Okay. Is that going to be a problem? I'm getting an echo here. Muted. Okay. Muted. Okay. Good morning. Welcome to the August 4th, 2026 budget workshop. Want to call this meeting to order. Vice mayor, maybe mute your live screen. Sorry again. I think it's going to do the echo. Okay. Vice mayor, we have too much feedback here. We've got a really bad echo. I don't think we're going to be able to do this. We're going to need to work on getting you back. What I would suggest is that he listens and that he texts in any questions he might have. We can keep it for the record so it's all proper. And I think it's the only thing we can do. Did you hear that? Okay. Why don't you go ahead and call. I'm going to disconnect. It would be great to have this figured out by the afternoon for a final budget direction. Vice mayor, I'll give you a call. Okay. So again, I'm going to. Good morning. Welcome to the August 4th, 2026 budget workshop. I want to call the workshop to order for anybody who is coming in through via Facebook or streaming, running a little behind because we're trying to get vice mayor Walker here who is out of town and very important. Work with his company. And so we are, you know, we were trying to get him in, but we couldn't do it, but we're trying to figure out some other ways. But in the meantime, we have a quorum and we're going to move forward on the budget. So I'm going to start with a city manager, opening remarks. Thank you. Good morning, mayor, vice mayor remotely and city commissioners. This is the second of your two budget workshops. Your first budget workshop was on July 21st. That workshop was, was quite a bit of information for all of you. There was some discussion. Um, and I'm just going to run through the agenda for today. Uh, we have a followup on that. That's sorry. The third item this morning will be actually the board of finance annual report and the chair of the board of finances here this morning to deliver their annual report. We're going to, um, do the followup, uh, memorandum as well from the first budget workshop meeting. There's a little bit of something in there for everybody. So it is a comprehensive, uh, uh, essentially, um, answering all the comments that you had, the questions that you had, uh, general fund update, just a quick, um, uh, update on the property tax reform contingency plan. We have a, uh, a late breaking story this morning, uh, the risk fund update and, uh, the health fund updates and aid organizations as well, then followed by city commission discussion. And so, um, this morning, actually today, there are three items that we're looking for consensus direction. She's okay. We'll let her stay for consensus direction. Um, and that is first of all, to accept the report of the board of finance and we'll answer any questions that the city commission may have. And I'm sure chair Harvey would also. Um, and then the review of the, uh, a consensus direction on the health plan and Teresa Smalling will be presenting the health plan for us this morning. There, there is some, uh, consensus direction that we're going to be looking for from you, from all of you, and then aid organizations as well. And that's time specific. We sent out an email to those who had submitted applications for aid organizations and, um, invited them to the meeting, told them they don't have to come, uh, that they have just a few minutes to describe what it is they're requesting from the city commission. So that is the second budget workshop today. And then after today, we will move on to the first public hearing. Thank you, mayor. And I'll hand it over to Les for the followup, if that's all right, mayor. Uh, yep. Go ahead, Les. Les and Jean. Thank you. Good morning, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners. Les Tyler, the finance director. And I'm here with Jean, our budget manager. Uh, the followup memo is included in the packet. It's, uh, item agenda item one C in the packet, and it's a followup from questions that came up on the July 21st workshop. Number one, there's 16 items in the followup memo. Uh, and if there's any questions you'd like, like, we can, I can walk through these or you can ask questions on specific items. We do have one slide. The next slide is related to item number two in the, uh, in the memo. And that's for the reconciliation of storm costs for Helena Milton, showing total cost insurance proceeds and estimated reimbursements from FEMA. FEMA. So we can answer any questions you have, or I can walk through the memo, however the commission would like. Um, you know, there's a lot in here. Um, what's the will of the commission? Do you want them to go through this in detail? You want to point out certain questions? We can go kind of. We need to do a deep dive, but at least an overview of each one. Yeah, let, yeah, let's just, uh, I agree. I think that's a good way to do it. A general, like, you know, go through them all. Sure. Unless somebody keep going, unless somebody kind of throws and says, Hey, I don't get what you're talking about. I want a little more. So. Okay. Okay. Okay. Great. Let's do that. Okay. First item is the city commission asked staff to prepare a fact sheet on the effects of property tax reform. Uh, this item was sent to commission under separate cover. The city commission asked staff to prepare a reconciliation of storm costs, uh, because of the hurricanes, Helena Milton, showing total storm costs insurance proceeds and expected reimbursements from FEMA and the state of Florida. And in general, uh, we incurred $19.4 million in total storm costs from the two storms. Uh, the city received 5.2 million from FEMA and the state of Florida, uh, and, and also insurance proceeds in total. The city is anticipating another 13.2 million in FEMA and the state of Florida disaster reimbursements. Including within that is $3 million from the state state of Florida appropriation. We just received, uh, at the end of June and the, the updated city match is now $975,000. And there's an exhibit attached to that. And the match went down since the last meeting because we included the $3 million appropriation that we just received in the numbers now. So that reduced our match by about $375,000 from FEMA. Number three is the city commission asked staff to report back to the city commission, the potable water and reclaimed water consumption in. Oh, hold on just a minute. Yeah. I just jumped in if you want something on a specific issue. Thank you, mayor. Um, the question I have regarding that last response is, do we have any wobbles on this? Is anything outside the expectations as far as reimbursements? For, for FEMA, we're still working through projects with FEMA. Uh, we still, uh, we have a long way to go with the doc A and doc B project there. They're, they really haven't even started reviewing that project yet. They're, they're at a very high level. So that one, uh, that one's, you know, a lot, yet to be determined as far as whether or not they're going to completely agree with what we think the cost should be to replace, uh, doc A and doc B. Okay. But this is still expected track. It's not outside expected track. Is that correct? That's correct. It's still on the expected track. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Anybody else? Okay. Go to number three. Next was, uh, uh, uh, city commission asked about, uh, water consumption before and after the rate increase, uh, in the wastewater, water wastewater fund effective October 1st, 2025. And, uh, in reviewing the water consumption from October 24th through June 25th and October 25th through June 26th, that same time period each year, potable water consumption decreased by 23.4 million gallons while reclaimed water consumption increased by 8.1 million gallons. And there's a chart showing, uh, the potable water consumption, uh, decreasing and the reclaimed water consumption, uh, difference. If I might go ahead. No. Um, last, can you, I, I, I see the numbers. Can anything be drawn from that? Is the reduction in potable water? Is that a direct reflection of the increases? Uh, good morning, Clayton Watkins, utility and engineering. Um, if you look at it, we, the relatively deep dive we did, uh, I would say the answer is not very much. Um, the biggest difference over the last few years was, uh, last spring we switched the Blue Jays and those golf courts to potable water for irrigation during the dry time. And this year we kept them on reclaimed the entire time. So that difference is probably roughly in there with maybe in a little bit more coming out of just reduction in potable. And maybe even, uh, residents not using as much for irrigation also. If I may interject. Yes. Go ahead. Um, so, so actually keeping the Blue Jays in the golf course on reclaimed water is a win. Um, you know, through the dry period, because that's, that's what we want. It's good for the Blue Jays. It's better for the golf course. So, and, and you, you know, the increases in reclaimed water. I think that, for example, we heard from some residents, we met with some HOAs and the answer to them was you just need to stop using as much potable water. And they did. And so, um, you know, what I'm drawing from this is that in terms of the reclaimed water, that is the direction that we had wanted to go environmentally. So let me ask a quick question though, related to that, but that's if the reclaimed water is available. And in this case it was. Right. But if it wasn't, we would have no choice. Exactly. And when we've done it before, we didn't have a choice, did we? Correct. We did not have a choice. So it's not really a strategic change. It's a, it's available. Yeah. Okay. Because the residents are using less themselves of reclaimed water. Oh, oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, so that is good. So that afforded the Blue Jays. So that is good. They're going to use it more. Right. And, you know, the, the, the residents are using it. Um, there were some that were over watering. There's no doubt. Right. There's no doubt. And they, and they, I think pretty much we met with them and, and stopped over watering or using water as they needed it. And so that provided more reclaimed. So that's good for the environment. That's what we want. Because at the end of the day, strategically for citywide, it's a whole better deal. I mean, it, it works more efficiently for everybody if it works that way. Okay. Good. Um, I think commissioner regard, you had a question. Yeah. The implications are interesting. This shows you, you do have market elasticity inside both of your water sources here and both recycled and potable. Um, the implications of that for future revenue is pretty profound. And I think we probably need to dig into that at some point. Thank you. Anything else over here? Okay. Um, okay. Keep going. Next item is a city commission asked staff to prepare an analysis comparing the fiscal year 24 and 25 actual expenditures in the general fund. And identify the reasons the expenses increased, uh, in significantly in 2025. We did an analysis, which there's a, there's an attachment, uh, attached also to the memo, uh, comparing the two in fiscal year 25. There was an increase in expenditures of about $13 million, 13.3, 2.5 million. This increase was due to personnel increases, which included six safer grant positions. 10.5 million of the increase was an operating cost with 6.7 million of the increase being from storm expenses in that in 2025 year. It is important to note that the six safer grant employees salary and benefits are paid for by a three year grant from FEMA through fiscal year 28. After that, it becomes our city obligation. Uh, with the grant funded employees and the storm expenses, approximately 8 million of the fiscal year 25 increases related to one time grant funded expenditures. With other, with another 1.45 million increase related to several large roof and HVAC projects being completed in 25 compared to 24. We also did a comparison between the fiscal year 25 actuals and the 26 estimated budget. We did that as well. Uh, and the, with an increase of $4.9 million year over year. The, the increases were due to a $3 million increase in personnel costs, 4.8 million in capital and 770,000 and other incentive tools. And that was offset with a decrease in operating expenses of 4.2 million. One thing, you know, in comparing the 25 actuals to the 26 estimated budget is that any vacancy or operational savings in the 26 year is unknown. And that may make the variance appear larger at this point in time. Also, we are not aware at this point, what capital projects will actually be spent in fiscal year 26 and how much it may be carried forward. And there's an exhibit, uh, showing that analysis. Next city commission asked staff to explain why the capital expenses projections in the general fund are relatively flat from fiscal year 28 through 32. Uh, given the, uh, variances in 25 and 24 actuals. Uh, while all capital expenditures are listed in the capital expense line item for actuals for 24, 25, they roll up into one line item in the actuals in the long range plan. In fiscal year 26 through 32, this line item includes non-capital CIP capital, such as books and publications for library and other small capital purchases. As this line item does not include the capital improvement projects, the expenses remain relatively flat over time. The CIP capital line in fiscal years 26 through 28 through 2032 shows the scheduled capital projects per the CIP project listings at the bottom of long range plan projections. And this fluctuates from year to year. The city commission asked staff to provide a breakdown of the charge for services and miscellaneous revenue in the stadium fund. In the stadium fund charge for services include parking fees, naming rights and ticket sales. Ticket sales revenue are added to the reserves for capital for the blue Jays, uh, stadium for future capital repairs. Miscellaneous revenue includes interest income and other miscellaneous revenue. The other miscellaneous revenue includes about 1.35 million from the blue Jays debt contribution that they send to us every year. And 185,000 for the blue Jays share of the property taxes. And there's a chart at the bottom showing those, uh, line items. City commission also asked us to look into the stadium fund available fund balance, uh, and, and, and transfers from the general fund and see if they could be reduced. And, uh, we, we did a lot of analysis with the stadium fund and we, there is a long range plan attached to the followup memo. And based on our analysis, we, we did feel comfortable that we could reduce the transfer from 550 to $525,000. We did reduce it some, uh, although the stadium fund balance is projected to be approximately 2.1 million at the end of, uh, fiscal year 27. It is expected to decline approximately to approximately $382,000 by the end of fiscal year 32. In fiscal year 27 revenues are projected to exceed expenditures by approximately 310,000. However, 400,000 will be contributed to the stadium's capital improvement fund each year. And basically that the transfer that we have now of 525 basically covers the, uh, the insurance costs that we're paying now. So, and then we pay, we also pay property taxes on top of that by about our portion, about $78,000 a year. So we, we definitely are paying more annually than our contribution, but we have extra reserves. So we're thinking we can draw those down and, and, and we'll continue to monitor the fund to make sure that, you know, if property taxes go up in the next two years, we'll have to adjust again. But we think if they continue more of a gradual climb that I think this, this new number should work. Okay. Any questions on stadiums? You may, if I may, if I may. Okay, go ahead. No, Steve first. No, just, uh, parking fees, that's, uh, across the street. Hale Center, is that, is that where that money's coming? The, the, the parking, the parking fees on there? I think that's from the stadium. That's from the stadium itself. Yeah. That, that, that stadium itself parking. Okay. Well, okay. When I said to pay Hale Center, that's where we, we move people over there. Am I correct? The commission, uh, Tony Mulkey, Parks and Recreation Director. Um, the, uh, proceeds from Hale Center and the library go to the youth, uh, funds for scholarships for camp programs and such. So that's cycled back into the city. That's separate from the stadium fund. Okay. Okay. The naming rights. Do the, the, the Jays get a portion of that is about, could you explain how that works? That $148,000. Yeah. The, the, the naming rights is paid, uh, every year and that, and the Blue Jays do receive, they receive that money and then they pass it on to us. But, but all that, all that money goes into that reserve that we, that we talked about. It's all for future repairs and needs at the stadium. So it's sort of a flow through, flow through that they send to us. And then we, we, we track it in, in the reserve for the, for the stadium. Good. That's all I had, mayor. Uh, commissioner. Yeah. Uh, Les, I was just curious on the, uh, other miscellaneous revenue, the 1.3 million. And that seems like a very large number to be labeled miscellaneous. Um, is there a reason why it's miscellaneous and not debt service? Thank you. Yeah. Well, that's a good question. It's miscellaneous, it's miscellaneous revenue to us coming in. It is, when we pay, when we pay the debt service, it is, we do present it as debt service when we make the debt service payments. But for our purposes, the way we report in our ACFER and our financials, this type of revenue would be classified as other miscellaneous revenue. The, the Blue Jays make two payments to us a year that make up this amount. They pay us twice per year in, in advance of our debt service payments every six months. So we're just, we're, we're tiling it miscellaneous revenue for, for financial statement purposes. But as far as the debt service payments, they are, it is classified as debt service. We make the payments on the expenditure side. And this, the, the payments that are made, the 1.3 million, that is balanced toward the debt on this, on the stadium. That's correct, yeah. These are the payments for the debt. Is, do you think there's any, and I understand if it's an accounting operations situation, but it seems to me that, can I find that debt somewhere in, in the budget book? Uh. The debt, not the repayment. Yeah, the, the, the debt service, you can find it in the budget book, yes. Right. Yeah, for sure. And, and so is there, think there's any confusion that we can find the debt in the budget books, but we can't find the repayment of that debt. Yeah. Especially when it's not our repayment, it's coming from somewhere else. I think it would be very nice if the public could see that pass through. So that it's not just us telling them, they can actually see it in the budget book and just transparency, but I don't know the accounting end of it. Well, no, that's a good, that's a good question. What, what, what we can do for sure is we can add a footnote in, in the, in the long range plan and be clear exactly what's in that line item. We, we, we can do that and, and sort of show what we show here and make it clear that that is, that is the payment from the Blue Jays for the, for the annual debt service payment. We can do that. I, I think that would be a good idea. Sure. It just makes it a little more clear. Mm-hmm. Now that we're not being transparent, because I understand why we're doing it, but the more we can educate the public, the better. Sure. When it comes to our finances. Thank you. Mr. Ducard. The answer. Okay. Okay. Well, let's keep moving. We got a lot of pages. Next, the city commission asked staff to research the gas tax fund revenue projections in future years from fiscal year 28 to 32 and should they be reduced. Uh, we, we, we looked into, look, I, I looked at what other cities were doing with this and, as mentioned at the last commission meeting, the gas tax revenues have been declining due to increase adoption of electric vehicles and, and also more fuel efficient vehicles as well. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and and. Uh, this is the amplitude of carbon emissions. Uh, and it's, uh, and, and, and the, and I, uh, 17. 2% growth, slight positive growth, and after checking, doing some research and looking at what some of the other jurisdictions are budgeting, I saw it's kind of all over the place. Some are budgeting small increases, but more budgeting slight decreases, so we are going to adjust our tentative budget to show a negative 2.2% reduction rather than showing there's going to be any growth there. It's a small adjustment, but we do agree that it's on the decline and probably going to continue to be. Questions? May I? Sure. Because I do agree with you, Les, but I am curious as to why you think other municipalities are showing increases in their... What are they saying that we're not, or... Yeah, well, I reached out to three or four, and one of them had, you know, three of them are showing decreases, you know, slight decreases, and they've had slight decreases like us. Our city has the last couple of years. One of the cities thought they had leveled off and they were going to start, you know, sort of rebalance, or they thought that the negative frame was going to stop. I don't know why they thought that, but, you know, I didn't really think that was consistent, so I had three that were having small decreases, so I thought it makes sense to lean towards that way. May I add, Mayor? Commissioner? Go ahead. And I think that we tend to, as you know, on long-range planning, we tend to budget very conservatively, so if there's a doubt, we'll go less than more. Yeah, true. Yeah, because it seems to me for years the conversation has been, it's decreasing. So it's not just from last year, it's been a long conversation, even at the state level. So, all right, thank you very much. Any other questions on this? I have to tell you, the transportation, statewide transportation thing I was just at, the head of the turnpikes for the state of Florida and toll roads, and I think she said we're like the number one state for tolls, and then said, well, not sure that's a good thing, which I think it's not a good thing, but, you know, it's just interesting how we're paying for our roads versus this is kind of legit if we'd have some creativity in adjusting for, you know, electric cars at this point. If I'm not, Mayor? Yeah. I think this is a very good point, because we're dealing with a slippery slope here. It's going to continue to go down with the transition to electrification, and with technology the way it is, it's possible to charge a car for the road that it's on, any road that it's on through cameras, and I think we need to re-examine what that might look like in the future and be in front of this thing. Thank you. And if I can follow up? Sure. Who controls the gas tax? Is that a city issue? Not to dismiss what the commissioner said, but this is a state issue, is it not? It's a state issue. I mean, all the funding flows through from the state. I mean, yeah. The state to the county does. Right. And do we have that in our legislative plan for them to try to do something about gas tax issues? Good morning. We currently do not, but we can. I think we should. We are going to be addressing that probably in the next couple of months for your platform for next year. Okay. Have they been looking at that at all or just not willing to think we talked about this last year? Yeah. Not this past year. Two years ago, there was a bill that was addressing it, but there was nothing this last year, so we would really have to probably engage with some of our representatives and see if that's something that they would be willing to bring forward. Okay. Right now, Mayor, if I might, there is energy behind a purchase surcharge to have electric vehicles pay for their way. Unfortunately, that's a blunt instrument, and I think that we ought to really encourage a fee-for-use because technology allows us to do that now. Okay. Well, Nicole, you see what you got to do now, right? Got it. Small task. Small task. Okay. Let's keep moving. Okay. Next is the City Commission asked how much it costs to replace a linear foot of sidewalk versus a linear foot of roadway. Per FDOT, the estimate... I'm sorry. Who asked that question? You do. You want to see these numbers? That's you, Stephen. Oh, my God. You know that's right down my alley. Yeah. I want to hear you talking about this over at Salty Soul with the guys, okay? Oh, my gosh. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Per FDOT, the estimate for the full base and pavement replacement per road mile is $400,000 to $500,000 per mile. Per Dunedin, the fiscal year 26 milling and paving contract, the cost to mill and resurface a typical 25-foot wide roadway is $209,000 per mile. This unit cost does not include pavement markings or any required curb and gutter replacements for either of the above costs. Sidewalk construction costs under this year's contract are $118 per square foot, square yard, excuse me, per square yard, which is at the higher end due to the relatively small quantity of sidewalk work included in the bid. At this unit price, the cost to construct a 4-inch-thick, 5-foot-wide sidewalk is approximately $346,000 per mile, while a 4-inch-thick, 4-foot-wide sidewalk costs approximately $276 per mile. The standard is 5-foot-wide and must be six inches thick through driveways. So what I'd like is for Commissioner Sandberg to repeat that without looking at your notes. Is that done by Dunedin City staff or is that contracted? Contracted. It's contracted. Those are contracted prices. Yes, we do. To me, it just seems like it could be a whole lot less if we had those hard-working Dunedin folks go out there and do that. We do have internal resources that do sidewalk work, but those same resources are the same ones who are repairing the roadways, trimming the trees, repairing the guardrails. So there's only so much of those resources to go around. And so we can contract and group the work together with our paving contract in this case, and then separately and actually get a better price. That's what I wanted to hear at the end. Thank you. Commissioner? I know a lot of our citizens look at our contract work from kind of a critical point of view, and I think that they're just not looking at the math. Because of what benefits costs are to us, the contract work comes in much cheaper usually than would be for employees to be doing the same work. Mayor, if I may, in addition to the employee costs associated with that and the benefits, it's also the equipment that's necessary to do that. You know, these contractors, they have the paving equipment, they have the rollers, they have all this significantly expensive capital equipment in order to do the work, which if we had to bring that in-house, that would just drive those costs up even more. So one more item is it is more expensive internally because we are doing small pieces. Just like this said, the overall cost here was higher because we're doing small, smaller amounts that cost more, but then we're responsive. So some safety concerns have to be addressed immediately. And that, that does cost more, but it would cost more whether we contracted or did it in-house. We would be paying a lot more to have that kind of responsiveness for a contract. So this is planned work. And as I look at this, I just think we need less roads and more sidewalks, whether we do it in-house or send it out. So yay, pedestrians. Okay. We better keep moving before it gets beyond that. You would have loved this transportation thing, though. It was all about bikes, pedestrians, and yeah, protection. So go ahead. Okay. Next, the city commission asked if the proposed catastrophic reserve for future storms could be added to irregular city reserves and not a specific separate reserve. Staff will conduct an additional research on this topic. We'll evaluate practices used by other agencies and return back to the city commission at a future date with a more comprehensive information on that topic. The city commission asked staff if the downtown paper project that includes ARPA funding in the amount of $187,000 could be moved to the CRA fund and out of the ARPA fund. Staff researched this and determined the CRA fund balance is adequate and can support moving that $187,000 to the CRA fund and out of the ARPA fund. So we've attached the change in the follow-up memo, and we'll also include that in the tentative budget. We've moved that project to ARPA, that portion of it. Okay. Let's keep moving. City commission asked staff to check into how other cities handle boat ramps at the marina. Is it part of the marine activities, or is it reported elsewhere and not in the enterprise fund? Staff's doing research on this, and we'll bring it back to commission at a future date. City commission also asked if the marina slip renters must pay to use the boat ramp at the marina, and the slip renters can use the boat ramp at no charge, but only for their contracted vessel. If they have additional vessels, they are charged a launch fee. Owners of larger vessels never use the ramp. Smaller vessels are launched and retrieved occasionally for maintenance. City commission asked staff to research and get back with information on the rent abatement for the restaurant at the golf course. How long will it last? Staff reviewed the agreement between the city and Highland house and confirmed that the rent abatement is scheduled to end in November, 2027. Accordingly, November, 2027 would be the first month that rent payments are due under the agreement. City commission asked. I have a question on that. If for some reason a company couldn't pay the rent, what would happen under the agreement? What happens to all the kitchen stuff? Oh, sorry. So in that case, and obviously it would be a thorough legal review, but all the capital improvements within the restaurant belong to the city of Dunedin. So essentially you take the building, you turn it upside down, you shake it, and everything that falls out would belong to the restaurateur and everything that is attached, hoods, ovens, and so on and so forth would belong to the city. Okay. Just out of curiosity, have we started to determine what the monthly rent would be up there? So it is predetermined what the monthly rent will be, and actually we have a meeting coming up with restaurateur to go over their financials, and I will report back to the city commission. That's all I had. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Well, King Gordon. Next item is city commission asked staff to determine how much revenue we would lose in fiscal year 27 if we had a rollback millage rate, and what would be the impact of the loss of revenue on operations. We looked at the operational impacts. If we did that, the loss of revenue would be $770,000 if we were to do the rollback rate. However, based on the contingency planning work currently underway, absorbing the revenue reduction of this magnitude would necessitate additional service level reductions and the elimination of staff positions beyond those that may be identified in the contingency plan currently under being developed. Using the 27 proposed budget, we calculated the average general fund full-time equivalent cost to be approximately $105,000, the average cost of an FTE in the general fund. Based on this estimate, the city would need to eliminate approximately 7.5 positions to offset the projected revenue loss associated with adopting a rollback, the rollback millage rate, and then we just, comparable to how we're doing our contingency allocations as far as departments that might be affected. You know, at 7.5 positions, it would likely be an example of parks and rec three and a half positions, facilities one, library one, streets possibly one, support departments one, and that would get close to that $770,000 amount. I want to mention these reductions would be in addition to our whatever service adjustments we have in our contingency plan that we're currently working on for fiscal year 27. Commissioner, you have questions? Yeah, Les, you had mentioned that the rollback dollar amount was $770,000. Can you remind us what year one looks like if amendment three passes? Year one, year one impact is a $3.7 million reduction in our direct revenue. Plus, we also have the rolldown impacts that we'll talk more about in a few slides, but we also have reductions in our library co-op revenue, reductions in our 12% we see for fire services through the county that's all property tax revenue based and reduction in EMS revenue. So with those items added, the first year full impact would be $4.755 million. Okay, so a rollback would be greatly reduced, right? It's a better improvement than the first year if amendment three passes. And I noticed that whenever we talk about future years, we talk about there can be a revenue enhancement, there can be cuts in employment, there can also be cuts in services. Yet when we talk about the rollback, the only thing that you mentioned was employees, which is the most traumatic, the most emotional, and I don't think sets a good picture. And then when you also acknowledge these actions are in addition to any staffing or service adjustments that may be implemented through 27 in the contingency plan. And so if year one, that contingency plan is to meet year one, and I just think that it's a little misleading in the wording, and that when you say in addition to any staffing, it's a much smaller portion. I mean, it sounds like the rollback is taking the heavy hit as opposed to any expenses or any reduction in expenses due to the rollback is just part of what we would see in the contingency plan anyway. But we word it like it's in addition to like it's the bigger piece of the pie. And I just don't think it's an honest reflection of what would happen in the rollback. I think it is in addition to. No. Yeah, we're saying we're saying it's in addition to, yeah, we are. And it's a good question. I mean, we're looking at it as if we're, you know, we're planning on doing a contingency plan, you know, and we need the $3 million reduction, and we're going to do that whether the Amendment 3 passes or not. You know, it's going to be on a slower pace if Amendment 3 doesn't pass. But this other additional, if we were to do the rollback, you know, we've got another $770,000 problem that goes every year in the model, too, because that goes throughout. You know, in other words, if we did reduce our revenue by $770,000 in 2027, that would roll throughout the model until we increase the millage again. And so we would, we're looking at like, we need to fix that. We need to fix that. And we're looking at the $3 million needs to be done. And the $770,000 would need to be on top of that. But that was our approach. And I, you know, I do think that, you know, after the $3 million reduction, I do think that there are still, there are still service level reductions we could do. And I will say this is a broad brush stroke, you know, and you bring up a good point in that this is a broad brush stroke with positions. It would not be 100% positions, but I think would be a very large portion of positions because, you know, we'd have to do a detailed analysis to figure out what might be supply costs and things that go with the position and things like that. But, you know, but for a broad brush stroke, we're saying positions only. I do think it would be not 100% positions, but I think it'd be a lot of labor because of the fact that once we get through the $3 million reduction, you know, we're, we're going to, it's going to lean more towards the labor as we, if we have to cut further, if that makes sense. Because I was going to say, Jeff, the way I look at it, if I'm right with what the commissioner's talking about, is if we do, if we did the rollback, we're dealing with the millage. So we're decreasing the millage. But in Amendment 3, it's all about increasing the level of exemptions. So then you've actually, you've got one going this way, one going this way, and they are, then they're additive. They're not, they don't, you know, you're not offsetting. It's additive. Oh, and I, and I, and I, right. And I do agree with that, but at the end of the result, it's the reduction in revenue, period. And just, and, and my thought is, is the contingency plan, if I'm going to give it a number, is one, or I'm sorry, is three. Now the rollback would be one. Any additional impacts through contingency to meet that number would be two. So you've got one plus two equals three. If you guys can follow me on that, just two pieces of the pie. One is the rollback, one is the contingency plan. So if we do the rollback, it would be one. And we still have that shortfall, we'd have to deal with in the contingency, which would be two, to equal the contingency plan of three. So without the rollback, we would just do the contingency plan, which would be three. Or we can do the rollback, which is one, and then meet the other needs of the contingency plan, to meet that number, which would be two. So. But either way, it's going to be. Either way, it's, right. By year three, either way, it would be, correct me if I'm wrong, if you did a rollback, it would be 7.6 million plus 770,000. And if you did, if you were looking at it just for the first year contingency, then it would be 3 million plus the 770,000 decrease that you've caused by the rollback. I mean, am I right? Is that? Yeah, I mean, that's how I look at it. You know, that's, I mean, I look at it, you know, I see your point, Commissioner. You could look at it either way, but we end up in the same place, I think. I see what you're saying. But, and again, I will say, if we did this, it would not be 100% labor. In the time we had, there was no time to do a detail analysis, obviously, of exactly what we would have to cut, you know, to get to this number. Some would be non-labor, but I do think a lot of it would be, the majority of it would be labor, but not 100%. But, but I just want to make sure I'm clear now. If we did a rollback right now, and it was $770,000 that we had to find in the budget, by the end of year three, if amendment three passes, it's 7.6 million that we know we'd lose through the amendment, plus 770,000 that we'd lose because we rolled back the millage. Correct. Okay. That's all, yeah. Any other questions? Or did you have more? No. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm good. I, I don't know that I'm good, but I'm good. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's good to understand it, though. So, I do, may, if I could just. Sure. Add to that. I do, just a couple of things. First of all, you know, the, the, where you're approaching this is that, first of all, we're decreasing the taxable value by decreasing the millage rate, right? So, the taxable value is less. And then you add the, then you add the, essentially the amendment three passes. So, from that taxable value, you subtract 150,000 and then you subtract 250,000 outlying years. So, I think the delta that we get to is, is probably minimal moving forward. It's interesting because it's certainly something that we, an exercise that we could run, but I think we'll be in very much the same situation, um, moving forward. But we can certainly look at that. The other part of that is that, um, you know, and, and the mayor and I have been doing our education forums throughout the community. And, uh, and, uh, most certainly those during the question and answer period are asking us, who is it? What program is it? What is it? And we have not committed to anything out in the community yet. You know, first of all, the impact on the employees who, you know, they think we're talking about them. And then also the programs, because if we were to say, well, this program would be eliminated or that program would be eliminated. And, um, until we get to that contingency plan, um, that would be, I think would be considered alarmist until we put a plan before all of you for you to approve. Um, and it, then it's from, you know, you get to, we think it would be this too. This is the fact that we're going to, um, look at. So, I understand where you're coming from and we'll, we'll talk to us a little bit about that, about what that looks like. But I think regardless, you know, the rollback obviously is not something that we recommend giving, given what we're looking at in the future. Have we ever stopped? Have we ever talked about a rollback? I don't think, I don't recall ever. We've talked about it for the last, since 2016, the millage has been the same for the last 10 years. But we've, every year we've kind of talked about it. Well, of course we talk about it, but I, okay, I just wanted to clarify that. Right. Yeah. That was a, I didn't really see that coming this morning, but all right, moving on. Yeah. And I just kind of wanted to say that, I mean, in terms of ultimately what happens in terms of what we would cut if amendment three passed, I mean, 50% is personnel. So I just think that you got to be straight out with people. I mean, the bottom line is going to be people. I mean, it's going to be obviously some operational, but it's going to be people. There's no way you'd get around it. So. And I think moving forward, the options before the city commission, I mean, you never say never about any revenue generation or any decreases and advertise or anything like that moving forward in light of the fire assessment and so on and so forth. So we need to look at the totality of all the facts and all the instruments and tools we have to address this in the future as well. So. Cool. Okay. So we have one more. Just one more. Yeah. The city commission asked out to provide a one page summary of the savings resulting from the public works efficiency study and implementation of improvements and stats provided an update with a breakdown of the savings. And it's an attachment in the follow-up memo. The conservative total to date as of June 2026 is $564,000 in savings. It's exhibit E in the follow-up memo. Any questions on this? I just want to make sure I understand it. So. Sue, can you walk through this? Sure. Like right off the bat, I'm in progress estimated at 4% to 15% of budget. I don't. Those first comments are just overall comments to indicate some of the things that we said. We estimated that. Okay. 4% to 15% of the budget would have been $912,000 if 4% efficiencies in our processes and overall budget. This is to date now, the implementation costs. This is net. We're $400,000 and the net savings is $597,000 as of March. Those were actual hard numbers. We have proven through our plan versus actual process that we're doing more work with the same amount of people. I said less people on here. Probably should have said the same amount, but because of vacancies, I wrote less. And then we have implemented 67% of the recommendations. The first place that we can identify hard savings is reducing 13 vehicles, not including solid waste. That's the surplus, which you all know was relatively small. The revenue based on those surplus, those are really old assets. But there was the incremental savings of the maintenance cost in fleet and the fuel. And those will also be recurring savings. But this is one time up to this date that we've calculated for the fiscal year. And the unincorporated county customer withdrawal savings, net is $166.39. That is from the net revenue expenses, route optimization, fuel disposal, all those. And they're continuing to be analyzed right now. We're checking because our estimates from the rate study consultant were a certain amount for the disposal costs because it wasn't broken out, unincorporated versus city. And we're finding that the unincorporated, we did have a higher amount of disposal costs. So we'll bring that back to commission. But at this time, the net, right, including the revenue that was lost, right, because we're not collecting for those customers anymore. So all net revenue versus all expenses for solid waste, unincorporated area was $166.39 savings. And then staff optimization. We had frozen positions before they were frozen, soft freeze, in anticipation of what you'll see in the budget here, which is two reductions of staff from solid waste. But also throughout public works, we froze. And also one position in fleet because of the reduced number of vehicles. We're seeing, can we eliminate one of those? But at this time, what we're proposing in FY27 is the reduction of two positions in solid waste. That is not reflected here. Only the savings from the vacant positions being frozen are included in this calculation of $194,230. Conservatively, $564,701. So I guess I, if it costs $400,000 implement and we save $564,000, then that's a net of $100 and some thousand. I'm not, I don't understand how you got to. No, the savings is greater. I'm sorry, I didn't include the total, adding those two together where we're at. It's 912. I guess that's what I'm looking for. A simple equation. Costs, this, this, this, excuse me. And, you know, savings, this, this, this. And then the bottom line. Sorry, I took away the second page, which had the calculations. $964,701 savings. But we're, what, can you add, can you tell me, I see the numbers that add up to $564. I don't understand what gets me to a higher number. It's just adding the $4,000. Okay, I understand what you're saying. The $4,000 that were also savings that we, that we, um, spent on the consultant. I'll, I'll get you that. Yes, you're absolutely right. That is. Yeah, saving, yeah. I mean, I just want savings minus costs. Well, I'm not showing your optimization of equipment. Yes, absolutely. Okay, that's, that's what I'd really like, so we can kind of understand. Okay. Any other questions on that, guys? Is that, uh, do we have costs this year to the consultant and the software? Is, isn't there an annual fee? Uh, we already paid that. Yes, we, that was included, the software costs. Um, we have, this amount for the consultant was the total cost. We have, uh, about $5,000 left on that. We, which we will have to move over to next fiscal year because we couldn't fit in, uh, the final report to the commission until October. But, uh, that consultant cost will be finished and it is included. Total cost is included in the figures, both POs for solid waste and for, um, this whole implementation. Okay. Just, it's just, just out of curiosity, was it about 1,200 homes that we stopped picking up in unincorporated? Was that close? That sounds, sounds correct. 1160, maybe? Okay. All right. That's all. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. But yeah, even with the consultant and the software, it'd be kind of nice to have it itemized. So it's clear. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Um, I think that's all on that. So we would be going. Oh, very good. And yeah, let's keep him in the loop. Very good. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We're glad you're listening. Um, okay. So we're going to do, um, Board of Finance annual report. So staff and Kathy or Kathy just taking the charge, right? Yeah, thank you. I'll just turn it over to Kathy, the chair of the Board of Finance to go with the report. So is it Kathy or Catherine? Kathy, call me Kathy. Okay. So good morning. I'm Kathy Harvey. I'm chair of the Board of Finance. And just to give those of you who aren't familiar some background on us, we are a citizen-led advisory board to the city. And our members have expertise in finance, accounting, and tax issues. And we do a pretty comprehensive deep dive on the budget. And these are our recommendations based on that. So if it pleases the commission, the mayor, the vice mayor, and the city manager, I'll just go through the letter and then take your questions. Does that sound like a plan? Perfect. Thank you, Kathy. Okay. So we looked at the proposed budget in light of the looming potential of the pending ballot measure, HJR1F, which would phase out all non-school-related property taxes for Florida residents. And you'll hear much more about that later. And so if this were to pass, Dunedin wouldn't have to eliminate many non-essential services. And so we looked at those in that light. And also things that would obligate us to a multi-year debt obligation repayment scheme. The projects that are related to rebuilding the marina and maintaining and improving stormwater drainage, we agree should move forward. Those are needed infrastructure items. And I would just like to again thank Les and Jean and the finance team. They've gone the extra mile many times for us to get us the information we need. And that has really allowed us to come up with some solid recommendations. So an update on the carry forward. We've talked before about carrying forward budget items from one year into the next makes it very difficult to forecast cash flows and can obligate us to debt service before it's actually needed and increase costs. So we've had a lot of progress on that this year. For the 2026 fiscal year, we had a capital budget of nearly $53 million and started the year with a carry forward of $31 million. And this process has gone on for several years. And so this year's estimated carry forward is down to $15 and a half million. So we've made some pretty significant progress there. So this will just take an ongoing focus from the finance team and reviewing all the projects to make sure that we're rebudgeting when we can and keep working on reducing the carry forward. And in order to do this, we're suggesting that there be a consolidated monthly report of all the capital projects, what the status of them are, the completion dates, and any reasons for delay so that you have early heads up when things are not going to be completed in this fiscal year. So the big ticket items we looked at are the large capital improvement projects. We agree with the recommendation to delay the Highlander Aquatic Complex until 2029. However, the cost of this project has risen from $18.1 million to $23.5 million. So we are recommending that there be a scope review of that to try to bring it down to the original cost estimate. We also suggest delaying the construction of the garage, which is $9.1 million, particularly when other new garages are being built downtown. The project also obligates the city to 15 years of debt service. And currently the entire $9.1 million amount is budgeted in 2027. So even if you decide to go forward with that, I would take another look on the timing because it's unlikely that the whole thing will be completed during this fiscal year. So you could rebudget part of that. We've also listed a number of projects under Parks and Rec that are related to infrastructure and services that may be deemed non-essential in the future. I'm not going to go through all of these, but unless they are creating a safety issue, we think that these can be reduced or delayed. I think you should go through them. You want me just list them? Okay, sure. So Fisher Little League, again, Jerry Lake Athletic Lights is $120,000 in this fiscal year and a six-year total of $1.3 million. Park Pavilion Replacement is $250,000 in this fiscal year with a six-year total of $580,000. The Playground Equipment Replacement is $200,000 in 2027 with a six-year total of $800,000. Athletic Field Renovation is $100,000 in this fiscal year and $600,000 for a six-year total of $600,000 for a total of $770,000 in this year and $3.88 million over six years. And all of these are general fund items with the exception of the Playground Equipment Replacement, which is coming from the Penny Fund. So those are things that we think can sharpen up the pencil on. So going into labor costs, compensation, and benefits, we've discussed previously how the medical benefits continue to increase. This year's budget without any plan changes is a 16% increase over the estimated 2026 totals actuals, which is an 18% increase over the prior year. Historically, the city has been absorbing all of the costs of this, and there's been no rate increase to employees for several years. We agree with the proposal to implement a combination of plan changes and premium increases to get the increase down to 12%. At the time we put this together, we didn't have the details of this, and I got it Friday, so these are my comments and not reflective of the full board because they haven't had a chance to review it. But we agree with the plan changes that the city is recommending, and we agree with the flat premium dollar amount increases that are recommended. There are some inherent inconsistencies about the incentives between the three plans. Currently, you have 81% of people in the base plan, and that's largely because right now it's free for employees only for the base plan as well as the high deductible plan. So there's no incentive for them to go into the high deductible plan. We also agree that either now or in year two, the buy-up plan should be eliminated. You only have a handful of people in it, and it's definitely driving up your costs. And something that is sort of implied in the presentation but not clearly stated is that the wellness plan typically would only be tied to the high deductible plan, and that's so it's giving people an incentive to take that plan. So I think by realigning the incentives and making these changes, you'll have a more actuarially sound plan, and I'm sure you'll be hearing more about that later. A couple of additional comments. Raising the individual stop-loss amount, the savings of $149,000 are really subsumed by not getting the claim reimbursement by raising that level. So in other words, you currently have seven people that are hitting the stop-loss limit. By raising the stop-loss limit by $20,000, assuming those same people hit it again next year, you are forgoing $20,000 per person of reimbursement from your insurance company. So the $149,000 in premium savings is reduced by the $140,000 in claim reimbursements that you would not be getting. So I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying I wouldn't be counting it as savings. And if you have more than seven people, then you would actually lose money by raising the stop-loss limit. We also think that planning for the next year should begin now on the administration of the plan. Your rate guarantees with Cigna expire at the end of this next fiscal year. And putting it out to bid should be not only looking at the 10% of your cost, which is the administrative fee, but giving more weight to the 90% of your costs, which are the claim costs themselves. So there needs to be some consideration of comparing the network discounts among the various administrators of the plan. So in other words, Cigna may only have a discount of 10%, but Blue Cross may have a discount of 20% because they have more market share. So just making that change, even if the administrative fees were the same, would lead to significant savings for you. So that's something I would strongly consider. We also noticed in looking in detail at the competitive info from the other cities that St. Pete went through a process of raising their minimum wage and shifting more benefit costs to employees. So we think that you should do an analysis to look at what the net effect of that is, because it's likely that may actually save you money long-term. So that's something to consider there as well. We also looked at overtime costs. Overtime is budgeted at $1.5 million and keeps rising. We asked each department for what their process was for approving it, and they're different in every department. In some areas, like in Parks and Rec, this approval is being done at the supervisory level. We think that there needs to be more executive oversight of overtime approvals and some justification of all budgeted amounts, because, you know, you were just having a discussion about positions and not wanting to reduce positions, and $1.5 million of overtime would fund a lot of positions. So that's something that we can take a deeper dive on. And we did actually ask finance to go back and ask each department if they could reduce their overtime by 10%. Some did, some didn't, but that got your increase for this year down to half of what it was. And we also believe that because of the efficiency study that you were just discussing, that public works should be seeing a decrease in their budgeted overtime. If this is working, then that should be the result. And then just kind of a miscellaneous item, there's $330,000 a year in credit card transaction fees that the city is paying. This is where you are allowing residents to pay various fees via credit card, and the city has been absorbing those fees. So we believe that these fees should be passed on to the people, as it is in many cases now at restaurants and other places, that you're paying the convenience fee of paying by credit card. So those are our suggestions for your review, and I'd be happy to take your questions. Okay, questions for Kathy. I'm starting over with Commissioner Sandberg. I guess I'm not really, I don't have a lot of questions for you personally. A lot of this that we'll have to deal with. So you know more about the health insurance industry than anybody sitting in this room. If we were to just take the current Cigna policy, I mean, is it as simple as to ask them to increase the deductible per person? I mean, is that something that we can do now? Or what would you suggest? So it's as simple as a phone call or an email to them to see what we can do. Oh, yeah. I mean, it usually takes them a couple of days to program the change, and you usually want to do it at renewal just because your deductibles and such accumulate on the calendar year basis. So you usually do that at renewal, but you can change it mid-year. Okay. And I think the proposal that HR is going to be sharing with you has an increase in the deductibles and the out-of-pocket limits, which is something that we have previously recommended. And how do you recommend that we go, when we take it to market, that we find and turn over every stone possible to find the best carrier, the best price, but even more so, best coverage for the entire staff? How would you suggest we go take that to market? So typically, you send out a request for proposals. I would suggest sending it to the top three or four. I wouldn't go crazy and turn over every possible stone, but focus it on the top three or four carriers in terms of market share because market share is what drive discounts, and that's the biggest part of where your claim dollar is going. So I would compare the administrative fees, the stop-loss premiums, which are going to be minor in this whole situation, and the network discounts. And the way you would compare the network discounts is to come up with what we would call a market basket approach where you would take some of the most common codes like an office visit and, you know, come up with some basic inpatient costs, et cetera, and give a list of codes to each of the carriers to tell you what they would charge for each of those. And then I'm sure your lovely consultants can come up with a consolidated way of scoring this and evaluating those discounts. Last thing, and this is more of an opinion, you know, going through the roster of that board that you chair, there's a lot of knowledge, and I really feel like the city commission should lean on that board for more advice instead of the cost of running out and getting all these consultants and all these advisors. And I think we have enough talent that sits in that room with you as the leader of it that I think that you should be brought in more often for your opinion on some of this money that we're spending. So I've known you a long time, and I thank you for everything that you've done for us. Well, thank you. And I will say that, you know, the board is quite willing to take on more and to be more involved in these things because there is a lot of experience in that room with all sorts of things, not just benefits, so. Okay, questions? Mr. Gough. Thank you, Mayor. Kathy, thank you for the report, and thank you to the committee. This is wonderful information. Just real quickly, yes, and I'll beat this drum again. Les, I'm sorry, what was the total amount of reduction we get with the rollback? Look, $770,000. Oh, look in there. If we make these changes here according to the finance committee, we could save $770,000. Amazing. And I'm not going to beat the insurance drum because Steve did a great job on that, and your answers were wonderful. On the $300,000 that we pay in credit card transactions, is that only utility payments? Or where do we offer that payment system? Yeah, good question. It's primarily the golf course has a lot of credit card uses there for people playing golf, members and non-members. The marina has some credit card fees. Parks and Rec programs have credit card fees. And then the largest is our utility billing. You know, utility billing is by far the largest dollar amount. And we currently, I will say that the building department passes on the fee right now. The building, for permits, we pass on the fee. We rolled that out with EPL. It's the only department we have that passes on the fee. The other ones I just mentioned, we absorb the fee currently. Had a lot of discussion with Jennifer on this. And, you know, we've been discussing, you know, whether or not we should consider passing on. I mentioned to Jennifer, I think if we do decide to go that route at some point in the future, I think it should be a gradual approach. I think it should be, you know, for instance, golf course first, then another one, because a couple things. One of the things is the water sewer utility billing is not rolled over to Tyler Muniz yet. And we would not want to make any changes in that until that transition happens and the bugs are out of that, because that will be a whole new platform. One of the challenges of the credit cards is we're all on different platforms. Tyler Muniz has its own credit card platform. Our golf course has an ERP system called ProGolf, I believe it is, or 4UP. 4UP is the new one. 4UP is the name of the vendor. And you are required to use their credit card company. So the new thing that's happened in the last three years with ERP systems from small to large is they've gotten smart and they realize they can make money with the credit card business. So a lot of these, also we use Rectrack in Parks and Rec. Rectrack has its own platform now. We use their own system. So it's not like we have one company that does all of our credit card transactions. We've got about four right now. We'll eventually be down to three once water sewer goes fully to Tyler Muniz. But right now that's kind of how it is. So we think that we could, if the commission were alike, we think we could move that direction. But we think that we should do it in pieces and do one function one year, then do the next, then do the next. And also when you do it, there's going to be changing behavior. And you need to, you know, factor that in too. You know, for example, at the golf course, you know, there's a lot of credit card usage now. If we were to pass that on, there'll be a change in behavior. You know, people who are paying credit card now will start writing checks or start bringing cash in, whatever they do. And, you know, that will increase staff's time to handle daily deposits and things like that. So not that that's a reason, not a reason to do it, but it's just that it will change behavior. And we also need to look at what other cities are doing too. I do know a lot of cities are, some cities are passing it on now. I do know that. I've done a little bit of research, but anyway, that's kind of big picture what we've found so far. All right. And so in order to implement something like this, it's more than just flipping a switch then. I think in some of these cases, would we have to change platforms in order to do this? I think for 4UP, we would, for the golf course, we could use their platform. We just have to work with them to adjust it, to pass the fee on. And I mentioned, and Parks and Rec, I'm sure we could work with that provider. I think it's Connect Card to, again, work towards passing those fees on. There's public outreach and things you have to do too if we made that change. There's notifications we have to do, you know, legally to make sure everybody's aware that the fee's going to be charged to their side moving forward. But, yeah, they're all individual, and, you know, and also, like I mentioned earlier, I would suggest that we wait until the water sewer utility is fully on Tyler Muniz, and that's running smoothly before we – because they'll be moving to Tyler Payments. And right now, they're not on Tyler Payments, and we would not want to do that twice. So I would suggest we wait until that – once that conversion is done, we could look at that moving in if the commission wanted to go that direction. Well, I'm going to come – for me, just when it comes to utility billing, I think that's almost like a quality of life. And so however they can pay us, that's fine. But when it comes to places like the golf course, absolutely, absolutely they should be paying the freight for their – on the fees is my own personal opinion on that. So I don't know how we move forward. I guess at the end of the day, we talk about issues like that, so I'll save it for comments later. Can I just jump on just and I'll give you a chance back. I mean, why wouldn't we be doing that? Because everywhere I go now, including the dry cleaner, using a credit card, okay, you pay the fee. I'm almost – I'm just wondering why with especially, you know, non-utility billing, even though, you know, to me it's just kind of normal business for business people now, why wouldn't we already be doing it? I think this is a really good discussion. And I think it's something that we certainly can move forward on. We have to make sure – we have to do some review. We have to make sure that we do not make a profit. We just pay for that surcharge, that credit card surcharge, because we're prohibited by a belief state law for making a profit on our credit card fees. So the reason why we haven't moved forward so far is that, as Les said, it's a multifaceted approach. We need to understand the consequence of passing that along. So I think most certainly we could look at the golf club. Yeah. And if that's the will of the commission, then we would move forward with that. And, you know, we need to talk to – I know that Blair is here. We need to talk to the, you know, the pro shop about what that looks like as far as green fees and that type of thing, but it's minimal. And then the rest of them we need to take a much more measured approach because of Tyler Munis and so on and so forth. So it's certainly something we could look forward to, look into. I mean, I might be the person who would bring in cash, so I do get that you can change behavior. But at some point you're just like, well, okay, this is the way it is now, so I'm just going to pay it. So, okay, yeah, sorry. No, and I certainly understand the change of behavior, as the mayor just mentioned. But I can't imagine a bunch of golfers all of a sudden whipping out their check and writing a check. They're going to absorb it. And the fee that we're absorbing now, that's not a flat fee. Is that based on the dollar amount? It's a percentage of the dollar amount now, isn't it? Yeah, it's a percentage of the dollar amount, and it does vary by a different platform, but it's roughly 2% to 3% depending on the platform. Yeah. All right. Okay. Thank you. Just a point of clarification, Mayor, if I may, to Commissioner Gao's comment. You were equating the rollback on the Board of Finance letter to the capital projects for 2027? I just noticed the similarity in the numbers. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so Commissioner DeGardt, questions? Thank you for your report, Kathy. It's well done. As I take a look at one of the biggest issues on there, which is health care, I kind of feel substantially bruised on this issue for the last 30 years, because I've had to deal with my own professional experience and health care costs. When we deal with health care costs and we start talking about going to different providers, I feel like we're rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The real issue is the fact that in 1970, health care costs were less than 7% of our GDP. Today, they are 18% of our GDP. And to make that more interesting, we've separated the payer from the consumer. The employer is the payer. The consumer is the employee. And because we've done that, they feel no pain. So your suggestion that we move more to a consumer-payer position is much supported by this Commissioner. Thank you, Mayor. And I think we might have a few questions from Vice Mayor before I do my questions. We do. Questions or comments. Okay. And I'm just going to read it as he sent it. From Vice Mayor Walker, I would like to get clarification on the following, in quotes. We also suggest delaying the construction of the $9.1 million garage, particularly when the other new garages are being built downtown. This project also obligates the city to 15 years of debt service. The entire $9.1 million is currently budgeted in 2027. What would be the clarification on impact to the CRA? A Bob question. Does a debt service get paid through the CRA? And I know that Bob can answer that, as can I. And also, he states, I also want to echo Commissioner Sam Bergen's comment about more involvement of the BOF when we hire consultants and maybe more effectively leverage the expertise. Those are the two. So on the CRA through the mayor. Yeah, certainly. I think one of the things to certainly communicate is when the CRA runs to 2033, that's when it sunsets. So if the garage happens in 2027 or 2028, the CRA would pick up the balance of those years. When the CRA sunsets, I think one of the things that is getting lost is the CRA, through the increases in property tax values over the years, in the very first year, like 2034, will bring in 1.5, 1.6 million to the general fund. We expect the amortization or debt service on the garage somewhere around the $840,000 number, I think less. So what we would look at is that 1.5, 1.6 that's coming in, half of that would go ahead and pay that debt service moving forward with the 15-year amortization. So CRA is bringing in increased revenue to the general fund to offset that debt service over that period of time. So if I may, Mayor, the other aspect of that to address Vice Mayor's question is also that the city may, in 2033, decide to continue the city's portion of the CRA and not the county. We know that the county most likely, given the current administration, will not extend the CRA, but the city can decide to continue the city part of the CRA or, as Bob said, a specific designated debt service. Yeah, thank you, Jennifer. One of the things that staff is recommending, especially with the update to the CRA master plan that Jennifer mentioned, is a city CRA to ensure that the downtown continues to be updated, maintained, and looked good over a period of time, since it is a big economic engine for the city. You have to recognize it isn't just property tax value. There's other things going to the general fund as a result of a strong downtown. What are those? Penny for Pinellas. Utility franchise fees. There's a lot of other revenue that's going to the general fund, but a strong downtown. So, and I get that, but also understand a full option also is that the general fund may need the money. And if the general fund needs the insurgents of the money, then we may not want it, you know, all going into a parking garage after the sunset of CRA. But that being said, you know I understand the importance of our downtown. But, you know, but I just think it's keeping all options on the table based on what could happen with Amendment 3. No, I understand, Mayor. One of the things we would recommend is being able to use some of those dollars to improve the other commercial corridors in the city. Whether that's Patricia or that's Alt-19, all those other economic aspects. We think there should be a dedicated funding source to help improve those too, like 580. Did that answer Vice Mayor's questions? Great. I think a lot of my stuff's been answered, but it's a great report, Kathy. Thank you. You guys are doing an awesome job. I mean, I just, you know, I was here when Finance Board was created and made part of the charter. And I think that this type of expertise done in a way that's very proactive and helpful to the city commission is exactly what was envisioned. And you guys, I think, are living out that vision more than anybody ever has, quite honestly. From my experience. I've not been involved since its inception. So, you know, kudos to you and your members. So, I totally agree with the Aquatic Center, although it breaks my heart to put it off. And none of the least of which, of course, and I know you guys have talked about, you know, it's going to also be operationally. Because it's going to be a better pool and a little bit more involved. So, the operational risks of that are involved in that. I also agree with the garage that we've got to wait on that. I really do appreciate you're putting some items in here in terms of some potential effect for the Amendment 3. Because I think people just don't realize, well, what do you mean? Oh, you mean the athletic fields? Oh, you mean our little league fields? Oh, wait. You mean our pavilion that we go to every day and, you know, and sit and get out of the heat? I mean, I think people don't realize the things that can really affect them in everyday ways. And so, I really appreciate you guys took a look at some of that and kind of put it in your report. I appreciate, you know, your commentary on the benefits because that was, like, literally, like, the best layout of kind of analysis that we've ever gotten from finance board. And it's extremely helpful, including about the stop loss. I think that's, yeah, to me, it's, like, not really worth the risk of what we might face. So, it's better to keep the other amount. But you kind of put it in a good focus. Yeah, I mean, I've got some questions still on overtime, but, you know, they don't have to be answered today. I think you kind of highlight some stuff on that that we need to make sure we're, you know, understand fully and any options we have to reduce. But, no, honestly, overall, I think it's great. And I think, I mean, I certainly concur with any involvement you guys can give us because you provide a lot of value. So, I appreciate it. I don't have any other questions. Anything else? I have one more. It's not so much for Kathy. Thanks for opening up this can of worms on credit cards, by the way. Why can't it? Who is our bank for the general fund? Is it Wells Fargo? Yeah, Wells Fargo is our money. Why don't we just go to them and say, give us the best rate on credit card transactions as you can, instead of talking about different for Parks and Rec and the golf club? Yeah, well, the problem is these platforms don't allow you to do that, for instance. No, they don't. Like, I'll give you an example. Tyler Muniz, when we first went to Tyler Muniz, there were five credit card companies they accepted. We went to Pementis back in 2022 or 2021 because we knew that we were eventually going to go to Tyler Muniz. So, we went to Pementis to improve our credit card abilities for residents for water sewer fund. Actually, all utilities. So, we chose Pementis. Then, three years later, we're doing more of our rollout of Tyler Muniz modules, and Tyler Muniz has changed, and now Tyler Muniz only accepts their own platform. They bought their own credit card company, and now they've got their own platform. Then, they give you one other opportunity, one other company to use that's not even competitive. So, what Tyler Muniz has done, and many of them have done, is they make it to where you use theirs, or maybe one other option, and there's no other choices. You know, so that's kind of what's happening. That's pretty harsh. So, somebody's making money on that. That's right. Somebody is, yeah. You know, I pay my property taxes. You pay a small service fee. You know, you drive by the gas station, then you go to fill it up, and it's completely different for credit card price. So, I sure don't think we should be shy about moving forward with that. You know, I think the mayor, Commissioner Gall brought it up. So, I'm glad that, I'm glad you brought that out. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner, if I could add to that. The companies that Les is referring to are credit card processors. Banks don't do their own credit card processing. So, that's our issue. We can't go directly too well, Spargo. These software companies, they do it for their own good. Anyway. Okay, so, anything else for finance board? Yes, go ahead. If I may, I'm here in consensus direction to look at the golf course immediately and allow us to implement according to the software we have available. I would go a step further because what I'm hearing is consensus. We should do, you know, give us a full report on, you know, moving in every area. Now, if that's timed out somehow, fine, but give us some report of how you can slowly get us into, well, slowly, quickly into doing this. Okay. In a way that makes sense. We can do that. I mean, I'm assuming of the $330,000 we could save, most of it's in utility billing? Yeah, most of it is in utility billing. Okay. So, it doesn't help us on amendment three, but it helps us. And I wouldn't be willing to look at that, but I'm very, I'm sensitive to that. So, a full report would be nice. Yeah. No, I think just the plan and then we can kind of decide about that. I'm fine with the golf course all day long. Utility billing, some of our residents, no. Well, actually that brings the question to me. Like, how many people pay via credit card in utility billing versus, like, automatic payment to your bank? I claim I know the answer to that. I'm not sure. We would have to do research exactly how many of them, but I know in our, as we were doing our rate study, we assume around $200,000, $250,000 a year in credit card payments. So, we just. So, the vast majority of it is through that. But people can do it through their bank. Yeah, well, that includes if you do it, if you have it automatically, the automatic payment, or if you just get online and pay it or anything like that. Yes, we do have the ability to pay by check, electronic check also. But if you have it set on the automatic, then you're paying. But if you do it through your bank, you don't have a fee? There, I have to, I need to, I'll have to come back together. Okay, so you guys will look at that. Yeah. That's good. Come on, Clay. That's all good. That's all good. I don't mean to be drilling you this morning with that. Poor Clay. Okay, Kathy, thank you so much. All right. And be sure and pass our gratitude on to the full committee. I definitely will. We appreciate everything you guys are doing. Thank you. So, thank you. And we're going to take a break. Can you hear us? We see you, but we're not hearing you. Ewan, can you hear us? Can you hear us in City Hall? She can hear us. I wanted to see if we could hear, if he could speak. Reese, are you able to speak so we can know? Testing, testing, testing. I hear you. You hear me? You hear us from Chambers? It's a sound. He's been there before. Can we have quieted the Chambers, please? Thank you. He'll be there all night. Vice Mayor, can you continue speaking? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Hello. Michael, are you speaking to us from the Chambers, just to confirm? Lose everybody. Mayor Vice Mayor, we still have. We open the meeting and hope for the best with Vice Mayor being on speaker here. Okay, before we get into general fund update, I'm just going to do kind of a one-off random mayor's privilege of, I think Charlie is here to say something and he can't stay until the aid organizations and Charlie, you've done enough for the city to warrant a one-off and give you the microphone. Make sure the button is on on the microphone. I've got a green light. Is this on? All right. Well, thank you, Mayor and the commission. I appreciate it. I am here on behalf of a couple of different organizations and I looked through the list. I've been involved with at least six of them. But all I want to say is thank you. You know, each of these organizations does something different for the city and the people in the city and it's all what helps make the need and wonderful. And I see you've had to trim things a little bit and everyone got, you're spreading it around. And all I want to say is thank you for your support. A lot of these organizations need it and they all provide services that can help the city be a gem. So thank you for your time. I do have to, I'm a guardian ad litem and I got to be in court at one o'clock so I can't stay for the end. But I wish you all luck and I'll watch closely how the property tax update goes. But thank you for all you do and thank you for how you can spread around whatever you can. Thanks, Charlie. And thanks for being here. Thanks for being a guardian ad litem. That's not the easiest job sometimes. So good for you. All right. Take care. Thank you. All right. So I'll just say anybody else here from the public to which is to speak? So far into the mix. I didn't see anybody, but okay. So we will go on to general fund update. Okay. The general fund long range plan changes since our first budget workshop one on July 21st, 2026. Also, this is in the background section, item 1A in the agenda packet today, the general fund fiscal year 27 budget revision since our workshop one outlined in detail. I would like to briefly go over the key changes in the slide. First, we had an increase in revenues due. We had a small AV growth from 4.52 to 4.53%, an increase of $1,200 in the general fund. We had expenditures. On the expenditure side, we had a decrease in the risk fund property insurance allocation to the general fund of $163,200, an updated health fund cost from the ISF fund and cost decrease of $38,100, reduced the stadium fund contribution by $25,000 from the general fund. And we had a citywide building improvement, improvements decreased by $20,000 for a parks and rec operation, HVAC needs, that needs to be replaced in 26 and not 27. So we moved that out of 27. It'll be done in 26. So the summary of these changes in the general fund net to $238,836. And the fiscal year 27 estimated available fund balance has gotten slightly better since our workshop one. It's gone from 17.8% to 18.4% in 2027 and above our target of 15%. Moving to the general fund updated long-range plan, the fiscal year 27 estimated fund balance, as I mentioned, is 18.4% in 2027. And that's towards the bottom under the 2027 column. In fiscal year 28 and future years, there is a projected budget shortfall, but it has gone down. It's now $5.350 million in the general fund, and it was $5.650, so it's gone down by $300,000 in the outer years since the first budget workshop. The shortfall represents the excess of expenditures over revenues over the five-year time frame in the general fund. And just a few comments for revenues in the outer years. As mentioned in budget workshop one, our revenue projections for fiscal year 28 through 32 are less than they were last year when we were preparing the 26 budget, and that's one of the reasons that it's—but since our last meeting, we have had a slight additional decrease in revenue. We had an intergovernmental revenue correction for the safer grant reimbursement, which we corrected in this long-range plan today. It adjusted 2028 down by a couple hundred thousand dollars. For expenditure side, as mentioned with the last slide, there's a decrease in the fiscal year 27 expenditures, which in turn decreases our projections in the future years from 28 through 32. And those savings were in personnel, operating, and transfer-out categories. The estimated shortfall, as mentioned, can be addressed through revenue reductions or reductions in services, or an increase in revenue, or a combination of both. Our budget for 2027 we have is a balanced budget, while keeping the millage rate at 4.1345 mils. And I want to mention it's been that rate since 2026, fiscal year—2016, I'm sorry, excuse me, 2016. As mentioned in budget workshop one, the city manager and finance staff work to reduce the controllable operating expenses for fiscal year 27, working with all departments, while keeping the same level of service. And this helped reduce operating costs in the 27 budget in future years by about $500,000 through that effort. Even with these savings in fiscal year 27, we are continuing to challenge ourselves to reduce costs. As mentioned before, staff is now working on a contingency plan, which will generate approximately $3 million in savings beginning January 1, 2027. Are there any questions on the general fund? Questions on the general fund? I'll start with Commissioner Gow. No comments, Mayor. Commissioner DeGuard? Les, thank you for this report. I am looking at what we're going to be experiencing between the budget for 27 and our projection for 28, noting that our reserve balance as a percentage dropped substantially by 10%. Help me understand what happens in 28 that precipitates that. Yeah, it's a good question, Commissioner. The key items that are happening in 28 versus 27 is we've added back operating costs in 2028 due to, we had mentioned before, we had a very large one-time savings in insurance in 2027. It was a one-time savings that really helped the risk fund and also the general fund. And so that add back is $1.1 million in 28 over 27. And then we also had an increase in our projects. Our capital projects are $1.6 million more in 28 than they are in 27. That's also another reason for the increase. And another large item is we have storm revenue received in 27 that's not in 28. So we've got $1.9 million of storm revenue in 27 that's not in 28. So that's another reason that's driving that number or that red font number that you see in 28 with expenditures being more than revenue. That brings up another question. Thank you for that explanation, first of all. But I do note that in 28, we're showing no debt proceeds, zero. That's very unusual because if you look at the three prior years, you've got substantial. And then in the next year, you have substantial debt proceeds. What gets us to zero in that year? Yeah, that's our best estimates of mainly the reimbursements from FEMA, our storm cost reimbursements. They move around every year because of timing to FEMA and where we think projects are. But we believe that we'll have quite a few reimbursements in 29, but not anticipating that many, if any, in 28. Thank you, Les. Thank you, Mayor. Okay, questions? Commissioner Sandbergen and General Funt. Les, can you go back? It seemed like there was a, yeah, let's stop right there. I had a couple of questions about that. For our insurance to go down, we've had to probably reduce coverage, increase a deductible, or increase our self-insuring. What happened that we were able to reduce it at $163,000? Commissioner, we'll be covering that during the explanation of the risk fund, unless you want to do it now. No, that's fine. And then the increase in the workers' comp, obviously that means payrolls were up. Will we cover that also? Okay. And then, if you go back to where we were, there were some itemizations that I had questions specifically on what they were. A little further. Yeah, right there. Can we take a minute? There's a handful of them that I would like kind of an explanation of what they are. First one on there is the Coca-Cola property adaptive reuse. I realize it's only $20,000, but what is that? If I may, Commissioner. It does to help with site plan assistance to go ahead and get the redevelopment and the project that we're looking to see, you know, at that, at that site, you know, compatibility site, all of that. So, it's an incentive tool to get what we want to see out there. What are we going to do with the $20,000? Who are you going to incentivize? Well, whatever developer comes in that we start working with, we would look to help assist with that site plan. Okay. Okay, so, obviously, there's demo activity out there, the site plan. It looks like it's going to be a brownfield. It's a pretty complicated deal, frankly. So, we're looking at something at least to create a, you know, a pretty good relationship with the developer. I mean, you and I know how many years that's been hanging around. Yeah, no question about it. We have a meeting here in the next couple weeks with the city manager, with Coca-Cola. We stay on top of it. Okay. They're looking to get DEP clearance. So, we're on hold with them, but we stay very close to them, and we're certainly working with developers right now. No, frankly. Okay. And, Tony, there was a pretty significant amount for park pavilions. Could you be a little more specific as to which ones and what we're doing there? It's $250,000? Sure. Thank you, Commissioner. Tony Mulkey, Parks and Rec Director. The pavilions that we're looking at on the fiscal year 27, these are the ones out at Highlander Park. Currently, if there's a small and a larger pavilion out there, and that has actual holes in the roof, like, it's falling apart. Okay. Those two. And those are being held and carried forward from previous years as part of the aquatic project. But since that's not moving forward, we'd like to address the shutters. Okay. Okay, good. And I guess, Mike, this one's probably for you. Could you tell me what we're getting when we spend money on a traffic preemptive system? So, Dimitri. Oh, no. Good morning, Michael. Handoga, Fire Chief. So, the traffic preemption system is, it's a system that we install into our vehicles, our emergency vehicles, that works in conjunction with the county system, which we do not pay for. The county installs receivers at traffic intersections, traffic lights throughout the county. We're working on phase two now in Dunedin, and most of the traffic lights should be built out by the end of the year. But what it does is it's a communication device that, through GPS and cellular and radio technology, that lets the intersection know that an emergency vehicle is coming through and starts turning those lights green so that we have a safe intersection to proceed through so that we're not going, we're not stopping traffic and dealing with the cross traffic. Is it the Main Street Corridor? So, right now, it will actually be 22 or 23 of the intersections in Dunedin, which actually is the majority of them. You know what, I think the day I rode with you, we talked about this, so I got you. All right, that's all I had, Mayor. Just had to make sure I knew where our money was going. Sounds good. Yes, in that case, the county money, which that's just an example of things that could be impacted by Amendment 3. So, they don't have to do directly with our budget. So, I just had the pool, the cost-benefit layout of the pool. When will we see that? So, I have it on my desk. Tony has completed it. I want to review it a little bit more, ask some questions, and then we can provide it to you under separate cover and discuss it. I can provide it to you, actually, at the end of today, if you'd like to discuss it. We can discuss it. Any surprises, like it's going to cost us $3 million to keep it going for the next few years? No, no, not that big of a surprise. Okay, so, yeah, because I don't know that we have a choice. But anyway, and I noticed that the spray ground is not operating, and what's our ETA on that being up and running again? What's the issue? We had a controller system go down yesterday, and we're waiting timeline from a vendor on that. Are you going to be long? Hopefully not. Okay. Yeah, hopefully we'll have that back up. Okay. It's still hot. You know, as wonderful as this city is, I just feel it's almost embarrassing when that stuff happens. Not your fault, Tony. I know. You're new here. But, man, you know, we do so much for our community, so much for our kids. We try to provide so much that we really need to take a hard look at what's going on up there so that the youth of Dunedin and, you know, to continue to make it such a great community. But it's a great example of aging systems that, you know, we have to take care of. And, you know, again, citizens get to decide the money that's there to do that. But, yeah, no, I agree with that. Okay. I don't have any other questions, so we'll go on to property tax reform contingency plan. Okay. Thank you. And do I think we have late breaking news here on something that came up with the court order on the property tax ballot language? We do. Okay. You don't have anything? We'll just read the update from our attorney. I guess I'll read it during the break. Okay. All right. Okay. So, go ahead. Sorry. Okay. Property tax reform, Amendment 3, which will be on the ballot in November 2026. Hold on. Hold on. Sorry. I didn't ask the Vice Mayor if he had questions. Is he listening? Yes. I am hoping and very delighted to say that I have no questions. Can you hear me? We can hear you, yeah. And I'll try not to get you again, Vice Mayor. You know, you're in the heavens, so it's kind of like, you know. It's okay. No, I am thrilled beyond belief right now. Awesome. Okay. Great. Okay. Yeah. We are, too. We are, too. So, okay. So, we're going to go to property tax reform contingency plan. Sorry. Go ahead, Len. Len. Great. Amendment 3, which will be on the ballot November 2026, is proposing to increase the homestead exemption on non-school taxes beginning in fiscal year 28 to $150,000 and results in about a $4 million loss. That's a rounded number of avalorium revenue. The exemption increase is to $250,000 in fiscal year 29 and future years, resulting in a $6 million loss of avalorium revenue per year. The total estimated, in year one, the total estimated fiscal year 28 budget year, the total loss is, for our city, is $3.7 million. And there's also roll-down impacts, and the roll-down impacts get the total to $4.755 million. The roll-back impacts are, we've got the library co-op revenue, which we are estimating to be reduced by $156,000 in the first year. We've got the 12% fire protection revenue, which is estimated to be reduced by $322,000 the first year, and the EMS being reduced by $577,000 the first year. So the total is $4.755 million. The exemption increase is to $250,000 in fiscal year 29, and future years resulted in, we've got $6.1 million direct impact for our city. Then in year two and after, we've got the library co-op estimated reduction of $231,000, the county 12% fire service protection revenue decreasing by $483,000, and then the EMS reducing by $819,000. So the total impact in year two and after is just over $7.6 million, with everything combined. The contingency plan we are developing, we are working on a contingency plan that will come up with savings of $3 million across all departments identified on this slide. Finance staff and city manager are working closely with departments to identify opportunities to increase revenues where feasible and reduce expenditures to achieve this target. The draft contingency plan is expected to be presented to commission in early September, likely at a special meeting, followed by a second presentation in late September or early October for additional commission input and approval. Staff will also determine the reductions needed in year two if the amendment three does pass, which will reduce our total revenue by $7.6 million, including the rolldown impacts. Staff will determine the estimated impact by general fund departments and reductions needed to, in the addition for the $3 million, also identify the impact for the additional $4.6 million, including the rolldowns. The detail on that will be slightly higher level than our contingency plan, which will be more specific, but it will identify departments and the estimated reduction in cost and potential positions by department to fully absorb that full reduction in 29 and after of $7.6 million. If amendment three is approved by the voters in November, the contingency plan, including all identified reductions, will be implemented effective January 1st, 2027. If amendment three does not pass, the city will still move forward with the contingency plan, but implementation will occur much more gradually. Under this approach, there would be no layoffs at all, and we would work towards personnel savings being through attrition over time with all departments. Following commission's approval of the contingency plan, which hopefully takes place in late September, early October, finance staff will present a formal budget amendment in late November or early December to incorporate the approved revenue and expenditure adjustments into the 2027 budget. Are there any questions on the contingency plan? Okay, questions, starting with Commissioner Samberg? No. Sometimes I leave off the end there, and I don't mean to. I thought you were talking to somebody else. Yeah, no, no questions. Okay, no questions. Commissioner Gow. No questions, Mayor. Commissioner Dugard. No questions. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor. I'm afraid to ask. Okay, well, okay, so we're going to continue to try with technology issues. So, well, my only comment is when we talk about a contingency plan in dealing with Amendment 3, and we know that over the course of those three years, it's $7.6 million, I think when we do this, we shouldn't just leave it at that. Because I look at this, and I say to myself, oh, well, oh, okay, we're just cutting $3 million, and then we're good. But that's not true. That's right. So I think we have to tell the rest of the story. Whenever we're going to say our contingency plan, here's the rest of the story. You know, because then in the other years, we've got to cut another, what would it be, $4.6 million. Yes, correct. So we should, I don't, if you just have that by itself, it seems like, oh, we're done. But we're not done. And as a matter of fact, the $4.6 million is going to be way more gut-wrenching than this is. No, you're right. And that's exactly right. And our plan is to present the formal contingency plan at $3 million, but also present to you the other $4.6 million as well, and what we think those impacts will be. Those impacts will be at a little higher level and not quite as detailed as the $3 million, but they will discuss, you know, proposed impacts by department, estimated levels of service reductions by department. So it won't be quite as detailed, but it will still show a pretty good picture of how much more critical and difficult those will be than the first $3 million. So whenever we show the slide, including in our presentations, I just think we need to have something either on the same thing or a next one that says the rest of the story. So it doesn't seem like this is it because it's not it, not even close to being it. Okay. Correct. No, we agree. Totally, yeah. Okay. Mayor, so we're preparing that contingency plan, including the outlying years for September for you to adopt after you adopt the proposed budget. Right. And we may request a special meeting from the City Commission in order to do that because there's going to be a lot of detail in there. There's going to be a lot of discussion. So it's going to take a while. So just stay tuned, if you will. We'll work with all of you on your schedules to see when we can get, you know, either it's a light regular City Commission meeting or it's a special meeting. Okay. Okay. No, I think obviously it's of utmost importance. So, okay. So if nothing else on the contingency plan, we're going to move to the risk fund update. And I do want to acknowledge that former Mayor Anderson has entered the room, and we're glad he's here. And maybe he's here for the one o'clock. But anyway, Mayor Anderson, welcome. And one of our favorite City Commissioners from Seminole, who's spying on us now, too, wants to do it the Dunedin way. I like it. Welcome. Okay. All right. So risk fund update. Okay. Risk fund update. Fiscal Year 27 risk fund and long range plan have been revised with more current information since our last workshop. The overall expenses have decreased by $386,000 from the proposed budget, which has also resulted in a decrease in the allocations across all funds. The total expense budget decreased by approximately $683,000, or 13.7% in fiscal year 27, under the 26 budget. Property and liability premiums decreased by $790,000, and workers' comp premiums increased by $45,000. The decrease in budget for the property insurance premiums was because the 26 premium came in $962,000 under our budget last year in 2026. However, in 2027, we should note that the property insurance premium estimate is 3% higher than the 2026 actual premium. So we actually have a 3% increase in 2027 with over 26 for our actual 26 premiums. The reserve level is over $4.1 million in the risk fund and above the minimum target of $3.5 million. In the risk fund, we also have two projects at the bottom of the page slide. We're proposing to move sidewalk maintenance costs out of the gas tax fund into the risk fund. The gas tax fund does not have resources to cover sidewalk maintenance, so we're proposing to move $125,000 in fiscal year 28 and future years to the risk fund to pay for those services. Sidewalk maintenance is very important to reduce liability costs for the city and the risk fund. Also, in the projects down below, there's a public safety mitigation project merged with the safety barrier projects in fiscal year 2027. The $40,000 budget amount in 2027 will fund mitigation for certain public safety concerns, and in fiscal year 28 to 30, the project cost is for purchase of additional safety barriers. Any questions on the risk fund? Okay, questions on the risk fund, starting with Commissioner Gao. Thank you, Mayor. You had mentioned, Les, that you have moved sidewalks from the gas tax because we just can't afford it in the gas tax anymore. Right, that that fund is reducing. How much do we put in the repaving of roads? Isn't it 1.1, isn't that what's budgeted? I believe it's about 1.2. 1.2? 1.2 million a year in total, yeah. And what's the, and this is just maintaining our roads. Do we have any idea of what are the main issues in our roads that deteriorate them that cause the maintenance in the first place? Corey, can you cover that one? Yes, so it's pretty complicated, but there's a deterioration curve that's basically built in any of the softwares that either we've used in the past or currently use. And so it looks at all kinds of factors of the age of the roadway, the amount of traffic that's based on the average daily trips, issues with groundwater and the impacts that that has on the base. Typically roads fail from the base up, so you'll have that protruding through the asphalt and causing damage. So, again, we look at the life cycle of the corridor and when's the optimum time to keep that deterioration curve from taking. It essentially does one of these and then it just tanks. So you want to try to get that before the road deteriorates to the point where you happen to reconstruct it. So you're going to spend your money on the roadway while it's still in half-decent condition before it starts to significantly deteriorate. So based on the software, you know, that's how we've come up with the budget over time that we expend every year to try to keep our network in the best possible PCI payment condition index. When I first started with the city, I think we were spending like $100,000 a year on pavement preservation, which we couldn't even attract a contractor to come over and bid on projects. So that's how we've gotten to the amount that we currently expend to keep that roadway network going. And so in addition to the penny dollars that are utilized for pavement preservation, there's the gas tax component, which, as we've discussed earlier, is starting to decline on the amount of revenue that we're getting, which is why the risk fund is showing augmentation of that in 28 because that's how we deal through public services and our construction contracts to address potential trip and falls that would occur along the sidewalks because of root issues along the corridor that cause elevated sections of sidewalks that are prone to then result in trip and falls. Those pesky roots, if we just got rid of trees, that would solve everything. You mentioned that the reduction of the roads is more bottom-up. So is it more stormwater and runoff, or is it more wear and tear on the vehicles, which is more, in my mind, top-down? So it's a combination of all those things, all different components that lead to the overall deterioration of roadway. Again, it's based on the amount of traffic it has on it, whether it's a local road, a collector road, or an arterial. You know, there's different amounts of traffic and size of vehicles that traverse it. The underdrains, if it's in an area that has a high groundwater table, that really impacts the roadway base and then causes a road to fail. If you're in a dry area, you don't need underdrains, but it's all those things combined. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all that I have, Mayor. Okay. Commissioner DeGuard, questions? Thank you, Mayor. I'm looking at the line item charges for services. I noted that in 26, we had $5,002,000, and in 27 budget, we have $3,003,000, and then when projected in 28, we have $4.6,000. First of all, I'd like to know what comprises charges for services, and second, why is there a dip in 27? Yeah, charges for services, that's actually the revenue that this risk fund receives from all the departments that it's paying into. So all the departments pay into the risk fund, and that charge for services, that dollar amount, all the funds are paying into the risk fund for each year. It's down so much in 27 because we mentioned we had in 2026, our budget was approved, and then right after the budget, we realized that our property, mainly our property insurance was much lower than our budget. We had budgeted an increase in property insurance in 26, but it ended up being actually a decrease. So we had a large difference. So that 2027 is lower because we're using fund balance that we had in 2026 because our actual costs are so much lower. For fund balance in 26, it's rolled in 2027, so we're charging our departments that much less in 2027 because of that 2026 savings that we incurred because the rates were significantly lower than our budget in 26. If that's the case, it's the deficit and risk is actually a financial management deficit. It's not a real deficit because of the way the surplus worked. Is that right? Yeah, that's correct. It just rolls over. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Mary. That's all I have. Okay, questions? Commissioner Sandberg. Is this where we're – I started to talk about those early. If we're going to reduce property insurance, it sure seems like we're cutting something. How did we come across that $100 – that's quite a bit of money. I'm going to turn over Teresa. She's got a couple of slides. She can focus on that. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission, Teresa Smalling, Director of HR and Risk Management for the city. As the – so just to set the stage, when we first developed the budget back in February, every year we get a projected schedule of insurance premiums. Our insurance – we have different lines of coverage that renew throughout the year. Our property insurance – we're fully insured for property. The original estimate came in at 8%, and there's a typo on this slide, so I'll get to that in a minute. So it came in at 8%. At the time, also, there was a bill to increase the sovereign immunity limits for local governments and, I found out today, hospitals, from $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident to $350,000 per person, $500 per incident. So, you know, the insurance market, as you know, Commissioner, reacts to added liability. So the premiums came in higher, partially because of that, and we also wanted to possibly put in an excess policy to cover that additional amount if the bill was, in fact, passed. So that put our initial estimate, projected estimate, at 13.2% because we took the worst-case scenario. In April, I believe it was, the – we – when the governor vetoed the bill, we took out those additional premiums. The market reacted again and brought down property insurance, and so then the property insurance went from 8%. It should be 8% to 3%. So – and then also the – That's what I was looking for, yeah. The actual schedule of policies or schedule of coverage? Yes, if you would. Thank you. So it's kind of hard to see, but the property – total property went down from 8% to 3%. The – we did have some changes where – with the auto and liability because that was where the excess policy was, so it actually went from 66% to 12%. And then the – our – as far as our excess workers' comp, our experience mod, which is determined by our claims as well as our payroll. Our payroll, of course, went up. Our experience also went up, so our mod increased by about 9 points. So that created an increase in the expected premiums for workers' comp. I see that's still showing our mod at 0.75. Did you say that has changed? The mod was actually 0.66 when we did our initial. Okay. So, yeah, we did have some change there. And then the – all other lines that sort of went down in aggregate, it went down from 12% to 7%. So we went from a 13.2% increase to a 5.6% increase, which cut – practically cut our initial estimate almost in half. Yeah, that's really rewarding considering we're still recovering from 2024. I mean, the industry bounced back quick. Yes. And actually, I was at an insurance conference a couple weeks ago that's hosted by Florida League of Cities. Right. And as the market – you get more participants in the market and you have good years, if you will, with, you know, not having any major hurricanes last year. Then it does correct the amount of premiums that you're going to pay for insurance. There's a couple of things specifically in the coverage line on the left column that – just to clarify for me, I'm trying to look. We have a coverage – the Marine Protection and Indemnity. That's what you call coverage on a boat. I'm assuming that's the fire boat. Why is that in the general – this is all general fund right here, right? And why – why – no? No. So what happens is we disperse the premiums across the departments based on the operating expenses. Okay. So it's like a ratio of operating expenses. I should have learned that. I heard that yesterday, twice now. I wasn't checking up on you, but I did hear that twice now. No, I guess that's all that I had. I mean, that's great that, you know, that insurance is a huge part of the city. And, you know, if we can get by with an increase like that, let's pay it and not get, you know, not get dropped for nonpaying it. That's – I'm very satisfied with that. That's all I had, Mayor. Thank you. Okay. Great. So – was there any questions from Vice Mayor? Okay. And I – I got you guys, right? I did you guys already? Yep. So – so this is kind of a weird place to ask it, but I'll ask it because we were talking about sidewalks. So I was going to – we were going to get an update on what we're doing about downtown brick pavers and how that – those are being expected – inspected and repaired and all that. Are we – are we – I haven't gotten that. Yeah. And we have not started that, Mayor. We will definitely get on that. When? I mean, as in when can I expect it? Because I've been asking for it for a while, so. Okay. Let me get with staff. I don't have an estimate for you. Let me get with staff and I can – Okay. Can you tell me this afternoon when I might expect that? Okay. Good. Because I just worry about that and talk about liability. So – okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to eat a pretzel as I was talking into the mic. That was kind of rude. I don't think I have any other questions. Okay. So we'll go ahead and move to the health fund update. Okay. The health fund expense and corresponding revenue decreased from the fiscal year 27 proposed budget. The proposed budget showed a 15.6% increase in health costs over a 2026 budget, and the increase has been reduced to 12% in 2027. The increase in expenses from 26 is $868,000 or 12%. Year over year. This is primarily due to an estimated $760,000 increase in medical claims in 2027. Medical claims in fiscal year 26 continue to trend over budget by the end of the fiscal year. Finance staff will bring a budget amendment in September to your commission, which will add additional allocations of funds to ensure the health fund meets its reserve requirements at year-end for fiscal year 26. The reserve amount in fiscal year 27 is estimated to be $1.1 million and above our 60-day reserve requirement in the fund. And I'll turn it over to Teresa now to go over some other information on that health fund. Thank you, Les. Teresa Smalling again, Director of HR and Risk Management for the city. I just wanted to give you a quick synopsis of what we'll be discussing. The health insurance benefits not just for the city of Dunedin, but overall what the state of health care in the U.S. is. Our city of Dunedin claims experience and our current plan offerings, the items that we took into consideration while we were trying to formulate the 27 budget, the planning that we have will be putting in force over the next three years, and then the benefits renewal information with staff recommendations and what those plan and premium changes will look like. So, next slide, please. So, in general, as you all know, because you see it, we have escalating health care costs, and Commissioner Degard mentioned just a small synopsis of that. There's increases in medical trend, meaning there's higher usage of medical health care and higher expenses involved with health care. So, as we've seen, the health care costs are increasing faster than the consumer price index, and there was a study that said, you know, and this is back in the, by, in the next five years, the cost of health care could be 50%, and an employee could be paying up to 50% alone out of their budget for health care. So, from an employer standpoint, it's trying to find that balance of being able to provide good quality health care for our employees while, you know, making it affordable not only for the employer but for the employee. And, as you can see, the top drivers of the health care costs. Pharmacy, a lot of specialty pharmaceuticals, including generic pharmaceuticals. You've all heard of the GLP-1 medications that are very popular. I don't have cable, but every now and then when I watch it, about every other commercial is either about the GLP, the newest GLP drug, or the newest... What is GLP? I don't know what GLP is. Oh, I'm so sorry. My trustee consultant, Sean Fleming from the Gehring Group, he's our senior benefits consultant, will explain exactly what a GLP medication is. Thank you, Teresa. Thank you, Mayor. Good morning. So, GLP-1s are a newer class of medications predominantly used to treat diabetes. So, historically, just because I like to frame it in this perspective, frontline treatment for diabetes is a drug called metformin, which probably costs the plant about $10 a month. These GLP-1 injections, which there's pills on the way, slowly being released, much more, much better efficacy in the treatment, but the cost is about $1,200 a month. So, we've seen a large shift for all of our groups off these very low-cost meds to now this higher-cost solution. Not to be blunt, but is this like more... Is this like the weight loss stuff? So, I was going right there. So... Okay. I just want to... They are and they are... I just want to know. These medications have the added benefit of weight loss, and then there's weight loss versions. So, the desire to get that on them, even just for diabetes, because of the weight loss benefit, has really driven the usage kind of through the roof. So, you probably know the tunes for Ozempic and Manjaro if you do have cable or watch TV, but those are the large drugs we're talking about. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you, Sean. And just as a point of reference, the city is self-insured, so we are our own insurance broker, if you will. We only allow GLP-1 medications for the treatment of diabetes. So, there would have to be some... The employee would have to... Their physician would have to go through certain... What should I say? Basically, a prior authorization process. So, they're going to verify on your plan that an individual truly does have diabetes, and that they're not trying to just get it for weight loss, as an example. So, we actually have a data analytics system that we use on the city, just because this has been a point of question from a lot of groups, that goes through and basically verifies that everybody that uses the medication has a legitimate diagnosis and support. So, the city is being a responsible steward and making sure that there's not inappropriate usage in that regard. So, you can only get it if you have diabetes, like proven diabetes. Yes, ma'am. There's no other, like, way to do it? Nope. No other way to do it. Okay. Is that unlike a lot of plans, or...? So, when these came out, there were a number of plans that I'll say it this way. They didn't have potentially the safeguards in place. So, there are instances where a number of plans, like individuals, could get them without that. In the last 12 months and leading up to this renewal, I would say almost, I think all of our groups that maybe didn't have those safeguards in place, they have either put them in or they will be in effective 10-1. So, the standard now is really becoming to have that in place. But not everybody had it, and they did see some of their costs significantly increase. Thank you. Sorry, I just couldn't hold my question. That's, yeah, interesting, and certainly a driver of health care. Okay, go ahead, Teresa. Okay, thank you. So, another driver, of course, are high-cost claimants. You know, as we will see in the city, we have had high-cost claimants, and they're for a variety of reasons. And then there are chronic conditions, you know, particularly musculoskeletal and oncology cancer. Next slide, please. So, as I mentioned before, you know, one of the things, I did go to this conference, and one of the things that was an eye-opener for me was that we don't recognize the impacts of things that are happening around us and how it affects other things. So, for example, the availability and cost of generic drugs. So, a lot of our generic drugs are either imported or the raw materials used to make them are imported. So, with tariffs and other, you know, market forces, then that drives up the prices of the drugs that, you know, we've always used to say generic drugs were your least expensive option, but that isn't always the case. Another thing is the hospitals, a lot of hospitals, they use plastics. Your tubing, your pouches that hold blood and all that, that's made out of plastic, which it comes from petroleum. So, as petroleum prices increase, therefore, then you get the concurrent increases in plastics. So, from an employer standpoint, over the next three years, we know that medical cost is a high priority, and that's a survey that was done by Water Tower Wilson, an insurance group, that, you know, employers' top priorities are medical costs for the company, pharmaceutical costs, and affordability for employees. Because, you know, from a government standpoint, the tradition has been that although you're not able to maybe meet the competition, especially private, in terms of salary, that you have a very good benefits package, and that will always be a good driver of helping you to retain and attract employees. So, you know, you definitely want that to be a priority. Next slide. So, this, we turn now to the city's claims experience update, and as you can see, medical claims have increased over last year by 12.6%, pharmacy claims by 16.7%. The national increases, approximately 8.5%, and Florida usually goes a little higher, so because of our population. And then right now, as of, I think this is July, plan expenses are running at 109% of our total funding. Before we go to the next slide, we can go to the next slide. Our current medical offerings, and this, we go over this every year, just so everyone can understand. We have three medical insurance plans. We have a base in network with a health reimbursement account. It's basically co-pays and deductibles and co-insurance. So, for a primary visit, non-preventative, so just a reminder that preventative visits are zero. They are free. That went into place a few years back. But any other non-preventative visits, $35.45. Inpatient, there is a deductible involved, and then there's a 30% co-insurance. Outpatient is the same. And then ER, you can see the cost there per visit. And the pharmaceuticals goes from brand to generic, and, you know, because of the amount of specialty drugs that are on the market, there was a fourth tier that came in. So, overall, you can see the deductible right now is $1,000 for the employee and then $2,000 for the family. The out-of-pocket maximum, which is the total amount that an employee or the family would pay in any given year, is $2,500 for the employee and $5,000 for the family. Then we have a buy-up in network. Basically, that is the highest premium but the lowest cost to the employee. So, the employee, no matter what the procedure, the most they would tend to pay is $500 for inpatient hospital care with out-of-pocket maximum at the $2,500 and the $5,000. No deductibles involved in the buy-up. And then our plan that we introduced probably about seven years ago, I think, is the high-deductible health plan that comes with a health savings account. That's based on the deductible that you have to meet and then it's 20% after you meet the deductible. The rates that you pay are contracted rates with the provider. So, you could pay for a physical therapy visit, you could pay $140, but that's a contracted rate, not necessarily what somebody off the streets would pay. There's the deductible is $2,000 for the employee only and $4,000 for the family. The out-of-pocket maximum is set at $3,400 and $6,800. Before I move to this next slide, which I'm going to ask Sean to briefly discuss, I just want to take time to thank the Board of Finance because they keep me on my toes and they definitely give a lot of great input, a lot of important input. I do want to talk a little bit about our consultants because the value that the consultant brings to the city and to the HR and risk management department is probably more than if we had an employee dedicated to doing this. Because they test the market for us, they do benchmark surveys, which Sean will be going over. They are the benefits, they are consultants, not all consultants do this, but the Gehring Group does act as a benefits liaison to our employees. So, if an employee is having problems with a bill or a procedure that they feel they're not being billed properly for, they can call a dedicated line and the Gehring Group will assist them with that. They also help us every year with negotiating benefits, doing the request for proposals and helping us with negotiating our premiums with all the carriers, not just our medical insurance. So, I want to go ahead and turn it over to Sean to talk a little about the benchmark survey, which is generated by the Gehring Group. Thank you, Teresa. Thank you. So, real high level, you know, every year is a part of the process. We like to look at kind of benchmarking. And benchmarking, I think if I asked five of you what your opinion of benchmarking would look like, we'd probably get five different answers. There's a lot of different ways to benchmark benefits. We can look at the schedule of benefits. We can look at, you know, what people pay. We can look at some combination of both. When you start looking at multiple combinations, it becomes a little bit like an apple, an orange, a banana, and a fish trying to compare them. But one of the things we try to do is, you know, you can look how you compare across the state. But the reality is, you know, where are the entities around you that you're potentially competing for employees? You know, just because the city of Key West has a particular benefit, not a lot of your employees are probably going to go look at a job there. They're going to be looking more in the local area. So what we did in this survey, and it was kind of a big, complex number of documents, but we tried to really summarize it for you. The first thing on the top is we have the city of Dunedin for all three plans. And that percentage is essentially what the city pays towards those tiers of coverage. And then on the right, you have the average of those contributions. So if you take a look, the city of Dunedin, as an example, for single coverage, the average is $46. The average for those groups down below that we surveyed was $64. So they're paying a little bit more in that regard. The rest of the tiers, with the family coverages, although the percentages are almost, they're in a very, very tight range, there's not a lot of variance, the employees actually would pay less at some of those other entities. So that's kind of what we're looking at there, but not by huge dollar amounts other than really the family coverage on the average. So if we go to the next slide, you know, you do have multiple plan options, which Teresa is going to talk about some changes. So this just looks more at the base plan. And, you know, you do have that 100% employee coverage. So you do see a little bit of variance there in that base plan. Your employees essentially covering children or spouses are paying a little bit less. employees, again, covering full family are, you know, potentially the other groups have a little bit lower average. So we wanted to give you a little bit of comparison just as a reference point. And we can come back to this as we kind of talk about what the proposed changes look like. Because the one thing I'll say with all of this, the majority of groups that we're comparing to either renew October 1st or January 1st. So this is where we're at now. That doesn't necessarily mean, you know, there may not be changes for all those groups effective October 1st. Thank you, Sean. Next slide. So one of the things I do want to point out is a couple of years ago, we did go to the zero employee only coverage. And there were a couple of reasons for that. One, when we surveyed the market, our peers, a lot of our peers were offering employee only zero coverage. And also we were, if you remember, not being very competitive as far as our salaries. So we wanted to offset that with the benefits that we offer. So we, that's one of the reasons why we went with the zero dollar employee coverage. So as we were looking forward to this coming year, you know, as we had mentioned, last year was when we went and absorbed the cost. We said that that was probably going to be the last year that we did that because we saw the incremental increases in our premiums. So we looked at, you know, what would be a reasonable cost share for our employees. We talked about possible plan changes, whether with co-pays, deductibles, or out-of-pocket maximums. And we also wanted to evaluate the current stop loss. We had started out as low as $100,000 when I first got here more than 12 years ago. And we've slowly tried to keep up with the market as far as, you know, the incremental increases. So we went to $110,000, $140,000, and now we're looking at, you know, possibly increasing that. Because as was mentioned, we're looking at almost a 16% increase in our premiums over last year. So, you know, we thought, you know, we have to look at everything included in any cost saving strategies. So along those lines, you know, as I said, we wanted to try to see if we could bring down that 15, almost 16% increase so that we would have some good numbers to help with the cost share. One of the things that we saw was if we went with a stop loss increase, there's a premium savings. And, yes, we know that we are going to offset by the amount of people in the stop loss. That number right now, it's at seven, and it has varied over time based on, you know, whether the employee is still in our plan or not or, you know, other factors. So in proposing the stop loss increase with some other changes, next slide, we came up with a three-year plan that we're going to be implementing, obviously, over the next three years. So this year, where we brought, and you'll see where we did some increases to our out-of-pocket maximums and our deductibles. So we evaluated the cost share options, we evaluated the contribution strategies for employee-only coverage, and we've been trying to attract more people or incentivize more people to go to the high-deductible health plan. So we decided that the best way to achieve that is having no increases to the high-deductible health plan. In year two, we're looking to possibly raise contributions on all plans. And, you know, keep in mind that we are self-insured, so we do have a little bit more control over our plan than a fully insured entity might, because a fully insured entity, the insurance company, is basically going to come to you and tell you, here's the increase, here's, you know, what we want from you, where we have a little bit more control as to, you know, how can we manage that increase, any increases that we have. We're looking to possibly eliminate the bio plan only because it is so rich. And as I mentioned before, the most that an employee on that plan would pay, you know, for any one procedure is $500, which, given the cost of health care, that's just not practical or sustainable. So every year, as we do, we would continue to evaluate the plan design and any options based on market, because, you know, as I said, as I mentioned in the introduction, this is a system-wide, network-wide problem. And so there are different plan designs and different alternatives coming into play to help employers with the rising cost of health care. And then we also will look at our wellness program and change as needed. And then in year three, just continue to do that, looking at the market, looking at any plan design changes, and, of course, adjusting premiums as needed. So moving to the next slide. Can I maybe jump in there on the market part? Yes, please. Just real quick, from some of the earlier comments, I just wanted to kind of set the stage on what looking at the market looks like, because there were some comments earlier. So as you know, you're on a self-funded health plan. So with a self-funded health plan, the very small part of the cost was identified as your administrative fee to Cigna, in this case, or to any of the carriers. The biggest part is your claims experience. And there was mention, too, looking at, you know, certain categories of claims. So I just want to explain kind of what we do so everyone has a good understanding. What we actually do in that process when we go to bid is we take two years of historical claims data. So we don't necessarily just look at, like, an office visit or a hospitalization. We look at what has actually occurred, where people have gone. And we do what's called a reprice when we go out to market. Now, it's retroactively looking. There's forward looking. But what that reprice does is it goes and says, based on all the claims the city of Dunedin has had the last 24 months, if we have carrier A, we would have paid X. If we have carrier B, we would have paid 5% less. If we had carrier C, we would have paid 5% more. So it's a very, very detailed analysis that really looks at where your employees go and are getting care and how those discounts compare at different facilities and across different carriers. So I just wanted to set a little bit that stage. The other part of that is a couple years ago, there were some transparency laws passed. So all the hospital systems have to publish their discounts with every individual carrier out there. And we actually have tools that can go in and look at, even if you hadn't had historical claims, are there, you know, is one carrier getting a better deal versus the other? The reason I say all that is largely what we're seeing right now in the market is because of that transparency, all of the hospital systems in the global sense are coming very close together. There's not variants that there used to be, you know, 10, 15 years ago, Florida Blue had a huge market. That's Blue Cross, Blue Shed of Florida. They had a huge market advantage. Well, now everybody has to publish their rates. There's no secrecy, so they all negotiate and they're in a relatively tight range. The one area that wasn't mentioned that's becoming probably as important as the medical is the pharmacy. And through pharmacy, we go through a very similar process where we bid to all kinds of pharmacy benefit administrators. We give the historical data. We look at what the members are on to see who has a better advantage. So it's a very in-depth process of making sure that the city is getting the third party that best aligns financially on both the medical and the pharmacy side. So that's something every time we bid that happens. And I just wanted to kind of paint that picture so everyone knows what's looked at and that it is a pretty complex deep dive. Thank you, Sean. So in looking at the scenarios for the next fiscal year and, you know, the cost share percentage that would be practical and helpful, the Garen Group presented us with five scenarios. Mayor, hold on one second, Teresa. Vice Mayor has some questions. Oh, sorry. Do you want me to ask them now or wait? No, you can ask them now. Because they pertain to the previous slides. Sure. Vice Mayor Walker says, I don't understand the distinction between the two employer contribution benchmark slides. So the first one, I believe what he's referring to, the first one is all plans combined. The second one is just looking at the base plan where the bulk of the employees are enrolled. Okay. And I don't know if there's more to that question, but. Okay. And he actually said he'll wait for questions, but I think we're in and I didn't get that text. So, okay. So he says, what's, what's, whoops, sorry. Come back. What strategies are we implementing to encourage participation in the high deductible plans? So we, we will go over that in a future slide if we want to wait for that. He's good with waiting. So the five scenarios were if we made the plan changes, the proposed plan changes, but the city absorbed the increase. You're looking at about 12.6. And this is after we increase the stop loss. We increase co-pays and not, I'm sorry, not co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, which I'll go over in a little bit. So it would be 12.6. If we do plan changes and we share the increase, we're looking at a 50-50 and then almost, and then plan changes with a flat dollar employee increase. If the city would be about 11 and then employee would be about 12. If we did no plan changes and the city absorbed the increase, we're looking at about a 17% increase for the city. And then no plan changes and then no plan changes and a share increase, you're looking at about 50-50, 15%. So just going over, you know, obviously we did not think that the, you know, looking at the percentages, we went to the next slide where the proposed changes would increase the deductible from 1,000, 2,000 in the base to 1,500, 3,000. And then the out-of-pocket maximum would go from 2,500, 5,000 to 4,000, 8,000 for the base plan. And then for the buy-up, the deductibles would go from 0 to 500, 1,500. And the out-of-pocket maximum would go from 2,500, 5,000 to 3,500, 7,000. We, once again, propose no changes to the high-deductible health plan, either the deductible or the out-of-pocket max. That's the name of the plan. So it's a buy-up plan. Moving to the next slide. So with the changes to the deductible and out-of-pocket max, as you can see below, you're looking at the 1,500, 3,000, and 4,000, 8,000 for the base in the deductible and out-of-pocket max, respectively. And then the 500, 1,500, and the 3,500, 7,000 for the buy-up with no changes to the high-deductible health plan. That would remain at 2,000 max deductible, employee only, 4,000 for the family. And the out-of-pocket would remain at 3,400, 6,800 for the family. Next slide. So in looking at, if you will, the top three options, if the city absorbs its 12%, if we do the employee increases where the employee shares 11%, this just shows what the cost would be for the city and for the employee. And then if we look at a flat rate that just tells you what the per pay increase would be per employee based on the plan, you can see what the changes are. So it's kind of hard to see it here, what it looks like. So in the next slides, we're going to go over each option. And really, we felt like the best options to choose from were either scenario number two, which is the 11.11% share or the flat rate increase. So number two, with the 11.4% increase, the employee only would be going from zero, would remain at zero in the base. And then the employee plus spouse would be $17, employee plus children, 15, 58, employee plus family, sorry, family, $34. In the buy-up, it would be a change of over $7, $34. 92, employee and spouse, employee and children is 31, and employee and family is 61, and then no changes to the high deductible health plan. So that's the 11.4% increase. Now, if we went to the flat rate, where we ask, we would then change, because as you saw with the survey, where now a lot of entities are now having the employee only pay something towards the premium, we looked at adding $5 per pay for the employee only coverage in the base, $7 in the buy-up, and then the employee and spouse would be $15 in the base, plus $15 in the base, and plus $20 in the buy-up. Employee and children, $10 per pay in the base, and $15 in the buy-up, and then employee and family would be $30 in the base, and $35 per pay additionally in the buy-up. Just that basically comes out, even though the percentage is higher, the amount of change is lower than if we went with the 11.4%, 11.2% for the employees. So, as I said, the high deductible would not change for fiscal year 27. So, just before I put in our final recommendation, there are some changes happening with the renewal in our other coverage. There is an overall increase of 2% with the administrative costs, and then the stop loss with the premium change is $14.8. The amount changed to $14.8. The dental is going up by 7% in the new fiscal year, and then everything else would, we have rate guarantees for all our other lines of coverage. So, staff recommendation is to go with the flat dollar increase, and basically... Sorry, Teresa, does the Finance Board concur with this recommendation? Yes, excuse me, yes, we agree with option three as the best option. And one thing I want to particularly point out on option three is, excuse me, is by introducing a cost share for the employee only on the base plan. This will help to provide more of an incentive, which is part of Commissioner Walker's question, to go to the high deductible plan, because that one will be at no cost for the employee only. So, yes, we're in agreement with this. Thank you, Kathy. Appreciate that. Go ahead, Teresa. Sorry. So, this basically gives you what the renewal cost would be along all our lines. So, you're looking at the annual cost would be $7.2 million, which is a 10.8% increase for the employer, 9.8% increase for the employees, and then the retirees and COBRA would see a total of 11.3% increase. So, one of the things that we did when we established the high deductible health plan is we had an incentive. We put an incentive in place, which was basically the difference between the premium of the base plan and the high deductible. So, an employee only would have $500 put in there, placed in their health savings account over the course of the year, $1,000 for an employee plus one or employee plus children, and then $1,500 for employee plus family. Along with that, in our wellness program, based on participation in the program, we do have some incentives. And so, our wellness program through vitality is based on the amount of points that you accrue each year, each fiscal year. The highest being the platinum at 10,000, and an employee who gains platinum by the end of August of each year would earn $700 towards either their HSA or their HRA account. For bronze plus, which is the lowest, basically, all they have to do is complete an online health assessment and or biometric screening. And every year, we bring the biometric screening on campus, and employees can come in and get their biometric screening. And it's paid for through our health plan. As you can see, and this has sort of been the, we've had like a core employees that, you know, bronze, they do not participate in the plan. And, you know, this is for, some of these are newer employees because, you know, they haven't really started yet in the plan. Or employees that, there are some employees that, when I first started working here, we basically just gave employees like $200 each year. And they put it in an HRA, there were no benchmarks, there was no making sure that you're getting your preventative care, nothing. So when we started, established the wellness program, you know, we wanted to, we wanted to establish healthy habits with our employees. We wanted them to want to go for their preventative visits, because we see the difference between a stage one cancer versus a stage four diagnosis. We see the difference between treating pre-hypertension and having chronic high blood pressure for the rest of your life. So, you know, the whole mission of the wellness program is to incentivize employees to take responsibility for their health, establish, hopefully, healthy habits in, you know, going to the doctor, establishing an exercise program, nutrition, all that good stuff, which is all included in our vitality program, and having fun while we're doing that. Right now, we have a challenge of, it's a little ambitious, but for, in recognition of the 250th birthday, and any employee that gets points for completing 500,000 steps by, I think it's Labor Day, don't quote me on that. So, you know, we do try to incentivize our employees as far as incentives. And so, you know, we do see where if an employee feels like the base plan, the premium, or even the buy-up is going to be higher than they'd like, you know, there is the alternative of the high deductible health plan. The premiums are less. And if you're relatively healthy, you hardly go to the doctor except for your preventative. You're really not paying anything out of pocket. You have a health savings account that you're able to put pre-tax dollars in every pay that you're not able to do with the health reimbursement account. And so, you know, if you're somebody who's maybe looking at retirement, as we see premiums, we see health costs, that's money, seed money that you can be putting aside pre-tax towards your medical expenses. So at this time, I'm happy to take any questions. So we are at 10 after 12. My suggestion is we break for our lunch because at 1 o'clock, we have a hard start time for aid organizations. And after that, we come back and answer our questions for health care and our final directives. So I just want to see if my colleagues are good with that. Could you say that again? So I'm saying that we should break for lunch now. So we have a full 50 minutes. And then at 1 o'clock, we have aid organizations. That's a hard schedule number. So people will be here for us to do that one following that. Then we'd go back to questions on health and then also final directives to the staff. Okay. I'm fine with that. Does that sound good, everybody? Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple things before you gavel us. First of all, Tony has an announcement. Very important announcement. Splash pad schedules will be open at noon today. All right. All right. I like that. Also, Mayor, we have lunch in the Caledisi room. We have plenty for everyone here. Okay. Sounds good. All right. Okay. Lunch break. Adjourn. In the chambers, I can hear you very... See you on the noon call? We see him. Okay. Fantastic. Well, I guess we'll try it again when everybody else comes back, right? If you just want to mute and turn off your camera for now, and then when they get back, we'll let them know. Okay. The voice of God has arrived, and so that is Vice Mayor, which we have trouble all day. We're going to gavel the meeting back open. Our first item is City Commission Fiscal Year 2027, Civic Partners in Aid to Social, Cultural, Nonprofit Organizations, and welcome everybody who's here. Appreciate it. And I'm going to turn to Les for staff presentation on this. Great. Thank you, Mayor. This is for the 2027 Civic Partners and Aid to Organizations Nonprofit Grants. The Aid to Organizations Subcommittee met on July 17th to discuss the 2027 Civic Partners information as well as aid to organizations grant submittals. The committee consists of the city manager, the library director, Phyllis Gorshi, and finance director, myself, is on the committee. The fiscal year 2027 proposed budget for Civic Partners and Aid to Organizations Social Cultural Cultural Funding totals $222,000 in the proposed budget. This includes $30,000 for Civic Partners Dunedin Fine Arts Center, $35,000 for Civic Partners Dunedin Historical Museum, and $37,000 for Civic Partners Dunedin Cares. We also have $106,500 for aid organizations, social culture, and nonprofit organizations being proposed, and there's also $13,500 available to be awarded during the 27th fiscal year. As part of our fiscal year 2027 contingency plan, staff is recommending that all the fiscal year 2027 grants approved by the City Commission today will be reduced by 50% if Amendment 3 is approved by the voters on November 3, 2026. The total proposed fiscal year 2027 grant awards are $208,500, and under the contingency plan, the grant awards would not be dispersed until December 1st or after to allow time for staff to adjust awards if needed. The grant awards are normally disbursed starting in late October and through November and December. If implemented, this action would reduce expenditures within the City Commission budget by $104,250 in 2027. Further reductions to aid organizations will occur in 2028 if Amendment 3 does pass. All applicants received funding that requested, except for Divine Coastal House of Healing. They were a new nonprofit, and they were asked to please apply next year with more history and track record information. For the Civic Partners request in 2027, the far left columns of the slide shows the recommended funding levels from fiscal year 2027, and on the right, it's titled Subcommittee Recommended Columns. So on the far right, the recommendations are amounts from the subcommittee are shown, and the total for Civic Partners is $102,000 at the bottom. On the next slide, for our social culture and nonprofit organizations, recommended funding levels for fiscal year 2027. The far left column is a grant requested for fiscal year 2027, and the right, far right column is a subcommittee recommendation. And there's a couple of pages here, but the total recommendation for all the organizations is $106,500. And that includes our comments. We'd be happy to have any questions. And we do have lots of representatives here today to speak. Thank you. Okay. Questions of last, and then we'll go to input from the community. Commissioner Sammering? Yeah. I would assume that these are all nonprofits. It's all been verified. Yeah, they're not probable organizations, and a lot of the ones we are proposing to award are ones that have received funding in prior year, and we have a few new ones. Okay. That's all I need. Thank you. Commissioner Gow? Okay. Commissioner DeGuard, questions? Thank you, Mayor. Just give me a quick recap on the process, when the process started, how the invitations for grants were made, and then how the committee met around those. Yeah, the process started. The grant application went out in the middle of May. We send emails to the ones that received grants in prior years, and we put it on our website and asked anyone to apply or would like to. And it was out for just over a month. They were due back on June 12th, the applications were, by all the different nonprofits. Then our subcommittee met in July and had a long two- or three-hour meeting going through all the different proposals and came up with recommendations. And then from that point, I contacted the one that did not get funding to let them know to please submit next year. And then from that, we just put the package together for the commission today. Thank you. That's all I have, Mayor. Vice Mayor, any questions? No questions, Mayor. Okay. Well, I do have one. Can you go back to the partners slide? So I was just curious. The $30,000 for the Fine Arts Center, usually those are similar. I was just wondering why $30,000? And I just wondered if it played back to, I know the Arts Center gets a bigger chunk of money for the operations of the facility. Is that kind of the balance? Yeah, it was kind of that. The subcommittee looked at these closely, and we felt that, like you said, Dineen Fine Arts gets some of the support for building maintenance and that sort of thing, you know, that we do in the in-kind contributions. So we did make some reductions there. And we also made a small reduction in museum, too, sort of for the same reason, that they get some of the in-kind contributions. Okay. Great. I don't have any other questions, so I'm going to go to any citizen input. I'm going to lead this off by saying we're glad you're here. We welcome any comments. Don't feel like you have to get up and comment. But if you do, you know, if you can be brief and brilliant, we have a long afternoon ahead. But again, we definitely appreciate any comments that you might want to make. But again, don't feel like you have to do it. I did get a special request before we started at Dineen High School Band Boosters, wanted to speak first due to some special time constraints. So I'm going to have, if you do want to come up and say something, and then we'll go from there. Thank you so much. You should just give your name and organization. That'd be great. Push it again. Okay. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yep. My name is Lindsay Marshall, and I have the privilege of serving as the president of the Dunedin High School Scottish Highlander Band Boosters. And thank you so much for your time, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, and city staff. Thank you. So in addition to being the booster president, I'm also the proud parent of a Scottish Highlander Band student. So I've had the opportunity to see firsthand how this program transforms musicians' young lives, not only developing them as musicians, but by building their confidence, their leadership and discipline, and lifelong friendships. So on behalf of our students, families, our directors, and volunteers, I want to sincerely thank you for your generous $5,000 grant award proposal. We are incredibly grateful for your investment in our students and in the performing arts. The Dunedin High School Scottish Highlander Band is more than just a music program. We are proud ambassadors for the city of Dunedin. Whether we're performing at the Dunedin Highland Games or the Celtic Festival, the holiday parade, local schools, churches, or community events, our students are honored to represent a city with such a rich Scottish heritage. This year, our program serves approximately 75 students, and that's across all of our groups considered the band. So that's concert band, marching band, jazz band, orchestra, the Scottish Pipe Band, Scottish Highland Dance, and the Color Guard. These students dedicate countless hours to rehearsals, performances, and competitions while learning discipline, leadership, teamwork, and service, as I mentioned. So your support will help us continue providing these opportunities to many of our students that might not otherwise have these opportunities. Approximately one-third of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and your generosity helps ensure that financial circumstances do not prevent students from participating in music education, performances, and travel opportunities, such as the trip that we hope to take them on in April, which is the World Strides Heritage Music Festival in Atlanta. This past year has been one of tremendous success for our students. They earned superior ratings at music performance assessments, won multiple marching band competitions, received medals at the Highland Games, and continued a tradition of excellence that reflects positively on our entire community. So most importantly, your investment is about much more than awards or trophies, that's for certain. It's about giving young people the opportunity to build confidence, develop lifelong friendships, learn responsibility, and become leaders. It's about preserving the Scottish traditions that make Dunedin so unique, and ensuring that those traditions continue with the next generation. And I give you my personal commitment to this ongoing effort. So every time you see our students marching proudly in their kilts, hear the sound of the bagpipes at one of Dunedin's festivals or parades, or watch our students perform throughout the community, we hope that you'll remember that your investment helped make those moments possible. Your support is not only enriching the lives of our students, it's helping preserve the spirit and traditions that make Dunedin so special. So thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. Now off to get ready for the fire department to give our students a little surprise at band camp. So thank you, everyone. Thank you, Shenzie. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else wish to come forward to speak? Hello. I am much better on stage than I am doing this. So let's see how this goes. Good afternoon, mayor, commissioners, and city staff. My name is Kirsten Stiff-Walker, and I am the director of Progressive Arts Theater. For nearly 15 years, Progressive Arts Theater has been producing high-quality performing art experiences while creating a place where everyone belongs. We believe artistic excellence and inclusion go hand in hand. Every production is held to a high standard, while ensuring that children, teens, and adults, neurodivergent performers, and individuals with disabilities all have the opportunity to shine. Our adult company is also equally incredible, and we are building upon that every day. We are so excited about what is coming ahead. We believe that our theater is what community is about, bringing generations together through love, kindness, support, and the arts. In just the last six months alone, we have produced three major musicals, reached hundreds of families through camps and performances, and had the opportunity to promote Progressive Arts Theater and the city of Dunedin through multiple television network news coverage. We have done in-studio spots, as well as a segment that was filmed right here in Dunedin. We love to shine and put a spotlight on our beautiful town. Producing high-quality musical theater is a significant investment that I don't think people really know unless they are a part of it. The performance rights alone for just one major musical typically ranges between $1,500 and $3,000, and that is not including rentals, set construction, lighting, sound, educational materials, and countless other expenses. Not to mention, we try to give away as many scholarships as we possibly can. And we also have something called Carson Tickets, named after my daughter, where we give 100 free tickets away to families that are financially in need or are neurodivergent. We also really excited, and hope to see all of you there, for the first Sunday in October, we always do theater in the park. It is free for our community. While we do have VIP tickets available, we usually are more about bringing the free theater to the arts. An investment from the city of Dunedin makes all of this help possible. It allows us to continue producing high-quality performing arts experiences while keeping them affordable for local families. And most importantly, your help will help us continue to give scholarships for our mainstage productions and our touring productions, so that financial assistance is not a problem for these people. You'll often find us throughout Dunedin, performing at community events in our parks during holiday celebrations, and many times in the parking lot of the VFW. If you've attended a community event at all in the last year, you have probably seen my face and those faces of the kids and adults that love to perform for free for our community. We are truly grateful to the community for recognizing Progressive Arts Theater and the work that we've been doing. Thank you so much for considering our request and for investing in our organization. We are looking forward to moving forward and doing bigger, better things. But regardless of ability or financial circumstances, we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to experience live theater in person or to be on stage, no matter what their ability. Thank you so much. And are there any questions? Thank you. I'm sorry. Now I'm headed to camp. I wish I could hear everybody, but I have to go back to the record. Goodbye. Microphone. Yeah. Can you just time? Because I just want to keep us to three minutes because we certainly want to be polite to everybody, but we also want to get everything in. So, okay. Anybody else wish to come forward and speak? All right. Come on. Come on, George Ann. Hello. Welcome. Not George Washington. Today, I'm Steve Beatty, board chair of the Dunedin History Museum. Mayor, vice mayor, commission, city staff, city managers, deputy city manager, everyone here. Thank you so much. We're so appreciative how you support us in the past and continue to support us. We, the board is so appreciative of that. We've turned the History Museum around in the last two years. We've become very visionary. We still follow the philosophy where our main focus is to archive the history of Dunedin, but we're also being visionary and bringing on like our history makers and bringing in the younger crowd in last year. You might remember just past recently, we did the 50 years of the Blue Jays and they were very appreciative of that. We supplied Toronto all that footage and we archived a bunch of newspaper articles, different artifacts, and we provided that Toronto too. So, but what I did bring today that can speak to more is George Ann Washington. So, George Ann's going to tell us more. And I didn't knock down the cherry tree. Right. Quickly following, this year has been a banner year for this History Museum and other History Museums. Why? We celebrated 250 years of America and we were honored by the DAR nationally as being outstanding in celebrating our country's birthday. I want to say, Steve hit most of the highlights, the Blue Jays, the history makers. The main thing that I feel is our three parts of the History Museum, Andrews Memorial Chapel, the shop, and the museum, that we are ambassadors, a gateway for this city. I cannot tell you the thousands of people that walk into our shop because we're very well located right on Main Street next to the boxcar and Pinellas Trail. That's Lane's Lemonades by any, if you don't know, the boxcar. And people come in and our volunteers are so well trained. We immediately can help them and tell them the best places to eat. Of course, every place is a good place to eat. And we love working with the city on the events. I mean, I've never been a huge Christmassy person, but this year with Santa Claus at the History Museum, I was overwhelmed by all those children. I want to thank the city. I want to thank Les, who's so patient with questions and helping. I want to thank Tony, maintenance, everyone, and of course, our mayor and our commissioners. We thank you for what you do for us, and we hope we can keep up doing everything just as well. And thank you. Thank you both. You guys do a great job. Okay, anyone else wish to come forward and speak on? Good afternoon, everyone. Christina Garcia, Dunedin Cares Community Food Pantry. I'm the executive director. We can't thank you enough for your support. So because of you all, we were able to feed 30,000 people last year. They were able to shop with dignity, come inside the pantry, select their items. We have a very unique way of helping our guests, and it means a lot to us to be able to continue to do that. And that's only because of you all. So I, of course, love you all. You know that already. But I just wanted to thank you all for your support, for your help. You come to our events. You support us consistently. And we are very grateful for that. So thank you. Thank you, Christina. Anyone else wish to come forward? Oh, I'm short. Sorry. My name is Tiffany Eaton. I'm with the Dunedin Middle School Pipe Band. Well, not just pipe band. All the bands. Our director, Anna Horalt, has built a phenomenal program. We have over 200 students that participate from Beginning Band, Advanced Band, Pipe Band, Jazz Band, Color Guard, Highland Dance. And I really appreciate your consideration today. Anyone who's been in a musical organization knows that it's a life-changing experience. Lindsay told us all about it. Some of our pipers are second-generation pipers. Their parents went to Dunedin Middle. They're probably wearing the same kilt that their parents wore. Some of them have never seen a bagpipe before. And they go on to play at the high school, to play in the city band, travel to Scotland. It's really amazing. Our band has a fantastic reputation. We also routinely get superiors on our music performance assessments, high marks at music festivals. We've been traveling now two or three years in a row to World Stride music festivals where we consistently perform very, very well. This year, it's really exciting. Our band and the high school band are going to open the Florida Music Educators Conference in the fall. So it's really, it's very exciting. It just happened. But all of that costs money, unfortunately. And we are a Title I school. And so when we travel to these places, we try to offer as many scholarships as we can to ensure that these great experiences are accessible to everyone. We went to Orlando last year, New Orleans the year before, and this year we're going to Atlanta. Just our equipment maintenance alone is thousands of dollars a year by itself. We have nearly 150 kids who need to wear kilts because we outfit not the beginning band, but the advanced band, the jazz band, the pipe band, and the highland dancers have their own kilts. We wear our Royal Stuart Tartan, and they have, I'm not kidding, have been worn by sweaty middle schoolers since the 1970s. So we, some of them are in very rough shape. Some of them, we have some sport kilts that don't quite match and aren't really like in keeping with tradition. So we have been fundraising over a few years, and we'll probably continue to for several years to replenish those kilts for our students and, you know, Glen Gary's and Sporin's and all the things that go along with it. So this is a thing, we got a grant last year. We got all new kilts for our dancers, which was really exciting. And so now we're focusing on our bands. So we really appreciate your consideration, and it will really help us quite a bit. Thank you very much. Okay, anyone else wish to come forward? Joan. Hello. Hi, I'm Joan McHale, and I'm representing the Scottish American Society. And first of all, I'd like to say thank you for last year's award. We, can you hear me okay? Yep. We spent it on education. We gave out lots of donations of financial aid to students, and we bought subscriptions for our genealogy program, and then we put money into our heritage events every year. We kind of have four annual events, all the Scottish traditional events. We do that every year. We put that on the calendar first. Last year, we hosted Iona Fyfe, who was a singer from Scotland. She also held a workshop for, excuse me, the high school singing group. So that was fun. But this year, we plan to use our award on education. Again, we can't go wrong with that. It begins in middle school for the pipers and the drummers, but it begins even earlier for the dancers. They start at 3, and we also have a, on the flip side, we have a piper who's in his 80s in our pipe band on a Wednesday night. We're going to continue to support those that attend our center and take lessons, incentives, any way we can. We're going to also invest in the programs. Last year, we spearheaded a Heritage Day. We're going to do that again in the spring during Tartan Week, and we're going to make some improvements to our old building. Every time we do something, something else goes. And so this year, it's going to be the, we're going to do the main hall ceiling. We're going to improve some lighting. We're going to bring it a little modernize it, get rid of that old fluorescent strip lighting, and put in some new lights, put in a commercial dishwasher and a ice machine. So I want to thank the committee for recommending us for this request, and I know it's a really competitive field, so we realize that, and we're really, really grateful. We won't waste a dollar, and we hope that you, the city commission, will approve this request. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, and you guys are doing amazing things over at that building. Okay, anyone else wish to come forward? Hi, my name is Sarah McAdoo, and I'm the founder of freemansound.org. Good morning, mayor, commissioners, and city staff. Freeman Sound was created from love and loss. My son, Kyle, his stage name was Freeman Sound, was a DJ and music producer in St. Petersburg, and he lost his battle with mental illness in 2016. So our family, after many years of struggling with this, decided we did not want to be defined by this event. We wanted to help others, because we really want to move forward and not have any other families have to go through these types of experiences. Our mission is to use the power of music to reduce stigma. We offer concerts to the community, and not only is it just a concert, but it's an immersive experience, and we bring people of all ages together, because we want them to feel a part of something. I don't have to put facts and figures up for you all. You know we're in a mental health crisis. You know we're in a loneliness crisis. There are all kind of things going on in the world that are outside of our control, but still do affect us. And so we feel that, you know, mental health really needs to take a front seat, and we really need to help those that are in need. One example that I'd like to give of something that we started a couple of years ago, we started the Loop Into the Light, which is now called Dunedin Walks for Mental Health. We started out with 30 people from the Hob, and last year we had upwards of 180 people who carried lighted Chinese lanterns down Edgewater at sunset. We looped around into the Fenway. The Dunedin High School Pipers and some middle school Pipers and drummers and dancers joined us at the Fenway. It was remarkable. It was an amazing evening. A lot of people showed up, and we were really thankful for that. Through partnerships with other organizations in our community, Clearwater Jazz Holiday, Creative Pinellas, WUSF Jazz, and many other organizations in our community, we realized that we have to do this together. Just for one simple reason, that Florida is number three in population in the United States, and we remain in the bottom five, usually the bottom two for funding for mental health. So if we don't do it in a community forum, I mean, it's just, you know, there's just, we're not going to really see the help financially that we truly need. The grant will allow us to continue these programs and invite others in, others that are struggling, others that are different, others that don't necessarily conform to all of our social expectations that we have. So everyone's welcome. Thank you for your consideration. This is really important. This is my first grant application, so I'm a little nervous up here. But we believe music is more than entertainment. It's a bridge that connects people, strengthens our community, and supports mental well-being. With your support, Freeman Sound can continue helping make Dunedin a place where we don't just live and have fun, but we really thrive in all aspects of our life. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Thanks for taking personal tragedy and making something good, if you could. So thanks, Courage. Thank you. Anyone else wish to come forward and speak? Oh, we don't know this woman at all. Troublemaker. It's always such a pleasure to be here with you all today. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners, City Management, everyone. I'm Andrea Knowles. I'm Director, actually President and CEO of the Dineen Fine Arts Center. Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you all today. On behalf of our board, our staff, artists, volunteers, and the thousands of people that we serve each year, we want to thank you for your partnership. We're proud to generate roughly 70% of our operating revenue through a diverse array of earned income opportunities. That means your dollars, the city's investments, are leveraged into something much larger for our community. Every day, DFAC creates value for the city. We do that by driving tourism through a strong regional and national presence. We support local artists. We educate thousands of children and adults. And we enhance the quality of life that makes Dineen such a special place. The past year has been one of our best yet. It's been a banner year. Numbers are soaring. We've won five Best of the Bay Awards, including Best Art Gallery from Creative Loafing, five Best of the Best Awards, including Best Museum from the Tampa Bay Times. We were named Best Art Classes from Tampa Bay Magazine. We served 1,200 students from over 30 schools, which were able to experience arts education and field trips at the Arts Center. And we successfully launched our first ever DFACCon, attracting new audiences to the Arts Center. We've continued providing opportunities for hundreds of local artists to exhibit and sell their work. And more than 5,000 Indian residents benefited from resident discounts for our programs and classes, keeping the arts accessible for this community and supporting the local economy. Behind the scenes, we've strengthened our organization by modernizing our operations and our technology. building, we built some long-term financial sustainability and stability through some great donations. And we've begun the accreditation process with the American Alliance of Museums, which is a nationally recognized distinction that places museums and cultural arts organizations among the finest in the country. We've implemented a dynamic five-year strategic plan that positions DFAC to remain a strong, sustainable partner for many years to come with the city. Because of all this, we believe that the Dunedin Fine Arts Center doesn't just serve this community, we help to define it. We are proud to be one of Dunedin's greatest community assets, and we are honored to do this work in partnership with you all. Thank you. Thank you, Andrea. I appreciate that. Anyone else wish to come forward and speak? My wife was unable to make it the last minute, so she asked me to be for the Dunedin Youth Guild. My wife's president, so Marie Beatty. And the Dunedin Youth Guild has been around 60 years, and they so appreciate the support you provide for them. And if you're a student in Dunedin or you live in Dunedin, they assist the students. They gave out over $50,000 in scholarships last year, and most of those continue every year. And they did over $40,000 of additional support in the community. So through their two main events, the Tour of Homes and the fashion show, which many of you helped with, we thank the mayor, the commission, the vice mayor, all of you that manned those events and helped out. She wanted to thank you. But she could not be here due to a work situation that came up. But again, thank you on behalf of Dunedin Youth Guild. Thank you. So are you sure it's not because of the new puppy that she couldn't be here? No, but Louie is well-known around town. He's awesome. King Louie. He's adorable. Thank you for that. And of course, Dunedin Youth Guild is amazing. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Camille Hepting. I am the deputy director for NAMI, Pinellas County. NAMI stands for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And I'm so glad I'm not the first one today to talk about mental health, because usually I'm always the first in the room. I wanted to thank you all so very much for awarding us with a grant last year. It was our first time last year. And it really helped us with strengthening the programming that we already had in Dunedin, but that really benefited from the legitimacy of having the city of Dunedin logo on our program flyers. We do believe that, especially as it relates to mental health and mental illness, education and support go hand in hand. And so last year, we really focused on strengthening the support that was already happening in the city of Dunedin with our survivors of suicide loss support group that happens at the Dunedin Community Center. And this year, we will be able to strengthen this program by adding some education for families and friends of individuals who may be affected by mental illness and who may be a little lost in what can I do, right? How is this going to go for me and what can I do to help? So I wanted to really thank you all for taking the time to consider our application and for our award last year. And also, I want to personally thank Commissioner Gao for attending our NAMI Walks event this past May in support of mental health awareness. It means a lot to us. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Anyone else wish to come forward? Good afternoon. I'm David LaMaca. I'm the Executive Director of Neighborly Care Network. You might not know Neighborly Care Network, but you know Meals on Wheels. And we provided 23,000 meals this year to Dunedin residents, almost 500,000 to all of Pinellas County. We provided almost 10,000 trips to Dunedin residents, getting seniors to doctor's appointments, getting them to Dunedin Cares for groceries or whatever else need be. So you know Neighborly in some other ways other than that. Neighborly always appreciates the support of Dunedin, the commissioners here. The Committee on Aging is one of the most active committees in all the municipalities of Pinellas County. We're so happy to be a part of that. I know a couple of people here are on that committee. And so we just want to thank you for your continued support. We provided over $440,000 worth of services in Dunedin this past year. So every bit goes to help, and again, a lot of our funding is federal, and it requires a 10% match, so we're always stumping for that $44,000 that we're trying to get to from the community. So everything you can do here helps us out. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Anyone else wish to come forward? Okay. So I'm going to come back to the commission, and unless somebody has a question of any organization, which you can do in your final comments, but I'll just turn to final comments. And do we approve this or just do consensus, basically? I think consensus direction, and then it'll be wrapped into the budget that you adopt. Great. Okay. Okay. So final comments. Commissioner Sandberg. It was just very encouraging to get to hear what you all have to say, and it's really refreshing to hear nice things being said. Because sometimes people stand there, and it's not so nice, but, you know, to be able to listen and to share and be a partner with each of you, you know, I know all of you personally, and thank you for everything you do for Dunedin and as much as you give back to us. So thank you. Commissioner Gow, final comments. Thank you, Mayor. I could talk about this all day long. Two organizations I've been expecting. I'm sorry about this. What I really like about this part of the budget, if you look at the organizations that are involved and the services they do, whether it's mental illness or the history museum or the fine arts center, whether it's cultural, whether it's social, these are all good people, good organizations, doing things that the city can't. There's no way that the city can reach out and touch the number of people or provide the number of services that these organizations do. So I'm just, I can't be more proud to sit up here and to know that through synergy and working with partners, community partners, that we can have the impact that we do. So thank everybody for applying. Thank you for what you do outside of this room and what you do for the members of our community. And that's it, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. And we know mental health hits you hard right now. Not you personally, but everything that's happened in your world this year. Commissioner Degard. Thank you, Mayor. I know most of the organizations on a personal basis. I've given my time and some of my money to many of you in this room. And I know this community would not be near the place it is today without the contributions you guys make. I'm just grateful to have you here and to be a part. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor, final comments. Yes, ma'am. You know, this is truly, there is a silver lining to the budget season and especially this budget season. It's this. You know, Danita's greatest strength is our people. And these grants are not just investments in our not-for-profits. They are investment in the continuity of the fabric of our community. And like my colleagues and having been involved with so many of you and having been proud to say that you're all very, very special to me. I just want to thank you. I want to congratulate you. And I look forward to another year. Thank you. And you're big up there on that screen. I'm telling you what. You're taking over the room now. I feel the presence. No, I mean, I just tag on to everything. I was like writing this because there are a couple mental health groups. And I think, and there has been some touch, particularly because of Commissioner Gao's situation. But, you know, and I think somebody said maybe, Sarah, it was you about loneliness. And, you know, it's true. Like, and the more people, like, the more technology kind of pushes us away from interaction with each other, the bigger that is. And I think that's why it's so good. And then I think about all the other organizations, right, giving, getting food or arts or history or music or Scottish culture, Meals on Wheels, Dunning Youth Guild, and all those organizations that, you know, try to keep our community together, right, to fight the loneliness and provide critical services. And, but it's, I tell you, you look at all these organizations, they're all doing very, very critical stuff to build community and protect people from that loneliness and those mental health issues. And so we've got to keep doing what we've got to do. This is what I love about Dunedin, there's so much passion. And I say that, you know, we're up here making this decision. But the reality is this is money that the community has deemed good for the community, to keep that community going and to make us as tight and as, you know, thinking about each other as we can, because that's what makes us special, I believe. So I obviously am 100% supportive of this. And again, as we move forward with Amendment 3, we're going to do as much as we can to protect, you know, at least some of this. But we appreciate everything you guys are out there doing, because again, you're giving tenfold for what you're getting here from the citizens of Dunedin. So thank you very much. Okay. I think we can go from there. We're going to move back on to health care. And anybody that wants to hear about health care, you can stay. We'll give you guys a minute to clear. Give Louie a hug, Steve. You should have brought him. Thank you for that. Thanks for passing it down. Okay. We've lost somebody. We've lost two. Am I ever really all here? So I'm just going to, let's just take a pause for three minutes, wait for Commissioner to guard, and I'm going to get some water. You start, and we're going to go back to health insurance. And I think we were basically at the question time. So I am going to start with Commissioner Gao for questions on health care. No questions. Or other than how can we solve the problem? But I think that's beyond this room. Sorry. That's a long story. We were debating. Yeah, never mind. Commissioner deGarde, now for you, questions. Thank you, Mayor. I have a number of reactions to all of this, but I probably need to stay on the immediate rather than the global relative to health care. But just let's keep one thing in mind as I'm about ready to share my thoughts, and that is we never talked about outcomes anywhere in this conversation. We never talked about the health outcomes of our employees, not once. And I will tell you, the yardstick on that is horrible. The prices are going up, and the outcomes aren't showing a commensurate improvement. So we're actually doing questions. Oh, questions. I'm sorry. Yeah, sorry. We haven't been that, you know. Okay, I missed that part. Discipline, but yeah. Okay. So what are we going to do about that? By the way, I need to couch that a little bit. Teresa, I saw what you're trying to do in improving the health of our employees. That is incredible. But that's not where the cost resides, and you and I both know that. So to put this in the form of a question and get back on page, my apologies, Mayor, this is a conundrum. This is a Gordian knot, and we're all trapped inside it. And even the health care system, they're trapped inside it, too. So it's not one that we can cast blame to anybody on. So the problem becomes, do we share or do we not share the cost with our employees? Because if I look at this right, and I think I am, I'm seeing the cost of our personnel costs going up fractionally to the percentage of health care costs. In other words, they're outpacing every other aspect of our personnel expenses. Is that a correct statement? That would be a fair statement, Commissioner. I guess I should say Teresa Smalling, Director of HR and Risk Management. I goofed you up completely, so it's not your fault. And I think that's a system-wide issue. Going back to what you mentioned about outcomes, I think for the mission from the time I started here was how do we allow our employees to take responsibility for their health? And the start was the wellness program. Actually, we started with the clinic because we wanted employees to have health care that was accessible. Because one of the reasons why you have such high or such bad health in America, really, is because a lot of people will give up their medical to save money. And so we started with a clinic where employees could go for free and get their preventative. This was before preventative became zero cost. And that worked for a while, and then it was not cost effective. So we started the wellness program. And the wellness program was to educate employees, to give them the opportunity to become empowered about taking responsibility for their health. So the annual biometric, where they actually know their numbers, and so if they're on the cusp of becoming hypertensive, if they're on the cusp of becoming diabetic, then they're on notice. And the monies for the wellness program was for them to be able to say, okay, I can go see the doctor because I'm getting this extra money. The problem with a wellness program is it never measures who didn't get sick. It doesn't really tell you who didn't have a heart attack because they are healthy now, or who didn't become hypertensive, or who didn't become a chronic diabetic. But incrementally, I think what we've done year after year with our wellness fairs, with our incentives, is to say to employees, we want you to be healthy. And in our open enrollment meetings, we talk about one of the big things we did was talk about the cost of going to the emergency room versus going to an urgent care center. Because some people, you know, I know no one in this room does this, but you'll have this cough, and you'll go, it'll go away. And then usually, at 2 o'clock in the morning, you can barely breathe. So what are you going to do? You're going to go to the ER. Whereas, at noon, when you had the cough, you could have gone to the urgent care center for probably a third of the money that it cost the city. So we have been incrementally educating our employees on ways that you can save money. And I know this probably does not satisfactorily answer your question, but, you know, it's, as you said, the knot that you can't untie. That is a good answer, though. There's a hypothesis inside our, or there's a premise, not a hypothesis. There's a premise inside our calculations relative to our health care, and that is it is a competitive feature of acquiring the best people for the jobs that we have. Have we tested that hypothesis to see if and when health care is a determinant in someone deciding to come to work for us as to others? I would say we have not, because, honestly, when you talk to the average employee, say they're doing an exit interview, and they tell you where they're going, and you ask, what are the benefits like? And they'll usually say, I'll know when I get there. That would infer that it's not. That would infer that it's not. But I can say that the employees that come from other agencies have said we have really good health care. Would a survey like I'm about ready to describe be of merit? For instance, we know that if we're going to cost share the expense with our employees, that we might be able to put more money in their pockets relative to general compensation. Have we ever thought of giving that survey to our employees to see where they want the money to go rather than us making the decision? We completed an employee engagement survey, and I honestly don't remember if that was one of the questions. So, yes, that would be the answer. Yes, that will be. I'm not sure I got that one. So, I would have to say, I am not sure at this point. I would have to check our last surveys to see if we've actually, I know we did a wellness survey to ask employees what they wanted more out of their wellness program. And I think, actually, if I may, Mayor, that it's a great question. And if it wasn't in the last one, it'll be in the next one. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Teresa. Okay, Vice Mayor, questions on health care? Just, if you could just step me through and summarize what the attributes between option number two and three are. They look really similar in terms of the cost of it, but that's, you know, that's not 100% of the picture. So, anyway, just what are the attributes in that comparison? So, just to reiterate the question, Vice Mayor, you said between two and three? Yeah. Okay. So, if we go to slide number, what is that, 37? 37 shows scenario number two. And I do want to just make a small preference, preface, that our employees do currently cost share. It's just the amount that they cost share. Right now, the only employees that don't pay anything are the employee only in the base and the high deductible health plan. But, so, what we're looking at in scenario two is adding $17.31 to the employee plus spouse coverage per pay. And then for the employee plus children, it's adding another $15.58 per pay. And then the employee and family, it's $34.07. And I wish I could do a split screen because it would make it a little easier to see. So, this is just for the base plan. And then for the scenario number three, the employee only now pays $5 per pay where they weren't paying anything. The employee and spouse now pays an additional $15. And then the employee and children, additional $10. The employee and family, additional $30. So, the difference between two and three is in scenario number two, the employee and spouse will be paying just over $2 more per pay. The employee and child will be paying just under $6 more per pay. And in the employee and family, it would be just about $4 more per pay. So, in this scenario, with going with a flat fee, the percentage was 12%, I think it was 12%. And then it just shows what the additional amounts are. Okay. Well, I get it. Especially when I look at the city's annual cost on each of those two options. The option three is more streamlined in terms of its impact on the employee. Yes. And keep in mind that now the employee will also be paying more to get to their deductible, to reach their deductible, as well as their out-of-pocket. So, this would not be the only cost to the employees. Okay. And I'm assuming that the percent in city cost share is factored into the 27 budget. Yes. In the premiums, yes. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Those are all the questions I have. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner Sandbergen, questions? So, I think I caught, other than the employee only, they're currently, is it about 6% that the employees are paying? Depending on the tier. So, if we go to slide, oh, I'm going the wrong way. If you go to slide, slide 28. So, you're on a different screen. Yeah, you are, because it's not matching with our numbers. Mine's like 16, 17. This one, with the benchmark survey. Okay. The benchmark survey. I just was wondering what percentage. So, this, in the base plan, the employee and spouse pays, and I think this one goes to the base plan. Yeah. The base plan, the employee plus spouse is paying about 15%. The employee plus is about 15%, and then 20%, the employee plus family. The, you know, in listening today to the presentation, are we confident that the staff fully understands everything that's available? The, I think we used the term HSA. Did we use that term? You know, the wellness programs that are available, I don't think it comes, would it come from your office? Yes, or? Yes. Okay. So, new employees, they all have to go to a new employee orientation, and our very able senior compensation and benefits payroll person, Paula McLemore, she thoroughly goes through all the benefits. She has a presentation. She shows them all the, you know, everything concerning all the benefits. It's our annual open enrollment meetings that we encourage every employee to come to. We go over every single benefit that we have, you know, everything that's involved with each benefit. So, it's not for lack of trying. We publish a, well, not we, but the Garen Group helps us to publish a very beautiful benefits booklet that goes, you know, details all the benefits and the premium prices. And so, you know. Is that updated regularly? Every, annually. Annually? Yes. So, with the cafeteria plan, you know, we do it, you know, once a year, just in time for open enrollment, which is about August. In the past, if I'm not mistaken, weren't there people on health insurance that didn't work necessarily for the city? Maybe the chamber? Are they still, are they still on our policy? No. Currently, we do not have any non-employees. That's what I was looking, that was the answer I wanted. Okay. We talked about the stop loss. Am I understanding, am I correct that when the claim reaches that, then does it go to some kind of a reinsurance program? Or what exactly does that term mean when you use that? Sean's sitting here, and he's so eager to answer right now. I can tell he wants to answer. He's practically smacking me out of the way. No, you go out of the house, she doesn't. No, so the stop loss, basically every plan year resets. Every individual on the plan, the first $140,000, the city covers. Okay. Anything above that until the end of the plan year, reinsurance covers. And, you know, I know stop loss was brought up earlier. At lunch break, I ran some numbers, but just to give you an idea, like this year, you're going to pay about $700,000 in premium, the current year we're in, and they're paying out about $2.1 million in claims. So that stop loss has been, you've had larger claims the last two years. So Cigna, candidly, has been taking it on the reinsurance. The city has received way more benefit than they've paid in for that. What did you say are premium lists? I left it over in my backpack. I thought I said something. I mean, I'm not going to go over that right now, but I thought it was. It's, I think, but, you know, it's on track this year. We've got a couple months to go to be in the, there we go. If only I had longer arms, I could read that. You've paid year-to-date $507,000, but it's going to be in about that set. We've got four months. We don't have data for it yet. And so far this year, they've paid out $2.2 million. That's not, are you saying that's what we paid in premium? That's what we paid in premium for that. The renewal annual cost on my, what I'm looking at here is $6.7 million. No, that's the whole program. So just the premium for the reinsurance coverage. That $140,000 protection. Okay, so we get charged the reinsurance when it exceeds the stop loss. Hence, if we increase the stop loss from $120,000 to $140,000, in a sense, the city's just taking on more. Correct. So the city essentially is taking on, we're looking at $140,000 to $160,000. The city's taking on $20,000 of additional risk per claimant in exchange for lower premium. So as a part of that, we go through a whole look back on the last couple of years. And the current large claims, you've had seven this year. However, two are no longer on the plan. You know, they've either, you know, retired anything along those lines. So when we look at that, there's always risk in that. Right. But based on historical analysis, that saving is projected to essentially exceed the additional risk. Obviously, this is medical care, though. We don't have a crystal ball. We can't tell what somebody's going to find out tomorrow in the doctor's office. I understand that. And at the same time, I think it's a pretty good idea. There's pretty significant savings. It's a very significant savings. And I guess I'll caveat it with Cigna being a good partner. Although they've increased that, they have not increased that premium anywhere near the level of losses they've taken. So they look at that as a pool across all their clients. And candidly, they've done the right thing in not hitting you. Yeah, I had a group the other day that got a 150% increase on their stop loss. Due to claimed? Oh, okay. I got it. And they're not doing that. And that plays right into my last question. Do we have your word that you're going to send this to market? You're going to shop this for us? Yeah. Does your office do that? Or do we have to go find someone else to do it? No. So we do that. But we do that essentially partnered with the city. The reason we do that, you know, it was brought up earlier, like, go to the top couple carriers. Well, in public sector, you really have an obligation to open it up to the whole market. So we essentially write that bid, but we work with your purchasing team to make sure that everybody has a fair opportunity to respond. And we're not just picking the two or three carriers we like the most. Everybody has an obligation. And does your firm, are you the producer? Or are you just, are you working as a consultant, sending it out to market for us? So our firm, we actually don't have any, like, just to, you know, depending on the term and how people use it, we don't have any commission producers. All our staff is salaried so that we never have a concern of an incentive of did we recommend this carrier because of that. So that's the way we operate in that regard. So we're not taking any contingent commissions or anything like that for picking a certain. Okay. And they are the ones that run the RFP for the city. So they will get the bids and then do an analysis and bring back all the bids to us for us to look at. That's what I was looking for. Good. That's all I had, Mayor. Great. So, a couple things. Health savings account. So on, oh, it would be our page 21 and 23, you, the money that the city funds into health savings accounts, is that for just the high deductible plan or is that everybody's? So the health savings account is only available if you have a high deductible health plan. Okay, that's what I thought. For everyone else, it's a health reimbursement account, the HRA. I took the high deductible plan the first year the county had it, and I broke my collarbone and I got completely hosed. And they had given $400 into it, so I got out of it. I'm like, okay, sorry. I was healthy right up to that year, and then I got hosed. I'm like, I'm done with that. Okay, so I get that one. Let's see. How many people are in each of the plans? Yes, I do. You don't have to find it. Okay. So right now, as of in the high deductible health plan, we have a total of 23 employees, 15 in the employee only, four in the employee plus spouse, and two employee children, two employee family. In the base, it's 243 employees with 139 in the employee only. And then in the buy-up, it's 33 employees with 29 in the employee only. Okay. So that's the thought of, yeah. We're really, I mean, for the most part, we've got one mean one, the highest by far percentages in base. Okay. I get that. Let's see. I'm just following my hieroglyphics here. Why didn't we benchmark Pinellas County? Because I think of Pinellas County as one of our biggest competitors. So when we did the benchmark, Mayor, we candidly at Renewal threw it together pretty quickly, and all those entities responded with the information to the survey. The county had not at the time. So by the time we put this together, we did not have the county in there. It's definitely something we could go back. Yeah, I'd like to get that. You know, it's not, you know, change what I'm thinking today, but I'd really like to see it. Because I think they've had employee only payments for a long time. I did a down and dirty through my HR director group, and we can definitely send you what we have on that. I mean, unless they backed off. When I was there, they started charging employees. It wasn't much, but they did, employee only. And I will make the caveat that the majority of groups that were doing the employee only zero were groups with unions, of which, you know, the county does not have any unions. Yeah, and I know the answer to why they don't, but it's too snarky, so I'm not going to say it. Okay. So, okay. Yeah, I'd like to get that information. Okay, let's see. It's all right. We'll just give that info and send it to you under separate cover. Yeah, that's great. That's awesome. So are we, is our increases, are we higher than the national average and higher than the Florida average? Because it kind of looked like that. You're slightly higher this year. You know, overall, as we look, that 8.5% comes from PricewaterhouseCoopers. And the one thing I'll say is they do an annual trend survey. I think it's one of the best ones out. But if you dive in and look at that, they give you a number, but then about a year and a half to two years later, they go back and recalculate if needed. So 8.5% is what they have projected for this upcoming year. Based on what we're seeing, you know, there's a part of me that questions when they revise that and get the actual data, is it going to hold at 8.5%? Based on a lot of the renewals we're seeing, I'm skeptical that it will because we're seeing a lot of mid-teen, even 20-plus percent renewals for entities this year. So that will wash itself out over the year to see what reality really is? Potentially, yeah. Yep. It's prognosticated right now. But right now, what that would indicate is that we are increasing at a higher level than national and state. Yep. And state is a harder number to get, but typically state is close to 3% higher than that, and it's really because of our Medicare population. So just, this is going way too in the weeds, but when a hospital gets paid, commercial insurance like your Cigna, Aetna, Florida, Blue, any of those, a lot of the times that commercial insurance pays 2% to 250% of what Medicare pays. So when you have an area where you have a lot of Medicare participants, those hospitals need to make up that lost revenue on the backs of commercial insurance. So states like Florida and some of these other states or areas that have really high Medicare, you're essentially subsidizing that for those providers. That's why we tend to be higher in Florida. Gotcha. It's not the sun exposure. Yeah. No, appreciate that. And when we do go out to bid, who would you expect the top players to be? So as far as major carriers left in the market, Humana exited last year. So we essentially have, you know, the Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations, which is Florida Blue. We have United Healthcare. We have Cigna and we have Aetna. Those are essentially the big four now. You can start looking, getting into smaller TPAs, but then there are typically renting networks from those providers. So there's, you're going to pay the same for claims. It's more a question of, are there other things you want to specialize or carve out? But those are basically the ones, the big four networks. Gotcha. Let's see. Are we still giving money for if you don't opt into coverage? Yes. And how much is that? It works out, I think, to 75 for the month. Oh, there you go. Okay. I was rounding up, Bob. Must be personal usage going on over here. Okay, got it. And then by doing option three, so how do you feel like that is going to change behavior realistically? I don't want to prognosticate right now because I think, you know, it's something that we told the employees was going to happen, that there would be a cost share. I think what happens usually when we say a percentage, like in the past we said, okay, there's a 3% increase to your insurance. Employees automatically assume, okay, so you're giving me a 3% merit increase and then you're taking it away with the 3%. We would hope that the employees that really don't have any major health issues might take a second look at the high deductible health plan because, you know, the premium is low compared to the other plans and then seeding the money, seeding the HSA so that if you can seed it to where you're covering at the minimum your deductible and a maximum your out-of-pocket, then you're really not paying it, then you're really not paying anything more for the year, you just have to keep seeding it. And if you're looking at retirement in, you know, the next 10 years or so, it makes sense to go with the HSA because you're putting away pre-tax dollars for medical expenses in the future. And at a certain point, I believe it's at $3,000, you start earning interest on that money in the HSA. So you're really better off in the HSA than you are in the HRA. Like I said, the amounts that you're paying when you have to go to the doctor, yes, you're not paying $35 necessarily, but it's still a decent amount that you have to pay the doctor. And once again, if you have money in your HR, HSA, then you're just using your HSA card to pay for that. Okay. So, Mayor Madge. Sure. We're scheduling the second round of employee communications currently. So I think that there will be some, a lot of questions about this amongst the employees. As Teresa had said last year, we did put them on notice that the city's absorbed for the last four years, I believe, perhaps five, all the increases on health insurance. And they were very grateful, but that, you know, moving forward, we didn't think that that would be tenable for us. So we're going to need to describe it properly to the employees, why we're doing it. And also, obviously, Amendment 3 is on their minds, very much so on their minds. So it's going to be, I think it's going to be a rocky road this time around with these employee communications. But we just have to be very clear about how we explain this and what's available to them. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so just, I guess, you're looking for consensus on this. We are. So I guess there's two areas, option three and also the stop loss, leaving it at 140 or putting it up to 160. Are those the two things? Well, so if you don't increase the stop loss, then we're going to have to increase the amount of the employer-employee share because that's what helped to bring it down to 12%. Right, so increase the stop loss to... So if we don't increase the stop loss, we're going to, it's going to be more than the 12% that we're going to have to work with. Right, so the question is increase to 160. Increase to 160 and also increasing the out-of-pocket... Deductible. ...maximums and the deductibles. I get that, but it didn't seem like raising it to 160 is necessarily a good bet. Well, it's the premium, the premium savings that you're having. We know that... No, I get that, but I mean, but I'm looking at the claim side. You know, are we, you know, and I think Kathy said it. Do we think on the claim side we're going to, you know, hurt ourselves? I mean, you know, it's a rolling of the dice, right? Are we going to do better by keeping it lower and then they pay more for stop loss, or do we raise it up and we're going to get stuck paying more? And, you know, that's, I guess I would say the crystal ball, Mayor. Right. You know, looking based on historically, looking at current large claimants and what's projected to continue, you know, I think the, you know, there's different ways you can look at it, but give or take, seven claims would have to essentially trickle over, you know, go over that. Instead of 140, go over 160. Based on the last three years of look back, that would not have occurred on average. So, you know, from that perspective, the lower premium is guaranteed versus the higher premium. You know, you take that and then let's say claims return back to, let's say, that five level or three, like it was a couple of years ago, you know, if you're keeping it at the lower level, I might've said that backwards, the higher premium, lower deductible, you're paying that out for sure. Where taking the risk based on historical, you know, you haven't gone over that. So that's where we're building in that, that savings. You know, could we go the opposite route and shift a little bit more into premium and look at that? We could. It's not going to move the number, the needle a huge, huge amount. But right now, based on historical claims and what's on there, what's no longer on the plan, going with the higher level and taking the guaranteed premium savings, you know, is... I mean, not to talk cryptically, but it seems like some of the seven, there's been at least one debt. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. It could be somebody dropped off the plan. It could be, you know, they went to, yeah, they dropped off because they could have retired. They could have, you know, not taken insurance. There could be a number of things. But in your professional opinion, it is a better bet to go ahead and take the premium savings and go to 160. Yes, ma'am. Okay. That's good enough for me. Okay. So, basically, you want consensus on option three. And do we have that? And I'll go to final comments, starting with Commissioner Sandberg. Do we have an idea? We had seven claims that reached the stop loss last year. Any idea, like, the year before, two years before? The trend is your friend when you're doing that. I think we actually have eight. Oh, okay. You had eight last year, and you have seven this year with a couple months to go. However, you know, we get tracking, and it doesn't appear that anything can happen. And it doesn't appear that anyone else, based on ongoing, is probably going to trigger over that for the rest of the year. Okay. Somebody could have something tomorrow. So good. But, yeah, I would definitely support option three and increase the stop loss. I mean, it's, I think we're, you know, in the economic time we're in, I think we just, you know, we need to take a shot at it. And, you know, hopefully we did the right thing. But that would be my suggestion. And I'll just say, increasing that, you know, you could think about it as taking more risk, but also think about it as keeping pace with cost, right? Because if I, every year I don't change it, it really gets richer. So you need to make those incremental increases to kind of keep it in the place that it's at as a, you know, as a portion of the whole plan. Otherwise, that premium is going to skyrocket up because it gets easier and easier to hit that number. Okay. So, Vice Mayor? Yeah. No, I support option three and increasing the stop loss. And that's the way I was looking at it. I appreciate the comment with regards to stop loss, actually keeping pace with the increasing cost of health insurance. They were health insurance related things. You know, I go through this. There's a lot of great work and a lot of thought that went into this. You know, I can't help but think, okay. And we were able to budget this year for the increased cost to the city. But this is probably more of a philosophical comment. But, you know, you've got to ask yourself, how long is this sustainable for? And, but, you know, I do appreciate the fact that, you know, we've addressed the problem or we've addressed it this year. But, you know, I think it's going to be the same level of thought, planning, strategy, cutting our costs that, you know, will prepare us for next year, especially in light of Amendment 3. So, those are my comments. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner Gough. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I am going to slip in one quick question. Where does the money come to pay for this? It's a combination of all the funds through the city, the operating expenses. The health fund is funded by the city's operating expenses. So, whichever fund the employees are paid out of would be where these, this has come from, enterprise funds and that type of thing. Oh, very cool. I just mentioned the general fund pays about 55% of that fund. I just wanted to mention that. There you go. No, I'm sorry. That was the question. There we go. And I'm sorry. Can you repeat that, please? The general fund pays about 55% of the cost in this fund. Well, and where does the general fund get their revenue? Major property tax, property taxes is a major source in the general fund, 35%. And somehow property taxes became the boogeyman for the state as opposed to health insurance, property insurance, car insurance. Interesting. No, I support this going forward. Thank you. Great. Commissioner Dugard. You sure you want to ask me? I agree with my colleague. This is unsustainable. We are taking money that would have ordinarily gone to compensation and paying insurance. I mean, you can put these charts up as long as you want. That's the bottom line. I want parity between those two at some point in the future. In other words, when we're giving 5% increases, we put five more into our insurance and then figure the math out backwards. We're doing this the other way. The providers are telling us what we're going to pay and the best math that they can get us to. Remember, we should be the other way. And then the consumer understands what it's doing to them. Right now, the consumer is blind. They're relying on us to do the magic as best we can. And what we're doing is robbing them because their paychecks are going to be diminished because of this. That's the bottom line. In a health care system, that doesn't work around outcomes. It works around actuarial tables. So you can see how distasteful this is to me, but I will keep the ball rolling, and I will support this one more year. I'm serious. I'll sit in this chair next year, come back with the same kind of thing. I will not vote for it. I will vote for it this year. Thank you, Mayor. So, but in the budget, it shows actual 2024 operating costs for Health Benefits Fund, $4,401,000. Is that correct? Page 542. And in our proposed budget, it's operating of $8,139,000. So basically, from 2024 to 2027, it's doubled the cost. And that's basically claims, right? Yeah, it's mostly claims. I'm looking at operating expenses. Are you on page 542? I am on page 542. 2024 actual $4,401,108 in operating. And now, for the proposed 2027, $8,139,302. So, you know, my only point is, I wrote in here when I read it, which was weeks ago, expense has doubled in three years, not sustainable. What's our plan? You know, and I did say to Sean on break that get ready. I'm going to ask you the big picture question, like, if you're a ruler of the United States of America, what's the solution here, you know? Because I think, you know, when I look at it, and, you know, and I can really, I could really go off on the fact that we've villainized, you know, basically the service tax of our property taxes. And yet, when I look at my homeowners and my flood insurance and my car insurance and my health insurance, I mean, insurance people are ruling the world. And it just, I don't know, something has to give at some point on a lot of this stuff. But anyway, that being said, I support the option three. And, you know, I just, but it's such a huge concern about how much this drives our budget. I mean, 50% is labor. Increasingly so, actually. Yeah, increasingly so. Yep. And, you know, 50% of our, of what we pay for, for our citizens, is labor. And all these things flare out. So you, because we're a service. We are a service to people. So, okay. Anyway, I am on board with that. But thank you, Teresa. Thank you, Sean. Good presentation. Well thought out. And I think Kathy added a lot of good stuff to it as well when she was here. So, okay. So we're going to move to, let's see, we've got 2.30 here. Hey, I have one question before we go to final comments. Do we still have money for the, for Pride, for next, next coming budget, in the budget? And for fiscal year 2027, do we? It's January 1st. No, we can't. Up until January 1st, 2027, we can. We do. Did we incorporate it? Yes, we did. That's good, because it'll be the last time. Right. So I think, you know, it's in order to help the nonprofits. Right. So we would need to be very careful to ensure we cut that check before January 1st. Correct. Okay, correct. Okay. That's, you know, that's something we can do to. We missed that one last. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I just think that way they've got seed money to move forward. Mayor, did you want to open up the public input? I, sure. We haven't really. I would, well, I did it earlier, and I'll do it again. So anyone in the audience wish to come forward and speak on an issue that's on the agenda today? Okay. Seeing no one, I'll close public input. And I'm going to turn to Jennifer, Les, Jean, whoever is going to, you know, for city commission direction, just to kick us off. This is a staff presentation, so I'm assuming you want to say something before we. So I've been taking copious notes. I'd like to go over those notes and have Les and Jean add anything that I may have missed. So in regards to consensus direction, and thank you, you were very clear, and we appreciate that. Helps us moving forward, obviously. So you accepted the Board of Finance report. You gave direction to use the Board of Finance expertise a little bit more moving forward. So you were, you supported staff's recommendation regarding the health plan changes, and you supported the staff's recommendation regarding aid organizations for this year. We got direction from, regarding workshop number two, the line item in a long-range plan versus the debt service for the stadium. You want to know a little bit more about that, the long-range plan for the stadium, what part of that is the debt service. The mayor wanted to add gas tax decreases to our legislative platform, which is coming up here in the fall. And we will look at advocating for fee-for-use, maybe do a little bit of research into that, and make a recommendation to the city commission. And we wanted to look at the public works efficiency study, the savings minus the cost of the software and the consultant as well. We had consensus direction from the city commission regarding providing you with a kind of an overall report regarding passing credit card fees onto the customer using the credit card. The mayor had wanted a report regarding the conditions of pavers to the city commission. I'm going to ask the city commission for more time. I need to talk to staff about that assessment and what that looks like and delivering that to all of you. So I can't give you a date, mayor. You'd ask for one, and I can't give you one. When can you give me one? I'm not sure. Later. Okay. I will give you a time frame, but I need to talk to staff. No, no, I respect that. You're giving me my direction. I got it. So in regards to the employee survey, we're going to add a question regarding preference for compensation or increased benefits next to our employee survey. We're going to add Pinellas County to our benchmarking for the cost share on health insurance. And we're going to provide that, renew that really quickly and provide that to you under separate cover. Anybody think of anything that, I'm sorry, anybody think of anything that wasn't on the list that should. We took a selfie, and we had a nice Beats out lunch. And that's the rest of my discussion. So tell me next steps and what you need from us today. Les and Jean, is there anything additional that you need from the city commission today? I'm not aware of any of you. No. So September 3rd will be our first public hearing for the budget at 6 o'clock. It's a regularly scheduled city commission meeting, so we're just rolling the budget adoption hearing into this regular scheduled city commission meeting. So you may have other items on that. You do have other items on that meeting as well. So I guess the question is, is everyone here on the commission good with where we are right now with how we're moving forward to our first public hearing of the budget with how staff has laid out the plan? So I'm just going to, I guess that's really the only question you need answered today, right? Yeah. Okay, so we'll start with Vice Mayor. Right here. Um, yeah, I, uh, I, I'm good. The, you know, you know, honestly, the, you know, the expectation was, is that we get a balanced budget in advance of November 3rd. I think it is the amendment three. And, uh, you know, to me, the most important thing. And again, and I know the plan is, is to roll out the contingency, uh, before the referendum. Uh, but to me, that, that actually is probably going to be one of the most important things we do this year. So, um, I'm good where we're at right now. And, uh, I am looking forward to that, that contingency. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Sandberg. You know, in the, in this last week, it really gave me a chance to realize how plugged in and, um, in touch the residents of Dunedin are. Uh, and I said that there's, I had three of them that I sat down and talked to about this, about the budget. And it was, it was interesting. One made a comment about our last meeting sitting here and asked me, caught that I was leaning over. Well, that's when somebody was sick. But, and that's safe, but this is how much these people pay attention. Yeah. Said the girl next to you went and got a blanket. Why do you keep that room so cold when I'm paying your power bill? That's how in tune people are in this, in this community. Um, another downtown merchant came to me and said, you know, we're really counting on you. Their power bill for their little store went to $500. And she says, it, it takes me a long time to recover the $500 from my power bill. So I'm counting on the city to do the best for me. You know, those are powerful words. That's not something you just made up. And, uh, I feel real good. I, I, and I said this to, uh, the city manager, all of those meetings that I know that you've been to Jen and, uh, I know you have mayor getting out in front of the citizens of Dunedin. Um, and taking away that gotcha moment, you know, they were able to ask questions, you know, there's 30 people or whatever, 40 people that went to the library out of 14,000 homes. So I wish there would have been more, but the people that were there left, I think really educated and understand what's going to happen, whether this passes or it fails. Uh, I think that there's, I feel very, I feel very comfortable going in. And I think it's, again, it's the right people, the lesses, the genes, the Jennifers, you guys have done this. You've put this together and, uh, I think it's everything that you've done is done perfectly. And I feel very confident going into that September 3rd meeting. And I thank all of you for your hard work for the city. So thank you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, commissioner. Uh, commissioner Gow. Thank you, mayor. Uh, thank you to staff. Thank you to Jennifer. I, you guys have worked incredibly hard. Uh, thank you to the vice mayor and all of us at the table. I think it was, uh, the second day of two very hard days of trying to do what we can with, with the budget. Uh, is it a good budget? I, you know, at the end of the day, it's going to be the residents that tell us whether or not they're happy. We've already heard that they're concerned about their power bill, our power bill. And, um, uh, city government already gets a bad rap. Government gets a bad rap. And so I just hope that we've done enough to show the residents that we care. Because regardless of what is hurting them in their pocket, what's in their head is our taxes are bad. Regardless of what their insurance bill is. Regardless of, you talk about their power bill. My thought would be, well, why don't you have solar? But they don't. They're willing to accept that increase every year from Duke. But they want to put the pressure on us to do what we can with the limited funds that we have. Um, so, um, yeah. It's, it's a budget. And I think we worked hard. Thank you. That's it. Thank you. Commissioner Degard. Thank you, mayor. You kind of want to ask Mary Todd, how was the play? Is it until the ending scene? Well done, Tom. Well done. We are all facing a set of circumstances. Everybody in this room, everybody in Dunedin, that is coming to an inflection point relative to expenses, cost of living. Everybody is asking for more when people's source of income has either remained stagnant or increased much less than those expenses. That's causing a lot of public dissatisfaction. Uh, we see that in the, it's mirrored to us in the political messages we're seeing today for various offices. And it's being mirrored to us directly through the proposition, the three, and you can't argue against that frustration. That's the wrong mood. But I will tell you this, the city and the staff can be quite proud of what they've done. They understand what the city does, how it works, and what it's going to take to maintain it as it is today. And they put forward a budget that follows that path. Congratulations. Well done. However, we know that our employees are suffering under increased health care costs. They're suffering with cost of living increases. Utility bills, insurance bills, it's all coming home. I think that you've done the best job you could. We're not done with this conversation. Thank you, Mayor. That's for sure. Um, so one of the follow-ups that I think, um, when we put contingency plan in the PowerPoint, we're always going to have the rest of the story. Right. Okay. We can make sure that we do that. Got to keep educating. Um, I went through kind of a little bit of a, you know, this is my little fun kindergarten hieroglyphics that I took from the budget. And, um, and I just think we keep educating because I did all the general fund revenues. I did the general fund costs just to give myself an idea where all this money, like when you just take this huge book and put it on a few pieces of paper, you know, it kind of shrinks and you start to think about how will we really find $7.6 million. And interesting, on page 178 of the budget, there's a further breakdown of our rec and parks department, which everybody's like, wow, that's a lot of money, you know, and it is a lot of money. But, uh, when you take out some of the enterprise funds, you get to about a $13 million figure. And interestingly enough, $5.6 million of that is, uh, parks maintenance. We're very proud of those, right? But, and we got to take care of them. And we're talking about horticulturists and people that are doing some of the very basics in protecting our, our park structure. Um, uh, so you, you take that out of it, you're kind of down to about seven and a half million. But what's interesting in here is like, if I add up all the operational costs of community center, MLK and health center, just take it all away. It's done. It's gone. It's $3 million. And we're talking about cutting $7.6 million. So again, you know, my, you know, the message I keep trying to send is this is not just creative efficiencies. This is things that you've come to love. And at the end of the day, our citizens will get to decide. And I think our citizens are, you know, they love our quality of life here. And so I think, you know, I'm not as worried about our citizens as maybe some of the rest of the state, but, um, but again, I, we just want to make sure that they stay educated and, and, and know what they're voting for. Um, so, uh, which is interesting because I did read the, um, the court case, you know, uh, that, that our city attorney had sent. And I think that was all about it. Like that, I think the wording was, I'm going to find this because I thought it was kind of interesting. Specifically, the court found the following. Simply put, the proposed ballot title does not state the basic legal purpose of the amendment. It endorses it and diverts voters from its actual effect. Voters are entitled to a fair, clear, accurate, and non-misleading ballot statement to a system in making their critical determination. The present ballot language would deprive the voters of the opportunity to make a meaningful decision. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. I mean, and that's the court. That's not any city. That's the courts. Um, so anyway, on that note, I think it's a good budget. I think staff, you worked hard to already do cuts because we know we have a tight budget despite that's, we, we know that, you know, it's hard to provide all that the Dunnean citizens have come to want and expect, but also keep it affordable. I think you've did a great job of doing a really heavy lift in cutting some of the budget now. Um, and I think that as we move forward, even our contingency plans, I mean, hopefully we won't have to put that in action, uh, based on the amendment three, but I actually think we could learn some things that will help us, uh, to, to help our budget overall. Um, and, um, and so, um, I, I just, good job. Um, you know, last gene, you lead the way and you always do it so well. And I knew you guys worked yourself to death during this time period. And, um, and I'm amazed by the, you know, the brain power you bring to the table and the detail because it's a lot in here. So I thank you. I thank the department directors, all of you guys. I know you, this is hard and the contingency plan and the rest of the story, um, it's hard stuff. It's going to be hard. It's going to be hard on all of our staff to look at all that. Um, and hopefully we won't have to fully put that in effect, but at the same time, hopefully if we don't, we'll learn some things that will help us all to be better for our citizens. Um, but, but good job. Um, and, and obviously, you know, Jennifer, you lead the way and we appreciate that. So thank you everyone. And, uh, is there anything else that you need from us? Nothing more, Mayor. Uh, anyone else have any final words of wisdom? Okay. Somebody needs to win the lotto, I guess. Okay. All right. Adjourned. All right. See you all.