Okay.

All right, I'll call this budget public hearing to order.

Madam Clerk, if you could do a roll call, please.

Mr.

Engle Keith.

Here.

Mrs.

Frank.

Here.

Mr.

Howard.

Here.

Mr.

Smith.

Mr.

Weed.

Here.

Vice Mayor Boltz.

Here.

Mayor Petota.

Here.

All right.

We're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be led by Council veteran military veteran Kit McKeon.

And current planning commissioner.

Sorry, kid.

I didn't want to sell you short.

All right.

So let's go to ordinance two zero two five-three one.

Madam Clerk, if you could read this ordinance by title only, please.

An ordinance of the City of Venice, Sarasota County, Florida, adopting the final levying of ad valorum taxes for the city of Venice for fiscal year 2025-26 and providing an effective date.

Your discretion.

Okay.

All right, I'll open it up first.

So let's um Madam Clerk, if you could go ahead and make the tax taxing authority statement, please.

The current operating millage rate is three point nine zero four one mills, and is the millage that was set last year on which the previous aqualarm taxes were calculated.

The rollback rate is the millage required to collect the same amount of money as last year with this year's valuation, which is three point eight four five zero mills.

The tentative operating millage is three point nine zero four one mills, which was set by council on July 9th, 2025, and was sent out in the trim notices to property owners from the property appraiser's office.

Just a quick recap on this budget process.

It all began in January with our departmental budget kickoff meetings, our five-year CIP planning, and then in February, we held our annual strategic planning with City Council.

Uh, this provided the foundation for budget development and then led into our priorities and the vision for the future.

In March, we held our CIP workshop with City Council where we dug into specific projects, and you gave us some great feedback and direction on how that five-year capital plan should look.

Throughout April and May, uh departments met one-on-one with the then city manager Ed Lavalli and myself and our finance director director Linda Sinney, where we really went through and justified all programs, all expenses, and made necessary reductions as needed.

In June, we held our annual budget workshop with council, uh, which was a full day and included many revisions and updates to the budget.

Those were incorporated uh by finance, which we presented to you at your last council meeting on August 26th.

I want to point out that uh you know, the budget we are very proud of this budget, it delivers on the high level of service that our residents expect, but also I want to note that we took a much more aggressive approach to expenses than we've taken in many years in the past, and I believe that is reflected in this budget.

Overall, looking at the general fund, our expenses uh have increased just 4.1 percent over last year when you do not include the five million for Wellfield Park.

If you look at just operating expenses, it's down to 3.3% over last year.

And that's something that we're proud of.

It would not have happened without the uh collaboration from all the department directors and the willingness to take that conservative conservative approach to the budget process.

Despite that approach, there's a lot that we can all be proud of in this budget that's before you, and I want to take a moment just to highlight some of the key projects that are before you that we're looking forward to accomplishing over this next year.

Uh first and foremost, we were able to, at your direction, add six new dual certified firefighter paramedics into this budget, providing enhanced EMS service in response to the Venice community.

We've also had uh a groundbreaking just recently on our fire station 52, and that project is funded and will be under construction through the full budget cycle of next year.

In public works, we funded one additional position for parks facility technician, which is very important as we gear up for the park center local agreement that'll go effective next October.

We also added a solid waste operator to deal with the new growth out east.

We just closed on our new solid waste and fleet facility, which is going to be an incredible transition for their staff and their operations moving out of the seaboard district this next fiscal year.

And we soon will be completed with our new Northeast Venice Park, a significant project to serve the park system in Northeast Venice.

Also, within this budget, we've got all the funding for our centennial celebration.

As the mayor just talked about at our last meeting, you know, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our community, and I'm I'm so proud and impressed with the participation we've had thus far and the funding that is in here to make sure that it's a spectacular celebration that uh generations will will remember.

The Seaboard District project continues to move forward in this budget.

We've got uh master planning that will continue as we work to finalize the vision for that area.