when they need to good evening and welcome the wednesday july 24 2024 city of plantation maximum millage meeting is now called to order at 5 30. miss begaro please call the roll council member anderson here council member andrew here council member pageant here council member horland here council member reinstein here mayor sorda here assistant city attorney morgan here thank you thank you so we have three items three legislative items regarding the millage we're going to do a presentation one presentation for all three one discussion for all three and then we'll end up voting on each item individually item number one is a resolution to adopt the proposed maximum millage rate of the plantation midtown development district for fiscal year 2025. item two is a resolution to adopt the proposed maximum millage rate for the plantation gateway development district for fiscal year 2025 and item three is a resolution adopt the proposed maximum millage rates for the the City of Plantation Operating Budget and Voted Debt Service for Fiscal Year 2025. Anna? Good evening, everybody. Good evening, Mayor, Council President, Council Members, City Attorney Morgan. Welcome to the City of Plantation Fiscal Year 2025 Maximum Millage Budget Presentation. I just want to remind you the maximum millage is just that. It's you're letting Broward County know the maximum rates that the city will charge in Fiscal Year 2025, and you have the option of reducing those rates when we get to the first and second hearing in September. So the presentation I'm about to give you is a brief overview of our proposed 2025 budget. We're going to talk about the significant changes from Fiscal Year 2024 to 2025 and the reasons behind those changes. The total budget for all funds, including ad valorem revenue, is approximately $271 million in Fiscal Year 2025. This is an increase of 6.4 percent, or $16.3 million, when compared to the Fiscal Year 2024 amended budget. The significant changes are in the areas of the General Fund, which increased 9.4 percent, or $12.6 million. In the Special District Funds, which increased 74.6 percent, or $3.7 million. And in the Stormwater Fund, which increased 49 percent, or $1 million. The significant decreases in Fiscal Year 2025 are in the area of debt service. This is debt service outside of the General Fund. It decreased 83.3 percent, or $1.7 million. And then the ad valorem bond projects decreased 38.8 percent, or $1.5 million. As I go through the presentation, I will go into those significant areas in more detail. Starting with the General Fund, the General Fund proposed budget is based on a proposed millage of 5.8 mills. This is a zero increase in millage rates since Fiscal Year 2019. The property values in the city of Plantation increased 9.90 percent, according to the Broward County Property Appraiser. The increase in property values in the proposed millage rate will generate approximately $78 million in ad valorem revenue in Fiscal Year 2025. This is estimated at a 96 percent collections rate. The additional revenues over the previous fiscal year with this proposed millage rate is approximately $6.6 million. Of this additional revenues, 27.2 percent, or $1.8 million, is related to new construction. The proposed millage rate of 5.8 mills requires a two-thirds vote, or four votes from Council. So looking at the General Fund revenues, the increases and decreases, as you can see from this slide, ad valorem revenues are actually the largest source of revenue for the General Fund. These are the revenues that actually fund the daily activities of the city. So we depend on them greatly. As I said on the last slide, they're approximately $78 million in Fiscal Year 2025, $6.6 million increase, or a 9.3 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. The utility service taxes category is approximately $9.5 million in Fiscal Year 2025. This is a 12 percent increase, or a $1 million increase over the previous fiscal year. The increase here is directly related to the utility service taxes for electricity. The increase here is because FPL has been increasing their rates, and every time they increase their rates, it's additional dollars for the city. The other general taxes category is approximately $4 million. This is a $77,000 increase, or a 2 percent increase, over the previous fiscal year. Now, this is small dollars, but I do want to point something out here. This is the category that houses the communication service tax. So every year for the past five or six years, those actually have been decreasing. Well, in 2024, we're noticing they're on an upward trend now, and that's due to the fact that the Florida Department of Revenue have added other items into the category that they're now taxing, one of those being online learning services. So we're anticipating that we're going to see an increase in those revenues going forward, which is good. The permit fees and special assessments category is approximately $12.3 million. This is a 12.3 percent increase, or a $3.4 million, or a $1.4 million. The increase here is primarily $1.1 million is in the area of franchise fees for electricity. Again, the same reason, like the utility service taxes for electricity, they're going up because the electricity in FPL has increased our rates. The intergovernmental category is projected at $14.5 million. This is an increase of $2.8 million, or 24.4 percent. This is the category that houses the sales tax and half-cent sales tax. So in this category, a majority of the increase, $1.7 million of the $2.8 million increase, is related to sales tax and half-cent sales tax. That's due to the high cost of goods, which is translated into additional sales tax for Florida Department of Revenue, and therefore additional monies in revenue sharing for the city. Also, in this category, we have $1 million, another $1 million in this category increase is related to the firefighter and police premium tax monies. Now, I haven't had to really mention those before because they haven't been significant, but in this year, in 2025, they're actually allocated at $1 million. So those are not monies that the city gets to use. Those are monies that are distributed from the state to the city that we have to turn around within three days and submit them to the fire and police pensions. Now, you will see them also on the expense side. So here's where the revenue comes in. When I get to the expenses, I will talk about them as they're going out the door. The other item in the intergovernmental category is the SRO contract that increased this year. They signed a three-year contract with Broward County, and they're expecting $100,000 in fiscal year 25. Most of that goes to the officers. It's a small part of it goes to the city. The charges for services category increased by $3 million, or 17%. Of this $3 million, $2 million is related to solid waste pickup and recycle revenues. So, again, those are not revenues for the city. Those are revenues that the city collects on behalf of waste management. The residents pay for these services on the water bill. The city collects the money. Those monies are down on a monthly base paid back to the waste management. The other item, the other million-dollar increase here is related to cost allocation that the city charges to the special revenue fund for the building department, and then also to the enterprise funds for utilities and the golf course. We charge back a fee for the services provided to those areas from the general fund department. That would be finance, HR, city clerk, IT, public works. So we charge back those departments that have money coming in. They charge a fee for services, so we're able to get some of that money back. In fiscal year 2025, that's approximately $340,000. The other item in the charges for services here, ambulance fees are increasing. They increased the fees for the ambulance fees, I think, in late 2023. So we saw additional monies coming in in 2024, and we're going to see some more in 2025. And then last but not least in the charges for services, the special detail for the police officers is expecting $100,000 in additional revenue. And, again, that's money that goes mostly to police officers. We get a portion for the city. Fines and forfeiture category is $696,000. This is a decrease of $5,216, or 0.7%. The decrease here is in the fines for the county criminal court fines. The miscellaneous revenue category is approximately $2.3 million. This is an increase of $233,000, or 11.3%. The increase here is in the area of tower rentals and revenue income, the investment income for the city on the investment portfolio. So moving on to the expenditures, as you can see from this side, the largest cost for the city is personnel services. Makes sense. We are a service provider. A majority of our money is paid for manpower. In fiscal year 2025, the total is $101 million. This is a $7 million increase, or a 7.5% increase over the previous fiscal year. Now, of this $7 million, $1 million is related to the police and fire premium taxes. This is where we pay that out. So, really, the increase in the category is $6 million, and the percentage is about 6.4%. Of the $6 million increase, this is related to the request for 16 new full-time positions, 9 new part-time positions, 5% merit increases for general employees, increases for fire rescue for their negotiated contract, and then estimated increase for FOP based on the outcome of their negotiations. Also, in this category are employee benefits. The medical, which has remained stable for the past few years, you're going to see an increase in medical costs for fiscal year 2025. They just recently signed a new contract, and it increased about 14%. In addition to that, medical is increasing due to the addition of the 16 new employees. Operating expenditures is approximately $28 million. This is a $2.5 million increase, or a 10% increase. The increase here, I can say right away, $1.2 million of this $2.5 million increase is related to solid waste pickup and recycle revenue. So, again, we have to take that off the top because that money came in on the revenue side, and now it's going to go out to pay waste management. The actual increase for the city is $1.3 million, or 6%. And this increase is due to the increase in operations. So, typically, we increase operations by CPI at the beginning of the budget process. The mayor gives direction to say you can increase by whatever the CPI is. For fiscal year 2025, it's 3.5%. Now, the majority of the categories, the departments were able to stay within that 3.5%. However, there were some that couldn't stay within that area because they don't have control over the fees, contracts, and so on. But the significant ones that were impacted were the other governmental department. We had an increase in insurance property, casualty insurance premiums, increased $310,000 over the previous fiscal year. We also had the recreation department is adding a new program for specialized services to residents. This is a program that would be offered in conjunction with the YMCA, and it's going to cost approximately $182,000. The IT department increased above the target by $65,000. This $65,000 is related to beefing up cybersecurity. And then, also, we have additional $30,000 in expenses due to the municipal elections because it's an election year. And then, last but not least, the police department increased above the target due to the crossing guard contract, which increased $50,000 over the previous fiscal year. I missed the capital category. So, the most important one. So, moving on to the grants and aids. So, the grants and aids is approximately $2.1 million in fiscal year 2025. This is an increase of $255,000, or 13.7%. This is the category where we show we're paying the tax increment to the CRA, and the increase is due to the increase in property values. The capital outlay category. This is capital outlay. So, this is operating capital. Capital outlay category in fiscal year 2025 is approximately $15 million. This is a $4.4 million increase, or a 43.2% increase. Now, as you know, through strategic planning, we are trying to focus on asset management. And last year, in the fiscal year, we budgeted $3 million in asset management. This year, it's actually $7.5 million. So, it's 50% of the total capital. And I'm going to go to the next slide to just give you an idea of what those items are. So, as I said, $14.7 million is the total capital. Asset management, $7.5. Of that $7.5 million, $3.6 million is dedicated to roads. $700,000 dedicated to sidewalk and soil trees. $3 million dedicated to parks and recreation improvements, which includes playground upgrades, shade structures, sports courts, resurfacing, walkways, and fencing. And then also, the annual citywide AC program, $150,000. That's the AC. That's the costs to maintain all the AC units in the citywide facilities to keep us workers working in good conditions. The other items not included in the asset management is public safety equipment and CAD software. It's approximately $3.8 million. We have an ERP. We are looking for an ERP system. There is an RFQ on the street, I believe. We are trying to secure that vendor by the end of the year. We're anticipating the costs in year one for this ERP system to be approximately $2 million. IT upgrades and equipment refresh for $340,000. The ADA transition multimodal transportation plan is still in play, $300,000 for that. And then $800,000 dedicated to miscellaneous capital items for vehicles and other heavy equipment for departments citywide. So going back to my expenses for the debt service, we only have one debt service in the general fund at this moment, and that's for the Motorola Dispatch Center. It's increasing in fiscal year 2025 by $125,000. This increase is due to, there was a clause in the contract that said in year eight, it was going to increase a one-time increase of CPI. They actually didn't do the increase in year eight. We had a meeting with them recently, and they said they were supposed to implement it in year eight, and they didn't. So they're actually doing it in 2025. So we did save $125,000 there. The non-operating transfer is out. This is actually a transfer out of debt service that was transferred over to the escrow account that we used to do on an annual basis. We're actually paying that debt service off in August 2024. So there's no need to have this transfer. It's the series 2013 revenue refunding note. So special districts, we have two special districts, the Gateway Development District and the Midtown Development District. The proposed budget for the Gateway Development District for fiscal year 25 is based on a proposed millage of 1.8 mils, 1.8,115 mils. This millage rate was reduced in fiscal year 24 from 1.9,160 mils. The property values in the Gateway District increased 11.91% according to the Broward County Property Appraiser. The increase and the proposed values combined will give us approximately $878,000 in ad valorem revenues, and this is estimated at 96% collections. The additional revenues over fiscal year 2024 is approximately $81,000. And this is all related to property value increases. It's not related to any new construction. The proposed millage of the Gateway District of 1.8,115 requires two-thirds votes from council or four votes from council. Uh-oh. There we go. The Midtown Development District proposed budget is based on a proposed millage of 0.9,707 mils. This is a zero increase in millage rates since fiscal year 2018. Increase in the property values of the Midtown District is 15.80% according to the Broward County Property Appraiser. The increase in property values and proposed millage rate will generate approximately $2.2 million in ad valorem revenue. This is an estimated 96% collections. The additional revenues over the previous fiscal year is $275,000. Of this increase of these additional revenues, 68.4% or $188,000 is related to new construction. The proposed millage rate of 0.9,707 mils requires a majority vote or three votes from council. Looking at the Gateway Budget, the Gateway Budget for fiscal year 25 is approximately $500,000. This is an increase of 4.9% or $24,000. The increase is primarily in operations. The Midtown Development District total budget for fiscal year 25 is $8.1 million. This is an increase of 82.2% or $3.6 million. The increase is directly in the capital budget. The capital budget is $5.9 million and increased 137% or $3.4 million. We did have a number of these projects in there last year, but we added another two this year. One for the Microtransit FDOT project. This is not the cost of the project, but more like the estimate of if we get a grant, it would be the estimate that we would have to match if we got the grant. And the other new project is the MMTP Northwest Southwest 84th Avenue Design and Implementation added for $950,000. Plus additional funds were put in the Plantation Midtown Bridge, increasing that budget up to $3 million. Special revenue funds, we have eight special revenue funds. We have the library board, CRA, road and traffic, CDBG, SHIP, impact fees, and one other one there, and I can't think of it right now, and the building department. So the federal forfeitures and state forfeitures. The building department is the biggest fund in the special revenue category, making up 45.2% of the special revenue category, and they're responsible for 41.4% of the increase in the overall category. The total budget in fiscal year 25 for the building department is $8.2 million. This is an increase of 6.2% or $500,000. The increase is directly related to personnel costs, primarily due to the addition of two new full-time positions, one development service specialist, one permit concierge liaison coordinator, five percent merit increases, and salary studies for reclasses and promotions and adjustments due to the salary study that was performed last year. The Community Redevelopment Agency Fund, also known as the CRA, makes up 26.2% of the special revenue category, and it's responsible for 49% of the overall increase in the category. The total budget for the CRA in fiscal year 25 is $4.7 million. This is an increase of 13.5% or $563,000, and it's related to the tax increment revenues, and it's due to property value increases. The Community Redevelopment Block Grant, also known as CDBG, is 3.2% of the special revenue category. This is 25.2% of the overall increase in the category as well. The total budget in fiscal year 25 for CDBG is $600,000. This is an increase of 101.4% or $292,000. The increase is due to the additional grant funding that they are expecting to receive from HUD. So debt service, we have two types of debt service, non-advalorum debt service and advalorum debt service. The total non-advalorum debt service for fiscal year 25 is $349,000. This is a decrease of 83.3% or $1.7 million. Now, if you remember at the beginning, I talked about the transfers out. This is where it used to go to, and so now it won't be going there because we're paying it off in August. The advalorum debt service for fiscal year 25 total budget is $4 million. This is a decrease of 0.01% or $250,000 or $250. The voted debt millage rate, which is what supports the advalorum debt service, is 0.2980 mils. A homeowner with a save-our-home value of approximately $200,000 and a $50,000 exemption will pay approximately $44.70 in debt service for the advalorum bond. Capital projects like debt service, we have two types of capital projects. We have non-advalorum capital projects and advalorum capital projects. The non-advalorum projects in fiscal year 25 total $400,000. This is an increase of 0.4% or $1,800. The $1,800 is actually an increase in bank fees. The construction, the non-advalorum construction projects are in the CRA area, and therefore the lighting at the bus shelters, pedestrian amenities, the gateway monument sign, and the heightened pedestrian crossing. The advalorum bond projects in fiscal year 25 total $2.3 million. This is a decrease of 38.8% or $1.5 million. This is due to the completion of various bond projects. In fiscal year 25, there's only one bond silo left, and that's the Parks and Recreation silo. And the projects that remain in that silo are the Pop Traverse Restrooms, the North Acres Park, and the Central Park Multipurpose Building Improvements. Enterprise funds. The city has three enterprise funds. The utilities, the golf course, and the stormwater utility fund. Utilities is the largest of all three, and they make up 90.2% of the enterprise category. The total budget for the utility funds in fiscal year 25 is $82.0 million. This is an increase of 1.5% or $1.2 million. The increase is in the areas of the personnel budget and the operating budget. Personnel budget for utilities is $17.2 million. This is an increase of 8.7% or $1.4 million. The increase is due to the addition of two new positions, two full-time positions, one Environmental Analyst 1 and one Environmental Analyst 2. I want to point out the Environmental Analyst 1 is actually a conversion of a part-time employee into a full-time. There's also included in here 5% merit increases for current staff and various reclasses and promotions and salary adjustments due to the salary study last year. The operating budget is $22 million. This is an increase of 2.8% or $600,000. The increase is in the areas of R&M equipment, R&M vehicles, R&M grounds, and R&M lift stations, and also increase in electricity and waste disposal fees. The capital budget for the utility department is $34.8 million. This is a decrease of 2.2% or $800,000. The decrease is due to the completion of various projects in fiscal year 24. The total cap of this $34 million is spread among all the utility funds as follows. $7.3 million in the utilities operating and maintenance fund, $25.4 million in the utilities repair and replacement fund, and $2.1 million in the utility capacity water and wastewater funds. The preserve golf fund is approximately 6.3% of the enterprise category. The preserve total budget for fiscal year 25 is $5.8 million. This is a decrease of 4.1% or $245,000. The increase is a combination of increases in operating and capital and a decrease in their debt service. The operating budget for the golf course is $5.4 million in fiscal year 25. This is an increase of 9.9% or $483,000. The increases in outside service fees, you may remember the guidance contract was just renewed, increase in bank fees, electricity, and R&M grounds. The capital budget for the golf course is $384,000. This is an increase of 7.6% or $27,000. The increase is due to the addition of a couple of projects, one that's for painting of the exterior building, and one that will resurface the cool deck in the breezeway. The debt service in fiscal year 25 is zero. This is a decrease of 100% or $755,000. We've been waiting for this year for a long time. We're paying that off in August 2024. So that will allow the golf course to have additional money to do more things over at the golf course. The Stormwater Utility Fund is 3.5% of the enterprise category. It was established in 2013 and supported by a non-advalorum assessment. The non-advalorum assessment is a stormwater assessment fee, which increased by 3.5%. Council approved this on June 26th. The increase is from $4.31 per ERU per month to $4.46 per ERU per month. The annual increase is $51.75 per ERU from $51 to $53.56 per ERU per year. The stormwater total budget in fiscal year 25 is $3.1 million. This is an increase of 49% or $1 million. The increase is across the personnel budget, operating budget, and the capital budget. The personnel budget in fiscal year 25 is $1.8 million. This is an increase of 24.4% or $357,000. The increase is related to the request for three new full-time positions, one stormwater technician two, stormwater technician three, and a stormwater specialist. The operating budget is $851,000, and it increased 41.2% or $248,000. The increases are primarily in the area of R&M equipment, R&M vehicles and tires, and R&M grounds. There was also an increase in supplies, uniforms, and protective gear. The capital budget for the stormwater utility fund in fiscal year 25 is $479,000. This is an increase of 858% or $430,000. The increase is due to the addition of various drainage projects that totaled $300,000, a citywide waterway restoration plan that totals around $100,000, and then the stormwater emergency portable pump, $79,000. Administration's recommendation to Council tonight is to adopt the preliminary maximum millage rates and assessments as follows. The City of Plantation proposed millage rate of 5.8 mills requires four votes from Council. The Gateway Development District proposed millage rate of 1.8115 mills requires four votes from Council. The Midtown Development District proposed millage rate of 0.970 mills requires three votes from Council. And the voted debt millage, which is the millage required from the Bond Debt Service, requires 0.2980 and requires three votes from Council. The stormwater has already been voted on. This is just here for your information. We'd also like to establish a date, time, and location for the first public budget hearing, which is scheduled for September 12, 2024 at 5.30 p.m. in City Council Chambers. Remind people. It's a Thursday. Yeah, so that's a Thursday and not a Wednesday. It's a special meeting. It's a special meeting that's not... Right. The fiscal year 25 budget calendar from here on out, we have to provide the preliminary millage and assessment rates to the property appraiser for inclusion on the trim notice by August 2nd this year. Our first public budget hearing to adopt the tentative millage rates, tentative budgets, and final assessment rates is scheduled for 5.30 p.m. in City Council Chambers for September 12th. And then the second budget, public budget hearing to adopt the final millage rates and final budgets is scheduled for 5.30 p.m. in City Council Chambers on September 18th. And that's a regular Wednesday. Thank you. Excellent presentation like normal. I'm going to go through some of these questions through your presentation. So in the utility service taxes, under the general fund revenues, million-dollar increase, that all has to do with FPNL increases? Mm-hmm. Wow. There is a slight increase in there of... Do you want me to go there? There is a slight increase in the other category in there, but it's very little. It's only about $7,000 not working. But most of that has to do with FPNLs? Yes. Okay. You answered a question that I had regarding the debt service, because, like, every year that the millage rate went down. So what did you say? Every eight years or one time they can adjust it to CPI? It was in year eight. So it's a 14-year contract. Okay. And they had a stipulation in there that said in year eight we're going to do, like, an equipment refresh and we're going to increase by CPI one time. Okay. And they didn't do it. They actually, I don't know what happened. They forgot. I don't know what they did, but they didn't do it. So they didn't do it? They did not do it when they were supposed to do it 24. At the point of year eight they could do it. Yeah. They didn't have one opportunity to do it. No. No, no. So they did it, and it would be that going forward. So now it is the million dollars going forward. This is going to meet term in year 14, you said? Yeah. Okay. This was year nine. Yeah. 24 was year eight. So they were supposed to do it in 24. They ended up doing it. And we saved about $125,000? Yeah. Okay. So in Gateway, there was no new construction? POMS came on last year? Last year they actually had a deletion. So last year they demolished. Will this POMS come on next? I'm not sure. This year. I'm sorry? Next year. Okay. So, all right. Yeah, because last year they actually had deletions. They demolished. I don't mind fast enough, just going through my notes from your presentation. Okay. So the debt service is done on the golf course. Yes. And for a while we were suspending the transfer between the golf course and the general fund. So how much was that transfer? What is the transfer now? The total for golf, I don't know. No, we have that one. Okay. So what happened was last year we implemented at 50% or 25, I don't know if it was 25 or 50%. I think it was 50%. And then we said in the year that they were paying off, after they paid off the debt service, we're going to make it 100%. So last year was 50%. We're going to go to 100%. Do we have a ballpark? I'm just curious. Is it in there? No, it's not in there. Okay. It's not $750,000? No, no, no, no. Okay. Because the course needs some work. I'm getting a lot of complaints about it. Yeah. Phil. No, no. Well, they're doing well, too, with revenues coming in as well. What's that? So they're doing well also with revenues coming in. No. So the combination of the reduction of the debt service and the revenues coming in, they are absolutely going to be able to do some things on that. We just need to retarget that money. That's what my point is. Because, you know, I've made this comment many times is that I want that course to be one of the best municipal courses in the county. Mr. Mayor? Go ahead. Just real quick, we're working on that. If you want an update, I'll do it during administrative updates. That's fine. Yeah, I'll do it then. I just want to make sure that we're, you know, not looking at it as a windfall. We're looking at it. We need to reinvest in it. I think you'll be happy when we catch up. I've talked to Phil a couple times, but I'm sure you have a lot more information than the brief conversations I've had. You're usually happier if you don't talk to Phil. Well, that's true, but he's all I got. All right. Thank you. So we're going to get that number for you. Okay. And just FYI, only the golf course can spend money on the golf course. So that money won't be going near the general fund. So there's a lot of great things happening in the city, and I think it has a lot to do with people we have working for the city. They care about the city. They're dedicated to the city. I also feel it's our residents. They've made this community. They've made it this viable place for investment where people want to put these housings into the businesses in there. We're going through a renaissance in our restaurants, but on the other side of that, what comes with that is congestion, traffic, and the payoff to the residents is that we have a larger tax base to support the services that we need to do. Now, fiscal year 23, there's a 9.7% or 9.8% increase in revenue. Fiscal year 24, there's a 9.7% increase in revenue. And in fiscal year 25, we have a 9.3% increase in revenue. From fiscal year 21 to fiscal year 25, we have a 38% increase in revenue. That's fantastic. And I'm advocating like I do pretty much every year that the payoff for our residents that have to put up with more congestion, more of the traffic, and a lot of stuff that we can only manage and not magically make it go away is to give them relief in their pocketbook. So I think everyone pretty much knows my position on this. So I'm not really going to go into a long speech into this. And I believe that it's not easy, the budget process, but I think it should be difficult, you know. Oh, I think you saw me make it difficult. No. Well, what I'm saying is, is that easy is one threshold, difficult is another threshold. So if it's not painful, then we're not doing enough. So I think I'm pretty well stated on the record in my time in office that how I feel about this. And I really would like to see some relief given to the people that really have created this environment for us to create these great successes with our increase in the investment in the city, et cetera. So Council Member Horland. Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to make a couple of comments. Thank you so much. I know how much goes into this. And every year you knock it out of the park with your team, Ms. Otteniano. So I just want to remind everyone a couple of things that are pending in the legislature and pending with the election in November. Amendment 5 will be on the ballot. And we do not yet know what the effect of Amendment 5 is going to be. And just a reminder, a yes vote on Amendment 5 supports an annual inflation adjustment to the amount of assessed value that's exempt from property taxation. State analysis found that local governments, excluding school districts, could lose more than $111 million annually by 2028 if Amendment 5 is adopted. So, you know, as we know, you're going to ask for the rollback, and I think everybody expects that I'm going to ask that we stay where we are. I think there's a misnomer that if we leave the millage rate where it is that we're raising taxes, we're not raising taxes. We're just not decreasing taxes. Taxes go up because the property values go up, and that's a good thing for all of us. That costs more money. Well, right. That's a tax raise. We're going to disagree on that point. I'm looking at the numbers. You're interrupting me, Mr. President. I'm sorry, but it is a tax increase. So my point is that I think we've got a couple of things coming down the pike. Amendment 5 is one that we do not know what the effects of that are going to be on our budget. And I would be concerned about a rollback in the millage rate until we know what that's going to look like. We fully expect things like sovereign immunity are coming back. There were extra homestead exemptions that were proposed this year that may come back again, which, listen, ad valorem is our biggest source of revenue. So that's a little bit scary. Residents have come to expect a certain level of service from us. When there's less revenue, we're going to have to make hard decisions. And I think to your point, Mr. President, yes, we've had this wonderful resurgence in the city with businesses and restaurants. But I think also one of the benefits to that enhanced tax base is the increased services that we're able to provide. You know, my concern, and we've talked about it previously, it's taken the city a good 10, 12 years to recover from 2008, 2012. And I think that I had asked Ms. Otaniano, what did Wilma cost us? That was $20 million. And I shudder to think with what could be, you know, looming in the Atlantic this year or in future years and how a storm like that could impact us. So those are some of my considerations. Not to minimize, we all know that inflation is real. Costs have gone up for all of us, including our residents. I think that when we look at individually and not to minimize the impact on everyone, I still think the legislature needs to deal with property insurance before we look at something like this, which is really impacting people and auto insurance as well. But, you know, you look at what it would cost people. And again, not to minimize the adjustment, but say it's $100 a year and some are going to be a little bit more than that, a little bit less than that. We had a conversation at University of Plantation last week with a resident who's very concerned about the lack of shelter on our bus benches. That's something that impacts her every day. And I've been having a conversation with Ms. Morris about that. So, you know, if you take a resident like that, is the $100 in her property tax going to impact her every day or is it the fact that she has to stand out at the bus shelter and we can't afford or we have not allocated the funds to cover those shelters? So I think that there's a lot that we have to do in this city. We've talked about that in strategic planning. We've talked about it up here. What I don't want to see us do is take action that could be seen to some as performative. It may feel good. Yay, we're going to save the residents a little bit of money, but collectively what that impact could be on the city if we do roll back that rate. So those are just, you knew what I was going to pretty much say, but I do want everybody to keep, correct, we're a little predictable that way, but I do want everybody to keep Amendment 5 in the back of their minds when they vote tonight. And we've got an awful lot to do in this city. We're behind on deferred maintenance, stormwater plan, which should have been done 10, 12 years ago. We're playing catch-up on that, so I think that we're moving in a terrific direction, and I want to see that forward momentum continue. So thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Just to kind of respond, a couple quick things. There's always going to be something, and a reduction doesn't always mean that it's permanent. It can go back up, and after 08, it went up, it went down. And then, you know, maybe it will only cost each household $100, but when people are pinching pennies, that $100 is extremely significant. But your points are well taken. Council Member Reinstein. Thank you very much for your presentation. I enjoy sitting between the two of them, and I like hearing both of their sides. I want to first look at Midtown, at the proposed budget for Midtown and the millage rate. I'd asked you before we started today in terms of, you know, what some numbers would look like that if we were to give some relief in the Midtown Development District. And, you know, when I look at Midtown and I see that this is where we are seeing the restaurants, this is where we're seeing the new businesses, we're seeing great growth. But these small businesses are still struggling, and I'm trying to look at this and see, you know, is there a place to give some relief to the businesses? So it may reduce what we're bringing in in terms of the city, but it may help our small businesses. And particularly with Midtown, Ms. Ontinata, we talked about also that there's a fund that can be pulled from as well. Fund balance. Fund balance. And so in looking at that, for example, is that if the millage rate was reduced to .85, if there was some relief at .85, the reduction would almost equal the additional revenues over fiscal year 2024. So, you know, I thought that, you know, if we are going to, if we're taking a careful look at where there may be some opportunities for some relief, that's one place where I would like to look more closely at that. The other one that I want to ask about is that I didn't get the number for Gateway, is that if we looked at, for example, the additional revenues over fiscal year 2024 at the $81,000, what would that be in terms of backing into it in terms of a millage rate reduction? So what are you looking at in terms of the millage rate? Well, I'm asking to do it the opposite, right? So that, because when we looked at Midtown, it was, I gave you the number of .85, and that came up with $277,000, which was the same number of the additional revenues from fiscal year 2024. It's a little hard to do. It's a little harder to do that way. So I want you to think about it. You don't have to answer it right now, though. There may be some other people with other questions, but I'd like to get that number for that one. So you're saying a millage rate that would give you the revenue that it was last year? Correct. That we would lose the revenue? Correct. Typically what happens is you have a rollback rate or an adjusted rollback rate. Your adjusted rollback rate is the rate that you had last year, only with an increase for per capita income and then also new construction. Gateway doesn't have any new construction. I'm just using that number, right, so that if you backed into it and it was 1.7, would that equal the $81,000? Just give us some numbers to work with. Yeah. I'm going to take a look and see what I can come up with. So if you were to go to the rollback rate, which is 1.6187 mills, the additional revenue, we would lose $92,000 in revenue. Okay. So that kind of brings you close here. So that's what I was saying. The rollback is really, it's the same revenues that you had in the previous year without the increase. Got it. Right. Thank you. Yeah. Council Member Andrade. Good evening, Ms. Altaniana. Thank you again for not only the presentation, but the preparation and the time that you and your staff put into this budget process. And I know there was an additional layer this year in preparing a kind of pre-binder for us. Well, we wanted you to have the information so you could make an educated decision. And we greatly appreciate that. I want to kind of maybe go in a different direction and ask more. Or it might not even be for you. It might be for Dr. Edsel. I would like some more information on the salary studies that are taking place. How many staff members would be impacted by these salary studies? So I want to explain a little bit, and Dr. Edsel can answer also. But so if you remember, we did a salary study where people were moved into different grades and all of that. So when those happened, the increase, the 5% would be on top of now their new salary that they were given in the previous year. So it makes the number look larger. That's why I was under the impression, and I guess that wasn't correct, that we had leveled that playing field now. Right, yes. No, but it happened in last year. So those people are now making more money. So when you're doing the increase for the new year, you get the 5% that everybody gets across the board, the merit increases. Well, then it costs more because now those people are making more money. Okay. You know what I'm saying? So they got – So it's not new. No. So it was that. So I misunderstood your presentation as if this was something new. No. So this was where the salary study happened. Adjustments were made. So when those adjustments were made, we did it from parity. So it's just kind of year two. But now they are now – yeah. So it's year two now, it's taking the impact because now that 5% – they're making more money now. So the 5% on top of that, it looks larger. I – Now I understand. Okay. So – and maybe it was just me, but I wasn't clear about that. So I don't know if this is a good time to talk about that 5%, but I always advocate for our staff. We have wonderful employees. Shout out to – today I saw utilities and working hard to trim trees. And get us ready for hurricane season. So it's not about the group at large. But are these increases – I don't think they should be blanket across the board. I would like to also see them tied into evaluations, right? And I don't think that that had happened previously. Where are we with staff evaluations? Can that be tied into evaluations so that – because we have 1,000 employees. And although I'm sure 998 are absolutely exceedingly and abundantly amazing, you always have at least 2% that might not be performing at that level. And so to just say a 5% for everyone across the board. So I know that that's how Anna budgets it. But the way it's implemented is that you have to have a passing evaluation in order to get that 5%. We don't have gradual – so we didn't – we did not implement that and have not implemented anything that says, you know, get a certain amount for this score, a certain amount for that score. But you do have to have a passing evaluation. And there are individuals that don't get that raise. So it's not a true merit in that there's a gradual upping depending on your score. But you do have to have at least a passing evaluation. And evaluations are currently due. We do them now on a yearly basis. Instead of doing them on their anniversary, we do them with the fiscal year. So currently all of the general employees will be getting their evaluations prior to September 30th. And so we'll know who actually is eligible for those raises. And would you be able to, going into next fiscal year, implement more of a staggered kind of steps, however you want to call it, but a staggered system? So, again, maybe – I don't know, again, your metric for passing. It sounds a bit general. But if you have someone who's exceeding, they would get the 5. Maybe somebody who is, you know, at a median level might do a 2.5. And like you said, if you have – I'm sure that's a small number, a small percentage. But somebody who's not, you know, excelling in their position, then they might not get anything. We can certainly have those discussions with administration. I think before when we had discussed this, we felt that the percentages that we end up giving are not particularly big. And so parsing them out like that made people that didn't have as – necessarily as good a score get such a little bit of amount that it didn't make a lot of sense. But I do understand where you're – and what you're asking. Right now we have a five-point scale. Three and above is passing. So anyone who gets at least that number gets the full 5%. But I can certainly have conversations with administration about looking at more of a specifically merit-based. Okay. Thank you. Can I ask one quick question before you leave? So what percentage has a passing evaluation? Council Member Andrea was correct that it's pretty much almost everyone. I think I – if I were to hazard a guess, it's probably about 3% don't get. It's not a lot. But we do encourage strongly that you do your evaluations appropriately, that they aren't inflated so that people can get their raises. They need to be accurate. So what kind of training is done on those evaluations? When I started my career working for a very large accounting firm, we had a lot of training. We did like 360 evaluations, which I hated. Yeah, me too. But it was just training upon training about how to go about doing the evaluation so that not everybody's a five, not everybody's a three. So what kind of – because I think where Council Member Andrea was speaking, too, would require a lot more training upon the people that have to do these evaluations. Because the way we used to do it, you know, the fives were a certain number, and you couldn't have more than that number. It was a bell curve. And then, you know, you had so many fours and so many threes. Someone's going to be at the bottom of the rung, and someone's going to be at the top of the rung, even if you have top performers. Well, at the risk of offending anyone here, that's kind of very old-school management-type stuff that we don't really do. I'm kind of old now, so – I don't – I'm not saying that. I was very young when I started. I'm not saying that. I went to college with Anna. Anna – Wow. Moving past that – I'll go to school later. Moving past that, with regards to your specific question about training, we create a training video every year about how to do the evaluations, and we do give that to everyone. We also do one-on-ones with anyone who is not understanding how to do it, and we've done specific departmental trainings. We've asked, so I don't know that it's what you're saying of, you know, continuous, but we certainly have had those trainings where people are trained on what you're saying, that not everybody's a five. I'm just – when you're saying, like, 3% aren't meeting snuff, I don't think that – I think there's a problem with the evaluation process. I just don't find that a realistic number for 1,000 employees, although I think we have a lot of great employees, but that would be an incredible high passing ratio. So I don't know what the answer is to that. My office is very simple. I've got four people. They've just got to keep me happy, and then I'm pretty generous. But I don't know. I think that's something we need to hopefully figure something out with it. Mayor Sortel clicked in. Go ahead. I'm going to let Jason go ahead. All right. Well, I was just going to add – I'm sorry. Go ahead. She was leaving, so that's why I interrupted. One, we do appreciate the feedback. We have had these discussions internally. You know, part of the issue is we're fairly conservative with our raise policy in the sense that many municipalities have a CPI that will be baked in a cake on an annual basis or a step increase, whereas we just have the one annual. But we're not dismissive of evaluations. In fact, I think it was the staff meeting before last where we specifically addressed it and told directors we're going to hold them accountable because one of the things we don't like is when we do have a problem and, you know, et cetera, this has reached a breaking point. We have to do something. So the first thing we do, let's look at the evaluations. Meets or exceeds. Meets or exceeds. And so we've made that very clear. That said, because we don't have a step plan, because we don't have, you know, that two-tier CPI plus merit, it makes it a little bit more difficult. You're parsing out a 5% or 4%, whatever we ultimately do. Alternatively, if you wanted us to look at a CPI plus a merit, that's something we could work on. I don't think we would implement it this coming fiscal year. I don't think it would be a quick implementation, I think. So I interrupted Council Member Andrea, so. That's okay, President Batchen. The 16 new positions that are being requested, so those people would come in still at the base, I'm assuming, of that last job study, per se, or whatever? It very much depends on the position. I'm going to tell you that up front, because some positions, it's very difficult to hire at the base of our study, of our pay grades. So they may come in above the base of the pay grade. Many positions, we can hire at the base of the pay grade. So it depends. We budget for the base of the pay grade, but that does not necessarily mean that that's where we are, depending on the position. Just to put some more texture on that, the way that candidates sometimes conduct themselves is unlike anything I've ever seen. It's getting better from an employer perspective, but I've never seen the number of people who don't show up for a given interview show up for the interview in a lackadaisical manner. I was participating in one interview session where the candidate said, you know, why am I here? So that's what we're struggling with. So to Dr. Edsel's point, you know, we are willing to do a little bit more for a quality applicant because we do want the best for the city. Agreed. Agreed. I understand that completely. My last question is about the medical increase. Ms. Otanyana, you mentioned 14% increase for this new fiscal year in medical expenses. So is the city going to incur the entire 14% or will some of that be shared with the employee? Actually, our monthly, the, what do you call it? The contribution. The contribution did increase. Yes. From each individual or family plan they're on. Okay. Yes. Always when there is an increase, typically a portion of it is put on to the employees. Do you know what that percentage is? I do not. But it's, it's separate from the 14. It's in addition to? No, it wouldn't be like the 14% increase because we have to show the cost of the medical in that category. But there's revenue coming in on another side that actually offsets with some of that. So the whole 14% is not being absorbed by the city. A portion of it is on the employees. Okay. Yeah. You just don't see it in that line because that was the expense line. So where does employees pay comes in on the revenue side. Okay. Could you get that to us? Is it 10 and 4 or whatever it is? Could you just follow up and get that? No, we can, we can get that. I don't know if we can get it tonight. No. Just follow up. Thank you very much. You're welcome. And just to clarify something, like what Dr. Essel was saying, we budget 5% because we don't know who's getting the raises and who are not. So we wouldn't never want to not budget enough to cover. So sometimes there is salary savings. And when we have salary savings, you know, that goes into parity. And then that's where, you know, it rolls back in. Council Member Fajan, I do, Council President Fajan, I do have a number for you for the golf course. Okay. It's $380,000 for fiscal year 25. And just so you know, typically what we do with the cost allocation study, it's based on personnel, right? So whatever the personnel costs are in the budget, we will increase it by that. Okay. So 5% is the increase for fiscal year 25. Very good. Council Member Reinstein. Yeah, thank you. I wanted to follow up regarding the evaluations. I heard the reference to about 3% aren't passing on the evaluations. I know that's a rough estimate. But can you tell me that in terms of accountability, that 3%, do we do some type of retraining for them? Or what's the follow up with that 3%? Sure. Anyone that has a below standards evaluation is put on what we call a performance improvement plan. Performance improvement plans are specific to that employee and that job. So whatever issues they're having, we do specific goals for them to meet fixing those issues. Performance improvement plans could be anywhere from one month to six months, depending on what the issues are. And if they do not improve with that performance improvement plan, then they would be fired from the city. And is the next opportunity for an increase the next year? Correct. It's only annually. Yeah, it's only yearly. Okay. Thank you. Sure. The mayor. Go ahead. Thank you very much. Good discussion. Good points. First off on evaluations. My philosophy is evaluation is a time to see how the employee is doing, and there really should be no surprises in evaluation. If you are coaching your employees and manage them as you go along, that evaluation, the employee should know exactly where they stand anyway. 100%. That said, it's nice to have a formal time where you sit down and have that conversation, talk about where the employee is going, where the employee is not. I am more than happy to look at other cities informally to see how they do that, to see if they spread it about, or to see if they have a consistent across-the-board kind of raise. I'll just poke around on my own and do that. The 3% not making it also probably does not include those who are fired. Before an evaluation ever happens. Correct. And part of our philosophy is hire fast, fire fast. If somebody is not making it, I don't want to get too specific, but Jason saw a guy within a week. The guy didn't leave his office, and we separated him. Understood. Yes. So, you know, we're not going to mess around with that. And I applaud the directors. They have more cojones than me as far as getting that done. So, very grateful for that. Good. That's it. Councilmember Horland. Thank you, Mr. President. Very quick follow-up. It's a great discussion. I tend to agree with Councilmember Andrea, and we've had this conversation before about the performance evaluations. We want to hang on to the people we have. We also want some incentive to be there. So, I think that it would be a great suggestion if administration could take a look at a possible merit and CPI and just see what that looks like so that we could have that discussion. I did want to ask one question about the performance evaluations because I think it was last year when I took a look at some of those. Are all performance evaluations done in person, including for directors, because I think that we had implemented something where things could be uploaded and people could look at their evaluations, and that concerned me. So, we have our evaluations are in an electronic system. They're in Neo-Gov. Okay. The way that they are supposed to work is that the supervisor does the evaluation in the system. Depending on how many layers of supervision are above him, it goes to a supervisor to approve it, and then they are supposed to, the first-line supervisor should meet with the employee, give them the evaluation in person, and then they go into Neo-Gov and sign it. So, I mean, I will use myself as an example the way I do it. I print the evaluation before I sign it in Neo-Gov and send it through, and I sit down with my employee that I'm evaluating, I give them that evaluation, and then I go in and sign it and tell them to go in and sign it. That's how people are trained to do it. Now, whether every single supervisor does it that way, I cannot guarantee. Okay. Well, I'll just make a comment on that. I hope everyone's doing it that way because whether you're a director or you're an hourly employee, I think it's disrespectful not to sit down with that employee. As the mayor said, there should be no surprises, but I don't think anybody should just be saying, hey, you know what, your evaluation's on Neo-Gov. Take a look and sign it. So, I think that that conversation is worthwhile, and I think it should be had. So, thank you for that explanation. I appreciate it. Okay. Do not see any other comments from the day. I don't have any speaker sheets. Is there anybody in the chamber that would like to make a comment? Matthew, come on up. Hi. Matthew McIntosh, 601 Northwest 82nd Avenue, apartment 531. I'll fill out the comment sheet after this. I just wanted to voice my support of maintaining the current millage rates. I know I made the same statement last year. Don't call me dumb, though. Yeah, sorry for any disrespect from last time. That was the same, but, yeah, you've got to watch your tongue when you're doing public comments. I do apologize for that. I knew you said it with love. Yeah. Yes, but overall, stability is good. That's how you plan for the future. Even the military might not be perfect for a business one year. I think for when it comes to economics and investments, it's better to have stability than perfect. So I support the military as is. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Mr. Conklin. Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest 6th Court. Didn't have comments on the sheet, so tonight we wouldn't go. Basically, you know why I'm here. The pile of money? The pile of money, but to more address the millage rate, to request that you go for the rollback rate, which would give you the same number of dollars as you had last year. I don't have to tell you the impact of the inflation on people in the city and on the businesses, particularly in the gateway, which is also CRA. I hope you're going to have your correct plaques up here for the next meeting. Directors, all, including the mayor. So I'm requesting not the proposed millage rates, but a rollback. And I'll yield back my time. Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak regarding the millage rates for items one, two, or three? Okay, so item one, a resolution to adopt proposed maximum millage rate of the Plantation Midtown Development District for fiscal year 2025. No, these are, they're for the council meeting. Mr. President, would you like me to read the titles in full? If you'd like. Sure, I would like. Thank you. Number one, a resolution adopting the proposed maximum millage of 0.9707 mills, which the Plantation Midtown Development District can assess during the next ensuing tax year, establishing a time and a place for public hearing to consider such proposed millage and the tentative budget, and otherwise directing the transmittal of certain information to the Bayard County property appraiser by August 2, 2024, providing savings clause and providing an effective date, therefore. Thank you. I'm going to take a motion, and then I'll take your comment. Can I have a motion? Yes, I'd like to make a motion, a motion that for the Midtown Maximum Millage Rate that we lower to 0.85. Second. Any other discussion on that? Ms. Begaro, please call the roll. Who's the second? I missed that. I'm the second. Yes, I do. I have a question for any of them on that. Okay, go ahead. What would the effect be? I'm sorry. I'm just trying to go through the money real quick. What would that, you were saying to do, what was your motion to the rollback? Right, to 0.85, which would lose $277,000, and there is a fund balance that could be looked to for that amount. That's what you're saying. That's what your comment was, that the fund balance was within a couple thousand of that? So, basically, the rollback millage rate, or the 0.85 rate, would actually, right now, at the proposed rate, 0.9707 mils, we would get an additional $2.2 million in ad-valorem revenue. If you reduce it to the 0.85, we would actually get $1,955,000, so there's a difference of $277,000. Typically, with Midtown, if we have to go back and reduce that budget, we won't reduce the budget. What will happen is they have fund balance that we can use. Will it shrink down? It will, yes, by $277,000. Can I ask us, I just don't remember with all that the bridge has been so long, the bridge, we funded the study, we're trying to use other monies, we're trying to use our own monies. Is any of the Midtown money, will any of that be used towards the bridge? Yes, I believe it was $3 million budgeted in there for the Midtown bridge. From the Midtown fund? Yeah. And that price tag is probably only going up with inflation. I believe you're right. Right. Right now, we're estimating at approximately $10 million. We are working with the MPO on trying to put that in the cost-feasible plan. But you'll notice in the budget we've proposed, we've also included in there a principal and interest payment. Not that that's what we want to do, but just trying to get this thing into the cost-feasible plan. The other thing I would remind you all, as far as the special districts go, is they are more active than they've ever been. If you take Midtown, for example, the most recent meeting, what they've engaged in is a desire for microtransit, which you all are aware of and will be coming back through an RFP. They would like to, similar to what's been done in the Gateway, they would like to fund an OT position for an officer. So that's an additional expense that they're looking to incur. So there's a lot of activity that's going on there. We're also, I was just talking to AC Morris today, I was happy to see that the pedestrian bridge that we've talked about a lot over Broward is now on the cost-feasible plan. Now, it's a ways out, but that's good news because we know something's going to happen with Cerritage, and that's going to be an essential factor in kind of activating that site, I think, in the way you all are looking forward to in connectivity. So I only say that to caution you all that there are some operating responsibilities. Similar in Gateway, we have the OT officers, the LPRs, the license plate readers, and the license plate readers, that's another program that the Midtown is looking to adopt. So we just want to be careful that they can sustain the operations that the board themselves, comprised of owners within the area, are looking to do. And I just wanted to offer that for you all's consideration. I have a follow-up, and I'm not sure if you know the answer to this. Yes, sir. Are you aware of, I don't know who would be, who attends all of them, but are you aware of any of the Midtown Advisory Board members who've requested a reduction? They haven't. That issue hasn't really come up there. They generally seem to be pretty satisfied. I can tell you in Gateway a few years ago, you had several of those members wondering why their district even exists. I'm happy to say that we're in a 180 from that. That was Gateway. That was lack of action, though. Exactly. But no, Midtown, we haven't heard those calls. I don't want to say that they don't have those sentiments, but they've not been expressed. I know. We can't read the, Teeley is what their sentiments are, but have any expressed sentiments to you that they want under reduction? No, sir. Right. Okay. That's all for me now. Thank you. Council Member Andrea. That was actually the perfect segue, Council Member Anderson, because the view I've spoken to, I think it goes to the conversation we were having earlier about balance, right? And it's a balancing act. So the business owners I've spoken to would rather keep the millage rate and have those services, like the license plate readers, like having the additional officer for security. So I am proposing that the millage rate remain the same for those reasons. And my question is for Ms. Otaniano, and I don't know if you would, again, have this off the cusp, but I remember us talking about this last year. Do you happen to know, ballpark, I won't hold you to it, the figure that an average business owner would save if we were to reduce the millage rate? So it's a little more difficult on the business side. On the resident side, it's easy. On the business side, we've never actually calculated that number. It's a little harder. I can only tell. I could, I mean, it would be a calculation I could do, and I could come back to you with that number, but I don't have that number. Okay. Because what I would have to, how I do that is I take the individual folio number, and I plant it on a spreadsheet, and I say, all right, what did you pay last year? What are you going to pay this year at this millage rate? And I can come up with a difference. I've never done that for businesses. Might be a good exercise. Yes. In all of your free time. But I still think that the pros outweigh the cons in this instance. And, again, in the few that I've spoken to, Council Member Anderson, that's how they communicated with me. And because we do have, you know, these enhancements, if you will, in the city going on in their district, which, again, they will in turn benefit from, right? Because hopefully that will generate even more business for them through the bridge and all of these other enhanced projects. People feel safer and more secure, all of those things. So I would advocate for the millage rate to remain. Mr. Mayor? So, Mr. Noonemaker and I go to all those meetings, all the Midtown. And one thing, if I remember right, that they really asked for was a daytime cop because of theft issues, especially around Target and around that area. Yes, sir, the retail. Retail, which was much more than we think and is that expanse. But also, we go to both meetings. We compare and contrast. I think it would be safe to say a tax cut in Gateway would be more palatable than a tax cut in Midtown. Well, with Gateway, we do have the CRA to supplement our efforts at least through 2030. And I think what we could also commit to is between now and the first budget meeting, we can look at these districts and make sure that our anticipated operating impacts of the additional LPRs, if we can make sure that the operating budget can support it on a freestanding basis, because I would hate to do something on the operating side that we're starting to fund from fund balance. That always makes me a little squeamish. That said, I mean, we're very confident that both Gateway and Midtown are going to continue to increase. You know, Gateway this year is kind of an anomaly with a zero. We know things are going to be happening there. But you do have our commitment between now and the first meeting. We can take an additional look to see what we can do to make sure that operating is going to get us where we need to be, you know, in accordance with what the board's wishes are. We could dive through it again. And if because this is just a maximum, you know, we could dive through it again and see. I'm not against some kind of a cut, actually, but that's a really big cut, in my opinion. And they're starting to cook. You've been to the meetings. We have a laundry list of things there to make that thing hop. And with Midtown, one of the things we expect to be particularly active with the MMT implementation, the other thing is on August 7th, y'all are going to have a presentation of our citizen survey. And I think it's going to be very interesting to see how that lines up with the comments that y'all have made, with the strategic planning effort, where the budget is. I think you're going to see that that all lines up. And I think that will give you a good guide as to where the focus is. And, you know, obviously we'll take our cues accordingly, depending on how y'all vote. I guess what I'll propose to Council Member Reinstein is, since this is the maximum, have them do their legwork on this reduction. We'll keep the maximum millage as is for now, for the notice. And then it can be adjusted at the budget hearing and millage hearing next month. So I'm not against that, based on the fact that this is our maximum. However, just the point regarding the relief that we're talking about from the .9707 to .85, with the amount that would be reduced, and knowing that there's a fund balance, it's my belief that there would not be a reduction of services. And so based on what we're talking about, based on the fund balance, I don't think it would be a reduction of services, but I do think it would benefit the businesses that are paying taxes in Midtown. That being said, I don't mind continuing this to our second meeting if that's the consensus of Council. And you have our commitment that we'll go back and look at, okay, put LPRs in, the other operating aspects, and come back to see what we can do there, and show you kind of how the impact would work out. So you'll amend your motion, and then we'll re-discuss this when we get to next month. I think I'll withdraw my motion. I won't amend the motion. Okay, so can I have a motion for the original proposal, .9707? Motion for the Plantation Midtown Development District at .9707 mils. .907. I thought you said 7-0. I said .9707 mils. We just want to be clear because Assistant City Attorney Morrigan will get all angry and stuff. I won't get angry. I second that motion. All right. Ms. Beggro, please call the roll. Council Member Horland. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Andreu. Yes. Council Member Fadgen. No. All right. A resolution adopting the proposed millage of 1.8115 mils, which the Plantation Gateway Development District can assess during the next ensuing tax year, establishing the time and place for public hearing to consider such proposed millage in the tentative budget and otherwise directing the transmittal of certain information to the Breyer County property appraiser by August 2, 2024, providing a savings clause and providing an effective date, therefore. Thank you. Can I have a motion? Motion to approve. Second. Okay. Ms. Beggro, please call the roll. Oh, well, we already did discussion. We discussed everything at one time. I made that announcement at the beginning of the thing. Okay. We did one presentation, one discussion. You're supposed to address everything at that point in time. I missed the opening, and I apologize. I yielded back two minutes at the other one. All right. I'll give you 30 seconds, only because you are a regular. Thank you. Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest, why I yield back was because I thought I did. No, go ahead. You've got 30 seconds. Okay. I'm asking that there be a complete repeal for the extra millage for the Gateway 7 district. This is the reason. They already pay the same millage rate for any property in the city. It's covered, and it was mentioned by the CRA, and you're going to be mentioning this. The CRA had an increase of over half a million dollars to $4.7 million, and the millage rate is only going to be $800,000. Now, the millage rate that's been in place since the CRA has been exceeded since the second year of the CRA. So I'm asking that the millage rate be completely wiped out for the special district, and that means zero mills. Okay. And I yield back. Thank you, Dennis. Councilman Reinstein. Yeah, I just want to make the same general comment regarding Gateway that I did for Midtown that I would like for us to talk about a reduction and to see some of those numbers brought to us for our next meeting. Thank you. Thank you. So I have a motion, and I have a second. Ms. Begrove, please call the roll. Council Member Horland? Yes. Council Member Einstein? Yes. Council Member Anderson? Yes. Council Member Andrew? Yes. Council Member Trajan? No. Item 3. Resolution adopting the proposed operating maximum millage rate of 5.8000 mills and voted debt service millage rate of 0.2980 to be levied by the City of Plantation during the next and so on tax year. Establishing a time and a place for a public hearing to consider such proposed millage in the tentative budget. And otherwise directing the transmittal of certain information to Breyer County property appraisal by August 2, 2024, providing findings, providing savings costs, and providing an effective date, therefore. Thank you. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Second. Thank you. Ms. Begrove, please call the roll. Council Member Horland? Yes. Council Member Einstein? Yes. Council Member Anderson? Yes. Council Member Andrew? Yes. Council Member Trajan? No. Okay, so that wraps up the millage meeting at 6.54. We're going to adjourn, and the CRA meeting will start at 7 p.m. We're going to adjourn.