Good evening, and welcome to the September 23rd, 2025 special meeting. I'd like to call the special meeting to order, and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance by our city attorney, Jen. I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty. Okay, I'll just start with, does anyone in the audience wish to speak on an item that is not on the agenda tonight? Seeing no one, we'll close that, set as input, and go to new business. This is adoption of fiscal year 2026 final millage rate and fiscal year 2026 final budget. The first one is resolution 25-24, which establishes the fiscal year 2026 final millage rate. Jen, can you please read resolution 25-24 by title only? Resolution 25-24, resolution of the city commission of the city of Dunedin, Florida, adopting the final millage rate for ad valorem tax revenue for fiscal year 2025-26 at a rate of 4.1344. 5 mils, or $4.13 per thousand dollars of assessed property value, and providing for an effective date. That was resolution 25-24, read by title only. Can I have a motion? So moved. Second. Okay, and I'll go to staff presentation, and we'll start with the city manager. Do you have some comments? Yes, I do. Thank you. And good evening, Mayor, Vice, Mayor, and Commissioners. This is a special meeting, as the mayor said, of the city commission in regards to the fiscal year 2026 budget. I just want to make a couple comments about the process, because this evening is usually relatively a short meeting, and a lot of work has gone into this budget. This is the culmination of about nine months' worth of work at a minimum, beginning, first of all, with staff reviewing line item budgets and making proposals to the city manager's office, and then some back and forth with staff between the city manager's office and finance department and staff. Then we put together a draft budget, and we submit that to the city commission, and that was done in June, and to the public as well. So there have been a number of workshops regarding the budget, and those are day-long workshops. Those are eight-hour-long workshops. And this is all predicated upon the work that was done by the Board of Finance as well. The Board of Finance saw the budget several times. They heard from several department directors regarding the budget and some of the items within the budget, and they make their recommendations to the city commission, which they did in, I think, it was August. The August meeting, yeah. And that was that first budget workshop, and that was August. Excuse me. The first budget workshop was July 18th of 2025. There was a substantial follow-up, as you recall, in regards to all of your questions and comments in the follow-up letter, and that is of record in the city commission's, excuse me, the city's website. We convened again for a second budget workshop on the 6th of August of 2025. Again, there was a, to address the follow-up. There are additional questions of the city commission. We saw aid to organizations. We saw, you looked at the pay plan and supported it in terms of merit-based increases to the, to the, to the employees. You looked at the proposals for some reclasses and so on and so forth and supported those as well. There was a follow-up to that one and, as well, and we provided that in, in our, our package for you. And you had your first public hearing on the budget, and that was December, excuse me, September 11th of 2025. And then this evening is the second public hearing and adoption of the fiscal year 2026 budget. As I said, in the evening period, a lot of work has gone into this budget. It is submitted to you as a proposed tentative budget for fiscal year 2026, and I know that Les has a very short presentation for you this evening. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. We'll turn to Les. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Les Tauter, the Finance Director, and I'm here with Jean, our Budget Manager. The fiscal year 2026 budget has been prepared in unity with our priorities set forth in our City of Dunedin Strategic Plan. This is the final hearing on the 26th budget. The City has had several workshops, as Jennifer just mentioned. The City's fiscal year 26 proposed budget was delivered to the City Commission and the Board of Finance on June 30th this year. And we, we had two workshops, as Jennifer mentioned, on July 18th and August 6th. The millage rate of 4.1345 mils is 5.43 percent more than the rollback rate of 3.9216 mils. The rollback rate is the rate that would generate the same amount of property tax revenues as approved for the prior year, less a few allowances. When the tax base increases, the rollback rate is less than the prior year's rate. The City Commission held a public hearing and adopted Resolution 25-22, establishing a tentative millage rate of 4.1345 mils for the fiscal year 26 budget on September 11th, 2025. A millage rate of 4.1345 mils is the same rate that our City's had for the past 11 years. The rate will generate $17,850,000 in the general fund, and that's budgeted at a 95 percent collection rate, and it will generate $1,135,000 for the City's portion of the CRA's Avalorium TIF revenues. Staff recommends approval of the final millage rate of 4.1345 mils for fiscal year 26. Thank you. Okay. Questions for staff on this? Vice Mayor? No questions. Mr. Sandbergen? Okay. On page 3 of that, hold on one second, that was the resolution on page 3. It talks about, just to make sure I understand, general government includes what? I'm trying to find on page 3, the Resolution 25-24, I'm just trying to find where it says. There is no page 3. I think it's the budget. Oh, I'm sorry. It's not page 3. It's, yeah, the budget summary. Yeah, yeah, that's the next resolution, but this is really the summary of all of our funds and all of our revenues and expenses across all funds. Okay. And public safety includes fire, police? Yes, fire, police. And then how about one, if you could just define what cultural slash recreation, what's included in that? That's the recreation departments, most of that, and the library. Okay, good. That's all I needed. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Walker, any questions? No questions, ma'am. Okay. Commissioner Dugard, question? No questions, ma'am. Okay. And I don't have any questions either, so I will open the public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to come forward to speak on the budget? Okay. Come forward. Name and address for the record, and three minutes. Hi. I'm Clifford Rau. I live at 464 Apollo Drive North in Dunedin. I just have a quick question about the proposed tax increase and the budget. I got the notice in the paper, and it says, this year's proposed tax levy is $19,985,162, but when I look over at the budget, I can't find that number. Am I supposed to be able to find that number? So if you have other questions, you could tell them, and we'll answer them at the end of your comments. That's the only question. That's your only question? Okay. So, Les, Gene? Yeah. The recommendations for the trim are the number you read, the $19 million number, that's 100% of our tax levy that we're estimating for 2026. We budget at a 95% level of that. In other words, we can budget 95% or more, but we can't budget more than that, and we've been budgeting 95% at most cities. Which is state law, right? Excuse me? State. That's state law. Yeah, for the most part, most cities do budget at 95%, so our actual budget revenues for property tax are at 95% of that number, basically, and that's why you won't be tied to that number exactly, because we budget, and the reason for that is because we know there's going to be delinquencies, and so we budget 95%, and then we also budget every year about $150,000 for delinquencies, and then those delinquencies can take a number of years for them to come through later, but that's basically why we set 95% knowing that some are going to be delinquent. But the proposed tax levy is $19,900,000. If you go over to the budget summary, property taxes are actually more than? Yeah, that number is the general fund amount. You said CRA? Yeah. Just to clarify. Go ahead. Yeah. So what it is, is we have this $19,000 that we list is what we are receiving based on our taxes. There's also, and I don't have the exact dollar amount in front of me, but another million or so that we receive with the CRA. So the two- The CRA is a community, not that community redevelopment. Yeah, so on that, in that budget summary, you'll see under the CRA, it's about $2.2 million. So that includes a million or so from our regular tax base, as well as a million or so we receive from the county. So we budget at 95%, but we also get another million or so based on our tax by our millage rate from the county. That increases it. That's why it's not, it's very hard to tie exactly to that number, but- Yeah, because we budget for the county's portion too. So we are, that $19 million number is our city portion, but we do also, as Jean mentioned, about half of that 2.2 is from the county, and we budget that as a revenue coming in, but it's not included in that number you're looking at because it's not actually city AV, it's county AV. Okay. All right. Good question. Good. Well, thank you for being interested. I'm glad you're here, and usually we don't have you talking back and forth with the staff, but you're the only one that took the time to be here, so I was not shutting that down. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. And I will say, too, I think at any time that you would want to meet with finance or something, you know, they would be happy to go through a lot more detail. So, okay. Anyone else wish to come forward and speak on the budget? Okay. Seeing no one, we will go to final comments, starting with the maker of the motion, Commissioner Sandbergen. No, I spent some time reading through it again today. I think it was encouraging to see a pretty significant amount of water, wastewater, stormwater, you know, solid waste. It shows a real commitment to the citizens and what they've asked for, and I appreciate the hard work. And every department in the city. I know everyone gave up their time, and everybody gave up something, I'm sure, to get us where we are. So, thank you to you, too, for all your hard work. Okay. And seconder of the motion, Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, you definitely, you know, through all the budget workshops that we did and the literally 360-degree analysis that you did on all the different scenarios, I think is, you know, really allowing us to feel comfortable with where we're at with regards to the millage, obviously. And it's great that we, that our millage has been exactly the same since 2016. And, you know, I think, again, the level of diligence that goes into this is really noteworthy. So, thank you for all the hard work. Okay. Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. This has been a lot of hard work. But it's been hard work doubled because of the complications of a year that was extraordinarily challenging. Keeping the millage rate what it was is an accomplishment, one that we will be challenged to do in the future. But I wish to compliment the staff on an excellent job, a great process, and I have the confidence to go forward. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. And Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. You know, in the last couple of years, there's been conversation about rollbacks and residents were hurting and what we could do to help them. And that was necessary. There's no doubt that the citizens were hurting and they still are. But so were cities. And so it was nice over the last couple of years as city government to really take the approach that the more stable that we can make the city and our finances, the better off the residents will be. And I believe that to be so. And so it's been great that we haven't had to adjust or increase our millage since 2016. And the fact that we don't have to do it this year is just wonderful. Our reserve has maintained. We don't have an exorbitant reserve. And that's the way citizens should have it. If your reserve is too much, then we're just holding back resident money. We should give it back to them. But at 15%, that's a very thin margin. So I'm very happy with the millage rate where it is. And I do support it. So thank you. Great. So, you know, my comments would be similar. I mean, we've talked about the rollback rate for a couple of years. And I think we all knew when the storms hit, thank goodness we didn't do it. It would have been a very small amount of money back into people's pockets, but a very huge impact in our ability to respond to everything we had to respond to the storm. And we still are obviously very challenged as we look to the future because of the storms and some of the other pressures like, you know, infrastructure and labor market and inflation, et cetera. So I think, again, I think having that millage at that same rate, as I like to say, slow, steady, stable. I think that's what we're really trying to do here. Be smart with people's money. And we are going to have some future challenges. And we're going to be starting on that as soon as we're done with this. So, but anyway, I'm very supportive of this. So, and we'll go to roll call vote. Vice Mayor Gao. Aye. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. Commissioner Walker. Aye. Commissioner Sambergen. Aye. And Mayor Franey. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay. We will go to Resolution 25-25, which establishes the fiscal year 2026 final operating and capital budget. Jen, can you please read Resolution 25-25 by title only? Resolution 25-25, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Dunedin, Florida, adopting the final operating and capital budget for the City of Dunedin, Florida for fiscal year commencing October 1, 2025 and ending September 30, 2026 and providing for an effective date. That was Resolution 25-25, read by title only. I could have a motion. So moved. Second. Second. Okay. I've got Commissioner Walker. Okay. Commissioner Dugard. Okay. And we'll go to staff presentation. Are we starting with the manager again? You're done? I'm finished. Thank you. Okay. Somehow I'm not sure you're totally done. But anyway. Okay. So we'll turn it to Les and Gene. Okay. Thank you. On September 11, 2025, the City adopted Resolution 25-23, establishing the fiscal year 26 tentative operating and capital budget of $156,210,946 in all funds. No changes have been made to the tentative budget as passed by Commission on September 11, 2025. Staff recommends approval of the final 2026 operating and capital budget. Thank you. Okay. Any questions? I will go to Commissioner Walker. No additional questions. Commissioner Dugard. I do have one. Okay. I contacted Les a little earlier today, and I just want to be sure I understand this properly on page 14 of the budget. It reads Highlander Tennis Courts refurbishment decreased by $550,000 in FY26 compared to 25 since the project was budgeted for 25 and not FY26. Would you repeat what you did to me earlier just so I want to have it for the record? Yeah. That project is in the 25 budget and not 26. That was the reference for that. That project went out to bid. The bids came in higher than the estimates, and it'll be going out to bid again, and that project will be rolled over into the 26 budget and then completed likely in 2026. I have 16 friends that made me do that, so I just want to let you know. Tony, thank you very much. Thank you, Les. Oh, yeah. You've got to make sure Tony knows. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right. Okay. Questions, Vice Mayor? No questions. Commissioner Zandbergen? No. I jumped ahead and had all mine done. Thank you. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. We're going to open it for public hearing. Anybody in the audience wish to come forward and speak on this issue? Okay. Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Go to comments by the commission and start with the maker of the motion, Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. I have just the same comments as the millage resolution. Very, very good job. Thank you. Okay. Second of the motion, Commissioner Degard. I want to thank finance, particularly for going through the extra steps this year of segregating the operating from the capital budget so we could have line of sight on where the increases were. That was very helpful to me as a first-time commission budgeter. I found the process to be sound. I found it to be helpful and with no waste. Thank you so much. Okay. Final comments, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. You know, and even for Cliff, you might go, well, they aren't, this is the fastest meeting in the world and they're talking about a lot of money, but it's because we have been talking about it for nine months and we've had all-day meetings over this, so none of the information is new. I do have to echo the comments of my colleague, Commissioner Degard, regarding the separation of the operating and the capital that really opened up some eyes and gave me a real much better understanding on where the increases were, as he had mentioned, and all that will lead to good conversations about it coming into the next year. But this is, it's a good budget, it's sound, it's tight, and knowing that it's only going to get tighter next year is going to be at least a great place to start. If we're always managing it, it's a lot easier to manage. And so, thank you, continued thank you for the job that you all do on managing our money and putting it together. So, thank you. That's all, Mayor. Great. Thank you. And I'll just reiterate, I mean, I think this is a good budget. We've worked hard on it. The impact of the storms was huge. The importance of infrastructure is huge and you can, it's reflected in this budget. The importance of the backbone of our city, which 60% of our budget is labor, is reflected in this budget and we've got to keep good people and it's highly competitive. And, of course, the inflationary factors. So, I support the budget. I know we have a lot of work ahead, though, so that when we look to those out years, we've, you know, your job's ahead. You know that. I don't have to repeat it, but we'll be certain on that right away. I just wanted to thank the Board of Finance for all their work. They work hard. They're a great board, very important board to us. And they had a lot of good feedback and thoughts for us this year. I'd like to thank my colleagues. I think, you know, I think we all have tough questions. We have different things that we kind of center on. And that's what kind of helps bring together a tight budget. Of course, Jennifer and the rest of your staff, thanks to you guys. And I will just say what I say every year, Les. Like, I, and Jean, I add you to this now because I just think you've done an outstanding job your first year out. And I'm just going to give you a hand here. And, but, again, you know, I do say, and I mean this, I've seen lots of finance directors, good, bad, and ugly, just like managers. And I just think this team is amazing. And, again, it allows us to get into the policy, into the deep stuff, when we can trust the numbers, trust that you don't have angles going, you're just trying to give us the straight facts and, you know, not spin it. And that is, that is critical. It's critical. And I've seen plenty of ones that do spin it. It makes it really tough up here. So I really appreciate the team. I really do. So thank you very much. And I know that, I think, Jennifer, before we do roll call vote, you wanted to say something? Yes, I'd love to. Thank you very much, Mayor. And thank you all for your support on this budget. It is a good budget. It's certainly not a deficit budget. We're not allowed to do that. It's got a good reserve. And, as you said, a lot of work has been put into it and a lot of work by the City Commission as well. And I also want to thank Les and Jean. There are, as we develop the budget, there are a lot of emails coming to us, to me, over the weekend and late at night as well. And Jean worked on this budget as her first time as the budget manager without help in terms of the budget analyst position, which she had vacated, was left open. And so she did a fantastic job, 16, 17-hour days. And I am not kidding you. I mean, so, and always was very balanced, you know, very unflappable. And, you know, you have to, essentially in that position, you have to deal with a whole bunch of different questions, comments. And, obviously, it's very intricate work, if you will. And you've got to get it right. You don't have a second chance. And so I'm very grateful to Jean. And I know that we promoted the right person in the right place and looking forward to working with her. And, as usual, Les is a very hands-on director with a budget. He is actively involved in developing the budget. And, again, a lot of weekends, a lot of times you couldn't play golf because he's working and, you know, which is a shame because, you know, he's a good golfer. But, anyway, but, no, I mean, he's really very active in the budget process and not sitting back directing. He's working. So, as I said, it's a good budget. A lot of good stuff in this budget. A lot of initiatives to move forward. I'm excited about it. And our first meeting to talk about the future is October 3rd. So, thank you very much, Mayor. I was going to say I drifted back to when I worked for the county. I will not say the budget director's name. I did not work in budget. But, way along the way into the budget, he realized that he made a million-dollar mistake and it wasn't in the right direction. It was not a good moment. But, anyway. So, yeah, it's very important. I just wanted to add, you know, thank you to our citizens. And thank you to Clifford. So, we're not lonely here today. So, thank you for coming. I really appreciate that. That's awesome. It was a great question. Okay. Roll call vote. Commissioner Slambergen. Aye. Vice Mayor Gow. Aye. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. Commissioner Walker. Aye. Mayor Franey. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. And unless there's anything good for the order, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.