Okay, at this time, we're going to go ahead and get started with the City Commission Workshop scheduled for Monday, August 25th, 2025. If I can please have the City Clerk call the roll. Commissioner Avila-Vasquez. Present. Commissioner Caldwell. Here. Commissioner Howington. Here. Commissioner Lully. Commissioner Santiago. Here. Vice Mayor Harriet. Present. Mayor Avila. Here. This time, if we can please stand for the pledge, and I'd like to ask Vice Mayor to lead us to the pledge. To the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, individual, liberty, justice for all. All right. So we're going to be discussing fiscal year 2025-2026 proposed budget discussions, operational fund budgets, to include revenue and expenditures, CIP, capital outlay, and special assessments. Mr. McKinney. Apparently, today, you're the City Attorney. So, on my mic, it's the City Attorney. Go ahead. Okay. Only on Mondays. Mayor, Commission, good evening. This evening is just a brief overview of where we've come from July 14th to today. So, I want to go over it for y'all. Might be too far away. It's not working. Thank you, Kat. Just point the laser or her and show. Okay. Thank you. So, this is just to show, Mayor, all the various meetings that we've had regarding this year's budget process. We started February 3rd, setting the calendar for this year. And this is on top of all the countless meetings that we have had with the staff, all the department directors, and budget team and I with the city manager and deputy city manager. So, our overview as of today, the citywide total operating budget for fiscal year 2526 is set at $245,141,106. The general fund has increased to $76,928,238. We've been able to, based on revenue estimates received, to reduce the millage from 6.75 to 6.7 mills. We have investments in capital next year in our CIP of just under $78 million and for capital outlay of $8.5 million. As of August the 12th, CPI has increased for the last 12 months of 2.7%. When we started back in May 3rd, it was, I believe, 2, 2.2%. So, you can see the year-over-year change from the last 12 months has increased just in the three-and-a-half months since we started this process. Our historical trend, this is, I believe, important to show just the stewardship that the account commission has provided along with the city manager staff. You can see that we went from, in the last 10 years, 7.99 mills to today, we're proposing a budget at 6.7 mills. There's been, as you can see, a drastic decrease in the last four fiscal years. This is just a repeat of the slide presented last month just to show that the average household is paying $508.54 based on the 2025 millage rate. There will be a decrease. So, anyone that's been in their home last year to this year, we're actually anticipating from the city perspective, because we went from 7 mills to 6.7 mills, that there will be a decrease to the average homeowner here in Deltona. I adopted citywide millage rate by taxing authority. I'll be able to provide an update to this slide at the September 15th second public hearing. I simply do not have the tentative millages yet as adopted from the other taxing agencies, because except for the school board, the others have not had their meetings yet. It's slated for the first and third or second and fourth week of September, depending on the agency. As stated, July 14th, we'd be coming back with you to this meeting so that we could, you know, we took all your input from July 14th, all the various inputs that you've provided to either me or the city manager, deputy city manager, and we've incorporated all of those suggestions into the meetings or into this budget. But I wanted to just show you, in case there's any change from this evening, we're at the bare bones compared to last year. But if you wanted to add anything, this is the cost of it. So if you wanted to add additional infill sidewalks, and it was $567,000, we would have to go from 6.7 to 6.8 mills to accomplish that. If you were wanting to do something drastic, like triple all of the events in the city, and that was just under $6 million, then we would have to add a full mill, and we'd have to go from 6.7 to 7.7 to accomplish that. So I just wanted to have that for you in case there's something that comes to mind as we go into the first public hearing if there was a change needed. This is Mr. McKinney. Give me one minute. Commissioner Vila-Rasquez. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on that comment. It's my understanding that once we identify a millage rate, you can go down, but you can't go up. So we set a maximum millage rate at 6.95 mills. So if, for example, if you wanted to triple the events and it did come out to be 7.7 mills, then we would have to send a letter to every parcel owner within the city of Deltona. So it's not as simple as just saying I want to add it, but that was just there for talking purposes if there was something drastic. So that would have to take place either, like if you told me this evening you wanted to have this massive new program, we would draft that letter immediately and get that sent out within the next few days. September 3rd, same thing. If you wanted to increase the millage rate above the 6.95 to 7 mills, we would still have to do the same thing. We would have to get that out. And that's never occurred in my career, but I would assume just like the notice that we have to put in the newspaper, we would have to have it to all the participants a minimum of two days prior to that public hearing on September 15th. Okay. I'm a little confused because we would never, once we identify a millage rate, we were not allowed to increase it, but we could lower it. That is correct. I'm just, I gave the example that if you wanted, if the commission wanted to, staff is not recommending it. Right, but the commission can't, even if they wanted to. It's my understanding. Yes, you can. By statute, you can, but the requirements are that we would have to mail out a letter to every homeowner and explain why. So it's much easier for most organizations, agencies, to really state that this is your maximum and you can't go above it. You can, but the state statute, the way it's written, is that you can, but there's a lot of work, and the city attorney could definitely explain all the work involved, but there's a lot of work on the city if we were to go beyond that. Most cities don't. I've not been in six cities, and we've never gone above our maximum millage rate. So I think John's very similar. But we don't want to say that you can't. It's all within your power. It's not impossible. That is correct. So you can. It's just not recommended. Once you've hit a maximum, that's what you should go with. Hold on. I got you. That estimated cost would be roughly $31,000 to $35,000, the same cost as what we stated it would be to send the letters out for the special assessments. Mr. Goode, did you want to add anything else for Commissioner Villavascois? No, I think that Robin and John have explained very well. A more simple answer even is it is possible but not practical. Under extreme circumstances, it can be done. There's a statutory process to follow, but it is not the norm, and certainly in absent compelling circumstances would not be a course that most governments end up taking. You're welcome. Thank you. Mayor, on the rate studies, this is just to reaffirm everything. We got one more question. I apologize. No, you're good. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. John, Robin, just wanted to actually clarify. We adopted trim at 6.95. That is correct. So we could, with ease, go from 6.7 to 6.95. That is correct. We just can't go above 6.95. Without sending a letter out to all parcel owners. Significant. It can't work. So, okay. Thank you. Okay. The conversation was, in John's perspective, he was trying to say that if we went over the 6.95 versus just equaling it. Yes, ma'am. Mayor, this is just to reiterate where we are on the rate studies. I want to just point out we're close to finalizing the water sewer. I have a meeting with the rate consultant on Wednesday. Commission passed the action on the impact fees. We have a meeting next week with staff. We've received the data request. So, we're meeting next week with staff to make sure everyone knows who's to provide what. And that goes along with the building and general rate consultant review. And we should be receiving everything in the October timeframe from Benesh on the fire assessment study. So, everything is moving forward as approved by commission. Impact fees situation is on track? Yes, sir. We meet next week on that. This is just to reiterate, we went in this morning. We still are missing a majority of our state revenues. They still have not submitted those out. But just based on what we anticipated, we are, you know, we reduced the budget by, I'm sorry, we reduced state revenues by 10% based on what we were told to anticipate. So, that is what's in the budget. If anything changes, I will definitely bring that to you at the September 3rd first public hearing. Citywide budget, this is just to reiterate where we are based on the sources of where the revenues are coming from and the uses. As you can see, the majority of our budget for next year, out of $245,000, $86 million is in capital and CIP. The remainder, the next biggest item is our operating expenditures, followed by personnel services. So, in our budget, you can clearly see it's usually an 80% to 90% is salaries and benefits in any governmental budget. But you can see we're investing heavily in our CIP, which is our infrastructure of the city. The next slide is to represent the overall changes. The changes that we've made is based off of all the requests from July 14th. I just want to point out simply the major changes. The local option gas tax. When we took a look at this, we realized that we needed to make sure we did LCAM and Catalina elevation. But we did not put in the budget for resurfacing or sidewalks. So, we put in $1.6 million for resurfacing and another $400,000 for street repairs and infill. So, that's the major increase there. CRA, just based on what we, Mr. Cox just informed you, we had to change based on state statute how we show the CRA budget. So, this is in compliance to show all available revenues, whether it was prior year fund balance or current year and capital improvements, we added the capital improvements as discussed from July 14th meeting. Nothing else has significantly changed other than stormwater capital improvements. That was the grant that y'all just approved with FDEM for the elevation of that property at the last commission meeting. So, that's the change in stormwater capital. On the general fund, it increased just under $300,000. That is related to the IT allocation and the franchise fee transfer from solid waste. The general fund budget by department, we had a change. So, the major change, Mayor, was we had the team Volusia. Mr. McKinney, sorry. Can you go back to the other slide? I think you have. There you go. Nope. Yeah. No, it just switched out before we were finished. Oh, okay. I'm on the next slide. I apologize. I should have maybe kept sitting over there. I was trying to be equally. So, the general fund, the major changes, Mayor, is y'all had asked that we move Team Volusia and we added retail strategies to the economic development budget. In code compliance, two new additional positions for code compliance officers, fire, we just realized that we still had some redistribution between the transport costs, between operations and transport. So, we took care of that. There were some additional barricades that we added to public works traffic operations. We also went in and took a deep dive of all the budgets because, as you might recall, where we realigned expenses within departments, we saw that we still had some duplications of event costs between parks admin and the events new division. So, that's in there. Other than that, you can see that, you know, we've had a minor .34% increase from our July 14th. John, the code compliance does include vehicles for those two members. So, if we don't fund the two positions, we would need to reduce that capital, too, if I remove all correct. That is correct. Thank you. Commissioner Vila Vasquez has a question. Thank you, Mayor. I actually have two questions. When you say remove Team Volusia, what do you mean by that? At the July 14th workshop, when we went through all the expenses for the city commission, I believe it was the mayor that made the comment that that really is an economic development function, not specifically related to the city commission's budget. So, we moved it from the city commission budget and put it in the economic development budget. Still fully funded, just not in your budget. It's in economic development's budget. Okay. The other question I have is regarding parks. I know when we first had the meeting and there was a breakdown of events that were covered under this budget and parks, none of the events that are being held at the courtyard were part of that description. And it was mentioned that it would be added at the next meeting, which I'm guessing is this one. Yes, ma'am. We added quite a few projects. Your city manager, parks director, and I, we met last week and we went in and added quite a few events to it, and that included items in the courtyard. I can provide that list to you again if you would like. Yes, please. I would appreciate that. I will. Thank you. Okay. Commission requests. I just wanted to add into this, and we'll talk about the fraud and compliance audit. I have a slide on that, so I will just hold back on that until we get to that slide. But all of these items that are listed in here are fully funded at the 6.7 mils. Okay. Special revenue grants, it increased from the 17 million to 19.8 million. That is related to what, as again, related to what we have to do for the CRA, what we are funding from local option gas tax, and then that's it. So between local option gas tax and the Lake District, I'm sorry, CRA, that is the change from last month to this month. On the special assessments, we did, you might have gotten your tax bill, estimated tax bill, your trim notice this past week. So we did go in and snippet a couple of them to confirm that everything that commission authorized to be posted as part of the trim is, in fact, there. Again, that was a savings of $31,000 to $35,000, and it clearly states who to call if you have any questions. So that's, I guess, me. Vice Mayor Harriet and Deputy City Manager. I was just going to say that this is just a snippet, so this talks about Lake McGarrity, but if there was another agency or another special assessment, it would be on there. We just gave you a sampling. So we didn't show everyone, and not everyone in the city will see this exact look on their trim notice. So it's different according to where you live. All right, Vice Mayor Harry, and then we have Commissioner of Ila Vasquez. Thank you for that. I'm going to just go ahead and bring it up now under special assessments because I don't know exactly where else it would be best brought up. Recently, it's been brought back up from residents about lake management, and we have a lot of – there are a lot of examples between Lake Sixma, Lake DuPont, Angela Lake, Teresa Lake, that there's a lot of aquatic weed overgrowth, vegetative overgrowth, lack of maintenance along the shorelines. And I've been thinking quite a bit about it and would like to see if we could put together some sort of plan to address that with the combination of special assessments as well as using stormwater funds. Everybody that – all the property owners that live on the lakes obviously will receive a greater benefit than our neighbors that don't live on the lakes. But all of our neighbors, regardless of living on the lake or not, will receive some benefit from the stormwater capacity of it. So I'd like to make that request if we could find a way to make that happen. I believe, Commissioner, that the – or Vice Mayor, excuse me – that the November, if I remember correctly, Joyce, we have one of our workshops in which we're discussing and presenting to you as a commission some of the other options of like lighting and sidewalks for each of your districts so we can look at possibly adding at least the cost to address the removal or vegetation or so forth. If you all go forward with that, that's, again, part of the process in which we have to notice it and get with the county and go through that process. And then November timeframe, because we have three weeks in a row, we have to notice what special assessments you might take on in December so that it can become something active for next year. So that would be the time that we would go forth and do that. So I'll work with Joyce to make sure. We may have adjusted that particular item because of comp plan having to be on there. So I don't remember exactly, but we'll see what else we can move forward or request maybe an extra half an hour from you during one of the meetings in order to get that in. Okay. And then the follow-up question to that is that would be to get it included in the budget for FY2627. Is there, would anybody be willing to have the conversation about increasing so that we can include something in the budget for this next year to begin the maintenance? Because there's going to have to be multiple components to this. There's going to be the, you know, the first couple of years are going to be a much larger task, far exceeding just general maintenance because it hasn't been done with our, our having such a long streak of elevated water levels. We have just an abundant overgrowth of aquatic weed vegetation. And it's, it's getting out of control in a lot of areas. So I think there's going to be a component of it that just needs to be removing it, getting it back down to normal levels. And then from there, an MSBU could, could maintain that. All right. Vice mayor, I think that goes back to a little bit, the slide earlier, 0.1 mils is 567,000. So right now our request originally advertised was 695. Then we talked to the commissioners about 675 tonight. We're offering 6.7 going a little lower. At this point, if the commission was interested in something specific like that, air marking, not sure what the cost would be. We can certainly do some research leading into the next meeting. But if you're at, going up from what? Maybe back to 6.75. Yeah. And that would give us about $250,000. Correct. Correct. Is there, is there any appetite from my fellow commissioners to, to look into that? So let, let me, Commissioner Avila Vasquez, I know you were first. Did you want to comment on that first? Or we could finish the whole presentation and come back to that topic if you'd like to. Okay. As far as changing the number. Do you want to comment on that now? Or do you want to wait till we bring back the topic? Okay. Are you done, vice mayor? All right. Avila Vasquez was, has been waiting. So, yes. Thank you, mayor. And I apologize. I need to go back to, I had a question on here, but I forgot to ask you the 10 year historical average taxable value in property taxes per household fiscal year. I apologize for that, but it's increasing, but property values went down in the city of Deltona. Property values increased for the property appraiser throughout the city going in from 25 to 26. Well, they messed up with me. You're talking here. My property value just went down $50,000 and I just received my tax forms. I would have to look at your tax bill. Did you get a new exemption that you didn't previously have? Nope. Same exemptions are always. Yeah, because property values within the city increased from $5.141 billion to $5.671 billion. That included an attrition on current properties of $358 million and new construction of $172 million. So property values increased down by 6.961% year over year. Okay. Well, then I need to speak to Will Roberts then. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Vice mayor. Thank you, mayor. On that same note, I've actually had a similar question from a resident. And so there's also the disparity between the taxable value being capped for the last few years with all the growth that we've had and the current, what's it called, the market value. And so even if the market value comes down, there are a lot of instances where that market value is still not below the taxable value. Yes, sir. I do not try to interpret property tax law. I understand the concept of portability. I understand the concept of the catch-up, all of that. If someone has an issue like yourself, ma'am, I always refer them to contact the property appraiser directly for them to explain to you how your property was valued year over year. Absolutely. I think that's a great recommendation. Commissioner Cole? Yes, I just wanted to input on the discussion about the late cleanup. I'm all for that. The other question I have is on the CIP. There's an increase in the CIP, if I'm not mistaken, I heard him say. Does that reflect furniture and stuff being purchased for certain departments? No, sir. I will cover that on pages 21, 22, 23, and 24 in great detail. Are you good, Commissioner Colwell? Yes, thank you, Mayor. Please proceed, Mr. McKinney. Okay. Okay. We're on page 17. Yes, sir. Okay, so enterprise funds have increased from $103 million to $108 million. That is due to an increase in chemicals of $120,000. Added the CIP for elevation of flood home that was approved last commission meeting by $430,000. We just received word from the wastewater department that the membranes, that they were hoping to only have to replace a couple. They were inspected a couple of weeks ago, and they have to be replaced entirely. That was $1.65 million. And we completed the IT allocation, and that was $582,000. So that is the major differences in the enterprise funds. As we go into the internal service funds, it increased just under or just over $79,000, and that was due to the allocation of IT between fleet healthcare and risk management, so that makes up the increased budget in the IT. That IT budget is strictly for administration and for the capital outlay that is presented in the budget. Then as we go into capital outlay, the capital outlay, as presented to you previously, was a little over $7 million. It's now $8.5 million. That is due to the $25,000 added for barricades, $72,000 for two new code vehicles. We received word that the AC at the sheriff's substation has to be replaced. That's $80,000. The props for the fire training per the CBA is a little under $51,000, $977,000 for the generator replacement at City Hall, which is grant-funded, $325,000 added for broadband paid for by the CDBG fund, and $25,000 for additional computers for employees. That makes up the difference within the capital outlay. Then as we go into our CIP, it increased from just under $74 million to just under $78 million. That increase is due to $50,000 for the sheriff's office roof replacement, $25,000 for design for a commission chamber. This room in here, $350,000 for sidewalk and bike path, $1.65 million for road resurfacing, $71,500 for corridor improvements, $1.65 million as previously discussed for the membrane replacements, and $430,000 for the flood home elevation approved by last commission meeting. So that makes up all the changes related to the capital and CIP programs of the city. Are we going to get, like we have in the past, a list of the roads that are getting resurfaced? Yes, sir. This was, we recognized this last week. So prior to September 3rd, when I send out your list that you requested, I will make sure that the list of the roads gets submitted to at the same time. Also, are we making sure that we're not resurfacing a road that's previously been resurfaced? I only ask because I remember when a prior city manager was here, there was a road that was resurfaced twice in District 2, not too short of a time from each other. And I know we have roads within the city that are crocodiling, and they haven't even been touched in years. So I just, I don't know if we're making sure that we're not resurfacing a already recently resurfaced road. I'm quite certain that that was stated by you and commission previously, and the director of public works will make sure that doesn't occur as well. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Do we have a traffic engineer or road construction engineer that goes out and grades our roads? So within the traffic division, we do have someone that is capable of going out and assessing. Then we work with the county. I know we have an agreement with the county that you all actually recently signed off on, and then we have contractors as we need them to go out and grade. But we do have a fully, I'm going to say, skilled traffic division. So is that something we do that in-house then? Not the grading, I don't believe, but we do the other stuff in-house. So Phyllis could answer that better, but we don't do the grading. We do potholes and the simple stuff. But we do have a team that's well-educated and skilled, and they do go out and work with the county and other agencies. Can we get the report from the contractor on the grading for the roads? Commissioner Vila-Vasquez. Thank you, Mayor. So going back to the mayor's comment about resurfacing a road that was already done, I can tell you that Lombardi had to be resurfaced twice, maybe three times. I guess it depends on how busy a road is. So if, let's say, Deltona Boulevard, which is very busy, happens to have any damages, but the road was resurfaced a few months ago, does that mean you're not going to fix it again? No, ma'am. I'm not saying that at all. So I don't profess to know it, but I've been in enough of these meetings. Howland is considered one type of road, high usage. Providence is right below it. And I used to live on Apache Circle, so that gets very little usage. So it's, you know, I just recall that roads like Apache Circle might be resurfaced every, you know, 20, 25 years. Howland might get it every 10, 15 years, and then Providence in between there. So, you know, I can tell you that that grading is typically done annually by the department just to keep it up because things change. And a road that might have been, you know, five years down the road for resurfacing, based on what you just said, it might be two years out. So you'll see that when you get the list from the department of exactly where the grading is for that street at that particular time. So it'll, I guess, depends on the outcome of the inspection. Yes, ma'am. And another thing we always want to make sure, too, is that the water sewer department is in discussion with the public works because we have seen where, you know, public works went out and resurfaced the road. And then two months after completing, they came in with a new water line, and they got to resurface it again. So we want to make sure that we don't do that as well here either. And I'm quite certain that Phyllis is on top of that. Yes, she is. Thank you very much. You're welcome. The next item is on the forensic and compliance audit. I know that, you know, we discussed several months ago regarding this. So we have put together a scope of service based on what we have found out, and we are ready to put it out on the street next Monday. If, without, you know, unless there's other comments, it's a pretty broad scope of service. We based it on other municipalities, one local and another that's in South Florida. And to put this together, we shared it with Purvis Gray, your auditors. We had a conversation, Robin and I, with both Lori and with Tim this morning. They said that the way it's written, they couldn't do it any different. So I shared with them where we got it from, and they said we're good to go with it. No comment. The dates that we have on here is based on releasing the RFP for roughly 45 days. That gives plenty of agencies out there because this would be the scope of work would involve, you know, not a local mom-and-pop CPA firm. This would be a regional firm, and I'm not talking regional Southeast Florida. I'm talking, this would be a regional Southeast U.S. type firm that would look at it. It's based on looking at all funds, all transactions for a four-fiscal year time period. So it's our standard RFP language. I have it that it would be due October 13th. The selection committee date I have tentatively, which would be November 3rd, which would be all the city commission, because, you know, I definitely can't be on it by state statute. So it's putting that on you. Then what we would have to determine is I would highly recommend that you have interviews, presentations by the firms that you would shortlist, because that selection committee date, that should be about a 30-minute to an hour meeting. But, and then typically what we do is we find the top three firms that we want to have them make presentations. And I always would highly encourage for auditors, or especially a forensic and compliance audit, for them to do a presentation. The firms that is in there would be that they would have had to have five years' direct experience in doing a forensic compliance audit. So what I've done is I've put the proposed commission meeting to award it as December 1st. The next page is I have the month of November, is we would just have to have dates that y'all would be available to listen to the presentations from the firm. Usually you want to limit those presentations to no more than 30 minutes. So typically 20 minutes for a presentation, 10 minutes for questions. So that's where you come up with a 30-minute time frame, and then roughly, you know, 30 minutes in between to make sure if it runs over. So figuring three, four firms, I would dedicate at least three and a half hours to complete that. So if y'all could just, you know, please, you know, let the deputy city manager and Joyce know your availabilities within the month of November, then we can get that date ironed out so that I can put that in the RFP, and that would go out next Monday. City manager? As the commission's aware, whenever we put a bid out, it doesn't mean we have to accept it. So the idea here is just moving forward, depending on what the costs are, when it comes back to us. So what we're talking about here is not a, we're stuck with whatever comes in. It's still a consideration afterward. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Is the scope of work written in a way that would allow us to pick and choose, select part of maybe what their proposal comes back to? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Santiago? Thank you, Mayor. John, when we did the audit earlier this year, the city did the audit, what was the outcome of that audit? Perfect. No comments, cleared up all prior year comments. So basically, if you, you know, look at the scope of service, it is, as we discussed previously, our auditors go in and they do a risk assessment. So they determine what level of review that they're going to do based on thresholds. Those thresholds are different for the general fund, different for the CRA fund, the SHIP fund, et cetera. So they set it by fund and then they set it by entity wide. The way a forensic compliance audit is, is they go in and look at 100% of all transactions. So they typically do not, they go in and review 100% of the transactions to make sure that we've been compliant with charter ordinance and policies. Whether that's a purchasing policy, fund balance policy, an investment policy, a personnel policy. You know, that's why, you know, that's why, you know, this typically takes six to 12 months to complete. And based on the dates that I've put in here is so that, you know, starting no earlier than March of next year so that we've hopefully wrapped up our normal audit before we start this. As, as I stated before, um, I don't have the staff to run two similar audits simultaneously. Can you, um, another quick question. Have you, um, looked into the cost of having a full audit on all our funds and our, all our transactions? We could only find, we found six samples. Okay. Um, of those six, only two moved forward, uh, in getting prices. The city of Belle Glade, which is smaller than the city of Orange City, came in at just over a million dollars. Their commission declined to move forward. The city of Apopka, theirs came in at just under 1.4 million and they're not quite, um, roughly half the size of us. 1.4 million. 1.4 million. Half the size. Yes, ma'am. So we're looking at possibly close to $2 million. Tim said based on what we were able to provide. Of taxpayer money. He said that, um, don't expect it to be less than $2 million. Wow. So we put in the budget $500,000, but anticipate a minimum of two for this. We really want to spend $2 million on a forensic audit when we have other priorities in the city of Deltona. To shame. I don't support it. Not to, not to waste taxpayer, $2 million of taxpayers' money. It's a waste of money. When we, when we just had an audit from a private company to come in and audit us and found nothing, perfect scores, no comments. I don't think, I don't, we don't, we don't, there's no need to have this forensic audit. Let's save that money. Let's put it towards the aqua, the weeds that we need. Let's put it for roads, additional roads, additional sidewalks that we need for our children to be safe in our community. This is a waste of money. Thank you, John, for that explanation. Vice Mayor. Just so that I'm understanding this correctly, John, that's roughly four-tenths of a mill. Yes, sir. Thank you. Commissioner Howington. So, Doge, Doge has been brought up a couple times, and we do have an opportunity to have a presentation. I don't know what it is. They simply told me that it's out there in an option. They'd like to come in and do a presentation. It's likely a much bigger cost savings, would not cost $2 million, but we won't know until we actually hear from them. So, if people would be interested in actually hearing from them, we could move forward with a presentation and just hear them out. But this is something our residents have been asking for for years. We do control the scope. You can print your face all you want. People have been asking for it. Commissioner, so, you know, I was going to bring it up at the end under comments to go into it, but now would be a fine time if you want to talk about the Doge and request. Well, I mean, it was the mayor's idea initially. He wanted to bring Doge in, so I'll open the floor to you. If you'd like to hear the presentation, I don't have any information on it. I can read you the email I literally just received two hours ago. So, did you contact them, or did they contact you? I emailed them a few weeks ago and just simply said, hey, we approved a forensic audit, and we'd like to know if there's anything that can be done from the Doge side to help us out. He said, I'll research it. And then I reached out earlier this week, and I said, do you have any information? And he said, well, would you like to meet this week? And I said, sure. And then he told me during that phone conversation that they had this opportunity that might be available to us, and they'd like to present it. And I said, well, we need to bring it in front of the whole commission. And I immediately messaged Doge. So, I didn't do anything in the shadows. I brought it out as soon as I found out about it, unlike you, who took the vice mayor and met with the CFO. That's, you're out of order. So, number one, I found out about it because, obviously, you're more interested in speaking to the media than to the commission. That's number one. Number two, when I got contacted by the news, they told me that Doge contacted the city. So, Doc, if I can get a public record to make sure that Doge actually contacted the city, but I don't think they did. I want a sincere response for you. Do you think this is worth it? Yes. Would you, as CFO of the Clerk of the Court, be willing to do the same thing to the Clerk of the Court? I'm not going to cross positions, and that is inappropriate for you to be asked. It's not inappropriate. Excuse me. Yes, it is. Excuse me. It's not inappropriate. You think it's great for the city of Deltona, but you don't think it's great for the Clerk of the Court? Mr. Mayor, my personal life has nothing to do with my city. It's public. Simple question. Simple question. What's your point of order? Subject here. Now we're going into personal issues, and I really don't want to get into that. I'm sick and tired of hearing attacks on commissioners at the dais when it has nothing to do with what we're discussing. So can we keep on track of what's being discussed? Thank you. And secondly, I don't see you asking Vice Mayor if he would do that for Seminole Council. No, no, no. Excuse me? It is exactly how this works. Not exactly. Okay. I don't have an issue. I called for the Doge audit. You do. Excuse me. I was talking, and it's my time. You actually opened the floor to me. So unless you don't understand parliamentary procedures, then there's a bunch of books there that can help. To answer your question, Commissioner Howington, I'd be open for it. It would have been nice if we would have been able to discuss that when we had a full commission, when we had an actual commission meeting to discuss it, and I heard silence from you. But if we want to move forward with the presentation, I have no issue, as long as the rest of the commission doesn't have an issue, because I'd like to get the rest of the commission involved in that. So if the rest of the commission is okay with the presentation, I'm happy to see that. If it's going to save us, what was the mills it was going to save us? Four-tenths of a mill. Four-tenths of a mill? Thanks. Sorry. So, again, until we really know what DOGE will do, right? So we don't know, and, again, we may know more once we have a presentation, but even their audit, okay, may not even be close to a normal audit. It definitely would not be a forensic audit, because they're not going to dive into every item. So the comparison, I would just caution you, again, they need to explain that to us. I don't know what they do. I don't know at the state level, but what we've seen from other cities, and we've spoken to a couple other cities in reference to what they've gone through, they've focused on laser focus, really, on very specific items. So whether those are the items you're looking for in this forensic, I don't see it be all-encompassing. It could be very limited. So it still may do a bit of what you're looking for, but I don't think you're going to get your full forensic if that's what you're looking for. So just caution to really understand, have them come out and truly explain the details before you assume that those dollars would be the same dollars spent. My understanding, Mayor, is they're not taking a deep dive in our revenues and expenditures. They're looking at our programs, you know, DEI initiatives that the city might have. The other item is if we did, got a grant several years ago for $3 million, and that was supposed to be for that point in time, but yet we continued something past that point, and they're questioning, okay, you hired someone to do something for this grant period, but when the grant was over, you continued those employees, you know, on the city's payroll. That wasn't the intent of why you had the grant. We can sit there and show, Mayor, that we have had a steady decline in our millage rate over the last few years. We have, in this year's budget, we have looked at our staffing levels, that we have brought savings of open positions or positions that no longer needed to be filled. That's been put into this budget so that we have a reduction in our staff levels. We've only been increasing our staffing in the programs that required it, fire transport, level of service. You know, so we have done everything. I received two requests from DOGE. The one in April that I did was roughly five questions, and it was easy for me to complete in about ten minutes. The request— That's not the one you got from me? Because they sent it to, I guess, all the mayors, and I forwarded it to the city. Well, no, sir, that was the July one, the one that I got in, and you might have also sent it to me in April, I don't recall. But the one that I received in July, I received it on a Wednesday, and I had to submit it no later than 5 p.m. that following Monday. That took five staff people, stopped what we were doing. It was that encompassing. I had to account for every dollar that was received for a four-year time period and explain exactly how we spent that money. It had to be one for one. So whether or not I received $15.25 for a miscellaneous revenue line, I had to explain what we did with that money. If you did not comply with that request by 5 p.m., I can tell you there are cities here in Volusia County that did not do it, and the mayor and the city manager received an email that night for noncompliance. So this city, your finance staff, has complied with every single doge, every single league of city. I mean, we're getting it nonstop, sir, from various agencies, consortiums trying to get the information that they're trying to put this, compile this information together. Everything that we did July 21st, I already provide it in detail in the state AFR that we're required to do annually. We have to submit all the budget information by the 15th of October annually. So we provide this. All of this information has already been provided previously. I submit everything that we did as this year's audit went to the Auditor General, the Department of Financial Services, the federal government for the compliance of the single audit, HUD, on top of what we did. Every awarding agency that we received grants for that year, our banks, our debting institutions, I submitted that ACFER to 40 different outside agencies that go in and look at everything that we do. I had to send it to Fitch, Standard & Poor. So everyone that, you know, we are a rated government agency. Not many agencies can say that. But I had to answer numerous questions on exactly how we utilize the revenue streams, our policies and procedures. So I get it coming and going, sir, every day of the week. Commissioner Howington, do you have any more questions? I'd just like to know if people are interested in at least finding out. This is something that's never been done before, so you can't really compare it to anything that they've done in other cities thus far. So I'd just like to know, is there an appetite for hearing it out? I'll call each of you individually, and do you want me to hold your place, Commissioner Vila-Vasquez? I know you're next in line. All right. So I'm going to turn everybody's mics on. Yes, I just noticed his hands up. Go ahead, Commissioner Vila-Vasquez. Did you want to? Before we, or before I take a vote, can I hear the opinion on legal on this? Is your good? Yes, ma'am. Um, so it is a 100% policy decision whether you as the commission want to have this presentation from Doge, whether you would like to engage in outside firm to do a forensic audit. This is 100% a policy decision that you all can decide to vote yes or no on. Thank you. Okay. So this is just the presentation, and then from there we can decide if you want to move forward. Is that correct? Okay. Yes. Commissioner Colwell, I know your hand's been up as well. Yes. I have a comment. Go ahead, please. My hand's been up. But what is the problem with us going down both avenues here? It's my understanding of my doc's comment there. In the end, for the forensic audit, we do not have to accept it at that point. So what is the problem with going down both avenues to see where we can go to? Go ahead, city manager. Yeah, that's correct. And yes, no issue of going down two directions at the same time. Correct. I'm a yes on both. Okay. Commissioner Santiago? No. And then I do have a few comments that I would like to say. Okay. I'll come back to you. Vice Mayor Harriet? Yeah. I don't really have a problem with going and getting a presentation from Doge. I do find it pretty interesting that we don't want the state in our affairs on some things, but then we want to welcome them in on other things. That being said, we don't have anything to hide, so it's an open door, whatever they'd like to see. Yes. I have no issue either on my yes, so you guys have your direction. Did you have any other questions regarding this? Okay. Commissioner Avila Vasquez, she was first in line, then I'll go back to you. Thank you, Mayor. So I have a comment on our regular auditors who do audit for the city of Deltona. We, maybe not this past audit, but the one prior to that one, because it was not picked up during the audit, we went through a stressful process with the IRS. When we were charged, and the IRS was charging the city, I forget how much money, it was cleared thanks to our legal department. City didn't have to pay anything. But when the auditor came to us, I questioned why they missed that, and their response was, we don't audit procedures. The problem with missing that was a, the problem was the procedure was not followed. The procedure was not followed by chain of command, and that's why we got stuck with the problem with audit, you know, with the IRS. I forget exactly what it was. But regular auditors do not audit procedures. As a former assistant automation manager for one of the largest financial institutions in New York City, we did many audits in our bank before the big companies came to audit us. I was part of that, because I was part of the automation. And just like you said, if I have a $15 expense, I better have a $15 receipt for it to prove what that expense was for. And it better have been something that is approved by the bank that I can spend it in, right? So I can understand that part. I'm all for the presentation. It's free. Am I correct? Let them explain to us what the procedure will be. And it's not like if they come into the presentation that we're committed to it, correct? It's free. Why not? This forensic audit was not brought up by the commissioners, nor the prior commissioners. This request has been on the table for many years by our residents. They have requested this forensic audit. And this is why, finally, with this commission, it has been put through. But if you look at prior meetings with prior commissioners, you'll find this request from our residents. Because the commissioners don't want to spend this money either, right? But as I'm always being told, we're supposed to do what our residents request. So we're doing it. The other thing I want to say is I listened. Somebody sent me. I didn't find out about this until Sunday morning. And it was funny because I received an email. And I found it very offensive because what they use as an example of what we could lose if we have this kind of audit is the Festival of Nations event. An event that we're doing at the courtyard, which is minimal expense to the city. They use that as an example. I don't know why. But anyway, they sent me a clipping of the news, which I just found out on Sunday about this. And it was, I believe, it was misreported. It was incorrectly reported that the city had, that we commissioners approved this already. When that's incorrect, we approved the forensic audit. We did not approve the DOGE audit. It's totally two different things. So I think we need to have the media make a correction to that statement. At no time, and if I'm wrong, please let me know. Because sometimes I sit here and I feel like I'm listening to something, but then I find out it's something else. We did not approve this kind of audit. We approved the forensic audit. So that's what I wanted to bring up at this meeting right now. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Santiago, and then we can continue. Mr. McKinney. Thank you, Mayor. John, thank you so much for giving us that update on how the process is. And, again, how our independent audit was, they found no findings, and it was cleared. And to me, I think the problem we have here is the urgency to do things, like going to the media, going on social media, putting stuff out there. Like you said, the Channel 2 or whatever it was that said that we had already approved something, and it wasn't approved. Actually, I didn't even know about the AI state program. But I did get a chance to speak with our CFO, who, by the way, is a personal friend of mine. And I asked him, you know, in regards to, you know, we're talking about the budget, spending our money wisely for our citizens. And a good example, the moratorium that was passed, that there is going to be funding that we have to budget for suing the state. I asked our CAO, CFO, and I asked him, what do you think? I want your opinion of what the four commissioners that voted to sue the state, what is your opinion on that? And he said, that's the most stupidest thing he's ever heard of. Exact words. Not making it up. It's a waste of money. It's a waste for our taxpayers' money. We need to stop this urgency that there's some type of fire in this city, but there's no smoke. I'm tired of it. You're making the city look terrible. In one hand, we want to sue the city. And then the other one, we say, oh, we need to have a good relationship with them. Well, which one is it? Because if you're sowing the city, don't think you're going to have a good relationship with them, with the state. I'm just, we need to stop. We need to work together. We need to work on the city. We are working on stuff for the city. You've heard it from this great presentation today on things that are getting done with flooding. Stop damaging our reputation, calling the media, using social media to make us look bad. Sick of it. And I will not stay quiet. Thank you. Commissioner Avila-Basquez. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I don't know how this meeting is turning into personal attacks, but I just want to put my two cents in there. I've been at this dais for seven years, and this is the worst I've ever seen. And trust me, they were worse. They were bad before. But this is the worst I've ever seen commissioners attacking each other on a personal level. And what I don't like about this dais is how other commissioners do not respect the way other commissioners vote. And it's taking it, making it personal that some of us don't vote the way some other people vote. And that's not acceptable. That's not acceptable. I respect every person's vote. The way you vote, yes, no, maybe so. I don't care. That's the way you feel. That's how you feel is the best for your city, for your residents. And I respect that. And I think that everyone here should feel the same way. But I'm tired of being attacked for the way I vote. Respect my vote. I respect it yours. And you don't hear me attacking anybody here for voting three of you against the moratorium. I did it because my residents want it. They don't want more development until the problems are fixed. We're not stopping development. We're just putting a halt on it until we can fix the problems or stop attacking those who don't vote. In your favor, please. That's personal. Commissioner Howington. There's a difference between supporting good legislation and bad legislation. Just because the state passes a bill doesn't mean we have to blindly follow them in everything we do. So it's not. We've opened the door. So it's a workshop. We're talking it out. All right. Let's finish up, Commissioner Howington. I don't want us to get off track. So SB 180 has its issues, and it is costing the city money. Doge is another one that we've decided is a good piece of legislation, and we wanted to investigate it. It's come up on the dais. We've talked about it. And so, yes, in some instances, we will support some legislation, and maybe we wouldn't support others. That's okay to do. And, actually, we have the right to speak for our residents and what they're asking us for. Thank you. Commissioner Santiago, and then we're going to move on. Thank you, Mayor. I am just simply stating of what was said, not attacking you personally. What was said and what has been told to the media, social media, TV, whatever. That's it. Just putting out the facts. No attacks. Mr. McKinney, so we can get back on track. Do you know how many comments we had on prior audits, or is that something that you need to get back to me? Oh, hold on. Can you please click on your mic? Two, three maximum a year, but I will give you a 10-year back look of the number of comments and what type of comments. Okay. That was going to be my next question. What type of comments for how many years? So I guess you're going to give us 10. And all those comments have been cleared. We have no outstanding comments with our auditors. The state of Florida or the United States of America. Okay. All right. Please continue with the presentation. I guess let me just, a couple of questions that came up. Let me use the CRA as a great example. State statute allows for certain ways that monies can be spent with CRA funds, your tax increment. The county does not like the money being spent for policing, community events, et cetera, only for, you know, CIP capital. So they created an entire department, a group at the county that we have to submit our annual report. And if we do spend the money in an activity that the county does not like, we have to show and prove that it was spent with our tax increment, not their tax increment. So that's what I see DOGE doing is that they're going to come in and say, we don't like this to be spent here. So you have to prove that you're not using state shared revenue to pay for it. And as I know, it was brought up in prior meetings, preparing for what we're going to do for property tax reform that's going to occur next year. Well, then the monies that are available to do, as you said, specific community events, it gets harder and harder to fund it. The IRS audit, that was specifically to our 1095 filings. At no time did we ever fall in noncompliance with our requirement for submitting our taxes at an appropriate time period, providing our employees with the W-2s or the 1095s. That is what is reviewed by our auditor. When did we submit the 941 in a timely fashion? Did we submit the W-2s by the January 30th timeframe? The IRS penalty was regarding our 1095, and no one reviews that. That is something that, you know, you really know. We personally, when we do our taxes, it's due. Most of us file our taxes before we're required to even send it. So that is something that Purvis Gray would not have done during their annual audit. And then finally, thank you for allowing us to have impact fee studies, fire assessment studies, the annual utility rate studies. Your consultants that the city pays for questions us as staff all the time. Why are we spending this money for this? And I believe, based on other municipalities, why aren't you spending this amount of money, which I feel you should be. I'll just use our wastewater study. Brian came back and said, I don't feel that you're spending appropriately for wastewater. So, as I said, we get it multiple ways, you know, in terms of, you know, how we're spending our money. So, to finalize this, thank you, Mayor. Citywide debt hasn't changed. Oh, sorry. That's locked. I should have when I came in from the bathroom. Thank you. Next year, as we stated, we are tapped out with stormwater revenues. So, whether we do aquatics, additional lake maintenance, that would have to be a transfer from the general fund. The same way as we've identified the slope mower, it was originally presented at $318,000. They got it down to $252,000. Stormwater cannot afford that directly. So, we have set it up that it would be an internal loan from the general fund to stormwater at the prevailing SBA rate. So, that's the only debt. It's not going through a bank, a bonding institution. We would bring that back to you when we purchase the slope mower for an internal loan from the general fund to stormwater. No additional debt at this time. We talked about Doge already. Mayor, we only have two more required meetings as it relates to the budget process. The first and second public hearing, we provided that in the trim notice. Our first public hearing is September 3rd at 6.30 p.m. And our second public hearing is September 15th at 6.30 p.m. So, based on commission action on September 3rd, in order to comply with the requirements of the postings in the newspaper, those will be submitted to the paper by 3.30 p.m. on Thursday, September 4th. Do any of those, we have to wait for the county, the school board, to finish theirs as well? No, sir. We're having it on Wednesday, September 3rd, so that we are not conflicting. Okay. So, we are waiting for them to finish this. Yes, sir. Got it. Yes, sir. And my final item is just commission clarification. We've cleaned this up from previously. So, another question came up from the action from June 23rd. It was stated that all expenditures over $25,000. The commission also approved in October, by resolution, certain items that staff could go forward with, such as chemicals, et cetera. And, again, the action that was taken in October is that wiped out as well. As you can see from the last few commission meetings, we're putting, you know, 10 to 20 items commission meeting to go out there. We had a vehicle that fell in disrepair and required a $12,000 transmission because it's through a company that we've already exceeded $25,000 for. We can't even move forward with getting that vehicle repaired without coming back before the commission to get the change order for that vendor approved. So, it has really started to impact us being able to complete our day-to-day operations just on simple items. We have AC repairs that need to be completed, and we've exceeded $25,000, and it was originally for a purchase order of $50,000. So, we just need – I'm asking clarification of exactly how you want us to proceed with that because I will need to bring an amended policy to you the first meeting in October based on commission's desires on how to move forward with the purchasing policy. I believe the four voted – the majority voted for anything over $25,000? Yes, sir. To come back, so I guess that's what we had voted on. Yes, sir. Hold on. Commissioner Howington. Maybe what we could do is bring this list before the commission and have them go through to decide which items could be exempted from that. Absolutely. Anyone else? I know that the fire station has been waiting for a roof that I believe is on the next commission meeting, and meanwhile, they're getting more damage because the roof repairs over $25,000. Yes, sir. Vice mayor. Thank you, mayor. Well, the roof repair, wouldn't that fall under the emergency purchasing policy? We can prevent more damage? I could. We could. But in this particular case, they're wanting to also go from shingle to metal. So, I believe that that would not comply in the intent of the emergency procurement process. I understand. I appreciate that thought process. It was my understanding that this would also come back to the commission for discussion and a vote regarding updating the procurement policy. It's still my position that it needs to remain the way that it was when we amended the policy. I believe that was ideally at $100,000, but I think the commission, when the amended policy was passed, it was reduced. I think the commission, when the commission was passed to $50,000 to $50,000, yes, sir. Okay. I will put up a... Commissioner Caldwell. I'm sorry. Commissioner Caldwell had his hand up. Commissioner Caldwell, do you still want to add anything to that? I was going to input on the emergency policy myself, but I brought it up. So, go ahead. Thank you. Mr. McKinney. So, I will schedule this for an upcoming meeting and put the listing so we can go through it one by one so that we know then in October how we did it in previous years, how we had blanket POs, et cetera. Okay. Thank you. And one other thing. When we bring the policy back to make an amendment or change to it, I think at that point we can have a farther discussion on the dais amongst us commissioners on where we want to go. I don't know that the answer is let's look at a list of types of purchases and, you know, exclude some and not exclude others. And that just gets way too convoluted for staff, and it sounds like we're setting staff up for a gotcha moment. I'm not interested in doing that. So, I'd like to see the amended policy come back, and then we can have a greater discussion on what the dollar amount needs to be and when it should be implemented. Thank you. And through the mayor, if I may, just wanted to add that some other jurisdictions in their purchasing policies do have differential thresholds that apply to different units of the local government. For instance, a higher threshold in a utility department that routinely has to make large purchases of, you know, hypes, equipment, et cetera, versus a lower threshold in, you know, a more administrative portion of the government. So, I just wanted to throw that out there as something that you may all want to consider as this comes back. That's okay with the commission. I think that's a great idea as well. Is the commission okay with the shake of heads at least? No, maybe. I think that, again, that gets pretty convoluted. Another opportunity, more opportunity for gotcha moments. I think that there is, if we're going to break it up in any way, shape, or form, I think breaking it up by operating expenses versus CIP and doing different thresholds versus, you know, there. They can bring us some options. That's what I was suggesting. I think let's have staff bring us some options. Apparently, one work session, workshop on purchasing wasn't good enough, and I guess we'll go there. Okay. Mr. McKinney? Or I saw, Deputy City Manager, do you have anything to add? I rest. I just want to make sure that we have a couple of items that are due back to you by the September 3rd, so we'll try to get with Phyllis and get the report on the grading the roads to you by that time, just as a report to you. We've got a couple things from John that we're going to provide you, I believe, a 10-year look back. We'll have that to you by September 3rd, and if there's anything else we missed. Dates you need from us dates, if you guys can get with us on the November dates as soon as you can. I'll do that individually, sure. Sure. But we'll have those ready for you at the September 3rd, just confirming that. Okay. City Manager, I see you're on the board, then Vice Mayor and Commissioner Howland. As we're getting to the end of the presentation, one of the things we said we'll come back to was the concept of the lakes, if that's what you're – Okay. Just if the Commission's interested in us to bring anything back, we're at 6-7 right now. We're currently 7, so we're going down, what, 0.3. Original, we mentioned a couple months ago about 0.675. So if we go from 6-7 to 6-8, that gives 500,000. If you want to airmark something like that directly towards the pond cleanup, and we go from there depending on the bid. But we do want to come back with some kind of solid number, and maybe a discussion now might be apt, either a possibility of going up 0.1 or just staying where we are. At a courtesy, Commissioner Howington, you were on here. Did you want to talk about something different than this? I was actually wanting to circle back around to this, so that was what I was on board for. Okay. Let's start with Vice Mayor, and then I'll leave your mic on, but I'll go back to you. Thank you, Mayor. City Manager, I think if my other fellow commissioners would be amenable to that, I think that'd be a great approach. If we could go up a tenth of a mil to 0.8, and then pending the outcome of staff researching what the actual cost could be, we can adjust it from there. But definitely, if we do do this, I'd like to see this money earmarked for this use only. And if the timing doesn't work out, then it would get put back into reserves. Commissioner Howington. Thank you. So, just looking at the overall budget, we have $8.25 million going into the parks with CIP. I would like to see us take a large portion of that, shift it from parks, and put it into stormwater. And with that, maybe keep about $2 million in parks to deal with large projects that need to be dealt with immediately, and then potentially put $1 million back to the general fund. Because, as I've said before, I'm not supporting anything outside of a full rollback. And I think that we can get there, but I think spending $8.25 million on parks right now, given the current state of our stormwater system, is inappropriate. So, I'm just throwing it out there. It'll be up to the commission to decide what they want to do. The litigation, since the initial million dollars was brought forward, we have joined the coalition for the $10,000. We still have our 14 days to roll back if we do get a pre-suit notification for any potential litigation. So, we have control of those things outside of the one with Live Local Act. So, I think we should look at rolling that back either by a half million or even $700,000. And if we move forward with purchasing the generator, our generator that's out there is completely open to the weather. I would like to see some sort of a cover. I know you can't enclose it completely, but if we do move forward with purchasing a generator, I'd like to have it be under cover just to protect it from the weather. And so, those are kind of my items. I believe that with those changes, a full rollback, even with the stormwater vegetation cleaning, we can still make a full rollback. Are you proposing to cut park programs? No, I'm not part programs, the CIP projects. And what I would recommend is that we push them out rather than... When too many mics are on, they start cutting them off. Vice Mayor, can you turn your ears off really quick? Go ahead. We have a lot of projects front-loaded for this upcoming year, and we have just a few each year after that. So, what I would recommend is that we look at the five-year plan and maybe space those out a little bit more evenly just over the years, because we have a stormwater project that needs to be dealt with first, several stormwater projects. City Manager? You want to give the number? Yes, sir. So, in the Parks Capital Improvement Fund 302 next year, we do have the $8.25 million. And of that, $4 million is from park impact fees. The other $4.2 million is a transfer from the general fund, but that's using prior year appropriations. There's no monies from miscellaneous revenue or ad valorem for next year slated for that. It is all prior year proceeds. Okay. Go ahead, Deputy City Manager. So, the other thing, and again, we can go back, but I don't know what records. Anytime you have impact fees, you have seven years to spend the monies. So, to defer spending the monies from the impact fees, okay, from the park impact fees, I would suggest that you consider moving those forward, because those monies were collected for that purpose. So, you definitely want to move forward the $4 million for that, for those projects. Whatever projects were identified as part of that, they do need to be spent. And any other projects that are impact fee based, we don't want to find ourselves in a situation of having to deal with lookbacks and so forth on that. All right. We're going to finalize Commissioner Howington's comments, and then we'll go to Vice Mayor and City Manager afterwards. Thank you for sharing the information on the impact fees, because obviously, yes, we can't move those anywhere else. So, we can move forward with that. That still gives us $4 million within parks projects. And then we could shift other portions over to stormwater, so we can focus on vegetation without having to increase anything. Those are your final comments. Yes. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the thought and concept. I'm not interested in reduction of park projects, specifically for District 1. District 1's parks have been, I've received, I'll just put it this way, I've received a lot of feedback from residents over the last year about their dissatisfaction and many things. Parks is probably the single greatest item that I've received this dissatisfaction for. We've got a park that is within a few hundred yards of an elementary school in an area that has just under 500 students in the elementary school, and they bus about 30 students. So, within a mile and a half, two miles, we've got many hundreds of students. I think making these park improvements specifically to this park need to be done. They need to add capacity to that park. They need to add someplace. We need to have someplace for kids to go and play basketball, adults to go and recreate as well. And so, that's the kind of thing that builds quality of life in a community and really makes a community attractive to young families. So, I'd like to see a way that we can make those happen as well. And I know that there are some other parks projects in other districts that are very much needed as well. And I wouldn't want to ask any other commissioners to give up any of their projects in their districts for this item. Commissioner Caldwell? Yeah, I agree with the waterway cleanup projects moving forward. However, I don't want to see the raise in the rates. Myself, I'd like to see us tighten our belts in other areas. I agree with Commissioner Hollington, possibly some of the park funds and maybe other areas. We can tighten our belts a little bit to receive some funding for the lake cleanup. That's all I have. Thank you. City Manager? I was just going to say, Mayor, we're definitely not missing out on water projects in the budget. We also have plans going through the engineering for the next phase of water projects. One thing about our city is we do not have overwhelming parks. The looks at them, the quality of life. You walk into them, as I kind of say, as my background was, Parks and Recreation, of course, is it's a park. It's not a pretty park. It's not an exciting park. It's not a place I really want to take my kids, most of our parks I'm talking about. There's very little investment over the years. Our walking trails are dirt. I mean dirt. So if it's bad weather, rain, or anything, you're not going to walk out on the walking trails. So that's why we're looking at a major investment. But nobody moves to a city and says, boy, let me tell you how great our police department is. Let me tell you how great our fire department is. They move to a community and say, oof, what a park system we have. What a little league program we have. School system. It's the quality of life issues, and just over the years, one thing that's almost as steadfast and true is when it comes to cities that are cutting their budgets, the first thing that we say is, well, we don't need that Parks and Recreation, do we? That's the one connection people have to the government, and special events and parks is something we always refer to as the thank you to the taxpayers from the city government. Look, we're not just putting the money into. Infrastructure is important, of course, but people don't see it. So that's why we're looking at doing an investment in the parks across the city, and it's really the beginning of trying to become an outstanding place for people to not just live, but also entertain and be with their families. So that's just a plug there for Parks and Recreation. But we're definitely not missing out on water projects because of park projects. City Clerk, do we have any public comments? Go ahead. Allison Rude, please. Mr. Rude, if you can click on the mic, I'll turn it on. Should turn blue. There you go. No. There. There we go. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. Just a couple quick questions on the budget itself that maybe clarity can be provided later. On the general fund summary, there's a revenue of 5.5, just over 5.5 million for licenses and permits. I was just curious what actually funds that, what type of licenses, what type of permits are going into that general fund. That would be the first thing. Also, you mentioned the DOGE review that was done July 21st, and that seems like it was a huge undertaking in itself. I'm curious when the state plans on getting results from that back, or if they've been back, and will that be released? Because I'm guessing the amount of information they give you a couple days to give, they're going to take a few months to review. So, I don't know if there's any information on that that might answer some of the audits. I will say that I know, Commissioner Howington, you've stated very clearly I'm not your resident, and you're not my commissioner, and you don't have to listen to me. However, I would just like to let you know that I do agree, I think a forensic audit would be great, because from a professional's perspective, it's always nice to know that I don't have to pay for it. And we can see where that money is coming and going, although I have the utmost confidence in you that it is all going properly. It's always nice to reassure your people who have business dealings that it's done properly. So, thank you. Ms. Rue, we have your information correct? Courtney, Courtney Crest-Burgos. Ms. Rue, the mic is already on, just FYI. Okay. Good evening, everybody. I have to tell you, I'm more frustrated this year than last year, and you all know I was pretty frustrated with the budget last year. The mayor's trip, the moratorium, SB 180, all these things are priorities, and we haven't been discussing the budget with the residents. I'm not saying that you guys aren't. When are we going to get a line item budget? I mean, you know, it'd be really nice to be able to look and compare. It's always been something, well, I don't know always, but it's something that we've gotten the last few years. And, you know, there's a lot, I have to agree with Dory and Steve. There's a lot that we could cut back on so that we can do what Davidson would like to do with the vegetation. Chris Collier posts about it all the time. He has great ideas. Maybe we can talk to him on something. I saw in here, even though it's not a line item, but the tree replacement, can we not use the tree fund for that? Vehicles for code compliance. If they're not the dog ones with the cages, can't we do something cheaper than $72,000 for two of them? I'm confused about what non-departmental funds are. I mean, I get the concept, but I'd like to know what that really entails for $18 million. What are we doing for $25,000 in here? And Dewey Booster is getting more parks, I mean, more bathrooms remodeling again. We just did that last year. I don't know. I think there's a lot of ways that we can tighten our belts, as Steve said, because I'm really against going up in the millage. My taxes have not gone down. Thank you. Mr. Blodgett, please. Ms. Blodgett, your mic is on. Okay. I totally agree with Dory that we need to hear what Dodge or Doge, whatever it is, is going to bring to us. Marissa was right. As far as I'm concerned, the audit people, they missed the IRS. I don't care what you say, they missed it. And I have some things about the general fund. $25,000 used for barricades. How many barricades are we talking? How much work are we going to do? We don't have barricades? Second thing is the new code enforcement vehicles, $72,000. I thought we talked about that. I don't know. $80,000 for the sheriff's station, air conditioning replacement. Do we have to do that? Because it's not our sheriff. It's Volusia County Sheriff. $325,000 added for broadband. Didn't we do a lot of that last year? That sounds like a lot. And $25,000 added for computers for new employees. How many new employees do we have? I mean, did the old employees take their computers? And $25,000 for the commission chamber's design added. This looks fine to me. $25,000, we could move to the stormwater. What's the $71,528 for corridor improvement added? What is that? People are tired of spending money that we don't have. Please. Mr. Blodger, your mic is on. First, behave. Second, I think you should all take a look at the possibility of a doge-type audit as an opportunity. I have personally been part of or the target of probably over 100 audits in one way or another. And I always had everybody say the same thing all the time. It was, oh, we have nothing to worry about. We have nothing to hide. It took me less than 10 seconds to find violations every time I went out. And I never, the only thing I ever got nailed with was not having a policy in place that came down from central office that I didn't know about. Easy to fix. And I wanted to fix them because I wanted to be the best that I could be. Your finance guy over there said that you've already done a number of audits. I'm sure they're done in certain categories on high-ticket things that are being watched by the state and so on and so forth. But that isn't everything. If you could somehow get a buy on those, show the results of those to the supposed doge inspector, skip over those and get to the root of the things that are really where the money goes missing. It's like once I started getting involved in my audits, we found a $2 million electron microscope. We found a wife of the chief of surgery was on salary. So if you find somewhere in Deltono where you're giving out nine paychecks and there's only eight employees, guess what? That's a potential cost savings. But I just think you ought to take a good look at that. And if you ever buy one of those machines for dredging up the hydrilla, messing up the waterways, I'll volunteer to take care of it. Comments. Okay. City manager, do you have any further questions? Nothing, sir. Thank you. Okay. Beatings adjourned.