Thank you.

Um any questions?

Oh, Commissioner Batti.

Thank you, Mayor.

And this is not a question.

I just wanted to uh commend you all on the job you're doing out there.

Um I have a number of friends.

I don't play golf, what have you, um, but have a number of friends that that uh that play out there and they they love the course, they love what you've done.

Um, you know, I remember when we brought this, you know, the challenges that we that that were met with people who have why you're putting money into this golf course and so on.

I mean, I have someone that cost me right there whole foods about the whole thing and whatever.

And I asked her, I said, do you play golf?

She's like, No, I said, then why are we having this conversation?

You know, but any case.

Um, you know, you all you know, I mean, I know the uh commissioner, you know, fought hard because there was always this problem with, oh, well, the course is not going to pay for itself and so on and so forth.

And you all come in and turn that around.

And uh it's been, you know, uh uh a gem in a one of the jewels of the city.

So thank you so very much for the for the work you're doing out there, Shroon and Indigo and uh you know Mr.

Fogle and Parks and Rec and whatnot.

Thank you all.

Thank you for that.

I mean, obviously we're very proud of what we do.

We're very happy of the tools you gave us and the guidance you have provided.

And obviously, John and his team do a great job.

So and Mr.

Mendel and whatnot.

Yep.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next slide is the Van Wazel Performing Arts Hall.

And I want to point out this is on page 345, but there's also a capital of Van Masel Capital Fund that is on page 343.

As we look at this budget, we'll see they had a beginning fund balance of 10 million 23,000.

They have anticipated revenues of 18.

Excuse me.

Yes, 10 million 23,000.

They have anticipated revenues of 18.7 million and anticipated expenditures of 19 million for an ending fund balance of 9.6.

I want to point out that you look at your book on 345.

There is a transfer, and that is a transfer from the Van Wazel operating into the Van Wazel Capital for additional capital repairs they're planning on making this year.

And I will turn it over to Mary.

Thank you, Kelly.

Good morning.

How are you all?

Good morning.

I'm Mary Bensell, executive director for the Van Wazel Performing Arts Hall for the past 19 years.

I have Mindy Piantanita, and I hope I didn't murder that, who is our finance manager, Kyle Turop, our general manager.

And in the audience, I have Ed Bach, who is our facility supervisor.

Should we have any questions on that?

Am I not close enough?

Moving move the You would think I of all people could figure this out.

Anyway.

So that's who's here today.

Kelly, do you want to put any slides up or I have some this is your slide?

Okay.

That's it.

That's it.

Well, I I will tell you maybe I can give you a few facts that aren't in the slides.

Um I will for the last over 20 years we have not increased our student tickets in our education uh program, and uh they're still $7, and I'm loath to increase that because our schools have such a problem.

Um with rental and our nonprofits, we haven't increased the rent for 11 years.

Um again, my industry struggled with COVID, not to mention um what's going on now with the war and the cost of living going way, way up.

So we're we've been very uh cautious about that, although I did make increases this year in rental.

Um we've had three hurricanes that impacted us on the last one Hurricane Milton wiped out our basement, basically, um got into the orchestra pit, um, took out the kitchens, the production offices, everything down there.

And we um worked extremely hard to within three months reopen the theater and we reopened January 2nd uh with a sold-out performances of menopause, the musical, I think two.

On the high seas.

Anyway, um so we have that going for us.

We also have seen our insurance increase because of that hurricane and having to apply for FEMA.

We're still waiting for FEMA uh to reimburse some of our expenses.

Last season we saw a devastating fall uh in the arts section.

It was really, really slow.

Ticket sales, probably the worst I've seen since probably 2007-8.

Um, and I was, you know, uh biting my fake nails.

And so I luckily had a fantastic winner.

And we had a fabulous um production of MJ that basically sold out every ticket, and then a beautiful noise, which was about Neil Diamond, thank God these performers did such beautiful music, was really a huge sellout.

We actually made more money on on Beautiful Noise than on MJ because of the deal.

Um I can tell you we donate hundreds of tickets for fundraisers all across this community, Tampa, um as far as Fort Myers, um, but I really take good care of our Sarasota charities.

Um the foundation, which has contributed to us, I think we're gonna be celebrating our 30th anniversary next year with the foundation.

The foundation was created for the Van Weazel by the first director because his concern was that citizens wouldn't donate to the city, and so they would donate to a foundation.

So they do the major fundraising campaign.

And I can tell you last year they had to take a step back of um reducing education donation by 50,000.

We found the same this year, and the foundation no longer funds um our capital needs because they feel that is not their mission.

And they're trying to build a new performing arts hall, and as you know, I am a huge proponent of the new performing arts hall.

But what I had to realize when um we had a new city manager coming in, and I don't envy her.

Uh Carrie, I do not envy you.

You come in and suddenly we have this whole tax thing, and she put a pause on the new performing arts hall.

So it really had to make me wake up and smell the coffee and realize that some of the deferred maintenance that I was waiting on to see what we were going to how we were going to repurpose the Van Weasel in conjunction with uh with the um the new performing arts hall is not going to be happening as soon as I would have liked I would have liked of us to have been open already.

So anyway, I can tell you we are losing out in shows because we don't have enough seats.

I'm sure you've heard me preach this before.

I am very proud that we did get John Mulaney, who I happened to catch on the Today Show before I came in this morning, where he had, I think he said he sold out nine perfor performances at Wrigley Field.

He's playing ten dates in uh New York City, several at Madison Square Garden, and he's coming to our small venue, and we've already sold half the tickets to him.

So that's exciting.

On the other hand, I lost Earth, Wind and Fire, who I've been pursuing for 20 years.

God hopes there's still an Earth or a wind or a fire by the time they get here.

Um, you know, but it's it's been very um it's been very hard.

Um as far as the fund balance, um, in the arts, it's I look at the arts as a business model, not as a department.

And in the arts, you hope to have at least a $50 million endowment, and then you live off that endowment, and that helps you with the money.

Because for the last 17 years or so, uh, we haven't gotten any subsidies from the city.

I know the city did a long time ago.

Part of that in my mind was that the business model was not good.

There were no subscriptions before I got here.

Um in the beginning, um, that's what people lived on, and producers looked to see how big your subscription audience is.

Now as subscriptions are starting to erode, we came into the picture and we're trying to catch up, which of course is not possible.

Um these are all uh things I wanted you to know about the Van Wazel.

I will tell you we are the most vulnerable building in the city.

I've been told this over and over again.

Um we are in the middle of a lot of mitigation projects.

We work with Nick and Public Works, and uh we are uh have completed a number of the projects.

What we did um when Ms.

Frilling and I hope I didn't say your name wrong.

Fryling, I'm so sorry.

Um I feel like I have Alzheimer's of the name, but I'm also not good very pronunciation either.

But with Miss Fryling, she she said to me, you know, you're gonna be down for five months because we're going to have to put the infrastructure up in the ceiling.

They're calling it webbing by Karen.

It's not really webs, it's beams and things like that, and there'll be um uh scaffolding up to the ceiling.

So during that time, she suggested, and it's a smart one, that we add more projects that we can do in the building that doesn't interfere with that.

So we have moved up some of our mitigation and our capital projects uh to take care of doing that when we're down for five months.

And even though we think in the months of May to September we don't do that well, well, this year I I I anticipate about a half a million dollars of of income profit.

So I'm gonna lose that, you know, next year.

And of course, if you've been over to the Van Wazel, you've seen the parking lot.

You've seen we've lost two bays of parking, and right now we look like a construction zone.

We're also full of cars all the time because we have lots of construction workers there.

The orchestra uses that for parking.

We use that uh parking lot for ourselves uh obviously, and so there's so much going on at the Van Wazel, and those are just a little um little snippets that uh aren't in the information you were given, and I thought you'd enjoy to hear it.

Thank you.

Questions, commissioners?

Uh Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you for that, Ms.

Banzel.

Um, I have two questions.

Somewhere in all the materials I read about the Van Wezel.

I read it costs less to rent the Van Wezel during the week than the operational costs for a day.

Could you explain that?

Yeah, I'll do the best I can because it's a very interesting question how you figure out how you operate it, because do you count it on a per day 365 days or if the theater is only occupied one fifth, you know, 150 days?

So it always was the um the intention on the nonprofit scale that we subsidized um a lot of these programs for other arts groups.

And so that's what is going on there.

We do charge less for weekday performances because they're not as um and I have a very hard time here thinking about this because I am now a senior citizen, of course, as you can all tell.

And you know, when you're not working, what does it matter if you go to see a show on Saturday or Sunday or Friday versus Monday Tuesday?

However, um what I'm told from my good friends at the Sarasota Orchestra who I can tell you were the first people to embrace me when I came to Sarasota those many years ago, that it's just a normal habit.

You know, when you were working, you went on Friday and Saturday and Sunday.

And so of course everybody in the business would like to play a Friday night or a Saturday night.

But I have one of our most exciting performers coming uh this year, Leslie Odom Jr.

who's playing on a Monday night.

I have Straight No Chaser playing on a Monday night.

So that's just the way it has been set up traditionally, and it was always that the Van Weazel was subsidizing these programs.

Although I will tell you, with the increases I made this year, I did receive pushback from our arts organizations.

Uh Kyle and I took a deep look at it.

We did raise some expenses um significantly.

And um so we uh brought them into what we thought was uh a good line.

And um it, you know, part of our mission is to be a partner to the orchestra, to the ballet, uh to the uh not not the opera, every now and then the opera comes over, but West Coast Black Theater, the concert association and so forth.

And it used to be that I could give better dates to a number of these organizations, but as we had to support ourselves when I got here, because I was told when I was hired that you just simply um whatever wasn't funded, it would come from the general fund.

So and then I arrived in town and was told I was in charge of a challenge team and that I couldn't do that.

So I too, Miss City Manager had a really rumper day.

So anyway, um I I will say that um uh I still believe in trying to subsidize, but my staff, especially this one, is always after me to try to increase uh expenses, aren't you, Miss Mindy?

Excuse me, increase re I'm the uh the other way around.

Increase revenue and um she's constantly looking at that and uh has a very good eye at looking at overtime, and you name it, she is uh on it.

But that's that's the best I can tell you without sitting down doing a study.

Yep.

And so they help you find the balance there.

Yes.

You know, you know the people half glass full, half empty.

Right.

Um my other question is regarding the Van Wesel Education Program.

I know the foundation provides a lot of educational opportunities as well.

How does the Van Wesel Education Program mesh with the foundation offerings?

Sure.

The the Van Wazel uh foundation, which is now doing businesses at the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation, um was only to be in the business of supporting the Van Wezel um and and it sort of morphed um in the beginning it was three pockets of money, it was f it was a general programming, it was education, it was capital.

In fact, like the piano was bought by the fian uh the foundation.

Well, over the years um they sort of morphed a little bit.

Um at one point they were um supporting the the Pearlman music program, but it was being a huge drain um on the organization.

In fact, the Pearlman program was first supported also by the orchestra.

So anyway, um the situation is is the foundation um wanted to have a bigger voice in education, and so um they spoke to me about taking over the Mr.

Stevie program in Newtown, which has been a really popular one.

Uh they they then expanded it a little bit to um to one in Washington, D.C.

They recently got a contract for early uh ch childhood learning.

And so as we were uh and but the bigger programs obviously were coming out of the Van Wazel with our school time performances and our uh military access, senior access community.

And of course, as you all know, I have a uh Broadway performer as the head of our foundation, excuse me, the head of our education program, so he teaches classes.

We had Golden Groupers dancing away yesterday in the in the education room, and they're really wonderful to watch.

You should all come if you feel you might fit the golden group of phase.

I know I'll take one after I retire.

Um anyway, um so the foundation came to me, and as we were preparing to get ready to uh get going with the new performing arts hall, um uh I I really love uh working with Tanya.

Uh she is uh the director of the foundation, Castro Verde Montana.

I'm gonna get her name wrong, but um anyway, but Tanya has proposed to me that we meet with Michael Kaiser.

You may remember Michael Kaiser, his name is very, very famous.

He was one of the biggest, most important uh CEOs of the Kennedy Center.

And so Michael Kaiser has a has a foundation, and he we have been working with him to bring the two programs together when we you know we're looking to open a really fabulous education program.

And please remember, these aren't just children, these are from little ones all the way up to senior citizens and seniors and and adults.

And the new program is going to be called AWS, so I'm sort of blowing that lead, but um I'll just tell you it has not yet been decided when this will go into um uh effect.

I also can tell you with this pause, you know, we have to talk that through.

But I think there did become some confusion in the community because there were two programs coming out of the Van Wazel, if you will, and so that was a decision that uh Tanya really felt strongly about, and I really like working with Michael Kaiser.

Um he's quite a brilliant mind.

And so um that's what's going on with the foundation and the education program.

So you're saying that you're gonna merge the two education programs.

Correct.

I can't tell you exactly when, you know, but we were certainly going to have one program when we opened the new hall, and um uh Kelly Maldonado, who is their person at the foundation who leads education and Justin Gonlack work very closely together as it is.

And you've heard it first here.

There you go.

Thank you.

Okay.

Commissioner Ahern Cott.

Yeah, I just have one question, and it's on page 351, and you touched on it earlier.

It had to do with overtime.

It does seem to be going up, and I'm just concerned, you know.

Sure.

Why?

And maybe there's a better way to handle that expense.

Let me let me speak first and then Mindy can say something.

But overtime, um, I really would like to add another person in the um maintenance department because we have such quick turnarounds.

We have two shows in one day, we have shows seven days a week.

Um so I have people that work six days a week.

I have people, some people work seven days a week.

And um since we hadn't been able to get any new staffing through, um we we have to use overtime because while we do have some people that are on the track that that are salaried, they can't work 60 to 90 hours and still be a functioning human being.

And so um that is why we have had overtime because there's just so much going on and so much is asked of us.

Please keep in mind too, it's not just the shows.

We have lunches, we have uh graduations, weddings, you name it.

And then Amindy is certainly queen of trying to keep the overtime down.

Uh hi, I'm Indy Piantanita, Van Wayzel Finance Manager.

Uh partly what goes into that overtime line is our SPD costs.

So we have to have police officers for all of our shows.

This year, what we learned midway through the year is that uh when the officers were clocking in, it wasn't capturing their proper rate.

It was paying them at regular pay when they would clock in in the beginning of a work week instead of everything going into overtime.

So we were then um an adjustment was made to uh a journal entry was done in order to collect the money that was due to SPD and we needed to um budget for it moving forward that all of SPD time is considered overtime when they work our shows.

However, as of this week, um right now what's happening is we are finding a solution to that because the rate was coming in at about 120 dollars per hour uh per officer.

It it became very costly.

But we've learned about a new program called roll call through SPD, where we are in the process of signing up for it, and our costs will be going down to $85 an hour.

And that are we we will not be using that full overtime amount that you're seeing in there.

But this just came to us yesterday.

Okay, so it's it's not just hiring one, you know, if you hire one maintenance person and it's eighty thousand dollars or sixty thousand dollars, that's not gonna solve the problem.

No, and it it's also not just maintenance.

It's, you know, when you have success, like if we have a ticket campaign going on sale, we hire enough staff, part-time phone operators.

But you know, um, we only have so many that are trained and we have very um involved ticket systems.

So, you know, on a big sale, we'll hire people and some will have to work overtime.

But um we've had to pay overtime on the police the entire time, which of course in my complaint world, um, you know, we're we're always paying overtime, yet I donate the hall to city departments to have events like luncheons and things like you've all enjoyed.

And um yet, you know, the the reason being is uh because that were the rules.

We were also told we had to have X number of officers per number of um you know number of people in the theater or whether we were serving alcohol.

So a lot of this is sometimes beyond our control, and I was shocked to hear of this new program.

Yeah, I was just I mean, I was looking at the difference between your beginning fund balance and your ending fund balance, and it's just under $400,000, and that's uh a chunk of it.

So I don't know.

I was thinking that maybe if that that could be solved, then well, and we also when this budget was done, it was done in March, and we're nowhere near um, and we it it anticipated I think a million dollar loss, and I Mindy is feeling very strongly that we will come in flat um for the year um because we had these juggernaut shows at the very end.

But you also have to see that you know um we had uh then skill uh in June and we have Derek Huff next week.

Um but in the summertime we are not as you know populated with shows, so we also draw down during these months.

And then of course, next year we'll be closed from September through through May through September.

Yeah.

The $400,000 difference is also because we uh moved approximately $400,000 of capital from future years to this year since we will be closed.

So we we really just moved up CIP that was in future years.

So it's to cover that.

Okay.

It's that transfer.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um I along those lines, I I wasn't aware of the SPD costs.

And I know that sometimes you have outside event rentals that require extra security.

Do you pass along the extra cost of security to the organization renting, or do you have to absorb it?

It's usually what we require at the hall.

And anybody who uses the hall, but expenses go to those to to those shows.

You know, so it goes to the rentals.

Um there is occasion, you know, when you have a say, I don't can't.

Well, I was remembering when Dr.

Fauci was here.

But they paid for all that.

And you know, that that usually it's not a doctor, usually it's you know, uh past president or something like that, you know, or I remember when we had the president of Pakistan, we had significant expenses, and then uh I remember Byrne Buchanan coming and doing a town hall, and there were some angry citizens, and so these are paid for by other people.

So you were able to pass along those and we give them estimates up front because we don't want any surprise.

We also have to monitor what is in we have a deposit, we also have um what is in the box office, and we make sure that we have enough money to cover our expenses, or we require a check in advance that's certified so that we don't get stuck on the hook.

Okay.

I have uh two questions regarding um revenue challenges that you have and wondering how you might address them or thinking about addressing them.

And one of them is the challenge of resellers.

I keep hearing from people complaining about the high cost of tickets, but that price that they're quoting is higher than anything that you charge, and it's because they're getting from resellers.

How do you deal with that?

Welcome to the state of Florida.

It is legal here in Florida, and because we're a government entity, and this was another one of the reasons, such as guns in the theater, that I really feel that theater should be a 501c3 because at least at a 501c3, they're only allowed to charge a dollar more per ticket.

For us, they can charge whatever they want.

And just to make it look worse, you know, they sell tickets that aren't even on sale yet.

And if a show cancels, we don't have uh the way to um, you know, get hold of them.

Kyle, do you have something you could add?

Sure.

Um it it it's a it's been a problem that has gotten worse and worse and worse and we do our best to educate every piece of email uh mail that goes out with the tickets.

But make sure you're buying from this one.

You know we we do as much as we can at the bottom of every email make sure you're you're coming to us.

But it you know people type in John Mulaney and they go, oh look and then they pay $400 for a ticket that's only $150 and then they find out that the person next to them only paid $150 and then they get mad.

But it's not it's nothing that we can stop but it's something that we can educate.

It's like it's like the tax thing we educate but we don't advocate kind of thing.

So it it it's it's definitely a problem I I know that other uh venues have made deals with StubHub.

Hey we're going to give you X amount of tickets and you can sell them but make sure that we get at least what we would have gotten from the box office.

It's it's a harder thing to do because we're a we're a government entity but I mean Jerry Seinfeld upped his ticket price this time to for some seats up to six hundred dollars because he was charging like you know uh $100 and suddenly they're uh getting $800 $800 a thousand dollars on the secondary market.

And I can tell you I begged uh who was then uh Senator Nancy Dietert and the way they got it over is they said what these what this secondary market is it Johnny's grandmother buys him a ticket and then Johnny doesn't want to go see the show that she bought the ticket for and so they need somewhere to resell them well I can tell you it's not about Johnny and his grandmother this is huge business and there are all sorts of lawsuits going on in Europe in this country and and we we actually have a really great ticketing system that helps with the fraud.

We've had a lot of fraud problems but that ticketing system has stopped it but there's only so much that they can do and and from what I've been told by our box office manager we're one of the top people of getting that money back and getting it uh off the records.

Um it it is a it is a massive problem all over the country steal credit cards especially abroad steal credit cards then they try to resell them right and then get the money back from us again.

It it they have come up with 17 different ways to you know anyway.

So thank you.

The other question was the technology challenge I know that you had to cancel a performance this year because the uh the sound the the sound didn't mesh with our technology with their technology well it wasn't quite that I think it was not it was not that it was it was um faults on their part which they fully have acknowledged but not out loud in the world so Mary did get you know a break on that show and made sure that we weren't going to pay you we didn't do a show so we're not paying you know that that wasn't that wasn't our issue that was their issue.

And the other issue is there are um after COVID a lot of senior technicians retired and you know don't want to go from one city to another to another so I've watched you know season a technical uh personnel um go from being older gentlemen who have a lot of experience to younger people and you'd think oh well they would know the new technology but it's not the same and uh that's one of the things we're addressing in our education program we now have an education program camp for technical theater so that we could get young people into you can't don't have to just be an actor and then I will also say Kyle's two sons spearheaded our volunteer usher program for teenagers and so we have an usher program for teenagers now.

So we're trying to get um younger people to go into other parts of the industry.

We are putting a new lighting system in this year at the Van Weasel and a new sound system.

So that should be um that should be available but I will tell you major Broadway shows bring their own lighting and sound systems.

This is more for a smaller show.

Okay.

Thank you.

Those were my questions did you Okay.

So thank you very much.

And I guess we can move along apologies on your name.

Okay, our next fund that we're going to talk about is the Solid Waste Management Fund and it can be found on 355 of your workbook the beginning fund balance is 8.4 million revenues are 18 point three our expenditures are 20 point two and the ending fund balance is 6.5 million.

This year um we did set up a reserve for um debris removal for future storms.

And we'll just tell you that 1 million reminding you that 1 million went to the general fund for debris removal to reimburse those costs from the previous storm.

And also an additional 500,000 went into the self-insurance fund to help with the general liability.

And I'll turn it over to Mr.

Patel.

Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Commissioners Nick Patel for the record, and here with me today are Lisa Harper, Department Finance Manager.

Bringing the mic closer.

Yes, please, everybody.

Please speak into my I'm getting complaints.

Y'all got a speaking mic.

Okay.

And Todd Kacharski, General Manager of Public Services within Public Works.

Okay.

So happy to answer any questions.

Just in general, you know, the we did provide additional funding and the reserves to help with the based on the hurricane and debris damage that we had in 2024.

So that did help with some of the depletion of the general fund.

And also our operating is roughly about $18 million for next year for solid waste and happy to answer any questions.

Okay.

Commissioner Heranc?

Yes, please.

Thank you very much.

My question on page 356.

In the operations description there, it says in the first line, 16 pickups of solid waste a week for commercial customers.

Is that right?

It looks like it's a digit missing.

Yes.

Yeah.

Good catch.

Yes.

We'll have to verify that.

That's way off.

Okay.

I thought so.

And then on the page 357.

The discretionary, the third one down, the discretionary contractual services.

What is that?

Nondiscretionary?

Oh, non-discretionary, yes, non-discretionary.

What is that?

It would be like cost allocation, IT allocation, property insurance.

Got it.

Okay.

And then under the performance measures, tons of residential solid waste collected.

And that's per year, 220 uh 20.5 tons.

Is that correct?

The total tonnage that we generally uh have, which is both commercial and residential, is roughly around 53 to 56,000 tons.

Right.

And and and it's per year, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure I was Yeah, it for to dive in a little bit deeper.

You're looking at a little over 200, excuse me, 20,000 for residential and about 35,000 for commercial.

Yeah.

Yep.

Okay.

And then want to add that there's also close to 4,000 tons of residential yard waste.

As well as 4,700 tons of residential recycling.

So those are all part of the collection that we that we cover.

Right.

And I notice the recycling is increasing.

Is that with growth or is that more people recycling?

I think it's a combination of both.

Okay.

And then the recycling on page 358.

Under the revenues, we have recycling fees.

And then if you go under expenses, we have utility recycling there.

So we receive from selling the recycling, but the recycling still costs us the facilities.

Correct.

Because we have to pay for the MERF that's utilized to process the recycling.

Okay.

Which is waste pro.

Right.

Okay.

And then the landfill fees right below that.

That's that's we pay directly to Sarasota County.

Right.

Right.

If we do move to a composting, we could save a percentage of that, couldn't we?

Potentially.

Potentially, yes.

And just to share with the commissioners, we are doing that review of all our solid waste and recycling.

Once we review that, we'll share that with the commission so you can see where all that is.

We specifically looked at composting to narrow what some of that is in there so it's available for us to see.

But again, there's still going to be a charge for us to collect that service.

And if we separate that out with the community, that's an additional charge.

So we'll have to review to see how much of a potential savings there is.

Right.

And we'll still the plan is, I guess, to still haul it to out to the landfill where the county has a um a compost, correct?

They're still working through that process.

The goal is, yes, to hopefully get there and allow that process to work where it's at the county, correct?

But it's not the same fee as dumping in the landfill.

Correct.

That would be separate.

Okay.

So there is a potential savings there.

Potentially, yes.

That we could.

But it's also the right thing to do.

Absolutely.

Those are my questions.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

I have only one question.

Remind us when you will begin collecting for the reserve account that we just agreed to or established a few months ago.

August 1st.

August 1st.

Thank you.

And just to share with you, we've been working with the utility billing staff to get that information in the billing account so that it's highlighted that they see where that's coming from.

And we actually just drafted up a little description that we can share with them for the next couple of months so that they can see why we were doing this.

That's good.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

And I want to go back to recycling, trying to figure out, and at some point it might be nice to have a breakout in terms of how much we are paying, was it waste management?

Waste pro.

Waste pro.

And with them, are they netting out how much they are selling the recyclable material for so that or we pay the fee and then we see a separate number of how much of the sales.

That's correct.

And it's all based on the market, so the market fluctuates.

And as you may remember a few years back, the uh Chinese sword that played an accountant and impacted us greatly, but I think the commission for us to continue recycling instead of putting it into the landfill.

So we have seen up and down go on uh through this year and last year as it relates to paper and plastic and and whatnot.

So I wish I could say yes, we're always getting this amount, but it's always based on the market.

Well, it it would be nice to see a total of how much we're paying waste pro and net of how much they're able to sell our materials for and how much we avoided paying full tipping fees to the landfills so we can actually see the bottom line for recycling.

That would be a nice number of the case.

We can put that together for you.

And and that would also I think help uh the public, because I know I get aggravated when I say, gee, why do I have to rinse out this bottle before I put it in recycling?

And you know, is it worth it to put a peanut butter jar in the dishwasher?

So, you know, if if we were able to show people really the bottom line value of doing that.

We'll do that, and I thank you for washing your peanut butter jars.

And that's all I had.

Uh any other questions, commissioners.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, our next slide is on parking management and can be found on page 361.

And I would just remind you to keep in mind we have two parking funds.

We have what we call citywide parking or parking management, and we also have St.

Armond's paid parking, which is separated because of our bond covenant requirements.

We'll start with the citywide uh management, parking management, and that can be found on page 361.

The beginning fund balance is 1.3 million.

The revenues expected are 6.6 million.

The total expenditures are 6.7 million with an ending fund balance of 1.2 million.

Uh there are two elevators that are are slated to be replaced in the CIP.

Um, and I think when we get to the CIP, you'll you'll find that I have them switched.

But the first elevators to be repaired are going to be at the State Street Garage in this fiscal year 27 budget, and then in a future year, fiscal year 28 will be POM.

And then in a future year, fiscal year 28 will be POM.

And with that, I will turn it over to Steve Kova.

Good morning.

For the record, Steve Cover, planning director.

It's always good to follow positives such as the golf course and the Van Wazel with parking, another positive.

So anyway, to my right, I have Cheryl Woodard, she's the manager for parking services, and also Brian Nelson administrative supervisor of our parking staff.

Before we get started, I like to give just a brief shout out to Broxton Harvey, who uh was here for three and a half years.

Uh really did an amazing job bringing us particularly from a technology standpoint, bringing us into the 21st century and certainly the 2020s.

He was really a great leader and a really great person as well.

Um through his three and a half years here, created not only a team, but what I think was was a family.

And just to give you an example of that, um, right before we we changed the signs for the Sunday hours.

Um I got together, and he said, um, look, we you know we could spend about 26,000 on a private vendor doing all these sign changes, or maybe we could get our staff to do it ourselves.

And and that's what we did.

And so that Sunday before uh the new hours kicked in, uh myself and Broxen and I think about 12 others, uh went out on a very warm Sunday and changed changed all the signs.

Um instead of it costing uh 20 we actually saved the city about sixteen thousand dollars by doing it ourselves versus hiring an outside outside the company.

And what was interesting was to get that many people to come out on a Sunday.

And one of our employees, it was even her birthday, and she came out and helped out.

So anyway, uh we're gonna miss them, uh but you know, we're gonna move on.

We've got a good team, and so we're we're really very excited about it.

Um the upcoming time here.

Yeah, uh uh obviously most of our uh our expenses with this year's budget are focused on major projects, which include uh replacing and installing two new elevators at the State Street Garage.

We have significant significant costs and restoring, re making repairs at the Palm Avenue Garage.

Um we're uh switching over to new vehicles, which are actually cheaper than the ones that we're currently using.

Um our LPR uh system license plate recognition system, we're gonna be kicking that in, which will make us operate it much more efficiently.

So uh and that's a very significant significant number in this budget, but uh these are things that uh not only Broxton recommended, but also what we felt was necessary to really advance.

Um like Kelly said, we had uh two more elevators that we're proposing to replace in the Palm Garage, Palm House Garage, but that is not this year, that will most likely be next year.

So I'm gonna just uh open for any question that you may have.

Okay.

Commissioner Aherncaj.

Yes, thank you.

Um and uh yeah, and congratulations to Mr.

Harvey as well.

And I know he uh is happy to be uh with his family.

Um so and thank him for his work.

Uh he did a stellar job.

Um page 362, uh parking management under purpose, it's says the unclassified administration cost-centered on no no no.

That's the wrong text for that.

Right?

Yes.

Okay.

Just wanted to make sure.

Um services, uh, second line under revenue.

Um it says 2025 actual and then 26 budget and then 27 request.

That's a a big increase.

Is that what does that do to expected?

Yeah, that's uh primarily the service charges for our parking facilities.

Um, you know, the the revenue, you know, we we've increased our hours.

Um we also are increasing um what we're charging for violations, so uh it is a big increase, but that was part of what we proposed to you uh back on March 23rd.

Do we have a breakout over here somewhere of the hours versus the citations?

Uh let's see.

Um we do have um under charges for services we've broken it down obviously, judicial lots, vehicle fees, or EV charging charges, but also our judgments, fines, and and forfeitures.

That's actually under the 3500 or 350,000 line item.

Okay.

Where we uh have violations of local ordinances, 2.3 million.

But is that the citations?

Yeah, that that is the citation.

Okay.

And then the charges for services is um 3 million uh 386,000.

That's the increase in hours?

It can't be because that doesn't equal 4 million.

No, it's uh not the increase in hours.

It is for um the um just our basic charges um for um the paid parking, monthly permits, you know, that kind of thing.

Uh but do we have it broken up between the just the increase in hours versus the um the citations?

Would that be um 4.13 minus 2.3?

So 1.8 is the increase in the 4.13 is the grand total for charges for services and then judgments and fines is 2.3.

So it's about 1.8 then is the increase in hours.

Is that right?

Is that right?

So uh Brian Elton, uh administrative supervisor for the parking division.

So the the charges for service uh and the the violations are the two separate.

So that that increase you are seeing in the the service charges for parking facilities, that is mainly our paid parking so on the street in the garages and our our monthly parking permits, whether it be a residential contractor or your local employees that that work downtown or in St.

Armand's, uh that that financial model or calculator that was provided by Dixon who did the the parking study for us before uh before we presented to to you all uh for recommendations.

Uh that is the the number that was calculated by by the model that was given to us.

Okay.

So then can you just confirm that it's I'm trying to get to the number of estimated um revenue from the increase in the hours.

That's the only number I'm trying to isolate here.

So that will be between uh the uh the 2026 budget and the the uh the 2027 budget.

So that line item, the service charge for parking facilities from from last year to this year.

Uh so the difference between two It looks like they're gonna have an increase of about 1.1 million.

So if you take a look at your estimate, Colin, 2.3 and then your budget of 3.3.

So there's about a million dollar increase there.

Okay, so it's a million then, not 1.8.

Okay.

That was the number I was asking for.

Thank you.

Um back over on the um page 362.

Under the expenses, all the way down um under the capital outlay.

What is that 1.4?

If the elevators are being done next year, what is the 1.4?

Yeah, the capital outlay uh is for uh two elevators uh for the State Street Garage.

Oh, so the 1.4 is for the two elevators?

That's part of it.

We're pulling up the detail right now, so we can tell you.

Um just if I can know the cost.

Yes.

Uh so you have uh the cot the elevators, you have um replacement of vehicles, cameras, there's several items in here for small dollar amounts that all make up that 1.4.

Uh the biggest uh expenditures are the elevators, though.

Okay.

Um is that detailed on page 364 somewhere that I'm missing?

The elevators are in the CIP?

Oh, in the CIP.

Okay.

Um where is there um allocated uh um expense of the new meters that are supposed to be going in?

Is that this budget?

There's 40,000 uh in the capital line for cost of new meters.

Uh where what page is that on?

It's gonna be it's gonna be lumped up into that big number.

Okay, so it's all lumped into that capital outlay number.

And it's 40,000 for meters.

But is that to replace the meters downtown or is that potential new meters elsewhere?

That I I can't answer that question.

So I I don't believe we're we're fully replacing the meters.

This this budget that that uh that number is budgeted for uh meters that they may be malfunctioning that need to be replaced.

Or um because we do have some older meters, I believe.

Downtown.

Uh we have do you have some newer meters down in St.

Armand's?

Uh but with that, that capital outlay number, I have a little bit of a breakdown.

So it will be the two elevators for the state tree garage.

That's the bulk of that number there.

Uh we are also budgeted for for four new enforcement vehicles as around uh it's like 180,000 and fixed LPR uh camera systems that will be attached to them as well.

Okay.

So two elevators, two vehicles, some new meters to replace the four vehicles.

Just to clarify, the elevators are what, $750,000?

That's correct.

Okay.

And are we using the same company for those elevators?

I don't believe that's been decided yet.

But we can get back to you on that.

Okay.

It was my understanding that was an issue with the other elevators that they were all different companies, and so we had a hard time when something broke and we are eventually going to be doing a solicitation for that if this is approved, and then the down under uh performance measures under 2025, the number of paid transactions for 2025, it says NA.

Uh it was that because of what?

Why is that NA?

I can't speak for the NA on 2025, but just that uh we're projecting 640,000 by the end of this year and 720 for the upcoming year.

Okay.

I was just curious why it's an NA there.

Um, why don't you let somebody else go and I'm gonna organize my thoughts for my other questions?

Thank you.

Uh I only have one question.

Um we see that expenditures still exceed revenues in the parking management fund.

Do you anticipate with the changes that we've made for increased hours?

And if we make any additional changes intended to bring in a little more revenue in this area, that next year you'll have a different story to tell?

Yeah, I think we will.

Uh obviously we have a um a uh uh open house coming up on August 24th and a workshop with you on the 31st.

Obviously, we will be discussing a lot of a lot of matters, uh, giving you a lot of information background uh and certainly looking at potential options in the future.

Um we we think we will be in the positive um this year and next year we're gonna be very intensive from a capital project standpoint with the elevators.

Once we get by that, uh then we certainly should pull into the clear and show much greater positive numbers.

Um that's that's kind of where we stand right now.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um and we also have the agenda item on August 3rd as well to discuss this.

Correct.

Okay.

Um my question was on page 363.

Um the overtime uh number there is also uh increased.

The overtime you mean over time?

Yes, under person personals personnel services.

It's uh goes from um well lower.

Yeah, I think um the share order.

Sure we're finding on that.

Okay, so um we really didn't have an increase in uh uh overtime.

What we did have is we have a part-timer that was not fully trained at that time, so at doing that point, we had increase of uh overtime.

But once that person is trying, then we won't have any overtime with the new hours.

So the part-time person is going to become a full-time person?

No, she'll be a full um part-time person.

However, she was not trying, so that had increased uh overtime.

Okay.

Um then special services under the contractual services.

Uh that's what is that?

So the special services under the the different uh different programs there that you see.

So they're they're spread out uh for different uh one-time one-time services.

That's what they're they're set aside for.

So uh looks like we have budgeted, uh I printed out the the details here from from when it was submitted.

So we have uh the 30, the 40,000 budget for new software and accounting system and payment kiosks.

I know it was being looked into to have the the ability for customers to pay their citations at the meters as well as having a payment kiosk outside of our parking collections office so that customers since we close at 4.30 a lot of people think we close at five like the the rest of the city if they come come down to pay their citation understandably they can they're upset that that we're closed at 4.30.

This would give them an option to pay outside as well part of it 75,000 was was set aside for updating the city's parking analysis and feasibility study and its parking garages in the city as well as the replacement for for old signs that that need updating throughout the city as well different maintenance that we have painting painting at the garages I know is looked into that the the stairs especially in the the state shoe garages need to need to be repainted and striped for for safety purposes as well as pressure washing yep and that's that is about it.

I'd just be curious if there are anything like the pressure washing or anything that we could do in-house that may help save some of those those fees in that special services line.

Yeah we can definitely look into that yeah that would be a good idea.

And then my last question is 364 on um supplies and expenses charge card and bank fees we discussed this earlier with some other departments but we see that's going way up and thoughts on that well every swipe they have a fee.

So parking is is always traditionally the bank charges have been been high so we're working with a vendor to try to figure out a way instead of every swipe having a percentage of it that it's a little bit it's just a work in progress trying to get those fees down.

Yeah that's a big number it is and part of that is to the with the with the new hours as well expecting more transactions uh the the fees will go up as well.

Makes sense.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um I want to go back to Commissioner Ahern Koch's question on overtime on page 363 line 1401, SC 1401.

It's a little strange to me just going across the line the 2025 actual was 49,000 and then the 20 but the 2025 budget was only 16,000 then we had 2026 actual was 26,000 but the budget was only 4,000 and then we go to the current year estimate is 22,000 and the budget is 47,000.

I mean is it we're not estimating well or we're uh just blowing by the budget uh on overtime um I'm not certain.

Um but I do know that um the overtime the only overtime we have right now is with the time change.

We did have the increased staff doing that time.

And then the person that we have to help us with those increased hours are being trained.

But but why are we going from a current year we we're more than doubling our current year estimate for next year's budget.

I don't understand that doubling especially if we're working to control overtime.

Right.

I have no idea why um why that is I won't have that much overtime I think part of the explanation may be Mr.

Cover's original story where Broxton had his employees come out and change the signs as opposed to paying a contract.

But we're talking next year's budget is a double doubling the number it is what the department entered the department is here.

We can get back to you on that one.

Yeah.

Yeah maybe rethink or or have a better reason why increasing the overtime today is the second day on the job up in the lay on this so I'll call them after hours.

And uh I got two other items I mean I have read that in the United States regulations dealing with elevators make uh the installation of brand new elevators extremely expensive because each one pretty much has to be custom made for where you're putting it where then the ramification is if it breaks uh parts are not readily available sometimes parts and I believe in our case parts it had to have been custom made and I ran into that in my own home where it took us a week of not having an elevator working while they were waiting for parts.

And I ran into that in my own home where it took us a week of not having an elevator working while they were waiting for parts.

So I'm wondering is are you exploring any opportunities to somehow figure out how things can be uh standardized or working with a vendor who has standard product or you know, I'm even thinking, okay, can we retrofit our elevator shaft so that we have have a standard elevator instead of custom made for each one?

So are you exploring that at all?

Absolutely.

Um I mean, you know, we're making do with what we have now.

Uh but uh, you know, when we uh when we uh put out a solicitation for new elevators, uh we're gonna be looking for a company that will now put us in the situation we are today.

Uh so uh you know, when we receive proposals, we're gonna um review those, and that's gonna be that's gonna be one of our really our primary issues and concerns when we we speak with them is that uh we can't be in a situation like we are now.

You know, it's gonna have to be they're gonna have to be responsive and be able to repair it really at a moment's notice.

Uh are you also going to try to get the same vendor bid or get bid on both both builds, garages so that we're not with one vendor in one garage and the other the other garage in the different elevator.

Good suggestion, yes.

We would definitely like to do that.

And and then the other challenge, which is obviously an ongoing challenge, is the confusion with the public between city parking and non-city parking.

Um, like I I look at that privately owned lot on First Street across from Whole Foods and people who have had bad experiences there, then blame the city.

We got an email from somebody who uh got a ticket for parking in the Whole Foods Lot for over two hours, but that was Whole Foods customer lot, and they thought that was the city parking.

So are you looking for ways to address the challenges regarding non-city parking?

Um I'm gonna start by answering that question, and I'll turn it over to the director.

But one of the things that I've noticed in my short tenure here, and even when I came to interview um for the city manager position, is we need to do a better jum job of wayfinding and making sure that people who visit like our downtown and other unique areas understand where they are and what their options are.

There are so many different parking options available to someone in the downtown, it can be very confusing.

The other thing that I found surprising is a lot of our garages, you you guys have done such a beautiful job of concealing them.

They don't even look like parking garages.

Seriously.

And so we really need to one of the things that we're working on that um I've asked staff to prepare um in in anticipation of our workshop in um the end of August is understanding that we really have to have a real we have to have a wayfinding program.

We don't have it.

And it needs to be able to be easy to understand.

You need to be able to see it whether you're on your phone, whether you're at a kiosk in downtown, or whether you're just driving through the downtown to understand there's different options available to you, publicly owned options as well as privately owned options, and even the public options vary as well.

And we just have to do a better job of informing our users and the people who visit our areas of what those options are.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um Commissioner Batteet.

Uh yes, thank you, Mayor.

Um you have uh uh a rough number in terms of the usage of of the garages, say on State Street and Palm Avenue.

Annual numbers or annual usage?

Yes.

We don't have them uh here right now, but that's something I can I can get to you.

Okay.

And then what about the uh elevators at uh at um State Street?

Are they both are they both operational now?

They are both operational.

Excellent.

And uh before I leave, I just wanted to say uh um congratulations to Mr.

Uh Harvey as well and and so on and thank him for the work that he did here in the city.

And pretty much, you know, I know you all catch heat you know indiscriminately when people, you know, we have departments here and they all catch catch hell and a lot of times from certain groups, but you all catch it from from everybody and uh and you know, Mr.

Harvey and you all uh kind of like in a untenable situation when it comes to parking or what have you.

So I want to thank you all for the job that you do in Mr.

Harvey for the work that he did while he was here or what have you.

I know it was uh a tough situation, and I'm sure he went running up out of here and why not.

But thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

And I guess we can um I'm I'm looking at the clock.

Perhaps we should take a 10 minute break.

We go through St.

Armand's parking first while we have a lot of things.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry.

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

And then after that, maybe uh take a quick break.

Okay.

So is you as I mentioned there are two parking funds, one is the citywide parking and one is St.

Armand's paid parking.

It is separated because bond covenants require that these uh revenues do be separated.

It is on page 366 and it's slide 32.

We have a beginning fund balance of 85,000.

We have potential revenues of 2.6 million, and total expenditures are 2.5 million, which leaves us with an ending fund balance of 163,000.

Included in this, you'll see a transfer to debt service.

So the bond payments for the parking garage and the parking area out there are supported by the user fees and also from a special assessment, which is in the debt service fund.

Um that for St.

Armand's paid parking, all of the enforcement fees go to the the citywide parking.

They do not go into this fund.

Um and the balance is is 163,000 is not considered very much for this.

It's about a five percent uh unreserved uh expenditure to fund balance.

Are there any questions on this fund?

Uh Commissioner Ahern Kotch.

Thank you.

Um on page 366 under the second column, the budget to 2526.

Um well actually so the actual 2425, it has an ending balance of 159,000 and then we start 2526 um negative.

How is how is that?

So what we did, because they didn't earn enough revenue is we had to transfer enforcement from the the citywide into here to make it whole.

Um the debt is supported by Covenant to budget and appropriate, which is non-advalorum, which means that if we have to borrow from the general fund and it is set up as a loan because the bond covenants say it's a loan from the general fund or other non-advalorum sources, then we have to subsidize this fund.

Um but there has to be enough on hand to pay for that service.

And where is that recognized that it's paid back into the general fund?

If it it yes, we have a loan to the general fund to the St.

Armand's paid parking, it's 1.4 million.

And in this budget, we have the first payment um to repay that is 245,000 back to the general fund.

Where is that recognizing here?

It's under uh debt services on page 366.

And then you'll see an expense of 245.

I see that.

Okay, great.

Um and then okay, so you said that the revenue from the meters on St.

Armands go to the citywide fund.

The the in if the violations go to the city fund.

Okay, the violations fees go in the St.

Armands are required to go in the St.

Armand fund.

100 percent of them.

100.

Okay, so 100 percent of the revenue from the meters goes to the garage.

Well, 100 percent of the parking area, which includes meters and garage in St.

Armand's, goes to goes to this fund.

Goes to this fund.

Okay, and and that's to pay off the cost of the construction of the St.

Armand's garage.

Yes.

Okay.

But the citations go to the city.

That is correct.

Okay.

And why is that?

I don't know why that is.

That's the way it was set up originally.

Yeah, it's the way it was set up originally.

Um it's the same with the the beach parking.

Uh that does not go in the St.

Armand's either.

That actually goes into the parking management.

It's just the way it was set up, and it's not part of the overall bond covenant and agreement that we have on the St.

Armand's garage.

Not that I want to put any more pressure on the citywide fund.

But does that make sense?

Well, I can tell you that at the end of the year, if if uh expenditures exceed revenues and we have a negative fund balance, then we we take the portion that would have been for St.

Armand's and put it to make it whole in the St.

Armand's fund.

Okay.

That's also where the operating expense is coming from for the enforcement.

It's coming from citywide.

So fees go up to the penalties go back to it.

Okay.

No, that makes sense.

On page 367.

There's there was from there to four, and then the uh the number of positions have been the same really over the last three years with 24.

It's just it's just a transfer.

It's going from St.

Armand's.

If you go back to the citywide parking, it it's flops it.

Okay.

Okay.

Um then I think those are all my questions for that fund.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Oh, I had one question, but it was addressed a fees versus fines and where the revenue goes.

And not asked, but answered.

And and I was going to uh suggest a potential answer to one of uh Commissioner Ahern Kotch's questions.

Um in this case it's in the bottom of page 367, number of paid transactions and grace period sessions for 2025.

And my guess is you installed new software in 2026, which captured that data, and the old software didn't capture that data.

Good answer.

That is right around where we we switched vendors.

Oh okay.

So that's for the NA's, you mean.

Yeah, okay.

So thank you.

Um other questions.

So that takes a lot of things.

I have a question.

Oh, Commissioner Alpert.

Just uh really quick, and it's not necessarily budget related, I guess, but for the parking, I I guess it is budget related, and we'll talk about this at the workshop.

Does anybody have the institutional knowledge?

I want to make sure I'm remembering correctly that when the St.

Armand's parking garage was done, part of the agreement, maybe not in writing to the merchants on St.

Armand's, was that they would not be the only ones who had paid parking that we would include downtown when you know the parking program was set up or shortly thereafter.

Yeah, that's correct.

Was anybody there when when that happened?

I was there, and that's what I recall.

I I think I was there.

Um what we tried to do is um obviously uh both entrants are were interested in what was happening to the other.

And so what we tried to do is uh establish our fees and rates so that they were consistent, and then I think generally they were very happy with that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um can I weigh in?

Yeah, yeah.

So Commissioner Albert, my recollection is that um St.

Armand's uh uh went forward with their garage knowing that they would have to have meters and hoping that downtown would embrace the idea of meters, which uh I'm not so sure they did.

Um but that did come to us as a vote, I believe, in 20 in 2018, 17 or 18.

Um and that's why it was so controversial that St.

Armand's wanted downtown to have the meters, and downtown didn't necessarily, the merchants didn't necessarily, or the residents didn't necessarily want to have them.

Um, and that was the that was the discussion of the day.

That's my recollection.

But there was no promise.

Okay.

I don't know if there was a promise, but I think there was an understanding.

Okay.

You know, that would happen.

So I think you you were on the commission when that happened.

I was on the commission for the um the downtown discussion, but not at the garage discussion.

So you you probably have more a better memory of that actual construction and conversation pre-me being on the commission.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh any other questions regarding So thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Um I have 1052.

I'm going to suggest that we take a break until 11.05.

Oh, so we're in recess till 11.05.

Welcome back.

Our uh day two of the City of Sarasota budget workshop is back in session, and we had just completed review of the enterprise funds, and I believe we're now going to start with internal service funds.

Yes, ma'am, we are.

They're just to cover the cost of maintenance within the city.

This fund actually represents the cost of maintaining the city's vehicles, and the accounting method for funding this internal service fund is an annual allocation based on the vehicles that are serviced.

So it starts with a beginning fund balance of $330,000.

Revenues of $6,456,000.

Expenditures of $5.9 million with an ending fund balance of $1.4.

And I will turn it over to Nick Patel for further questions.

Good morning.

Happy to answer any questions.

As far as the performance measure goes, is that the fleet oversees $180 vehicles and equipment throughout the city?

They oversee that.

And it's roughly about $130 vehicles slash equipment per certified mechanic that we have.

And we have a 99% fleet availability.

And that's really important, especially emergency preparedness to have fleet vehicles ready right after the storm.

So you know our staff really takes care of that.

And also one thing I want to mention is we typically also purchase fuel 7% below average retail sale, even though fuel prices have gone up overall.

With that, any questions?

Vice Mayor?

Oh, I didn't push my button, but I will comment.

And am I correct in recalling that the mechanics have their own tools?

Todd Kacharski, General Manager of Public Services, yes, you're correct.

And so that's quite an expense that the city does not cover.

Correct.

But you know, you can imagine mechanics like the kind of tools that they really like.

So I was impressed with that and with how joyful the people were who were working there.

So I just remember that, and I don't have any questions for you.

Thank you.

My lack of questions speaks for itself.

I I just wanted to understand the other charges for services, which is the bulk of the revenue.

So I wanted to understand what that is.

That is the um the intergovernmental and internal services.

So the there are allocations throughout the city to utilities, to the general fund, every department that has a vehicle.

That's how this fund primarily is funded, is by an allocation from another place to pay for those services.

And and I'm assuming then that there's a formula either for each department with vehicles or there's a formula based on the type of vehicle.

Correct.

Correct.

Okay.

So but that's all in line number 34001.

Yes, ma'am.

So then what is the intergovernmental revenue and the miscellaneous revenues?

Does those are the well, you have the fuel, and then you have the intergovernmental, then you have your your chargebacks for specific services to the two specific departments that are above and beyond the normal allocation.

Okay.

So the other charges with services is how allocating the expense of the fleet service to the individual departments.

To try to explain it for you when we budget for that, it's for your regular maintenance.

So let's say that there was something of an accident and there was damage.

So we would oversee and help with getting the repairs done for that, so then there's that cost back coming back, but we don't budget for that because that's an unknown, knowing how many actions there would be or body work that needs to be done or other things of that nature.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

That explains it.

I do have another question, Mayor.

Um does this include police vehicles?

We have a few, but not many.

It's basically items that were pre-2014, which is just a few, and then we help out sometimes on specialized type of equipment.

Otherwise, they manage all their fleet.

Because they're so specialized that they need specialized mechanics too.

They they have a lease program that they they address those warranties with the local vendor.

So that's how they would handle it.

So after lease is over, they would encourage that aspect.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you guys.

The next fund we're going to look at is information technology, and this can be paid found on page 385.

The information technology fund is an internal service fund.

It provides the technology needs throughout the city.

Each fund is charged and allocation according to a formula for technology, communications, and software maintenance, etc.

The revenues for the information technology fund are obtained from other city funds for IT services.

Allocations to IT are calculated by actual expenses that occurred during the previous completed fiscal year.

The anticipated revenues are 6.5, and that is allocation to other funds.

And then there are expenses of 6.4 million with an ending fund balance of 361,000.

And I'll turn it over to Mr.

Rodriguez for any questions that you may have on information technology.

Good morning, Amia Rodriguez for the record.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I have one from Ms.

Strickland.

The ending balance seems a little low to me.

Is that an acceptable ending balance to you?

It is, and and this is a fund you can see if you look at page 385.

We actually ended the year in a negative of 303.

Again, the revenue for this fund is allocations to other funds.

And in this year of rebuilding our fund balance in two years now, we've been hesitant to put extra money into this information technology.

We're we're we have tried to be very diligent and cutting our cost in every way.

They went through their operating budgets and cut, and that included the information technology because it is an operational fund.

So we're just trying to keep our head above water here to rebuild those fund balances where they are.

As by definition, internal service funds are really just an extension of our general fund.

So we separate them out just to keep the cost of the service available for us.

If if it were, you know, we could just put them all in general fund, but I think this is a little bit better for our record keeping and to know what we're spending on that function.

Okay.

And another question in an earlier draft of the budget in the IT area, we had workday scheduling.

And that was removed as we went on in the budget process.

Um what's that all about?

I I'll talk about that from for my part on it.

Um there were two items.

There was workday scheduling and a budgeting module.

These are both workday modules.

We considered them to be more of an operational efficiency as opposed to something that the commission needed to decide upon.

So we took them out as a budget issue.

They are in the budgets.

Oh, good, because I think they would at least the workday scheduling would greatly increase efficiency across the board.

I can tell you that we are working on a financial dashboard and then expand that into other areas.

But when we went to workday, one of the things that we told the commissioners we're trying to take all of the various systems that we have and combine it into one platform so that we can do that dashboard, the scheduler and the budgeting system.

Right now we're on a separate budgeting system that has to interface with our work day, and you know, there's it's it's a lot of in between work, whereas if it's one system, it'll be a lot more efficient.

Agreed.

Those are my questions.

Thank you.

Anything?

Okay.

Um I did have one.

I noticed that performance measures a new measurement thing.

There was nothing from fiscal year 2025 and 2026 is all at this point projected then and estimated for 27.

Um are these items measured?

So we did have performance measure in previous years, but we we kind of shifted to new measures that were more relevant.

So we kind of did away with the previous years and started fresh, and that's why we don't have the history.

We wanted to capture what was more relevant to now.

So uh that's that that explains that gap.

Okay.

And what specifically is the user satisfaction score uh measuring.

So what it does is when there's a ticket into our service desk, we have a uh a feedback on the ticket.

So as we complete the service request, then the end user would type how that service was performed, was it quickly, was the technician knowledgeable, etcetera, et cetera.

And that's it, it measures that aspect for us.

So it's measuring satisfaction with the technicians on staff as opposed to the system overall.

Yes, but there's a there's an ability for them to actually talk about was the system easy to connect to, was it easy easily available?

So there is a little text box where they can give us feedback on the entire process.

Well, but on asking on I'm thinking that the entire process regarding the help desk.

Correct.

Yes, so but not in terms of our enterprise IT system.

How satisfied are you with that?

We we did send we did send a survey to capture everything about IT.

Um, and we did we got really good results back.

Um I've shared that with the city manager.

I can share that with you if you like.

Yeah, I I was just never asked.

And I regularly have frustrations.

I related the fact that I can't get to my New York Times subscription on site because it says this is not a website that you're allowed to access from the city.

We'll we'll take care of that button.

But this is just an example of my frustrations with something that's supposed to make me more efficient and effective, and it makes me less efficient and effective.

Okay, well, we can address that because I have a New York Times subscription that I access every day.

So I I'll find out why you're not able to connect.

Yes.

Yeah, that's just one thing.

I can't get my email.

Okay.

It's crazy.

But that's why my question was how are you measuring satisfaction, but you're measuring the satisfaction with the help desk, which are fabulous.

Thank you.

But not the frustrations some of us run into.

I'll come go with you and we'll take care of that.

Okay, that was and and so just based on my comment, maybe you do want to add some additional surveying of you know, impression of how helpful the system is, what other tools, you know, would you like to see?

I think it might be eye-opening for all of us.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um I apparently hit something wrong, so I messed up my screen here.

Nobody's hit the buttons with out of the okay.

So I think no more questions on IT.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mayor, you brought up an important um fact about the performance measures.

One of the things that we heard last year during the budget workshops is that you wanted more performance measures in each of the departments throughout the book.

I don't know if you noticed, but throughout the book, each department has tried to include performance measures and and in Herminio's case, some of them are different than they were the previous year, but we're trying to enhance that part of our presentation.

Great.

I'm sure we all appreciate that.

Thank you.

Um more questions on IT?

Okay, so we can move along.

Thank you.

Okay, our next fund is equipment replacement, and this can be found on page 390.

And each participating department contributes to the equipment replacement fund annually to request replace equipment when it's necessary.

Revenues are generated from participating departments for anticipated future capital needs.

For fiscal year 27, the general fund departments were individually evaluated for adequate balances before the allocation was either suspended or reduced.

This was an effort to maintain and increase the general fund.

Fund balance reserves.

This suspension is not recommended for future years.

Expenditure budgets represent the planned expenditures of each of the participating departments.

Each participating fund has an adequate balance for most emergency equipment purchases that may be needed.

So we have an ownership in this fund.

The beginning fund balance starts at $8.8 million.

We have revenues from various funds and departments of $2.2.

And then we have some planned purchases of $1.6 million, and then an in an anticipated ending fund balance of $9.4.

Do we have questions on this fund?

I'll just say I'd never heard of anything like this before, and I think it's brilliant.

So it is something that we really encourage each department to participate in.

It is very difficult, specifically in the general fund to have a lot of capital in there because it's not something that you've planned for in the past.

It's a one-time expense, and it's in its best if we have a plan for these type purchases.

Have you found that the numbers are on target in terms of when you do need to replace a piece of equipment you have accumulated enough by then?

Um yes, I would say so.

Each department owns a value in there.

Um there have been times though, like when a pool heater has gone out and we've had to look other places because there wasn't enough here.

But this is always the first place that we will look as far as equipment, and then if it's not, then we have to come up with other ideas for funding those situations.

Thank you.

Um anything else?

Okay, so we can move on.

Thank you.

The next internal service fund we're going to look at is self-insurance funds.

Um 392, this is where they start.

And I'll just give you the combined numbers.

I will note that this fund is self-insured.

Legally, we're supposed to keep two months of potential claims in this fund.

So the combined balance for each of the subfunds is 5.6, is where we're starting.

We have revenues of 18.6 million anticipated, expenditures of 21.4, and then an ending fund balance of 2,892,000.

Um workers' comp is our first step fund, and that is on page 395.

Um I have Miss Dominique Anderson here to answer any questions if you have on the individual funds.

Good afternoon.

Um, Mayor and Commissioners Dominique Anderson, General Manager of Human Resources, currently acting HR director.

Um I also have with me my colleague Kayla Stewart.

She's a benefits coordinator.

Um so if I may, I could just give you a brief overview on each one of the funds as we go through, and then if you have any questions, feel free to stop me.

Um so the first one on page 395 is the workers' comp fund.

The city self-insured for the workers' compensation claims on a per occurrence basis, up to 500,000 for employees and police officers.

Um, also a portion of this fund is billed to our employee health center, so a third of this gets charged to the clinic.

So our um any time an employee is injured, their first injury is or uh report of notice is to the clinic.

So that uh essentially reduces costs because they go straight to the clinic unless it's obviously something major that they need to go to the hospital for.

Um, but that is our workers' comp fund.

Um questions.

I'll move to page 397, which is fleet and liability fund.

So this the city is also self-insured for general liability and fleet claims.

Um this is per Florida statute.

Um limit damage uh awards against state and local governments to 200,000 per claim and up to 300,000 per occurrence.

So again, this is uh fleet and liability.

Okay, moving along to page 399 is the law enforcement death benefit fund.

This is also a Florida statute.

So in the event um, God forbid an officer passes away in the line of duty.

We are um uh self-insured for a payment benefit of 225,000.

Um, and we do have that um in this fund.

Hopefully, we never have to use that.

Okay, moving along to page 401 is our medical and dental fund.

Um the city, as you may know, is self-insured for medical uh dental and prescription expenses for employees as well as retirees, but we'll talk about retirees later.

Um, also a portion of the clinic gets charged to the medical and dental fund as well.

So a third of that.

Um as we know, claims continue to increase, so the claims we incur the claims, but we do have a stop loss of 250,000 on each individual that is on the plan.

So the city incurs the claims up to 250,000, and then anything above that our stop loss insurance will kick in.

Um, and just to give you an average, we have about 800 or uh employees that are enrolled on the medical plan.

Okay, moving along to um page 404 is the police liability fund.

This is uh self-insurance for claims against police officers while they're at work.

Um, while working, um the city pays the first 50,000.

Uh again, this is the police liability fund.

So um cities and and we pay the claims up to 50,000, and um anything more than that, the um insurance would kick in for that.

So I think that's all I have for now.

Um and I don't know if this question is to you or Ms.

Strickland.

Um, has there been an assessment recently as to whether uh we might be better off in some instance not self-insuring but um getting uh commercial insurance policy for any of those items?

We I can answer that if that's okay.

Um we have looked into that potentially there might be a small amount of savings just for a limited amount of time.

So we continue to review that each year.

Our risk manager continues to review that, but at this time we don't believe it we would uh move forward with that.

And and then also with the uh medical dental with our new claims experience are how we making up the difference there.

Unfortunately, our claims continue to increase over time, just like everything else.

Um we do have a large amount of retirees that are also on our blue cross plan, so that gets mixed into our experience.

So we would not be um it would not be recommended to go uh fully insured at all because then you would have the vendor telling us what our premiums would be, and that would not be something I'd recommend at this time.

Okay, thank you.

I can tell you that for the city contribution and the group medical and dental, we did increase the city's portion by four percent.

Um we didn't increase the employees contribution at all, but it the balances are are very low, so it may be something in the future we have to consider.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

If we're contemplating increasing the employee contribution, a smidge.

But yeah, thank you.

Any other questions?

Then thank you very much.

And I guess we can move on.

Can I make a next stage?

I just want to thank Dominique.

I know she's doing interim, and she's done a really good job, and I think you guys really need to be appreciative of the good job that she's done.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sure.

Okay.

So I have the next one as well when we get into the OPEP section.

So we're gonna the next our trust funds.

We have two.

We have the other post-employment benefit trust fund, and we have the GE defined contribution trust fund.

We'll start with the other post-employment benefits, which we call an acronym of OPEB.

This can be found on page 411.

This fund is used to report the resources that are required to be held in trust for retirees and beneficiaries to fund the cost of other post-employment benefits such as health insurance.

We have a beginning fund balance of $55.4 million.

We have anticipated revenues of 4.3 and expenditures of 9.4.

The ending fund balance is 50 point 50 million point three.

I want to just uh tell you that part a big proportion of the revenues for this fund are the interest income.

We don't really know how the interest is gonna come in the future year, so we don't we don't put that in the budget.

Um hopefully it'll be much more than what we expect, but um that is that is a big portion of the revenues.

I could just add a little bit about this um OPEP trust fund.

Um we have emplo uh retirees that are um on several different plans.

So we have about 266 currently enrolled on the blue cross plan, meaning that the city incurs their claims.

We also offer the pre-93 uh retirees, so those are retirees that started with the city prior to 1993.

They are offered um a few different kind of perks, if you will.

So they get uh discounted rates as well as they're offered a Medicare Advantage plan.

It's a united health care Medicare Advantage plan that the city pays the monthly premium for those individuals.

That's a fully insured plan.

So if they're willing to consider going to that plan, um it's a United Healthcare plan.

Um the city will not incur their claims.

We would just pay their monthly premium.

So we started that.

I want to say in 2019 or 2020, we started off with three or four um uh retirees, and over time word has spread amongst the retirees, and I would say we have 218 um retirees that are on that fully insured plan, which is a very rich plan.

This is not one of the plans you can get like while watching TV and you know, as they're trying to sell you those um Medicare Advantage plans.

It's a very rich plan with all zero dollar co-pays for um everything medical related.

So as the retirees age in to the retiree uh as they age in 65, you have to be on we will allow them to either switch to that plan or they can remain on the blue cross plan.

But when they kind of review it, you know, we let them make the choice, whatever works best for them.

They could switch to that united health care plan um at any time throughout the year, and then we allow them a one-time right to return back to the blue cross plan if they are not satisfied during open enrollment.

Um I will say I think over in the last few years we've had maybe two or three switch back, and that was just in regards to payment.

Um we also allow them to switch to the plan even if their spouse is not yet 65.

The spouse can remain on the blue cross plan at a discounted rate.

So we are trying to come up with all different ways to support the retirees.

Um, as well, another option that the pre-93s have is to go out and get their own stipend plan.

So if they would like to go to ABC insurance company, enroll in whatever they'd like, we will um do a reimbursement for them up to the amount that we pay for the fully insured premium.

So they have many different opportunities.

So I want to thank my benefits team.

They do a really good job as the retirees call in when they're 65 and say, what do I do now?

So we inform them of all that information, and and they can make whatever choice they like.

But I think over the years um the team has done a really good job to let them know, and then as they merge on to the United Healthcare plan, um the claims uh will start to decrease in the blue cross self self-insured plan.

So just wanted to add that, and then a portion of this also goes towards the clinic as well, since our retirees, as long as they're on blue cross, um, can continue to use the um clinic.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um anything?

Okay, so we can move on.

Okay.

The last fund that we have, the last trust fund is our 401A defined contribution plan, and the budget that you see here is simply just administrative costs for the plan.

And I believe that that is the end of the individual fund presentations, other than those that are associated with the CIP.

So we are at a point we could either continue into the CIP or take a break.

Okay.

Well, it is what what is the sense of the commission?

It is uh 1140.

We just got back from a 10-minute break.

Do we want to start with CIP before and maybe spend what uh half an hour on CIP before we break for lunch?

Okay.

Is that five?

Okay.

Oh just to meet your shape.

Pardon?

Check with Commissioner Albert, Mr.

She's oh, Commissioner Alpert, are you prepared?

I'm okay with it.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Yeah, continue to pipe up whenever you want to add your comments.

Okay, we're at the portion.

Everyone's been looking forward to our five-year CIP program.

I will remind you that the work the spreadsheets that you see before you, the we're only adopting one year.

It is a five-year plan.

Um, and with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Nick Patel, and he and I are gonna tag King throughout this presentation.

Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Senator Commissioners.

Um the proposed five-year capital improvement program excluding water and sewer total approximately 278 million.

The proposed capital program for the upcoming fiscal year is approximately 106 million uh sorry, 104 million.

And um the CIP balance um the intent of the CIP was to balance the immediate hurricane recovery uh needs with a continued investment in resiliency, transportation, public safety, city facilities, parks, and neighborhood infrastructure.

Staff also prioritize grants and other outside funding to reduce reliance on the general fund.

So um so I want to kind of cover some of the critical projects.

I'm not uh, you know, at the end we'll have a chance for the directors or the project managers to answer specific CIP questions, but I'm gonna cover the high uh level um five-of-year you know, categories, the specific categories and the projects associated with it.

So with that, um the first one is the environmental preservation and sustainability, which is approximately 56.8 million.

That's the biggest pro um CIP portion of the categories.

And the focus is really the Hurricane Helene and Milton infrastructure repair projects.

Those are the parks as well as the um coastal roadway projects that we're repairing right now with the FEMA projects, those are priorities.

The other aspect of it is the shoreline stabilization, seawall improvement and stormwater projects, um, and then the three other projects which we're coordinating and working with the count Sarasota County on is the Whitaker Bayou uh dredgin and restoration project, Hudson Bayou Restoration Project, and St.

Armand's Key Resiliency Project.

And just to kind of talk about some of the you know, funding that we've got for Whitaker Bayou Dredgen is approximately 22.5 million.

Uh Hudson Bayou restoration is about 13.7 million, and St.

Armand's uh resiliency project, the stormwater infrastructure is about 14.8 million.

So those are some of the categories under the environmental preservation.

Um and then the residential neighborhood is approximately 4.1 million, and um this includes street resurfacing and bridge rehabilitation, sidewalk and ADA improvements, traffic calming and neighborhood safety, um, traffic signals, pedestrian improvements, and new town sidewalk lighting and landscaping project.

These are all under the categories for residential and neighborhood, uh, which is approximately 4.1 million.

Then we get into growth and development, which is roughly about 19.5 million, and some of the projects included in there is US 41 at 47th Street pedestrian improvement.

There's going to be a pedestrian hybrid beacon that we're working with the Florida Department of Transportation on.

And then I believe Vern talked about how we're coordinating together.

That's a local agency program with the Florida Department of Transportation.

And then we also have one of our bigger projects with 10th and 10th Street and Boulevard's Arts Complete Streets.

As Wern talked about, they're going to do initial utility work.

And currently also there's some undergrounding going on with the power lines with FPL.

And then we're currently working on a grant with USDOT for that $12 million, which is going to be a $15 million CIP project with USDOT and FDOT on that agreement.

And then also wanted to focus in on the expansion of the multimodal trails and main street complete streets as part of this growth and development aspect of it.

The next piece I want to kind of cover is the operation and administration, which is about $4.6 million.

So public safety with the police department replacement is approximately $2 million.

And then solid waste vehicles is approximately $2.6 million for that.

These investments are reliable frontline services and replace the vehicles and equipment that have reached the end of useful life.

Then the next category is city owned facilities, $17.1 million roughly.

And that includes mix of funds with parking garage restoration and elevator replacement.

McCowan Towers parking garage.

ADA barrier removal, which we also received a state appropriation recently for that.

That's as part of that project.

And then the Van Wazel repair and resiliency improvement, which is roughly over right now, it's anticipated about over $8.75 million for for those between grants and resiliency efforts.

And then continue funding for sort of performing arts center.

We'll kind of I'll cover that at the end at the end.

The next piece is the parks and recreational piece, which is approximately $4.2 million.

Parks and recs facility upgrades are approximately $1.6 million.

The Bay Park improvement is approximately $1.2 million, and Bobby Jones Clubhouse approximately $1.4 million.

I wanted to address something that's real critical is that the urgent hurricane related infrastructure damage, approximately $2.2 million in Penny 4 funding.

Previously programmed for Sarasota Performing Arts Center is being used for hurricane mitigation in the near term.

I do want to make something clear so that the Commission is aware is the performing arts center funding.

We're not taking money away from that.

We're just shifting it for future years.

So next year you'll see the funding associated as part of that.

So I want to be clear, we're not eliminating funding, we're just shifting it forward at this point.

But the project is on pause at this point, so just want to kind of bring that up.

And then one thing I wanted to also bring to the attention is there's a correction that needs to be made is specifically on the parking presentation, which was already discussed.

Palm Avenue parking garage elevator replacement is programmed for fiscal year 27.

State Street Park and Garage Elevator Replacement is programmed for fiscal year 28.

The monies don't change, we're just shifting the funding realignment based on the discussions already had.

And each project is approximately 800,000, roughly for the elevators side of it.

Again, the correction doesn't change the overall funding amount, it only corrects the fiscal year limit timing shown on the CIP.

With that, um I wanted to kind of just um turn it over to Ms.

Strickland to cover the next piece of the CIP and at the end of the meeting.

Once we conclude the CIP, certainly there's department directors as well as project managers to answer any project specific questions.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Ms.

Strickland.

Thank you.

So I want to direct your attention.

The purple tab, which is the CIP section.

If you will turn in a few pages, it's labeled as CIP in your workbook.

I'm sorry, you were talking about these pages.

No, this page.

It was it was before that.

Okay.

Summary of Dash 9.

Yes, ma'am.

So this is a good summary of what Nick just talked about.

Um the first half is by project type, and these are the the categories that Nick just went through, and you can see in the fiscal year 2627 column are the amounts that he mentioned.

Um we are asking you to adopt uh that one year of 104 million four hundred and five thousand for the CIP, and it's each of these categories.

We take that same information and we bring it down, and you can see by funding source of that 104 million, where are those funds coming from?

And specifically, Penny 4 has 12.762 um budgeted for it.

Grants, we're expecting to get 77.6 million.

Um tourist development tax, we're expecting to spend nine nine hundred and seventeen thousand and and on.

But I think that this is a good summary for you of what these big spreadsheets do.

And you can also see the last column.

What is our five-year total that we're planning for future years?

If you turn the page, there's a five-year plan for the penny sales tax, and if you'll recall when we were working when we were going through special revenue funds, we skipped a few, and I wanted to talk about that specifically.

They're related to the CIP, they are the funding for source for the CIP.

So I thought this discussion was a better place for them.

The penny four, you know, is a 15-year tax.

We are in year two of it.

It started on 1125.

Um, and this is the five-year plan as it's been approved so far by the voters.

Um many of you are are veterans and you recall that we come normally once a year, potentially we could come more, but once a year in September with changes that we have to that voter approved list, and we do a public hearing so that people can speak and and let you know what their opinion about it is.

Um of the things that Nick was referring to when he talked about the Service Later Performing Arts Center funding is um backing up the funding into a uh further year, not taking it away, but just backing it up because we don't need it now to use those funds for um the hurricane.

And um anyway, you can see all of the projects that have been approved for Penny 4 here, and as the years go by, if there are any changes, we do have we are required to do a public hearing for that.

On the next page is the uh five cent local option fuel tax.

This is a special revenue fund.

It is restricted for transportation projects that are infrastructure only.

Um then the first year, the fiscal year 27 is what we are proposing in this budget.

After that, we have the multimodal transportation impact fee fund.

Um again, it's a special revenue fund.

We have specific projects that are um budgeted to use these funds.

Um the ending fund balance that we expect at the end of fiscal year 27 is uh one million six hundred and seventy-nine thousand.

And that is it for those specific another fund that um we have is the uh tourist development tax, and um that is we we use the funds, we ask the county for reimbursement, and they send us the amount for the reimbursement.

We're and to we're expecting to spend um about nine hundred thousand dollars in tourist development tax.

So I'll turn it back over to Nick for discussion at the CIP spreadsheets.

There's no question about the funding sources.

Commissioner the Vice Mayor has a question.

Um well I don't know if it's my questions are about funding sources, but the related to the memo dated July 2nd that has the broad categories.

And I'd like to ask those questions now before we get into uh the weeds.

First of all, I want to thank you and Corinne and Alvie Marie for spending hours with me going over this.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um so on the CIP page two on that memo, you addressed projects removed due to completion or consolidation.

Do you see that?

Is it the same page?

It seems like it's different.

Okay.

Um, okay, thank you.

Um which have been completed and which have been consolidated on that list.

So um St.

Armand Circle has been shifted to the resiliency project.

Um that was the added new project.

The Alley beautification.

Um we shifted those funds to the same uh main street complete streets because it was part of that bigger visioning.

And then um ex building roof the annex building roof replacement with uh walkout uh we evaluated that and we no longer see the need for that.

Removed it.

We removed it as well.

Um the health center roof replacement that has been completed.

Landscaping and streetscape improvement, we've kind of um shifted those funds into the tree tree fund canopy aspect of it, um, and then the Arlington Park and Aquatic uh Complex ADA doors um in coordination with the director of parks uh we we that was removed as well.

Removed, okay, thank you.

Oh, one more question.

At the bottom of this page in the residence and neighborhood section.

Yes.

All of them, all of those projects seem to be categories of projects except the Shade Avenue Complete Street.

And that just popped out at me as being the only one that is a singular project.

Why?

I'll have Ms.

Corralis um join us to expand on that.

Checking if it's still morning.

Good morning, Alfie Mary Crowdis, Capital Projects Manager.

So the reason Shade Avenue Complete Street is showing up under residence and neighborhood.

Originally, when the penny four went through, there was a program that was specific for streetscapes, and Shade Avenue was one of them that got pulled out of that program.

There are other projects that are eligible, it's just um that's where they fit in the category.

Okay, thank you.

And then my final question also on that page CIP three.

The category growth and development.

Um I don't know if I'd call that a misnomer, but is there any other title we could give that, like streets and roads, or is there a reason that's called growth and development?

We usually look to planning and development services for growth and development, and when I look at the items on this in this category, they all have have to do with streets and roads and trails.

I have some history on that.

Um years ago, the categories in the CIP were were moved to these, and it was to match up whatever the strategic plan was at that time.

Well, I'm a single commissioner.

And if we could change it somewhere along the way, I would like to change it.

But I'm just one person.

Well, uh I would excuse me, comment on that.

Good thinking.

Um that memo.

Thank you.

Commissioner A.

Heron Kotch.

Um, I'm and I'm not going to interrupt you and prevent you from speaking, but I'm just wondering if we want to do the overview questions now and wait until after lunch to do the detail questions on CIP.

I I'm okay to stop right here because I have two copies of this memo, and when you, Mr.

Patel said that at the very end about a hundred and sixteen uh one million six hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars, or maybe this is Miss Strickland, one of the two of you.

Uh my the one I was looking at had one fifty-nine, and then I realized that I have been looking at the wrong version of the memo.

So I don't know what's different between the two that I have, but that is different, and so I would like the opportunity to go through and compare those.

What what date do you have on?

They both say July second on them.

And so that's the one in the book is going to be the most current.

Okay.

So I don't know which one, but I do know that at least one number was wrong, which would we like it it is actually twelve o'clock now.

Would we like to break for lunch now?

And um I'm even wondering if we say one thirty to give Commissioner Aher and Koch time to reconcile numbers.

Or or one fifteen.

So we will break for lunch until one thirty.

Welcome back.

The uh July twenty eighth, second day of budget workshop is back in session.

I hope everybody had a good lunch and time to silence your phones.

Um we were had started the capital improvement program, and uh, I guess maybe we're ready for detailed discussion.

That sounds good.

I want to make some clarifications before we start moving forward.

One is the State Street garage is scheduled to be replaced, the elevators replaced first in fiscal year twenty-seven.

And then in fiscal year twenty-eight, the palm garage elevators will be replaced.

The final document that you have has that opposite, but I will the final document will be switched.

So State Street Garage elevators are replaced first in fiscal year twenty-seven.

And then Palm will be replaced in fiscal year twenty eight.

Okay, and then at the end of our earlier meeting, um, Commissioner Aaron Koch preferred to excuse me, um, the CIP that we initially um distributed, and then we did a revision of it, and I want to just talk about those changes.

Okay.

Um let me get my version.

When you say the CIA.

So the version you're looking at now is the most recent and that the way it is.

The big fold out pages.

So project number 39, multimodal transportation impact fees.

Project is U.S.

41 and 47th Street.

Hold on one second.

Let me get to it.

39, got it.

Okay.

Okay.

There was 100,000 that was programmed originally in fiscal year 27, and that was pushed out to fiscal year 28.

Okay, so that means to be made under the change right there.

So it appears 2728.

Yes, it is in it's in the fiscal year 28.

So that's a new a new project.

And it's new on the list, but it's not being funded until two years.

Right?

That is correct.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, the next one is number 79.

Okay, this is the state street parking garage.

Now everyone sees that in funded in fiscal year 27.

Wait, would you clarify when you say fiscal year 27?

Is that um at the top of the page there's a column?

Yeah, and it's in mine it says 2728.

Okay.

So that's what I'm trying to clarify.

Yes, in the old one, that Commissioner Ahan Koch, it was in 27, and we pushed it out to 28.

So it's 2728?

Yes.

Okay.

Because you're using fiscal year, and that's not what's on my page.

Okay.

Mine has 2728 on it.

No, it's wrong.

So are we moving it or from the page?

I mean.

So which column should it be on the it should be in fiscal year or 2027-28.

There should be 760,000 there.

Yes.

Okay.

In 2026-27, there should be zero dollars.

Right.

Okay.

I I have a clarification though, because we just said we were doing state next year.

We did.

And that's another that's a separate.

Okay.

That's a separate thing.

Okay.

Okay.

But the funding, I want to make sure the funding is right.

So we only funded one garage each year.

One is in 27 and one is in 28.

And it is my understanding that the state street garage will be replaced in 27, and the palm garage will be placed in 28.

And when you say that.

No.

So what do you mean?

One will be done in fiscal year 26-27.

And one will be done in fiscal year 2027-28.

Okay, thank you.

And the one we're talking about now, a state street parking garage elevator, is 2728.

No.

Mr.

Paper it is, but it really is going to be done in 27.

But maybe we should move the numbers.

All right.

I think we need to okay.

Let's just backtrack here.

Next year's budget, which is what we're we're discussing right now, which is the first year of the CIP budget, right?

Which garage is getting the elevators replaced?

Next year.

Yeah, the state should be correct.

Okay.

So that means in this 760,000 should be in the 26-27 column.

Yes.

That's correct.

Thank you.

And right now it's showing it's in the 27-28 column.

Right.

And I'm assuming if we find the palm one, it'll be flip-flop the opposite direction, right?

That's 77.

Okay.

Go to 77 and do the same thing.

Flip-flop it.

Flip-flop it.

Thank you, Carrie.

All right.

And I'm just going to ask does that mean that the need is greater in the state street garage than in Hamas?

That is correct, yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, I still have two more to go.

Project 82.

Van Wazel facility repairs and upgrades.

In the 2026-27 column.

Commissioner Aaron Cotch, your old copy said 37.

The updated amount is 728.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Then project 83.

Okay.

This is a mitigation grant that we thought was going to require a match of 1.5 million.

And we don't need that 1.5 million match.

That's in the 2026-27.

Commissioner Ahancoch, the old copy has 1.5 million there.

The new copy does not.

Okay.

Okay.

Why don't we mean it need a match?

It's just not a requirement.

So we're going to be using the state appropriation as match money as part of that.

Okay.

Could I ask that?

Yeah, I mean from since it's federally funded grant.

Okay.

They it doesn't matter whether it's state or local.

Oh, okay.

I didn't know you could do that.

Learn something new every day.

Yeah, go ahead.

So regarding number 83.

Um you said what number should not be in that column.

What number should be in the 2627 column?

The only thing you should see is 3.5 million for state grant.

Okay, thank you.

And any thing in 2728 for that same project.

There's um a three three million seven hundred and fifty thousand.

Okay, great.

Okay.

So that should catches up with the differences, Commissioner.

You had from the first copy to the next copy.

Now we should continue.

So did you want to present anything or are you ready for questions?

Oh, we're ready for questions.

Okay.

I'm waiting to see who's gonna raise their hands.

I think I had a few questions.

Are you ready?

Yes, I'm ready.

Um the uh sheet, the letter, the 8.5 by 11 letter.

Um under the projects that were removed due to completion or cons uh consolidation.

Um I had heard you say that the Arlington Park and Aquatic Complex ADA doors were removed.

Um I was curious if that was put into another project or um I'll uh Parks and Rex is over is here, they could answer that question.

For the Arlington, just to confirm the Arlington.

It says Arlington Park and Aquatic Complex 88 doors.

This was this was yeah, we removed that.

You you um when the vice mayor asked about it, you said it was removed.

Jerry Fogel Parks and Recreation.

That is being funded, uh believe we still have funding from uh ADA uh funding from Jake uh has a fund to do that.

So it's still being done.

But it's not it's not its own CIP, I guess like a line item.

So we're we're we're incorporating as part of the ADA.

Yes, it's in his overall master plan project where he's we got a grant for that he's ticking away at some of those items.

Correct.

That's correct.

That's one of the items.

Oh, okay.

So I'm curious how much that is if it's not a CIP.

I mean, is it less than what I think?

It was like 70,000 or something.

So that's not a it was it was not a big cost.

It was okay, so that's gonna be done though.

Correct, absolutely.

Um and then I was curious about the um cinema circle.

Landscape, landscape and streetscape improvements you said was shifted to the tree fund?

Yes, if you'll recall in the tree replacement fund, we were able to fund 200,000 for this project.

So it we we got to move it, I think it was previously a penny expense, so we shifted it to um tree replacement.

And and how is how is uh streetscape improvement related to trees?

So those um like for example um 10th and Boulevard to Arts uh complete streets, would do the project, but those funds specifically will be will be funding um canopy trees and those aspects of it on the street.

Okay, so it's not a streetscape like milling and it's more like it's gonna be planting specifically for it's gonna be used based on the Okay, okay.

That was that question.

And then I had a question on global question.

Uh when I look at your capital improvements plan and I have the little pie chart there, I do see that Parks and Rec is relatively small piece of it.

Um on the copy I have it's four point four percent.

And and just keep in mind that's one year.

Okay.

So then globally do we know what it is over the the five years?

We do.

Okay, that would be a good that would be a a better indication of so if you take a look at CIP-9.

Do you see the parks in RAC and over five years we've got 18,900,000?

CIP 9.

Parks and rec up up at the top.

Yep.

So do we know the percentage?

Not off the top.

We can he's doing it.

Less than 10 percent.

Um also wanted to state that um part of the um environmental preservation and sustainability category, we are repairing a lot of parks right now based on the damage.

So we're spending about roughly 22 million in that pot to to repair some of that park infrastructure.

I guess to the Vice Mayor's point, some of these categories are a little maybe not accurate.

Acknowledging you didn't invent them.

Just saying maybe this is something we should think about.

Certainly um, you know, once the commission does strategic plan, we can look at that.

Yeah.

It could be better.

Categories.

Those were my global.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh Vice Mayor.

So I'd like us to go page by page, item by item, not necessarily have questions on every item, but it seems to me that that would be a very organized way to go through things.

Yep.

And you know how we like to be organized.

Sure.

So my first question is on number three.

Well, wait, does anybody have anything on one or two?

I do.

I would check with Commissioner Alpha.

Oh, yeah.

Also, Commissioner Alpert.

But you Commissioner Alpert, do you have anything on one or two?

No, I do not, thank you.

Um, so for me on one and two.

Okay, so for one uh and two, um, timelines on those, not now, not from you, but just in general from the city manager.

Um we receive requests all the time about these projects.

When are they going to be completed?

This part, that part, this one, that one.

If we could now that we are talking about the funding, we have things in place, we've got FEMA rolling.

You know, we can get an idea of when these are going to be completed so we can respond.

Yeah, I mean, I can I can give you a high level overview.

Um just right now we're waiting on FEMA to approve some of these projects.

Um we anticipate uh, and this is just a rough time frame to start these projects fall of this year to early 2028 and anticipation of completion roughly about end of 2028.

Ugh.

Um and again, this is all driven by FEMA, and uh we're waiting on approval and we're not starting any of these projects until they give us a green light.

Okay, and do if we have an indication of which what that timeline looks like for the specific ones, um Yeah, they're all in the same bucket because as the um federal government partial shutdown, it all opened up at the same time and all of West Coast open up at the same time.

I mean East Coast, sorry.

So um, you know, right now we've um our emergency manager submitted all the projects in the system to FEMA, and it's right now in the FEMA's queue to approve some of these projects.

And right now, based on discussion and approval process, we anticipate late, like I said, fall of this year, late fall of 2026 to late 2026 to start construction to, you know, potentially some of them at early uh 2027.

And with the project completion of some of these projects late 2027.

Okay.

I'm just thinking this might be something for a new dashboard on the website, all of the capital improvement projects as we know when they are anticipated to start and end that it might be posted for everybody's information.

Okay.

Um you have finished with one and two, or do you have more?

I have more.

Um and also the same thing for the Hearts Landing as well.

So Hart's landing right now, um certainly the you know, if Mr.

Fogel has anything else he wants to add, he can he can stop.

But we are doing design right, they're doing design right now, and they anticipate uh completing design late next year.

And the reason just because it's state-owned land, there's a lot of coordination and that aspects of it, and also the location of the new um you know the the Hearts Landing more resilient for future storm damages.

So we're working through some of that, and we have already started uh design and we anticipate completing it late next year, including coordination with the FDEP and those aspects of it.

Okay, just a timeline on that.

But I think people realize that that one's a bit more complicated.

The completion of project, I mean I would anticipate five years, you know.

Um and the reasons just because a lot of permitting, a lot of FEMA um coordination with um mitigation efforts.

So we're looking at the five years to complete the project.

And do we have an idea of funding?

It says undetermined, but we're gonna have to evaluate that next year.

Until and the reasons because right now, as design is coming online, we'll have a better cost estimate.

And once we have a better cost estimate, we can determine actual funding needed for that.

Okay.

And but the state will fund it, you think?

This is not at this point, this is not funded by the state.

Certainly, you know, we can look at grants if there's any grants available for that.

But at this point, there's not any grant funding for that at this point.

Okay.

And then my last question is on all of them, there's the um uh impacts to operating uh uh costs to the city, and it's at the last line of every single one of these.

What is the threshold?

What is the thing that kicks that into a yes or a no?

So some of these projects they're hard to estimate at this point.

Um as we get closer to design and we get closer to construction, we'll have a better costs associated with operating cost.

And so you can see some of the comments.

You know, it's hard for us to actual put an extra dollar amount at this point, as but once we get the design completed and we're getting ready to construction, we'll have a better idea on the operating cost.

Okay.

Okay.

And then the on number one, it's uh it has the reallocate and it has all these amounts.

It's about $4,600,000.

Can you just clarify that piece when it says reallocate, what exactly you mean by that?

I can talk about that.

So they were initially programmed for another project, or in one case, it was in the fund balance.

And you know, for penny dollars specifically, in order to change, you have to do a public hearing.

So these changes won't be official until we do a public hearing that makes these changes.

Okay.

But the reappropriation column that you see, the very first column, and the word reallocate, that means it's money that's already slated for a specific project.

And we're we're just moving it from that project to this one.

Right.

Okay.

And that's reflected in that other column in the reappropriations.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

If there's any other questions on one or two, Vice Mayor wanted to talk about three.

Yep.

Um.

So this is um seawall replacement and upgrades.

Um to me, it looks like it will begin in the upcoming fiscal year and proceed for a number of years.

Am I reading that correctly?

That is correct.

Okay.

And it also says at the bottom of that box, the completion of this project will increase the city's annual operating costs by $200,000.

Is that annually?

This is for the lifespan of the project.

And so let me explain the project that we're currently underway at this point is the Bayfront Park, where we're raising the seawall.

Once we implement those infrastructure costs, we anticipate maintenance cost over, I would say about uh 10 years roughly, about 200,000.

For that one section of the seawall?

It's going to be the entire section where Marina Jacks is that that entire entire park piece.

And where does 200,000 come from?

That it's an operating cost, so it would come out of their operating budget, like uh parks and record streets and highways, whoever is doing the maintenance to the seawalls.

Okay.

I have no more questions on number three or four.

Okay.

It includes payroll.

I'm sorry?

It would include personnel costs too.

So it's not just just your operating supplies or cleaners, it's it's people doing the work.

Right.

I gotcha.

Okay.

Commissioner Aher and Kutch.

Yeah, I was curious on that same item, the second paragraph, it says that the city was awarded uh WCIND grant and an FDEP grant.

Where is that reflected here?

If it's already um if we've already received it, is it's in the budget now.

These will be new dollars.

Okay, so it's not reflected in our overall note.

I think it's just a note to tell us about what else this.

Okay.

Um and then for the no, that's it.

That's that's okay.

Okay.

So can we turn the page to five and six?

I have a question on five.

I have a question on four.

Okay, so that's court for Commissioner Albert.

Yeah, that there doesn't seem to be any funding at all at any point for this.

So are we not doing anything, or we're just doing it with the grant that's talking about?

So just what's the status of that?

Okay, so right now it's in the queue with the FEMA projects.

We already put it out to bid for the contractor, and they're going to be doing both the hurricane repairs as well as this Ken Thompson Shoreline Stabilization Project, which is a grant that we received from Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

We anticipate this one of the projects, this the Ken Thompson as well as the hurricane Ken Thompson project to start later this year.

That's our plan.

I'm that's what the 375,000 and our our match for that.

I just didn't see um any money in the budget for it.

I'd like to make a note that when you look at the fiscal year twenty twenty-six-27 column.

If if there's a grant that we have applied for, when we initially start the CIP process, we'll see in their pending grant.

And then when it comes to this point, it has to be either we've been awarded the grant or we push it out to another year.

So you won't see pending grants or potential grants in the fiscal year 27 column.

Um this particular grant.

But then it's and we've already matched it, so we wouldn't include that.

If it we've already received it, it's in it's in the current budget.

Okay.

Okay.

Five and six.

Uh regarding number five, about in the middle of the narrative, it says the city has applied for National Fish and Wildlife Foundation funding.

Have we heard about that yet?

I mean, since you wrote this on paper, have we received notice of receiving the grant?

I don't believe so, but um I don't know if the sustainability manager is here, but I don't believe we've received any word yet.

I know we submitted it, but I don't believe we have received uh whether we will be awarded that grant or not.

Yet as I read the table, um I see that we're gonna begin work on that project this year.

And if we get grant funding that will be incorporated into We'll bring a budget amendment to you at that time, the grant.

If you take a look, it says potential national fish and wildlife, and it's in fiscal year 2027-28?

Yes.

Because it's potential.

We haven't been awarded it yet, so we would put it in the first column.

But the 400 from the Sarasota Bay Estuary program allows us to begin with the funding they've given us.

Yes, so my understanding is that some of this money is used as match money for that 500,000.

So we really I believe the SHR program will hold until we hear back.

Because if we don't end up getting it, yes, they could proceed with the 400,000 to do the project and reduce the scope.

But if they don't, if they do receive the funding, then that is match money and it may get pushed out.

Okay, thank you.

Other questions on five?

Uh no, six.

Six.

Yes.

Okay.

Um at the top it says that um funding will support capital and extraordinary maintenance projects addressing level of service concerns not covered by the interlocal agreement with Sarasota County.

Um what is not covered by the interlocal agreement with Sarasota County?

So there's that may be a question for somebody else, I don't know.

Yes, so I mean um there may be items, for example, if we have to um do public easements, you know, for for pipes that are that are going through private private properties and and we have to upsize those pipes.

Those are the kind of things that we would do with this.

Um it's um just specifically to those projects that that are related in here is the resilient SRQ round one funds that we received, which is gonna be the stormwater improvement uh we received, I believe, um, you know 1.2 million from the county, and um we are contributing 400,000 of that to design the project.

So that's where this is used for some of the match money as well as some of the odds and ends that are not covered through the interlocal agreement that we would use that funds for.

Okay.

I shouldn't know what was not included in the article agreement.

Okay, any other questions on six?

I would say it's mostly capital, because right now that they're they're focusing strictly on maintenance.

So if there's any capital that needs to be done, that that's where some of this match money will be used for that.

Interesting.

Okay.

Questions on seven?

Yes.

Yeah.

Um okay.

It's also okay, it's the Whitaker um Bayou restoration and dredging.

Um it says that it's going to um uh reduce flooding and increase capacity.

Um do we know a percentage on the capacity increase with the dredging?

We're working currently with the county and the Army Corps to pin down the scope.

Once we have a scope together, we will be able to provide that.

But at this point, um we're we're working with the county and the Army Corps and us to to figure those specifics out.

Okay.

I think that would be an interesting number to have.

Um you have anything on eight to continue.

Okay, well, and also the timeline on the Whitaker Bayou one.

Yeah, so all these projects right now we're saying 2031 to 2035 to implement.

So that is the sunset period for where resilient SRQ funds need to be utilized at this point.

That's what we completed by 2031.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Um and then 17.

Uh Hudson Bayou.

It talks about uh erosion and stability, but are weren't we getting Hudson Bayou dredged as well?

Yes, it's gonna cover both.

Okay, because it says dredging, but it didn't explain dredging in the narrative, and I just didn't know if that was being left out or being postponed or so it's gonna be both the restoration of the um you know of of the eroding slopes uh uh on some of the canals as well as the dredge in for Hudson Bayou.

Okay.

So it covers both.

Yeah, it just didn't say that in the in the narrative there, and I suppose.

We can add that in there.

And if we could get a capacity estimate on that as well, I think that's important information.

Uh an increased capacity with the dredging.

So the county is taking the lead right now.

They they just uh I believe they procured uh a consultant on board and they that would be part of the evaluation.

So unfortunately I won't be able to get you that inform that information in the in the uh description, but we can certainly provide that for the next CIP update next year.

Okay.

Uh any other on eight?

Nine?

Nine.

Okay.

Um this one here, you know we've heard a lot of input from the St.

Armand's residents about their vulnerability, and they think they had a little bit of angst with the I see that this is all for the 2627.

Uh there's there's funding in there.

Um expedite this permitting uh starting of the project, anything we can do to expedite this, I uh you know, anything we can do.

So the county is taking the lead on this, and right now they're saying sunset of getting the funding used by 2031.

Sternally, we can have discussions with the county on that, but right now the we're given the timeline of 2031.

Maybe we can put that on our agenda item to talk with when we talk with the county.

Yeah, we're I've been working with Jonathan Lewis on those agenda items.

I was going to report that next um at our next um commission meeting.

Okay.

This is one of the topics on the stormwater.

Thank you.

Anything else on nine?

Ten?

I have a question.

Oh, sure.

Commissioner Albert.

Okay.

Um reading through the narrative on nine, this is under a heading of St.

Armand's Key Resiliency and Corridor Improvements, but it didn't appear as if any of these improvements being done are resiliency.

Um the second paragraph.

Is there something more?

So there's two aspects of it.

One is the project with Sarasota County, which is the Stan St.

Armand's resiliency, that's going to focus on stormwater primarily.

And then we did receive a state appropriation of 1.25 million.

And at this point, we're working through an agreement with DOT, but DOT may be managing that project.

Again, we're still having discussions on that.

So the focus for the state DOT grant is going to be focusing on resiliency as well.

So that's something we're still trying to work out with the DOT to determine what that scope is going to be.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Anything on 10.

Okay.

11.

12?

13?

13.

Commissioner Heroncoch.

Um the undergrounding of the power lines, I just wanted to um emphasize how important this one is.

So that's it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh any more on 13?

14?

14.

Um, the neighborhood lighting improvement projects, just to confirm the residents in this district pay for the cost of this lighting.

So right now it's a share.

We're paying the upfront cost um, you know, for South Pontietta Park uh neighborhood for like the initial study of it with FPL.

And then later on, it will be up to the Commission as to determining how much of a cost share there's going to be a lot of the.

Oh, I thought that had already been determined.

We're we're still moved we still have to do an evaluation of what the assessment district is going to cover and the costs associated with it, and also follow up with the neighborhood once we have the study from FPL.

Once we have that information as well as the public meeting, we'll be back at the Commission to determine the next steps.

And so because it's not yet determined, is that the reason that there is money from Penny 4 beginning 26-27 going out years?

So we've got requests from other neighborhoods about wanting to do a lighting district, and I believe they've been watching how we're handling the Sure they are.

So the funding is there for and again it would be up to City Commission to decide, but if the funding is for you all the neighborhoods that want to consider lighting district.

Oh, I see.

Thank you for that information.

Thank you.

That was uh 14.

Anything else on 14?

No.

Okay.

15 or 16.

Hold on.

Fifteen, no, sixteen, no questions.

Okay.

17.

Yes.

I had a question about that one.

Commissioner Heroncoch.

Yes.

This this one said the program provides for the systematic renovation and replacement of the city city's bridges.

And it's identified the bird key and the John Ringland causeway.

We've been talking about that for a long time.

What is the timeline on this?

So the plan is to make some maintenance improvement next year, this this coming year as well as next year.

And this is an important I want to I want to focus as to why it's important to fund this this program specifically is because if we had a uh state of emergency and we had a hurricane and destroyed some of the bridges out there, the city specifically maintained bridges.

We have to show records that we're maintaining it.

So FEMA will not reimburse you or even consider reimbursement for any damages if you don't maintain your infrastructure.

So that's why there's funding shown in this to make sure that if there's any maintenance-related issues or any issues, for example, to replace a bridge at this point, we don't have any, but if we did in the future, that this fund would cover some of that.

And we have toll we we maintain total of 19 bridges throughout the city.

But um I thought I thought FDOT was redoing the the Okay, so that's separate.

This does not cover that.

That's correct.

This is city-specific bridges.

The one that FDOT is doing is the Low Ringling Bridge.

Right.

Which is going to be right after the major bridge, the that piece of bridge which is uh anticipated to happen.

Right now they're lighting shows 2028.

So the construction.

For the little ringling bridge.

That's correct.

Okay.

So wasn't there an issue with that bridge during plane or milton?

Um it was it was after Milton.

Um there was some erosion on the banks that uh the DOT came um, I believe two, three weeks after the the event and they came and repaired that.

Okay.

That was an ours issue, was it?

That's correct.

That was the state.

Got it.

Okay.

Okay.

18?

No.

Okay.

I actually have something on 18, and it was a little bit of a confusion because I got excited because number 50, which is the pineapple, South Pineapple Avenue milling and resurfacing has been like my top priority for years.

So I thought that had been merged into this.

And I see that 50 is still not funded.

So A, when are we going to get pineapple?

And B, what is the pr how are the different streets prioritize within 18?

So I have um City Engineer Kamiya to come or staff to to address how we do the mill and resurfacing.

But let me address specifically to Pineapple.

Um right now we are in design at this point, and uh we anticipate getting design completed by the end of the year.

And um we anticipate using the funds that we have currently to actually do some of the project, but I'll have the city engineer kind of expand on that.

So so okay, but so you're saying that fifty is funded already.

That is correct.

So we have one point um zero.

So that reappropriation is the funding to take care of 50.

That's correct.

Hallelujah.

Okay.

So yeah, so I will be I am interested in how you prioritize this stuff in 18.

So you come here, City Engineer.

So we use something that's called the pavement condition index.

And so every two to three years, depending on funding and depending on how our list is going, we hire help to look at every single roadway within the city.

And we give it a ranking.

And that ranking is typically you want it to be a number above 70.

So it's kind of a zero would be like no road, but zero to a hundred scale.

And so you want it to be above seventy.

And so really we focused on roadway conditions that are like sixty and below.

And so one of the ones like Oak Street we recently did, uh it had a really low rating.

And so we take that rating combined with other smaller, I'll say localized drainage issues.

So if curve needs to be repaired, or if there's you know uh radius issues, that kind of thing.

And so we may get one street next to another street that gets pulled in, even though its rating might be a little bit better because it makes sense dollar-wise to do an area at a time.

And so that's how we spend the box.

Um just little um caveat.

We have not enough money to do what we would really like to do in a shorter amount of time.

So big picture at the current funding of where we're at to get everything in the 60s, 50-60 range, we're probably at a 10-year cycle to get those.

Um ideally that would be better.

We're doing what we have, what we got, so we're doing okay.

Um but more information on that if you like.

But that's how we come up with how to spend those and how to rank those priorities.

Thank you.

Um, you know, back in the day, um, I would say five, six years ago, you know, for 1.2 million, you could do a couple miles.

Now you can barely do a mile.

We'll probably do a quarter of a mile.

Um asphalt prices and gas prices and construction costs have gone up.

So again, we're we're doing the best we can to stretch the funding, but um as as Mr.

Cameo stated, that long term we're gonna figure out how we're gonna increase those funding because it's really important to maintain our existing infrastructure.

Uh wanted to just bring back to the commission's attention.

Thank you.

May I get clarity?

Um Mr.

Cameo, what's the full name of that index you mentioned?

Pavement Condition Index.

Thank you.

It's a standard put on by um a national document called the Ashto American Association Streets and Highways Transportation Authority, and so we use that, and it's it's pretty universal throughout the country.

Thank you.

Anything else on 18?

19 or 20?

19.

Okay.

Um this says here it's to construct a nine-foot cycle track with a three-foot protected buffer on the east side of the road.

Um this seems like a new project to me.

I didn't know anything about it.

It is um, not that I'm not for it.

I just this is not ringing a bell, this one.

It is.

Um I'll I'll bring up Ms.

Corrales to kind of answer those questions good afternoon.

I'll be Mary Carralis, Capital Projects Manager.

So Coconut Avenue redesign was in the previous CIP.

Okay.

And the purpose of putting it here, just like Coconut, Hyde Park, Orange, they're up on the resurfacing list as well because of their pavement condition.

And so we separated them because they're they're in really bad shape, so that very similarly to how we're separating Pineapple.

Um so that's why they're they're separate.

Uh Coconut Avenue was in the previous CIP.

Okay.

But was the uh adding a protected bike lane piece there as well?

Yes.

Like gosh, I don't remember that.

Okay.

And what we try to do is when we identify um roadways that a bicycle lane can fit or a part of our multimodal connections plan, it's just better to put it as part of the resurfacing.

That way we don't have to come back and do the work.

Okay.

That was my question on that one.

Thank you.

Okay.

And before she leaves, did anybody have anything on 20?

20?

I have something on 20.

Okay.

Okay.

Um the five-foot bicycle lanes on either side, are those going to be protected, or if not, wouldn't we be better to put it on one side so that we can provide a um make it a protected bike lane?

Um Commissioner Alpert, to explain, these are five-foot advisory bicycle lanes.

Um we're following our engineering design criteria manual because the those advisory lanes are part of the lane.

So they're taking up a portion of the lane in order to um accommodate them.

Correct.

So it's more like a shared street type of um endeavor.

But if it we still have to go through and have funding and go through design, so those are still options that we can explore.

Yeah, because I I I think a protected bike lane is certainly preferable to the you know, stero-type lanes, which are really might as well not even have that.

So all right, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh 21.

Okay, turning the page 22 or 23.

No.

No.

24 or 25?

Yes.

Let me see which my questions relates to.

Commissioner A.

Herncotch.

Let's include the new.

Yeah, I do have something I just I'm trying to read my own handwriting there.

Um sidewalk construction.

Well, she's looking, does anybody have anything on 26?

I do.

Okay.

Um on 26.

I think we talked about it this during one of our meetings.

Um but could you explain again how this is the same or different from the traffic calming initiative that's come out of C CNA?

Okay, so I'm gonna invite uh Chief Transportation Planner Um Ariaga to come explain that.

Good afternoon, Chief uh current Ariaga, Chief Transportation Planner.

Um can you just clarify?

Are you talking about the program from C CNA with the speed radar guns where they go out and collect this the speeds, or are you talking about the traffic calming plan that's going on?

The traffic calming plan.

Okay, yeah, absolutely.

So this uh funding program is established to fund the outcome of that traffic calming plan.

Uh the related very related.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Okay, so I got my question.

Okay.

And it's on 24.

Um, and this is design and construct new segments to replace uh um and or widening of existing sidewalks.

Does this uh is this included in the new town sidewalk connectivity program or is this separate?

This is separate.

Separate.

Okay, because I know the new town's addressed later on in here, but I just didn't know if they were okay.

Anything else on this page?

Well, uh I do want to add that there's a connection to this with the safe routes to school grant that we received, which is at Booker High.

Okay.

So it is in the new town area.

Okay, so it is connected then.

It is, yes, but but that other one is more from the federal appropriation that we received and the CRI items.

Right.

But I mean, as long as they're we're talking to each other with the two programs, then it they're not being done independently, and if there's a gap, we're missing an opportunity to make good use of dollars, regardless of who where they come from, if there's a better way to be going about just want to make sure it's coordinated.

Yeah, luckily we have um, you know.

Go ahead.

Karen Ariaga, Chief Transportation Planner.

So the safe routes to school program is about adding new sidewalk, whereas the new town um funding that we received through uh the appropriation is for sidewalk reconstruction.

So existing sidewalk that we will be reconstructing.

But they are coordinated in that they're in the same area.

And they do they both include ADA elements as well, right?

Yes.

Okay.

So there's some drop-offs to nowhere there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So we're ready to go through page 27, 28, 29, 30.

Yes.

30?

Okay.

Well, she looks you get um this is the green canopy and tree street tree planting program.

Uh this program has been underway for a while now, is that correct?

That's all it's ongoing program.

Ongoing, right.

Is there any feedback?

Um, maybe you don't have it today, but is there feedback on the program that we could receive?

So um I was gonna have development services come provide that feedback because they've hosted a couple of events on this.

Um but overall it's positive feedback for the neighborhoods because they they are getting.

Exactly.

Okay.

So here comes Ms.

Panica.

And you know, part of the feedback would be or the data would be um have most of the trees survived, or people actually watering the trees they received, and we would expect that the public would be grateful um about receiving a tree, but how's it going?

Are you referring to the um because development services handles the neighborhood canopy program or sorry, the neighborhood the neighborhood canopy um program and the tree legacy program, which are the tree giveaways that we do.

Those are the two um events and programs that we handle throughout the year.

I believe you're talking about something different.

Um so this is the tree canopy program that's uh item number 30.

Yes, development services is not part of that.

Okay.

So wait a minute, I have a question, or maybe it's for Vice Mayor.

I think for your answer, we'll uh we'll work with the department who actually is responsible for it and get you some information on that as a follow-up.

Okay, appreciate that.

Absolutely.

Okay.

And Commissioner A.

Hearn Kotch.

Yeah, the um city's urban forest uh program.

Um is that development services or planning?

It's not development services.

That's still part, I think, the the same program that the vice mayor is talking about.

Um part of that grant that we had gotten, correct?

Yeah, the um University of Flor Florida, right?

Yes.

Right.

Um so I think we need to do some information some um research on this and get you back kind of where we're at with that grant.

Because I know there was some confusion about what the grant was actually um paying for, you know, what follow-up needed to be done with that.

So I think we uh would owe that information to the commission.

We'll work on that.

I and I think there was like uh there were three phases.

One was uh an assessment, um, one was a plan, and then the third phase was planting.

And I think we've stopped at the planting piece of it.

Yes, I want to correct one thing on the second phase.

Um it was less of a overarching plan and a much smaller um assessment report.

I want to be careful that we don't call it an overarching canopy plan because I know we didn't have enough.

It was a very small grant, it was fifteen thousand dollars if I remember, and we weren't able with that funding to do a full plan.

So I just want to be I just want to set expectations that it it wasn't enough money to create an uh a full city canopy tree plan.

And I can I can speak on the grant a little bit.

Development services did handle the first portion of it, the inventory portion.

Um the planning department, I believe sustainability handled the second phase, and then the parks department handled the third phase of the planting.

Um that is separate from the actual urban forestry program.

Um so that was just a grant with three phases that different departments were working on.

Okay.

Um but that is not a part of the actual program itself.

And then Commissioner, the phase three portion, which was the planting of the trees, that has been complete.

So the trees have been planted, and again, we can get you a report of where they were planted.

I believe it was mainly um downringly, but we'll get you all that information.

Okay.

Um did you have something else on that page?

Um no, I just was gonna ask about 27, the neighborhood multimodal safety improvements.

That was the CCNA traffic calming effort, right?

That's correct.

It's separate from the traffic calming, but it's um safety measures based on CCNA's requests.

Just gonna reiterate how important that is for the neighborhood, so we hear it all the time about safety and traffic calming constantly.

So let's keep that one funded.

Okay.

Is there anything else on that page?

Okay.

Turning to 31, 32, 33, and 34.

34?

31.

31.

Let Commissioner Alpert go first.

Okay.

Uh it's number 31 is the next one anyway.

I just wanted a description of what we're doing with the bike lanes there to see if that's a protected bike line.

For Shade Avenue Complete Streets.

Um this one got split up into phases because we were not able to fund the entirety of the project.

Uh there's four phases.

Phase one of the project, which is from oh, it's been a long time.

Um, I believe Wood Street all the way to Pelican Dra.

Very close by.

Um, so north of Nova Street, which is where you have the traffic circle.

Uh it would be a wider sidewalk, so a multi-use path in order for people to use um both by the good.

So it's it's off the road.

It's off the road because we didn't want to move CUBE that requires a lot of more funding, reconstruction, so that would be widening now, um, whitening the sidewalk.

Now there are portions of the other phases.

So for example, north of Aspenwall, there are unimproved, there's unimproved right-of-way all along there where there's um a drainage canal.

Um and that would be kind of like a natural trail completely separated.

The rest of the phases, so three and four, which is anything that is south of Wood Street, that one would either be sidewalk widening.

Um, and it will all depend on how much right-of-way we have.

Okay.

I just want to make sure when we're when we're doing this, if we're expecting, especially people to feel comfortable to allow their kids to use the bike trail.

It's got to be separated from the roadways.

So it sounds like that's that's what you're looking at doing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I have a question about 34 as well.

Ms.

Corales.

Oh, wait, see I have a I have a question too.

Trying to escape.

Uh 31.

One, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Um a few years ago, weren't we talking about share rows on Shade Avenue?

It was a combination.

So people that felt comfortable writing on the road were able to do that.

I mean they can do it now because the speed limits there are very low.

So we recommend that anything 30 miles per hour or lower, they can share the share the road.

Um so it's a combination.

It's a combination.

Thank you.

Okay.

Commissioner Haran Cash?

Yes.

How many lanes is Shade?

Uh one each way.

Okay.

I had a question, somebody saying, is it going to be made one way?

Uh no.

Okay, I just wanted to clarify that publicly for sure.

I didn't think so.

I answered no, but our comprehensive plan has a policy about that.

Okay.

Anything else on that page?

Yes, on 34.

Okay.

I have 33.

Um 33.

Okay.

33.

33 is the new town uh sidewalk and lighting program.

Um so I assume these funds are for uh uh phase one of that program, correct?

Um I believe it's a multi-phase project.

Kuran Ariaka again.

Um so the funding is for a portion of phase one uh as much as the 1.4 will allow.