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all right, good afternoon. I'd like to call this town council budget workshop. Meeting
to order thursday, may 14th. Uh, gonna have a motion to adopt the
agenda. I move. We got a first and second. All those in favor signify for raising your
right hand. That is six to zero. Ms. Becker is
on teams up on the screen. Um, so as we go through today,
um, I'd like to, you know, as we go down in, in the presentation,
made to ask questions, but, um, realizing we've got a lot of, a lot of material to
cover, and, um, if there's a question that's asked if y'all
would say that will be covered later on. Um, so, so that we can move forward,
forward, uh, in a timely manner and really get the answers
question and have that discussion on the, on the items that where we need. So that would be very helpful.
um, so mr. Orlando, I'll turn it over to you.
good evening, mayor council. Good evening. Members of the public,
uh, tonight as it shows on the agenda, we're going to cover
several of the funds, right, with first reading. Just a reminder first, and, and for the
public at first reading, we rec we covered the entire consolidated budget, and
then we broke it down by each fund. Tonight we will cover the general fund,
the operating debt service, the gullah geechee, historic neighborhood community
development corporation fund, the housing fund, and special revenue
fund. At the table with me is john carpenter, assistant
finance director, uh, and dave bird, as we know finance
director tonight, I would, would ask it as much of a conversation workshop
as ever. And so, yeah, I, I, mayor perry, I, I appreciate
you saying ask as we go, right? Um, if,
if what you ask is two slides ahead, we'll we'll let you
know and try to get there. But the goal of today is to have this conversation
with you. We talked a lot about special revenues. We talked a lot about those transfers
in and transfers out. And we also said at first reading, um,
you said at first reading, and I heard you, let's slow down and make sure we,
we answer those questions. One for our understanding. And two, for, for,
for the community. Dave will drive as much today as,
as we're willing to let him. Um, I'm willing to let dave
dive into the budget. I, I want dave to dive into the budget conversation with you,
not just mine to present, but dave and I to, with john's, uh, help as
well. Explain it all and, and answer your questions. So
I'll dive in a lot of this stuff. You've already seen a few of the slides based upon your
feedback are new. We updated the presentation
prior and we updated the packet as well as, as the community
thought. So, um, we're not gonna
go over every single slide, but I, for the community's sake and so that we
can talk through at, at workshop and that have at least some,
some perspective of what we're talking about and why I've left some of the
slides in, but I won't cover them all, um, for time sake. And so we can get into
the budget. We've seen this, um, the community
factors, the economic drivers, tourism, healthcare, real estate. Um,
we took a look at our island at a glance at first reading. We took a look at our top employers.
um, we've realized that gross sales by fiscal year, pretty
much flat over the last several years, um, including
each portfolio of fun, tourism, restaurant, grocery, et cetera.
we talked about strong economic factors and bond rating. I, I don't want
to underestimate that, but that is planned. That's not just happenstance.
um, and so we're very, very pleased that the aaa bond
rating from all three. Um, let us, let us into realize
the, about the tax base and the, the property tax revenues and fiscal management.
we took a look at open and closed businesses, half our businesses,
um, on, on books, our short term rental permits. And, and the other 50%
are diversified. We talked that
the assessed value and the market value
as we see it, uh, has grown approximately 32.5%
over the last five years. We talked that we manage
about 2000 acres. We don't manage it in that sense, but we have acquired and,
and, and have on, on the books close to 2000 acres,
27 parks, 14 miles of roads that we manage and maintained
72 miles of pathways and 24 total buildings.
that doesn't include restrooms and pavilions. That, that,
uh, I always like to make sure
that as we're looking at the budget, we look at our org chart because we are in different pieces
of, of municipal business that have grown. And I think the org
chart helps us understand what those core functions are.
we have 290 full-time employees, 16 part-time.
that hasn't changed since the amended budget. Um, and the amended budget
increased by six full-time employees aligned with short-term
rental program improvements from last year.
we talked our first reading about the 10 goals and, and priorities
out of the strategic plan that have guided our budget. And then I
went over the budget goals of fiscal year 27, which are the same budget
goals as as prior years. And we also looked at measuring those,
um, a again, or stating those again moving forward.
tonight's the workshop. Our next workshop
is next week and anticipating a a, a town council
meeting on june 9th. So we still have some, some time in between to answer your
questions and go over things. We're starting to get into the,
the true budget of general cap or general
debt geechee, cdc housing and special
rev. What you will see after this slide are some new slides. And I will
for a little bit, turn this over to dave. Thank
you, mark. And dave and I rehearsed a little bit that he's gonna talk slow enough,
but not so slow that we don't get outta here till nine o'clock night. We, we'll be done by what,
five 30? Okay, . So, um,
, so good evening, mayor and council. Um,
so after listening to some of the feedback
and what the view of a $233 million
budget, um, I thought it'd be good to take a step back
and kind of explain that it's really not a $233 million
budget and kinda give you some information
and the public so we can understand some of the nuances of
government accounting. 'cause it is a little bit tricky compared to
non-governmental accounting. And, um, so I, I
put some definitions here together. Um, patsy, that's something
I picked up from you. So, um, but really to
kind of break down how we show our income statement. And, um,
and first we're gonna look at revenue just so we can get a idea of
the high level, what are the revenues for the town, which is taxes, fees, grants,
sale of land and investment income. And most of these are recurring
direct revenues and they increase cash. So
when I think of that, you know, you're gonna see $121 million of
operating revenue for the town in 2027. And
that's composed of many line items, but that's cash that we collect.
okay? And then other financing sources, um,
bonds, leases, sell of equipment and or vehicles.
those are more non-recurring in nature. They still
bring cash into the town. Um, but the difference is
they're non-recurring. And so you'll see in the budget we have four
and a half million for non-recurring revenue and other financing
sources. And that's really for the, uh, firetruck lease. We're anticipating at the
end of this calendar year. And that's what I would
say are the inflows of cash that the town gets.
okay? Then we get into more governmental terms,
which can make the numbers look higher, but it's really
managing numbers within all of the funds we have. And we probably have
the six major and probably seven, probably about
eight or so in the special revenues fund.
and so we move dollars between funds
based upon projects or, uh, needs
of a fund per se. So when we do a transfer
end from one fund to another fund, well that's booked
as revenue to the fund receiving it and it's booked
as expense to the fund sending it. It's not cash per se
because it's not creating any more cash for the town,
but we are moving money from, let's say, one bank account to another.
and so, um, but it does inflate the revenue
from a general fund perspective and, or excuse me, from a total town perspective.
and it also makes the expense look higher. Um,
and then we have the uses of funds for revenue and the uses
of funds are money we're pulling out of the bank look
at it that way to cover our expenses. So if
we're spending more than that fund balance has in revenue
that's coming in, we will pull money from
that fund balance as a use of funds. And I kind
of call that a withdrawal from the checking account. And, and, and when you look
at it that way, once again, it's not new cash flow because
it's cash that we've already received. So when we go to
expense, same concept, we have our operating expenses,
salaries, benefits, contractors, cip, which
is really not operating. I would say capital projects are a little bit
different there. Our debt service, uh, other just general operating
expenses, it software, things of that nature. They could be recurring or non-recurring,
but those are checks we're writing that's reducing cash.
and um, when you look at our budget, we're spending $145 million,
not $233 million, $145 million.
and so I think it's important to kind of note that when we kind of go through things
and then we have our transfers out. Well, as
we mentioned, we transfer money like in our ci capital projects
fund, we transfer quite a bit of money to that fund. A lot of those come from
special revenue funds. And so that's an expense when
we transfer out. That's the other side of the ledger. 'cause the
transfer ends must equal the transfer outs. So you can balance.
and then we have our fund balance surplus. Some funds we don't transfer
out of, we don't spend all of it. So we have, I'll call
money a surplus in that fund, but to get the budget to
balance, we book that as an expense to basically balance
that out from a balanced budget perspective, once again, making the expense
look higher. And so all of that leads
into change in fund balance. Oh, mark, here I go. I'm not doing the
thingy. There we go. So our change in fund
balance, if you look at a normal accounting income statement,
uh, you could think of this as net income, which is operating
revenue plus other financing sources minus operating
expenses. So we've got 125 million of
revenue, we're spending 145 million.
so you'll see a negative change in fund balance this year's budget
of just under $20 million. Okay? And that's gonna
be a negative cash flow. I mean, we're spending more than we are taking
in in 2027 fiscal budget. Um,
a fund balance surplus we talked about is a fund minus the
fund balance use is also a change in fund balance,
depending on if it's higher or lower, will depend upon
positive or negative cash flow. Either way you look at that will equal
the same number. Okay? And we'll show that in a second. And once again,
we always, we have our transfers this year, I think it's like $72 million,
which is making that number go to 233 million.
um, but we also have a transfer out and a transfer in, they
net out to zero. And so our total, this is governmental
as well. Our total revenue budget takes our operating revenue,
our other financing sources plus transfers in
plus uses of funds. And our expense site is
our operating expenses plus transfers out, plus
the fund balance surplus. So when you take the total revenue
minus the total expense, you get your balanced budget.
so the net of that is zero, which you normally do see in the budget.
so I've kind of have a income statement
view to illustrate what's happening. So we'll
start at the top with operating revenue, and you've kind of got from
24 through 27 with
our projection for 26. And you can see we've done 130,
135 million, 135 million, 121. Now we are
going down a little bit in 2020, um, seven.
and we've got, you know, grants that are going down for fema. We took down permit
fees, we had the nova land sale that happened that, um,
is not repeating. We took investment income down based upon
anticipated reduced, uh, return of interest and other miscellaneous
grants that have occurred. So there's, there's reasons behind the drop,
but I would say 121, it's kind of a normal cash
operating year this year because we don't have a lot of grant revenue
in the budget. We have like a million in grant revenue for fema and
a quarter million dollars for ccdb. I can't say those words. Letters,
c, db, thank you sir. And so, and then we have our other financing
sources. Well, you see 7.6 million in 25.
that was the original fire truck equipment lease. Then
we did the geo bond and the beach bonds. Well, that was 54 million this
year and in the 26 fiscal year. And then we mentioned the
four and a half million that's budgeted. So that's the 125 million,
uh, our operating expenses, okay, we've got 90 million.
okay? And we did break out capital separately to show that. And
you can see capital 24 was 27 million, then it went
to 31. It was a big year in 26 when we did the renourishment, right?
and then we're coming back down to 54, but it is a big capital
year for the town in 2027. And so
we're spending 145. So we're spending roughly 20 million
more that's, we've got all of these different consolidated schedules. But this
is the summary of what's really happening from a town perspective.
if you wanna look at it from a, and I, here's how I look at it too.
you've got 121 million in revenue, we've got 90 million
of operating expense that leaves 30 million on
a given year to pay for capital projects. You could look at it that way as
well, depending on what fund that money is sitting
in. And that'll get important as we get down the road and start talking about fund balances
and if they're restricted or not, like beach preservation. And so
when you look at change in fund balance, the same concept we talked about before,
you have fund balance use fund balance surplus. Well, if
the surplus is higher than the use, like we have in 2026,
it's a million surplus, 1.3 million this year. And in 27
we've got 35 million versus 15 surplus. So we're, that's
negative 19. We broke out the transfers in and out it because
those balance out. And then I threw in the ending fund balance
at the bottom of this here, which is right here. So we
ended 24, around 230 million. That's pretty close to
cash. Um, a little bit different but not too terribly different. Um,
and then if you take the two 30 plus the um, change in fund
balance in 25, at $24 million, you get 2 53.
it's like your checkbook and you have 2 53 plus the one we get 2 54, 2 54,
less than 20, we get to 2 34. So that's kind of how we're
projecting to end the year from a fund balance perspective. And
when you look at the budget and these consolidated roll up
schedule, well you do see 2 33 and you do see
2 33 revenue and expense because of the
transfers in and the either use or source of fund balance.
but really what's happening are the numbers above, which is the 1 25 in revenue
and the 1 45 of expense. So we're not really spending more
than in 2020, uh, five fiscal fiscal or
the projection this year we're actually spending less. And so, um,
I just wanted to put this together, just try to maybe answer
any questions to kind of give a high level view without
a schedule with a jillion numbers on it that I know can get a bit overwhelming
when I look at it for sure. And so this is why we put this
together. Yes. So thank you very much for
that explanation. Um, I had asked for a reconciliation,
uh, from our first reading, and you did a great job of laying all
this out and you have further reconciliations in the lane,
various, uh, variances. Um, and it's
important that you laid this out because I'm sure
the public, just like myself, had a reaction when they
saw the $233 million, you know, when I first saw, 'cause of
course I go right to the bottom line , it's like, okay, what's the bottom line under? It was 2 33.
and um, and so the first thing I asked myself, are we really removing and cashing
out $233, $33 million worth of expenses? And,
and you've answered that. No. Um, and,
and for me, this is a change in how to read financial statements. I come
from a corporate background. We do not do things this way. And
so I have had over time the need to learn exactly
the differences between corporate accounting and government accounting.
and as dave said, government accounting includes corporate type accounting
where you look at revenues minus expenses to come to net income,
but it requires a second piece, which is not in corporate accounting. And that is
if you are moving money from one fund to another fund,
you have to report that. And so that is added, as
dave had explained. And um, for
the public that might be watching or listening, I wanted to give just a really simple
example. I'm a town. I have zero revenue, I have
zero expense. I have a checking account and a savings account.
I have $500 in my savings account and I transfer it to my checking account.
government reporting would say, I, I have $500 of revenue and $500
of expense because I transferred money. Did I really get
$500? No, I just moved it from one account to another.
did I spend $500? No, I moved it from one account to another.
so it's, when I talked to dave about it, he
used the word weird . He said, government accounting
is weird. And giving a background of corporate finance, I'd
say, yeah, it feels a little weird, but this is what, what happens. And
so I started to ask myself, well why, why does government do
that? And, um, there's a good reason. It's for
accountability and transparency. These are public dollars.
and as they're being transferred around, we wanna make sure that it balances
that I'm moving money from this account to another account at the end of the day that it
all balances and it doesn't transfer out to somewhere that we're not aware of.
so that's one reason. And the other one is accountability.
uh, we wanna know where the money is going from and to, and
it gets to dave's point about we have all these special revenue funds.
a lot of them have restrictions. So we collect a lot of
beach re uh, beach preservation fee. We can only use that
on beach related projects. So even though we collect a lot of money, we can't
use that fund balance to do road projects. That's not allowed. And so there
has to be, um, you know, an accounting of that. And what,
uh, we are doing here is making it more transparent so that we can
see exactly how funds are used and that they're used appropriately.
um, so I hope that helps put some perspective on,
on what it is that we're doing here, because I don't want the
public to feel like we're actually spending
in cash $233 million. Um,
we have to go and look at it from a net income perspective. And I also
appreciate you laying it out. Um, I know we do a lot of comparisons to budget,
uh, but the public and I like to look at
things compared to prior years. And so thank you so much for laying out,
um, these comparisons of these different pieces of operating
revenue, et cetera, for a couple of years as well as a projection,
which we didn't normally see as well of, of, uh, the current year.
so I think it makes the, um, it makes it much clearer
what is happening in regards to our finances in the town.
so I just wanted the opportunity to say that . Yeah. Thank, thank you for that. 'cause I think that
provides a great explanation. Um, you know, not only does it provide the
explanation, but also with the change in format, which is gonna make it more clear
down the road because it'll be a standardized procedural aspect, um,
really offers that transparency. So thank you.
may I ask a question? Not sure if you can. Yes,
we can hear you before you hear. Okay, good. Um,
so thank you for the explanation. I appreciate it. I do understand
what you're saying. I do have a simple question. Um,
with regard to this year's budget, however,
compared to previous budgets that we've had, this
is, um, this is a different type of accounting that we're now using
this year. No, no, I, all right. So I think,
I think this year the only change we do have is
we are balancing special revenues, which
had not been done in the past. In the past we transferred money
into the six major funds for a lot of that came from
special revenues. Um, but we didn't really budget special
revenues. And um, but this year we are, but
as far as the government accounting standards, we're not changing from that.
okay. So I guess the question that I can imagine a
someone who's not with an accounting background, and I listened to the
dialogue between you and, and councilwoman, uh, turner, and
I can follow it, it makes sense, but I don't have an accounting background.
so a simple question is then how do we compare
last year's budget at $174 million versus $233 million
this year with the same practices and not, at
least since, did not understand the significant difference between
the two. Does that mean, is that a, did I phrase that
in a way that it's easy to answer? Yeah, I mean,
I, I think the next slide gimme one.
yeah, the next slide, we'll come back to this one. This slide kind
of gives an overview and we have a subtotal
for the six major funds. Um, and then we have,
um, and this is, this is all in, but this
is revenues. And you might be asking about expenditures.
they're right here as well. They're the same. But from a,
from a perspective, we did a six major funds of last year,
um, to what it is this year in the budget, as well as,
um, added in the special revenues on top of that. I'm not sure if that answers
the question she's asking or not. No, I think the question I'm asking
is, is a little bit more simple. And if this isn't the right time to, to get an
answer for, um, mark, what I would request is a meeting
so that I could sit down with you and dave so I can have a better
explanation. My question is just simple. If we're using the
practice, this nothing new here and, and the transfers,
ins and outs and bank from savings to checking, et cetera,
has always been consistent. I, I still need to explain to someone
why the number jumped from 174 to 233.
it's still the bottom line. So it now may not be
the right time to answer the question so I can get a simplified answer. Um, and
I would just like to schedule a meeting to be able to sit down with y'all so I can receive that
information. So I can offer that to anyone who might ask me,
didn't hear all of it. There was some, some I didn't miss the last
part. Please help. I, it's, I'm just asking
if what I wanna be able to do is take the simple
number from last year, uh, 'cause I too look at the bottom line.
I think that's the first place everyone goes to. And in
cs that you have 174 million roughly from
last year and 230
understanding. But if nothing has changed in the accounting practice from
last year to this year, I still need
a more detailed explanation that I can simplify to answer
that question for other people who like, hey,
look at the bottom lines and are not accountants. So I'm requesting just a
moment of time to sit with you and dave to, to have a meeting, um,
for that purpose. Ms. Becker, I, I think, I think dave's about to address,
address it for you. Alright, I understand your question now. First,
first and foremost, I understood, yes, absolutely. We can meet, uh,
you, me and dave whenever you're available,
we're available. Absolutely. I think the, the one thing and to, to try to get
to the bottom of, of your core question is, you know, why, why this year, why
is this year different than last year? I would say one dave, dave is here in
a, in a, and what dave and I have talked a lot about is a full accounting
on the front end, not just that time of audit. And so in the past,
the, the practice here, right, that I've picked up with and, and, and
improved year over year, we can see, and I think this is important to,
to look at, we had in fy 24, what we showed you were
actuals, not budgets. We showed you real dollars. And I would say every year
we've grown our fund balance and it shows we had in 24
total operating one 30, we had
85 operating in 26 capital.
and we grew the fund balance by 18, right?
this is wonky. Then we had 142
revenue and 118 expense. And last year
actual, or 25 actual fiscal year 25 actual,
we grew the fund balance by 23, almost $24 million.
that wasn't just underestimated expenditures, but what
we didn't do is fund, or I should say budget
all we, we, we put the revenues and the transfers
towards the expenditures and grew the fund balance and,
and showed that in the audit, correct? That that was the practice. It's been the practice
what, what you're seeing here. And, and this is a good year to just simply
push forward and move forward and budget all revenues
with all expenditures and show on the front end
a positive or negative use in fund balance. This
year, the $19 million in change, almost whatever is
up there, forgive my eyes, I can't see it. 19.9,
that growth or reduction in fund balance this year, that's
capital projects. At the end of the day, that's capital projects. We're not using it. So
you see this all on the front end through the entire
complete budget. And, and hence the difference in transfers. It was one of the first
questions I've asked as I arrived is, you know, what about these additional revs
that are coming into our accounts that aren't
matching with expenditures? It was an off, it was an off balance budget.
so what dave has done is infused them into the full budget and
balanced it. So I hope that makes sense. Yeah. So if, if I might no, it does,
it does make sense. And what, when I wanted to stop and thank you is because
what you did identify was the answer to my first question. This
is, well, maybe not a full sail, different way of doing
the accounting. It is a different way of presenting it. And
that's, that's been the initial question that I asked. Okay. And, and
you answered it. Yes, sir. So there are variances from last year's reporting to
this year's and, and the numbers are being reflected and that's why
you see the difference of 1 74 to 2 33. It makes sense to me. I
just need a simple explanation that I can transfer to other
people who may ask me. So thank you. I appreciate that.
I do have one other question, and this may not be the right time for it, but
we took a $35 million bond and where
are those dollars that are left? Where are those reflected
in this budget? When we, um, when we go through the
fund balances on, uh, at the end of tuesday,
you'll see a kind of a fund balance walk by, by fund.
and, um, in the capital fund, you'll
see, um, doing it by memory, let's say it's $32 million, give or
take, um, you'll, there's 24 million roughly
of money left over from the
go bond that has not been spent in this budget.
so we have 24 million that, um, is in the bank,
as we said before, that, um, uh, we don't have any expense
in this budget related to that. Okay.
becker, I I think also too, it's in here on this sheet.
it is, yeah. It's in the 2 54. Yes. Yeah. Yep. And the
2 34. Right? Absolutely. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a another simple
way of looking at this is with the 27 proposed budget
we are looking at, and I'll
convert the word fund balance to savings. We're looking to
see what we're gonna be able to put into savings or need to take out of savings to, to accomplish
the work that's done. Yes. Done. Yeah. Just a, just a simpler aspect
of it. Yep. Okay. Well, I appreciate those answers
and thank you for the giving me the time and I look forward to meeting with you guys so that I
can have a simplified answer to give to other people,
ms. Bryson. Yes. Um, my question has to do, and and
I apologize mr. Bird, if I misunderstood what you said. Um, I, I see
our total expense a little over 145 million for the proposed budget.
and I thought you said that we didn't spend any more than we did
in 2025. And I compare 2025, it's about 119 million.
so I must have misunderstood you because it looks like we are spending more money.
um, I I don't recall if I said 2025, forgive
me, but, um, I was, I I was, if I did,
I meant to say in 2026. 26, okay. Yeah. Alright. And so,
um, but we are, um, we are spending less
than 2026 from a total town perspective. Yes. And I, I think a
large part of that is our capital expense, especially the beach renourishment, which
came from two sources, the bond as well as, um, yeah. And also in 26
and the operating, um, we are coming down because we had the big
go bond payment that we're making, right. Which is, uh,
not gonna be repeated in 27, right? Right. And we'll see that when we get to the debt service
fund. But I, I just wanna make sure, so maybe you said 25 or maybe I
heard 25. I probably misspoke , forgive me. Okay. And I, I see the difference in expenditures
there, and I had an asterisk beside of, uh, the two numbers in 2026
relating back to what we just talked about. And that is the renourishment
expenditures. Um, and, and I was wondering exactly where we were using
the 19.9 million of fund balance. And I heard mr. Orlando say
it's primarily in capital projects. That's yes, it is. I'll see that
when we get to the capital fund, which we discuss next tuesday.
and the way to look at it on that schedule, you've got
125 million in revenue and
we're spending 90 million in operating, but we have
55 million in capital. Okay. So that's driving the,
because we're using the surplus from revenue
less operating, we're using more than that for
the capital expenditures of the 55 million cip.
and, and, and I think it's two slides over, so I'll save my question for the end, but it has to do
with the, uh, the difference in, uh, transferring in and out comparing,
uh, fy 27 to, uh, 26 projection
and 24 and 25, primarily 24 and 25. But I'll wait two slides over for
that question. Okay.
okay. So, um, now we're kind of looking at a consolidated
budget, which you saw this slide, uh, tuesday night.
um, but we, we did a subtotal for the six major funds. So
that's where you see the 1 74 in the original budget.
and then one thing is, you know, we did our budget amendment this year.
it was a big budget amendment. So, uh, we went from 1 74
to 2 35, and then our six major fund
number is 1 47, um, in 2027.
and then we have the special revenues below that, which is showing as something
that we're doing new. We did have actuals in 24 and 25 because
that's what actually got booked on the general ledger, but we didn't budget
those funds and we haven't in the past, so that's why it's zero in 2026.
and the same logic on the expenditures. Um, and,
but we will go through the funds specifically to walk through the
changes that we've got and the funds themselves.
and you want me to keep going? Sorry, that's where my questions are. If we could back up to those two
previous slides. Go first go to revenues. So, um,
where we have an fy 24, the actual special revenues fund a
a little over 63,000,025, um, 71.5 million.
and then if you look at expenditures, the numbers don't match. Um, so
I'm, I'm not saying explain what happened in 24 and 25, but
what I was trying to do when I saw those numbers appear, uh, before, uh,
tuesday's meeting, um, I thought, well, can we compare those
years to the proposed budget showing special revenues
in and out? And, um, I, I don't think we can do that. I,
I, I don't know why perhaps it was just a way of the way that the budget
was handled in those years. Um, well, I would say that on the
actuals, those are the actuals. So if
we, in this regard, 63,000,024
special revenues, we spent 59 million
in expense, uh, sorry, right here.
so we had a, let's say a surplus of 7 million. The reason why
it balances in the budget is because
we have to show a balanced budget, but the actuals are
what the actuals are. So it, that's kind of how I would,
I would say it from that perspective. So it
showed in the budgets balance, but when the actuals came in,
they were not balanced. And so what do we do then when it doesn't
balance when the actuals come in? Well, we have the actuals
flow through and we'll either have a fund balance or
a fund balance surplus or a fund balance deficit that just, it
will either increase or decrease the fund balance. Okay? As you
look in 24, we were 18 million better in
fund balance. And in 25 we were better by 20, almost
24 million in fund balance. So that just flows through
with what actually happens. But when we budget, we have to have a balance budget.
so we have the sources and uses of funds to make that happen, right?
so if I compare the, the numbers of the revenues on and, and
ms. Hunter, I do have numbers on my pages now. Uh, 26. If
I compare revenues to expenditures on 27, pardon me, then
for just taking fy 24 for an example, 184,
uh, point almost four, but the expenditures were 166.
so hence the increase in the fund balance of about 18 million.
yes. Okay. Yep. So what what happens is when the actuals come in, that
adds to the fund balance or, or decreases depending upon that's right. And
we either had more revenue than the budget. 'cause when we would've done the 24 budget,
it would've been balanced. So what happened in 24? We either spent
less or we had more revenue come in, or more revenue. Probably both.
yep. In that case, we can increase the fund balance. Okay, thank you.
um, so we went through this on tuesday, just a example,
illustration of our mills, excuse me. Um, and we're
leaving those flat at 5.1 and 27. We just
have a kind of historical view of coming from 5.9
and 23 down to 5.5 and 24 from
a debt perspective. And then also, um, on operating
17.2 to 15.9. But, um, and then from a total perspective,
we're leaving those flat in this year's budget. And then our millage
values, we spoke before on tuesday, the increase based
upon the continued assessed valuation increases that happen.
so we're projecting just under 1.4 million per mil. Okay. Ms.
dunner? Yes. Um, if you could go back to the millage rate.
so you have a footnote there that talks about why the millage rate
went from 28 10 to 2310. And that was because you had an extra
five for disaster recovery after matthew to collect some more funds
to build up our fund reserves. Um, you should also,
um, I think put footnotes as to the other reasons why in out years.
so in 2024, it went from 2310 to 21 4.
and that was because, um, we went through a property, uh, I'm
sorry, um, uh, assessment of our homes. So beaufort
county came out and reassessed all our homes. And with that,
that meant the, as the assessed values went up and
the, uh, property tax, uh, millage rate came down to help
offset that increase. Now you also see
that the, on the next slide where the, um,
if you go to the next slide, uh, the millage values
go up, but that's not what we is used for your property tax.
and here's what I mean by that. When we went through the as reassessment,
they cap it at 15%. So
I, I went and looked at my bill, you
know, and when I looked at the difference between my, uh, capped
value and my appraised value, it was a lot of money. It was,
it was a lot of money. And so what the county does is they cap it
at 15% so that you're not overwhelmed by
a large increase in your property taxes. And that stays flat for five years.
so in my personal, uh, example, my
property tax assessment for the town of hilton head has
remained flat the last two years. And it will continue to stay flat
unless I do two things. I sell my house and then the
new person gets to pay the full value of the assessment assessment.
or if I make a major renovation in my house, then the
beaufort county will come out and reassess. I'm not sure exactly how that works if they
take it all the way up or if it's the increase in what you renovated,
but there is an impact there. So, um, I just wanna make that point
'cause I know there've been some questions about it. I would venture
to guess that the majority of people are not, um, renovating
their homes. I mean, I know people renovate their homes, but it's probably not the majority of people.
and, um, and then those that sell end up, uh, picking up the full
assessment amount. So I just thought that was important as we
go through this. Um, for clarity purposes. Yeah, thank
you. Oh,
property tax bill example, um, which we went through the other night, but,
and what we have highlighted here is what, uh, the town gets on a
typical property tax bill for 4% and then 6%
and on the 4% it's around 20% of that bill. Most
of it goes to the county. Okay.
general fund, we went through kind
of a highlight of this on um, tuesday.
um, I'm gonna, we've got a couple of changes we
made here. Um, we, we have now
to kind of be consistent with what we spoke about before on
our categories. We have our operating revenues as a subtotal
and then we have any use of unbalance and then we have transfers
in to go with the flow we had before
and of the definitions. And then we added in a
column here for a variance to 26
oh uh, a variance to
the 26 projection. And the reason why is
the prior schedule showed that variance percentage
to the amended budget, which made it look like it was growing quite
a bit. But when we look at our, how we projected
revenues for the 27 budget, we based that based upon
what we are seeing happen in 26 from a projection perspective.
so if you look at our growth rates here on the right, um,
you know, property taxes, we have a two, well it's 1.9,
but we, we factored in around 2% valuation growth in
property taxes. We took a conservative view on that local accommodation
tax, 1.5 business licenses at one.
we reset permit fees down to what we
had budgeted in the past, which is 1.8 million we're having this
year we're almost $3 million. So we are not budgeting
that level in 2027. Um, 'cause that's really related
to construction activity. So we kind of set that back down from
a conservative perspective. Um, and the other major item
there is related to ems, it's hard to kind
go through. I did it again, it's kind of hard to
kind of looked at a historical trend of ems. So we, we took it,
you know, it's 2.7 million this year. It's 2.2 5,000,024
and 2.6 and 25. So we kind of took an average of that.
it's kind of hard to predict. Hopefully that doesn't really increase. Um,
and then our investment income and just across the funds you
will see our investment income coming down. Um, it, you know, it
we're projecting 2 million, oh, 16 to 69
we budgeted one five. So it looks really like a high increase
from the budget from a year ago. But from what's actually happening today,
um, we are projecting a slow decrease in
interest rates as well as well, we're using some of our money, so we're not
gonna have as much money that we're getting a return on. So that was something to
highlight from a change from what you saw the other night regarding the general
fund. And then the transfers in. Um, we have our beach
preservation, which we spoke about. That's the big change in transfers.
then for the general as well as the str coming through at 1.3 million.
we did talk about state a tax as well, um, that is coming
down that that's set by the state and they, this year they're taking 15%,
uh, off of what we that's collected and
distributing that to other counties in the states. So, um,
we are seeing that trend come down. So we are budgeting continued
decreases in that number. If you look at, sorry, I did it again, but if you look
at 24 or 4.6 million, three and a half,
three, I mean it, you know, we, we are seeing continued
reductions in this number that the state is using in other, in municipalities,
right? And I think that's an important part because the question was asked, the question was asked
why is sc at tax going down when local was going up? And it's
the state law that allows that distribution based upon the formula they
set at the beginning of their year. So, um, hence our
dollars are, are not a hundred percent received back in that regard.
so what you're saying is basically the state changed it and that
resulted in us getting less. Right. Okay. Right.
may I, may I ask another question on that form of the page before?
yes. Okay. So one of the things that stands out to me
that I find bothersome with regard to revenues
is on the left hand side line, all of those great sources that we have
and you move across and everything makes sense.
you get to the grants portion and there's
nothing, it's a zero. I'm bothered by that and it
kind of give me some background on why it is we have no grant revenue coming
in. A lot of it's due to where we book grants
that do come in. They usually don't get booked to the general fund
and they might go to the capital fund or special revenues fund under special revenues.
so it's really where they're located, not necessarily,
um, where they're booked based upon the grant. That's why.
okay. So that makes sense. So if someone's looking at that, that I can simply
say, go to the fund and look, I can show you where there's
been grant activity and grant dollars that have been received are,
uh, are documented in these places and I'd be able to show them
that and we'll see that as we're moving forward. Correct. But I would,
yes, ma'am. But I would say that in general we don't really
budget unknown grants. So we, we try to take a conservative
view when budgeting grants because I always say unless we have it in
writing, um, I would hate to base the year based upon that
unknown. Doesn't mean we're not chasing grants. But as far
as that goes, it's just a matter of taking a more conservative view from
a budgeting perspective. So where would I be able to see what
grants that we have received that the grant writer and the efforts that
are being made? And I know that there're considerable or where would
I be able to see the re awards that we've, that we see? We'll, we'll
see some in the capital fund on tuesday and then we'll see some
in the special revenues today. And I will say, um,
our grants team, um, you know, has spent a lot of time with
fema working through getting the fema reimbursement. You know,
we've, we projected 6 million of fema that's not in the general fund
here, but we did project 6 million in fema, uh, in our budget
for this year, or actually seven. And then we reforecasted 6 million this year,
1 million in 27. We think we're gonna have upside of
probably 4 million related to that. And there's been a lot of work done
with our cip team and with the state on getting those
fema reimbursed, a lot of calories spent. And so I would just say
that there, there has been, um, success, very
much success on that one big project to help out with our beach
renourishment that I, I would say our grants team has been doing a great job on.
so, so are those grants fema then, are those those go all the way back
to irma and matthew irma. Matthew and dorian. Dorian
and dorian, yes. So not that, so I guess what I'm trying to get
at is what is I, I'd like to see what the current, um, activity
is for something more recent that the team has been working
on that's productive to adding to the grants. Um,
line revenue line. I'll, I'll jump in here. Um, when
dave says grant team, he means grant administrator, um, a person, right?
and yes, their time is spent with the cdbg administration
of the grants, um, as well as the fema. I wouldn't call it so
much reimbursement, but the fema agreement we have. And then as we
know, in past years the grants were, were elevated from arpa, from
fema and, and that's not shown on the books. What I will do between now
and in a few days is send to town council, um, the recent
grant report that shows the grants that we're administrating. Because I always say this,
getting a grant is a lot easier than administrating the grant and especially when we're trying
to get how much is the total fema that we're chasing $12 million. You broke it down a lot.
but I will say that that to me is, is more important as chasing money.
we don't know we'll get versus the money we believe were deserved. That $12 million,
um, has taken a lot more time on this beach renourishment and on
this storm, um, on this storm agreement we have in place. So I understand what you're
asking for. Um, I want to provide that clarity. Um, we're pushing,
but not always on new, but on administrating and taking care of the ones we
have. So we don't lose some of those dollars we think we, we we deserve.
so, um, I'll send a report. Um, we've also, we're pretty close
to fulfilling another grant, um, on some roads and some other projects
pathways. So I think that's a, a good question. I'll share that report.
yeah. Okay. So one of, to just make two, two comments. One,
I I understand how difficult it is. At one time I was the, uh,
director of, uh, grants for large university and writing them
and then managing them and reporting on them to the federal government
is very time consuming and very detail oriented and you cannot make mistakes. So
I understand the level of work and I do know also it's not a team, it's one
person. But, um, I wanted to follow the lead of our, our finance director in
his, in his language. So I understand that that is time consuming
and, and the rest I do have and I also want to,
uh, acknowledge that our grants administrator worked
with me and others, um, to make sure that we support,
uh, secured the opioid, um, grant money
that was made available and that we now are able to use in a very
highly productive way right here on hilton a. And that is the
significance achievement across the board. And she was instrumental in
making that happen. I'm just moving forward,
it's a source of revenue that I would like to see
more activity. So that's all. And if there is activity that
I'm not aware of, I just wanna know what it is and where it's been documented. That's
all. Absolutely. And in that I'll show that, I'll show how we're playing offense as well as administrating,
uh, affiliated agency and atac and all that stuff. So I think that comprehensive look at that's
a a great question. Thank you. Thanks for bringing that up. 'cause the, the atex administration
from grants is a lot as well. Yes. So it is
correct. It's alright ms. Bryson. Yes. So just
a couple things. I think it's been said before, but it bears repeating under transfers in beach
preservation fee. The numbers for, or the number 4 26
shows it was a lot lower and now it's a lot higher for 27 and that's
the beach renourishment. That's where that money went in 2026.
but we have more funds now to do other things for um, our beaches,
our beach parks. And that's shown up in the great increase, uh, during
fy 27. The other thing I would note is when you compare
what's proposed for fy 27 to fy 26,
there's about a $2 million increase in that, um, in revenues.
um, right. And so when we look at this slide here, we kind
of did an accounting of where we're spending money to
support, um, our beaches in a town perspective. And
that nu negative number there is what we're adjusting
down, just to show you how much we're spending now on beach that we're not recovering.
'cause the budget's 2 48. Um, so if I took a,
I don't know, the projection of 2397, um, I, it's
kind of more in line with what the 24 66 is, I would say. Yeah.
I'm glad I could lead you to the next slide. Oh, , thank you.
it goes to all the funds. It's an investment income,
uh, back here. An investment income.
yeah,
fluctuates. Um, you know, if you look at 24
and 25, we were around 2 million, two and a half million.
it was really budgeted conservatively for this year, but we're ending up to be about
2.2 million. And so, um, you know, we,
we work with our treasury to make sure we're getting the returns on our
capital that we can invest. And so, um, it does
fluctuate, but I think it's more normalized now when you look at
26 projection versus 27 versus the 26
budget to 27, if that makes 'cause we're we're
showing a minor decrease of 108,000 from 26
to 27 from a projection perspective, which
that's just in the general fund. If you look for the town, you're gonna look at
like $9 million or the number. Yeah.
okay.
okay. We're gonna keep moving on the general fund. And we went through
these on tuesday night. The different categories,
um, just for the property taxes we talked about, the millage is remaining
the same. Local accommodation taxes, 1.5%
growth business licenses, 1% growth, beach services
and parking 650,000. We didn't book any,
we, we booked six 50, we spent six 50. So it's about a
net to the town perspective, but we didn't really book any changes up
or down for beach parking and the budget. Um, and then ems
really the one change there we do have outside of the average we took
from the prior years is the change in the, uh, billing based upon the
medicaid fee schedule that we're doing and transfers in.
we just talked about beach preservation, which uh, is two and a half million
and this year, um, hospitality tax 6.5 million,
that's consistent with what we did in 2026.
our state accommodation tax is a formula as
we show the, uh, 25,000 and then 5%
of the remaining revenue. Um, and then the town's atex
po policy of 20% from there. And um, and then our
short term rental, which is our, our new str be
coming through in the calendar fiscal year 2027.
uh, from a total state perspective, no. Yeah,
but for us it's coming down.
yeah.
from an expenditure perspective, um, we kept this consistent
from an expense side. We are looking at budgeted
amended budget expense to the 2027 budget
expense. Um, not the projection. 'cause I, that's more important
from a budget expense pers perspective. And so we've
got a schedule that breaks out the $7.3 million
growth year over year. Um, I'm gonna jump to that right now.
so this is a, I call it a walk, but it's uh, our
variance schedule to show the
buckets that are really driving the change. Um, the first thing I would say,
I guess I could start from the bottom up. We are going up 7.3 million,
but 2.9 million of that's going into fund balance. That's the
proposal, that's the surplus that we have in our general fund
that's being booked as an expense. So, but that's really,
um, it's a good thing. It's booked as expense, but it's a good thing.
so really from a total expense perspective, we are,
uh, going up $4.3 million here
and 2.8 million of that is in personnel. Um, we
talked the other day, we've got our 4% in for performance
merit, uh, up to 4%, uh, performance based merit
class in comp study implementation, and then we have
a full year of the str positions, um, for
the fiscal year. 27 better?
yes. Oh, okay. Lots of people. Okay.
. Um, I wanna talk about the class and comp study.
so, um, I'm familiar with this. We did this,
uh, routinely. Uh, it is really a best practice to go in
and, uh, do a study in regards to your compensation program
to make sure that you are, are not overpaying and conversely
that you're not underpaying. And so I appreciate that we do this.
it is a common practice in in business to do that. Um, I
know that you, um, had said that you would be coming to us,
uh, the finance committee, I believe you said, uh, to share,
uh, what that study looks like, what it means, uh, what the impacts are,
et cetera. Uh, and I know that beaufort county has also recently completed
one. Um, they called it a step program. Um,
I'm not sure exactly. I mean, steps in regards to,
uh, being able to move up in regards to compensation. So it'll be interesting to
see what approach was taken, how the study was done, and,
and all of the details associated with that. So I look forward to seeing that
ms. Becker. So along, along those same
lines, um, yes, we had done one of these in just a
few years ago, and, and it was helpful. We do have, um,
we do wanna be competitive, making sure that we're hiring, um, and
attracting the most qualified and professional, um,
employees out there. And, and I always say that the best place to work is hilton
head island. And this is one of the reasons why, because we do try to stay
competitive like that. Um, I do have a, another question,
though. Um, it has to do with another study or
consultant that I, I think I had heard about previously.
um, and it is that listed in here, the leadership development.
I see it. Um, can you tell us a little bit about
that and how often that will be included in budgets
moving forward, or,
yeah. Yes, ma'am. That's something I put in the budget this year. It's
not a, it's not an annual recurring, uh, amount. Uh, I've, I've put
it in the budget. I have not of course, procured or hired any leadership
development, but I, but I would like to, and I believe it's time that we
put some sort of leadership program in place, not just for the senior leadership team,
uh, that, that is, uh, works closely with me, but our managers
and supervisors throughout the entire organization, including fire rescue and including
the non-fire rescue employees. So while, while the program's not scoped,
the, the estimated amount is, is, and it's,
it's clearly asked for in the budget. And I wouldn't say it's a one time,
but it's, uh, not a recurring every year amount.
okay. So I wanted to, uh, so in that regard, congratulate
you on the fact that mark, you're looking forward to developing
a very highly skilled and, um, uh, collaborative,
uh, cohesive team of leaders there. You
have a great team as it is. And one might think, well, my gosh, they're the best
bet there that exists, but we can always, um, learn and do more.
staying within the, um, pillar of excellence that hi had has,
um, set for itself. I wanted to make sure that it was highlighted and
that, um, everyone knows the commitment we have to our staff
and to providing excellence, um, through our leadership and through
throughout the organization. And I also wanted to confirm that it wasn't a,
a year to year expense. So thank you for both of those things. Thank you,
ms. Becker. Okay. Jumping down to
the other operating expense items that are driving, uh,
our change in 2027, we called out the
one-time items here that are, um,
uh, I'll call it significant changes from 26.
um, first one being commercial insurance. Uh, this is the quote for
this next fiscal year. So this is the real number. It's going up 8.5%
to $1,167,000. Um, our
heritage, we are increasing for the banner, banner hanging
and removal. Uh, for that, for that function, for that, uh, event,
our public safety consultant, we put in a hundred thousand dollars
in the budget for 2027. Legal, legal
is going up in this category, but we're, all we're
doing is consolidating legal from other areas of the town
into one, uh, into one department in the general fund. Um,
so that's, that's really driving the change in this area. Uh,
we have our election in november. Uh, we are looking to bring on an
a da consultant, um, to do an evaluation of our,
all of our a da, uh, all of our facilities, uh, public facilities
for a da compliance, um, which is something that, uh, is planned for
the next year. We just spoke about the leadership development. There are some technology
investments being made for gis, um, and for fire
rescue, well actually, uh, dispatch for radio software
upgrade. Those were the big changes. If you look at everything else,
it's flat. And, and that's really what we wanted to show there.
what was really driving that change. Um, when you look at
contracted public safety, it's actually going down, but some
of that's just due to trash and recycling that is coming from
the current contract for shore beach to I
two recycling I two. Okay. And so that
I think is gonna go up into the facilities, uh, organization.
and then on grants, well, we have our affiliated agencies, which
that was, uh, approved, um, for $373,000
increase from 2026. And then last, we have
our transfers. And so one is our, uh,
gullah geechee transfer for salaries and benefits for,
uh, 3 59. Um, we were taking a reduction of a
transfer we did in housing, um, of 1 97. And
then we are transferring money to special revenue for
some grants expenditures that we're gonna have to, to true
all that up. So at the end of the day, we just wanted to do a one pager to kind
of break out what's happening within the general fund expense change
from 26.
um, mayor, if no one else, can I jump in? Go ahead.
go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Uh, okay. Thank you. Probably should have waited on
the other one as well. And I apologize if I had interrupted when, while you were going through
the list, but, um, starting at, at the top, the heritage classic
foundation, which I fully support, um, the additional funds
that we gave them, uh, in the past as they've
become a signature event, event, the amount of,
uh, publicity, the amount of worldwide, uh,
views that we get from that event is well worth the $400,000.
what I'm bothered by here is that it looks like to me
that this has become something. And, and when we, it's come in the past, it's been a special
request and the ta sitting town council evaluates
it and makes the decision, and it provides those additional
dollars. What it looks like here, to me is it's a predetermined
decision. And I'm very uncomfortable with it. And I know I've highlighted another
instance, and unfortunately, if that's space, if I'm correct,
and this is an , the council
is going to pre-approve those dollars. It's another reason I'm
gonna have to vote. No. Um, that is, that should not, that should not be.
so that's one. And as we move down, um,
I'm glad that we're doing the a da, um, we have, uh,
been improving the ability for those who are moving,
have some mobility issues, hearing issues, whatever the case
may be across the island. And that's been a very good thing. But
we've been doing it piecemeal. And I think that looking at island as a whole
in terms of that is, is a very good idea. Um,
so there's that. The, um, let's
see. I'm trying to see is the spiritual thing. Um,
the other one I'm, and I hope I'm not missing one, but if I am, I'll talk about it some other point.
affiliated agencies is where I'm gonna go to at this moment when affiliated
agencies come flow, or it's always interesting
to read through their paperwork, to listen to their presentations and the discussion
that fna has with, with those applicants.
and then there's a yes or no made by
the finance and administrative committee, which is a subcommittee of
the full town council, but I'm bothered by is that doesn't come
back through the full town council for a vote of, of the seven of us.
and it shows up instead, um, as part
of our budget. And I think that the process is off.
I think that this needs to come forward as
a separate issue after it hits f and a. They are not full town council,
and it should come to the full town council for a vote before it
shows up in our budget. Whether we agree with it or not. I'm not saying that I
have an issue with it per se, although a discussion might be interesting
to have, but I would like to see that process changed and not an assumption
made. So, so there's
that. If you go back to the other screen for me,
um, and I don't think maybe I missed it, the transfers.
um, I will have, when we get to, um, the transfers below, I assume
you would rather I wait until we get to those areas to discuss those items.
uh, we can, or if, if there's comments you would, I mean, these are the ones that
we're doing from the general fund to other funds, so I,
I think if you would wanna talk about 'em, that's fine. Okay.
so, um, I have, um, some
concerns with regard to the transfers
from the top, um, with the gullah geechee historic, uh, neighborhood
community, uh, development corporation, um, there
is a almost $400,000 transfer
in that covers salaries and benefits for two employees. Um,
I'd like to hear a little bit more about that if you wanna discuss it. I know
what I'm asking because I've asked it before, and, um,
I think it's worthy of a conversation, uh,
doubt or when we get to that, um, that fund, however
you wanna do it.
I can answer that one. I, I would prefer that, and I'm taking some, some notes
that we just park the cdc conversation until we get to the cdc
account, but we just earmark that there is a transfer
from general fund for salaries into,
in, in, into the cdc, and you'll see that show up there and we can talk about that good
with that. And so I'll, I'll, I'll hold off on that and the same will be true
then for housing. So, um, I just, we'll make a note here
and we'll talk about it in a bit. Thank you. Okay.
um, hang, hang on. Um, uh, ms. Hunter? Yes. I just had a
question about the a da. So in, in regards to facilities,
so we do have some affiliated agencies where, uh, we,
we own the property. Um, is it gonna extend
to those pieces as well? Okay. Yes, ma'am. All right. Just wanted to
make sure. Thank you. Absolutely. Mr. Brown. Yeah. So, um,
couple things. One, I I, I just wanna remind us all that, that this
is a workshop. I think this is an opportunity for us to work
okay. All here collectively. So if, if we
want to make changes, because my understanding this is still
draft form, although we've had first reading, we have opportunity to change. Alright?
so I'm make sure that we understand that. Um, the, the,
the line item that, that I wanted to bring some attention to was the
heritage foundation as well. Um, I'm, I'm understanding the additional
65,000 is something that we will be administering internally.
am I correct on that? Okay. Yes, sir. And the other part of it is,
um, you know, maybe they haven't closed their books out yet.
all right. And we, we heard when they, uh, when they came to see us this
year, that things have changed, um, from one year to another. Okay.
and this is a budget, so there's a good chance that they could come back
and ask for less, or they come back and ask for more. We, we, we don't know
until they figure things out. But what I would like to do, mr. Mayor,
uh, is appropriate that sooner than later
they come to us with sort of an after action report,
just to help us understand what went well and what
did not go so well. Um, they are responsible for
this event, but I mean, I can tell you for sure that I've heard some
comments about the event. Okay. Um, positive, but there's some negatives.
okay. And I wanna make sure that we have the opportunity to hear
from them what they heard, what they understand, and us share the same, particularly since we are
contributing to 400 k at this moment. Um, but if there
needs to be adjustments, at least prepare us now to start thinking
about what that may or may not be. So that was my request. Okay. Thank
you. Well, if, if, if, if no one else is
jumping in to alex's point, which I guess kind of speaks
to what I was asking, um, I
would like to hear other people's opinion as to whether or not it's appropriate that we are just
now budgeting into our, or putting into our budget
an assumption of a, the dollar amount that might be requested
and whether or not collectively the town council would
feel it appropriate to, to provide that or perhaps more,
or whatever the case may be. But I'm very uncomfortable with
building it into our budget. I would rather have a, a request made to us so
that we can hear the information as alex just described it, and, and
make an evaluation, um, at that time.
so I, I would like to hear what other people think. I mean, I, I know I talk in a d speak
in a different way, and I present ideas. And if I don't stop, I guess, and,
and make you make a point of saying, you know, these are things not just me.
I wanna hear what other people are talking about. It is a workshop. And, and I'm not
just here to, to hear myself speak. I would really wanna hear what other people have to,
to say about these things as well, because it is our budget. And this budget,
we are as a, as a council, as a government, we are
the 38,000 plus thereabouts rep, uh, con
residents of the island. And so we should be having a conversation,
not just talking to yourselves, talking. And sometimes that's what I feel like happens.
ms. Becker, mr. Orlando is gonna address this real quick. Thank you.
uh, I, I would just say there's an option. I, I completely understand what, what ms. Becker
is asking for it. It is, and again, this is, this has been trying to be a shift
this year in the budget to show clarity in what we're contemplating,
right? And so your options are this, leave the 400 as is,
or don't show the 400 night, right now, take the $400,000
and put it in the general fund fund balance, and that when the rbc,
when they come back to ask, you can make a decision. And then the then, but,
but in, in addition to the agreement, we would need a budget amendment, right? Two readings.
and, and, and I'm actually fine with that because I, I don't like the idea of, um,
even cutting them short, right? By putting 400,000 in the budget
would maybe, you know, and I know that we've, we've, we have done this for years. Um,
so I, you know, it's not taking you out, it's just real, it's journal entry within the
system to move it out of there into the general fund. Yes, sir. We've done it different ways in, in
past here, so I'm fine, I'm fine with that. Le leave the 65,000
because that's, those are the banners and the posts and the, and the labor.
so just weigh okay with that. Oh, I'm comfortable with that approach. That's,
that's fine. You can do it either way. You could leave the 400 in and then always add a budget
amendment for more. Uh, I don't know that we'd be paying less, but I, I'm comfortable
removing it. The 65,000. I did have a question because the banners have been hung
before, or at least the last couple of years that I can remember. 'cause I remember seeing them and going
and telling you how wonderful they look. Um, so is this something
that we have paid for in the last couple of years? It's how many years have
we done? So it, so is this just a matter of taking it out
of one area and assigning it to, uh,
heritage? Yes. So I call that a shift. We call that a shift in lift. Uh, yes. You
know, so we're just moving it, it is to show the transparency of what we are supporting.
yes. I believe it was in the facilities department, under, under events
or, or or wherever it was like that. And we just wanted to be be clear since,
since, you know, because here here's a little bit of my philosophy. In past
years, we have now, we go to first reading, we have a couple workshops,
we have public hearings, and then in the middle of the year when we do
a budget amendment for the things that we know are going to happen, we don't have public
hearings and we don't have workshops, and we don't have that full disclosure and
transparency of where the dollars are going. So when, when we put the
400 in the, in the budget placeholder for this year, knowing
it would come to town council with an agreement. 'cause that is, that is the, the way the agreement's
structured year to year. We just said, let's just put the 60 5k
for banners in there so people do see you included. And the
community knows the investment we're making from a tax use
and whatnot into that rbc fund. So that, that,
that hence the shift, hence it all in one place. Mr. Brown. Yeah.
so I, I don't wanna ultra complicate this,
but I guess I, I, I am struggling a little bit with
only showing 60 5k under the heritage classic foundation line. I
mean, I, again, it's a budget pick any line up here,
we're gonna put a number there, and at some point we may have to amend
it. Um, but I, I don't want to give the public impression right, that we are
cutting it. Right. So I, I struggle with that a little bit.
I'd agree with that. And I dunno, we've ever, we've never actually budgeted for it though.
correct. Mark, it's never been a light item. It's gonna request and we respond to it.
and I hear what you're saying with regard to this may
be a more transparent way of doing it, but I also don't think that we
have the level of, and I'm not by any means saying that
it's not a worthy, a worthy cause and good
amount of money and maybe more money, but it's
the commitment to it without having the request for it.
and then as alex had correctly pointed out some of the,
um, the look back, you know, the day after, uh,
what was good, what was bad, what'll change, and some of those metrics that I think that
we should know about before we commit ourselves to 400 or 500
or a million dollars or 300 million, it's just,
it's just for me, putting ourselves on the line
saying we're gonna do something without knowing what it is that we're
committing other people to. I, I'm not comfortable with it. And I've heard other people suggest
that as well. Yeah. So if I might mark, suggest that, um, maybe
we change the verbiage from heritage classic foundation, because that's indicating
the actual foundation for funding, and that's not what we're really talking about
on this at this point in time with the 65,000,
how do you feel about that?
I'm, I'm interested in what, I'm interested in what others have to say, because again,
if we put in a zero, it's gotta come back to town council
to have a discussion about what it's going to be. If you put it at 400,
you still have to have a conversation down the road about what it's actually going to be. Again,
it's just a budget. Um, it's a, it is a placeholder hold to
some degree. Um, and, you know, I, I'd welcome the rest of council
to, to sort of weigh in on this. Again, I'm okay with the 60 5k,
particularly since we've already been spending it. And I'm also comfortable
with saying out loud to the public that we are going to support this event. I'm
just asking that the folks show up at fna
sooner than later to give, give us a after action report. Okay. That's, that's all.
we can work, we can work on that. I I, I do know they're still counting the money probably. So, yeah. And
the bills, any ms. Bryson? Yeah, sure. Um,
I, I just looked at our ordinance. I don't see it as a line item in our ordinance. Um, so
if we're talking about a line item, it's not in the ordinance itself. Um, and, and
what I was curious about is what's been our practice? Have we included this somewhere
in, in the budget materials, or has it not been included, or
is it included in our budget amendment? At some point, I
believe la forgive me, I don't have what, what you're looking at right there in front of
me, but last year, I believe it was in the original budget, because it doesn't show up to you in
the, uh, in the amended, but it, but years prior, it wasn't in the budget.
and coming on board here, I would always ask the question, well, if we're
have this agreement, and the agreement reads that if the rbc
heritage has a title sponsor that the town will provide
a sponsorship, why aren't we budgeting it? Why are we pretending it's a mid-year?
but, and so we had those philosophical budget structure questions last year,
I believe it was in the original and
after years prior, it was a budget amendment. Yeah. And, and for instance, my
island recreation, we have a number that we put in there in our budget, but it
could change based on the request. So we do put a number in there to show
that there, we, we anticipate some expenditure for certain organizations,
and that shows, uh, what we plan and think we're going to spend.
so it, it seems as though it, if if we have the others in there,
then this belongs in there as well. Mr. Al alfred,
just to add on, on the heritage, I, I think it's fine. The way it's,
the only downside would be in a situation where heritage came in,
uh, looking for a lot less money. That's not gonna happen.
well, you, you answered the question because there's an agreement,
and if there's an agreement, then why wouldn't we have the dollar amount in there? And,
you know, using the previous year's allocation,
you know, obviously if they come in and ask for more, then that's gonna be a, an amendment to it.
so, but, but to your point, mr. Brown, having them come back and do that
is, is ideal. So
any other comments? Are you thinking ms. Donner? I am. You
can see the wheels going . I can , yes.
um, well, it's about the comment about affiliated agencies. So, um,
those numbers aren't theoretical. That's what they came and asked us for. And it,
and it was reviewed at two finance and administrative
meetings, and there were other council members in attendance
and, and some came up and provided feedback or not, but
I acknowledge it was just finance that voted three
zero, uh, to approve, and now it's in the budget. So I guess
the question is, we can always change the process and have a, have
this be a standalone item, just like, uh, we do with atex.
um, so that we can do that moving forward. I guess the question would be, what do we wanna do
for this year? Um, you know, do we wanna add it as a
discussion item at one of the workshops or, or not? I'm just throwing that
out there. Good question. Yep. Just to add on
to ms. Thomas' comments, I mean, we all here right now,
so I, I think any item that's in this proposed budget,
we're the policy makers. We have the luxury to have a discussion and change
it if we think we need to change it. So, um, I, I, I think
at this point, if there's, if there's something that's, you know, tickling one of us with the affiliated
agency, uh, now's the time to talk about it. So
I'll ask a question. Is there anything tickling you on the affiliated
agencies, and mayor council? Just, I, I skipped
a couple slides up. I put the slide, it's about three, it was four slides ahead to
go through these with you today to talk through them. So they're right up here. Thank you.
and, and I appreciate the comments on improving processes.
we always try to try to improve the process. Um, in the past,
what, what we did agree with, what I think together was if,
if whatever the ask is go to just for everybody, finance, administrative, if
finance administrative is making that recommendation, it's making the recommendation
to me, and I'm putting it in the budget for your consideration. Um, but
maybe a great point, a process improvement where that gets, gets approved and
full counsel and recommended individually, or we can do it like this and go through this
today.
and I can help walk us through this if you'd like. I could go one at a time and, and go through it.
well, again, I asked the question, does anybody have any, any issues with, with what
f and a, uh, approved? I've already been tickled.
I'm, I'm good. I, I, I don't have any questions about, about it. 'cause I,
'cause I appreciate the process that it went through. So I, I'm not here to, to discuss
the process tonight, but even the funding amounts, the requests and the allocations I'm fine
with. So I'm not sure
if anyone else is jumping in 'cause they can't see. So if I'm interrupting
anyone, I apologize. Um, I'm not necessarily bothered
by the money, per se, as it was recommended
to, the recommendation is to the town council, is that the recommendation
to, uh, the town manager? So I would be interesting
to be reminded of that, but I would, what I do want to say
is with regard to the affiliate agency, I think the process needs
to be improved. But secondly, it's growing.
the amount of money that gets allocated to
affiliated agencies is growing. And I think we
need to have a, another discussion about what that
means in terms of organizations and their reliance
on public funds, um, their nonprofits, these nonprofits
and, and the, the public funds. I know that it's for public,
uh, use. I know that it's beneficial to our, uh, community.
I'm not questioning that at all. What I'm asking or thinking
about is the increased reliance perhaps,
um, and the increased dollars
year over year that are being allocated to this. And so when people look at
our budgets, these are the types of things that, that they should be aware
of that's costing us more money, um, to provide these
types of services to provide these types of, um,
opportunities on the island for the residents and the visitors.
so it's a bigger picture that I wanna make sure that we drill down on so that the
public understands fully well. Ms. Ms. Becker,
I, if I, if I might, um, you know, I, I would, I think that, that this
conversation about the process needs to go to f and a down the road, um,
because that's outside of this budget conversation. Now if the money's, if the dollars are fine and
we're good with that, well, I'm not sure if
it's outside of, uh, the budget because of the process.
the piece where town council and we
either approve the affiliated agencies by virtue of
approving the budget. And so it all goes hand
in hand. Or we don't approve the budget 'cause we don't approve the affiliate
aid agencies and everything else gets left behind. And it's a, it's just
not a good situation to put an individual council
member in who yes, did likely attend
the f and a meeting, yes, did have an opportunity to speak,
um, at that meeting, but did not have an opportunity to
vote on the outcome. And so the only vote on the outcome
is to approve or not approve the budget. And so we're talking about
budgets, I think it's appropriate. If you don't, I would like to see it be brought up
again, um, in the future. I, I I, I think that we are, you
know, I think we're splitting hairs a little bit because this is, um, an item
that's been improved by f and a to go into the budget, not the actual allocation of the
funds. And that's where the difference is. So, you know, I think that
procedurally that's one conversation that we need to have offline. But if there's anybody else that
feels that the funding is not appropriate, speak now, mr. Alfred? Uh,
I wanted to repeat a comment. I made it a finance committee with respect to the
allocation of, uh, of a tax money to the, uh,
sea turtle patrol. Um, I mentioned it at the finance
committee that spr the sea turtle
patrol application shows a number of figures that
are quite out of line with the other applicants. One
of which is that the town is providing about
42% of the operating expenses of sea turtle
patrol, which is substantially higher than the portion for any of the
other funded agency. Second, uh, their balance
sheet shows a great deal of, of cash on hand. Uh,
so there's a question as to whether the amounts are really needed. And
the third thing that concerned me was how they fit in with, with the
public purpose, other than this year when
there's a beach renourishment going on and they are, uh,
required to provide services in that respect, but in subsequent
years, we will not have beach renourishment. So, um,
my, my, uh, position essentially is that I would like to see
this particular item more carefully considered next year.
thank you. Can
I just make one more comment? I apologize to evan. It's me talking a lot,
but these are . Well, I'll be quick, but you know, if this
is a workshop and, and I don't know where else we can talk about these things. We had discussed
what I'm gonna point out next. Previously, um,
the, and I don't have a problem with what it is that's being done with
regards to the oysters and that aspect. I
think there should be a of the agency
with regard to the foundation that indicates clearly
that the dollars that we are contributing, uh, to them,
those what it's going to specifically with the oysters and the oyster
reefs and, and that work that they're doing. And that is not a donation
or a grant to every
aspect of what the outside foundation does. And so I'm not, I don't
have a problem with it being in here, but I would like it to be really clear what it is that this
money is going towards. Thank you.
alright, mr. Bur.
okay. Um, so
we hold on a second here.
all right. We had, outside of the summary, we had departmental
reviews as well. In here. They, you know, there's a,
there's a lot of, uh, if you go back, we broke
out into different areas for executive,
um, and we broke out town council, town attorney, town manager, deputy
town manager, a lot of reclass between town manager and deputy town manager.
we talked about legal and um, the election, which is driving the
change in town council. Um, and the finance administration,
um, reclass in it. We created the,
uh, cio so there were dollars moved from it to the
cio. So you see that change happening in, in human resources.
we had the consultant, uh, for the comp study this year, which is not
repeating. Um, there's a lot of movement and
planning. It's a lot of re you're gonna hear a word reclass 'cause we,
we just reclassed a lot between the different departments. So I think
we can just keep ball moving from that. But you do have that. So from a expenditure
highlight, um, we went through these the other day. Uh, from
a staffing side, there's 2 82 folks in the general fund, 153
or fire rescue. Um, and we also have
the folks that we've put in the budget for the str program listed here,
the positions, uh, that we've added. And then, um, keep
on going our salaries and benefits. We have our
performance base pay increase plus class and comp,
our 401k and now going into our
operating expenses of 18 million. Just the different breakouts. We
talked about quite a few of these already. So we'll keep moving. Public safety,
we talked about that already in the variance as well as affiliated, as well as
transfers out. And, um, from other side
of this, from fire rescue, their budget's 24.8 million, which we
have discussed. And also public safety at 2.4 million.
those were in the departmental reviews already. So I'm gonna keep moving,
um, unless there's any questions and we'll jump to death service.
okay. Alright. So our debt service fund, uh, this is the
revenues for 2027 and,
uh, one of the things that you can see is our
original budget was 18.8 million. The amended is 31. Um,
and our projections back down to 11.5 million.
I would say. Uh, looking at this from a go forward perspective,
we get our property taxes that come in from the, uh, for the, uh,
uh, millage for the debt service, about 6.7 million.
a little bit of investment income. That number does fluctuate. So it is
coming down primarily 'cause we are removing some of the fund balance
that we did have in the past. Uh, we do have beach preservation fees
coming in to pay for the, uh, beach bond that was done at the end of 25.
and then our hospitality is being transferred in to help pay
for some of the go bond h tax, hh tax, sorry. So
from that perspective, we've got 11.53 million. It is down quite
a bit from 26, but that is really based upon
the use of fund balance that we needed to do from the go bond that we did in the
payment made. Okay. And on the expenditure
side, the same, the same flow. Um, this is a more normal
year, I would say from going forward from a debt perspective, 8.6 million
in principal, 2.9 million in interest, 11.5 million
total. So a lot of movement in 26 between the,
uh, two borrows we did and the payments that we made. But now we're more in a, we're
not repeating the go bond payment or the callable beach bond payment.
so those are coming down. And, um, just
some highlights here. I, I like to go to this schedule. This kind of gives
a kind of an overview of the history from 2018 through,
uh, 20, I can't see the last year, but 2030 probably. Um,
but it does show a, a gradual decline, a quite remarkable decline
from 2018 to 2025. We did take a step up in
26 and then are coming back down in 27. We did a
little recon up here, which I think is important to call out. You know, at the end
of 25 we were at $64 million that we owed. Um,
we took on 54 million in new debt in 2026.
um, we did pay off the 27 beach bond of 7.5 million,
15.7 million for the go bond and our scheduled debt
payments. So our 2026 ending balance is 86 million.
and then with our scheduled debt payments in 27, we're ending the
year at 77.8 million. So we, the way I see it is
we took on 54 million and we, at the end of 27, we
only owed 13.3 million more on that. So I think that's a pretty compelling
story from that perspective. Um, mark,
I'm jumping over to nicola. Yes sir.
keep moving. Keep moving. Alright, keep moving. That's great. Um,
thank you dave. So the, and, and I'll,
and I'll pause when I, I get to a, a certain point to help answer ms.
becker's, uh, earlier or prior question. Um,
our cdc as we call it, um, led by mr. Thomas boxley
as the exec director and just, uh, really more for the public listening
and the folks here, it is a single source
town of hilton head island nonprofit corporation
put in place by the town of hilton head island, or the
town of hilton head island by the town council appointed to the seats, right? So it's
a, it's a, it's a functioning in, in legal nonprofit. There
are board of directors that you have put in place and mr. Brown
and mr. Perry, you, you on the, you on the board, um, as
part of the bylaws, uh, requirement, town council member to
are on that board, other members of the board are members of the community.
mr. Boxley runs the, the corporation. Mr. Boxleys also part
of our senior team, right? And so every time I have a senior staff meeting
or something's going on, mr. Boxley is part of the culture and
part of the operations of the town. So I just think that that's important to
just simply get into, and not just jump into the budget, but
the fund. What we've done is, instead of keeping the cdc in the general
operating fund, similar to how we've looked at stormwater utility
fund, it's, I'll call it for argument's sake, dave will probably tell
me I'm wrong, but almost its own enterprise fund, where you can show money in
money out and it not be a line item in general fund. And that way
we've always said that as a nonprofit with our own reporting on the nonprofit,
at the end of the year, its own audit at the end of the year, we've, we've chosen
some years ago to make it its own fund. So in the past we say we have six
funds, we used to have four. It was much easier to take a look at from a community
perspective. But with these six now, including c, d, c, it's much
clearer where you're spending your time, your energy,
the dollars, right, where you're making those investments. So with that being said,
being said, this fund is used to account for and report the costs associated with
the corporation. And the corporation is put in place with a set of
bylaws adopted by an ordinance, by town council. So I always really
wanna make a a case to say it is the town's nonprofit,
the focus of the corporation is right here. I won't read it. Um,
but those come outta the bylaws, right? Uh, encourage
entrepreneurialism, prevent gentrification in business, attraction,
expansion, retention, provide land planning and development,
um, assistance for
gullah neighborhoods. Not, not not only
some, but, but every property in the neighborhood. Um,
pursue affordable housing opportunities, identify infrastructure needs,
and provide critical financial opportunities. I think it's important and maybe some
years, I, I think that, that, that a flaw were me. If
I could look back and say maybe I go through this page too fast, because it's
really important to show what we're funding. And the primary sources of
revenue have traditionally been a grant from the
department of commerce that you all, um, as, as a council
collective body, uh, asked us to go find. And,
and senator davis and, and some of the delegation and up, up in columbia for
us and with us, have provided a, an initial $5 million
grant. And on top of that, we have made a separate request.
back in the back, in the good old arpa days, when we had those stimulus dollars,
we had made a request to bufort county to receive some
of their american rescue plan grant dollars, where the
county set aside certain amount of dollars out of their grant
arpa proceeds for municipalities as a good neighbor fund. And so we asked for
those and we could use them in certain areas and we pledged
them here. And so hence the beginning of, of, of the cdc, um,
when it, when it was originated, uh, the cdc board was put
in place. We recruited and hired mr. Boxley and mr.
boxley came in and with the board and community members, uh,
put in place a strategic plan. It's, it's v one, right? We,
I think the, the version of a strategic plan I have with you all
right now is v three of a strategic plan in the five years I've been here. So
he has v one of his strategic plan. What
what you have here is, is, is a, is much simpler budget than
what we were just looking at. It's, it's a schedule of revenues.
and you can see the, the trend, right? Prior
year, south carolina use of funds, that was the south carolina
department of commerce grant. And we've over time used those
funds as a source, the primary lift, the primary source
of revenue for the budget this year, the, the, the request
is $1.123 million. And
we say it's prior use because it's a grant and, and all the,
the, the, the funds in and funds out the way they're, they're recorded and tracked is
just in fund balance right now. So the revenue stream
is a fund balance account savings, right? And pulling out of there and putting it into,
um, the, the revenue account here. In
addition, some investment income. In addition, this is projected
a hundred thousand dollars as a fundraising and or donations.
um, so there, the source of those revenues are, are exactly
that. Those are not through town dollars. There's also,
uh, a recent acquisition of, and we, we will stop calling
it memory matters sooner than later, but just for clarity in the budget, it
is that building right now. They have not yet moved out in the town.
and, and the towns cdc,
I'll say jv, joint ventured and acquisition of that building.
um, and in part of the acquisition, there was a lease back
by the current tenant, which is our tenant. Now, the, the current
owner, the past owner and current tenant is, is memory matters. The
nonprofit. They're moving out soon, but the, the part of the acquisition
was they would lease the building back. We understand they're moving
out soon-ish. We, we
are not in a hurry for them to move out. We want them to move out when they're ready. They're getting their
permits in place, but there's revenue from that, a revenue stream,
right? So there was a joint venture, the acquisition was portion of town,
a portion of them. But we've pledged the entire projected,
I don't even know if we'll get to the full 60 a projected revenue
from the acquisition into this as a revenue stream.
and then here, the $359,026
a transfer from the general fund operating account, which are property taxes,
business licensing, those, those dollars we saw in general fund a
transfer into the cdc
as a stream of revenue. And that is for two, two
members of, of staff, mr. Boxley. In past years,
you, you don't see that. And I will share that in past years,
um, those revenues weren't transferred in. And I'll explain that.
so very few sun funding sources
general fund for the town employees. Um,
and they, thomas and veronica are both employees
of the town and assigned to the community development
corporation. And the rest of it, the majority of it is that prior south carolina
grant, the
planned expenditures requested expenditures, very clear,
salary benefits, operating professional
services,
grants and incentive loans, land acquisition
and, and some contingency for a balanced 1.694
of revenue and a balanced 1.694 of expenditure.
um, I can, I can help answer ms. Becker's question
in the, in the past and, and we received some public comment last year, um,
asking why we as a town weren't
helping to fund. And my words, nobody else is, my understanding
of it was the salaries of the employees and the people that work for
the town that work on behalf of the cdc. And
this year, as the board made the recommendation, the recommendation was the full
support. As, as, as I've talked with mr. Boxley as well, the full support of
the full salaries for those two employees. The board shared that,
um, as well. And the board made that recommendation for their budget. What
you see on here is the full recommendation of the board and, and mr. Brown,
mr. Perry, not to put you on the spot, but I just want to make sure the rest of the council and
the community know I'm respecting the recommendation of the board, but
I also support what the board asked for. Um,
I'll go through this. Uh, salaries and benefits. There was that increase. I,
I think I explained that. And in addition to that, it's, it's the performance
based, uh, compensation. Uh, it's not a step plan, but it's performance
based up to 4% operating. There's a
$76,000. And that's coming out of the grant more or less because this
is the only general fund. This is coming from grant. And the
rest of it, I would say below that line is either grant interest earned,
uh, rent, everything other than general fund. General fund
is precisely for the, the, the people, um,
professional services, their plan this year for the professional
services. Again, grant money or interest or whatnot,
way finding experience, gullah and, and, and extension
legal services, community support for legal matters and appraisals.
there have been times where they have helped folks with their property appraisal
heirs, property clearing consulting services,
a pitch competition, uh, stony community improvement grant
program, and then an earmark of a million dollars
for additional land acquisition, um, for economic development.
and, and I say that because as we read the,
the opening paragraph, this is as much if not more of a, of a real
gullah geechee economic development corporation than it is, uh, only a community
development corporation as, as, as we know it. And then
some contingency. What what I, what I will also
share though, as well is that what, what doesn't jump out on the budget. And I think this,
this may help if, if nothing else, it helps my philosophy of,
of town employees when, when I say a senior staff
team, mr. Boxley is with us in our capital improvement project
meetings. He is with me in my senior, our senior staff meetings.
um, we've been working on capital projects, dirt roads, mitchellville road,
um, muddy creek, uh, bryant patterson, uh,
I should say, um, taylor family park, excuse me. And all of those things.
um, I know that they've also helped folks with business
licensed technical assistance when we had our small minority, uh, disadvantaged
business enterprise program. Our c our cdc is very
involved with that, helping full, helping identify, uh, folks and, and helping them,
um, qualify and register. Uh,
they've provided, uh, this is their third year providing financial
education. Um, and that's, that's with our, our, our town finance
team as well. Um, there's
dollars in here this year for the, the upfit
at some point. It's a capital project. It is the town's asset. We have to manage it
properly and, and, and manage the asset properly. But I know that there'll
be some future earmarking of grant as well as some discussion with town council
about improvements to that building. Um, but mr. Boxley shares with
me, as I believe he's been talking with the board, that, that when memory
matters, moves out that there'll be some programmatic and some
physical improvement. But, but also to align with the program and at what I would call a
business plan, a business model as, as, uh,
incubator and community development space in what we now call the memory matters.
building design studio, um, public meeting space,
business incubator, and, and community support space. Um, and, and
I could go on and on, and they also are,
are close to, and, and I'm, I'm explaining the salary
and this is what I'm finding myself doing. Mr. Boxley
is also, um, very close with and working with
thomas tom dunn, thomas boxley and tom dunn is what I'm trying to say. Um,
with, uh, other community organizations helping, uh,
prepare for on the front end of any, any disasters. And so our,
our emergency operations center includes our community development
corporation, um, wide range of community partners, faith-based
organizations, um, so on so forth. Uh,
thomas has also with the team, and I'm sure the board
more thomas with me though, helped talk with residents
and neighbors as it re as, as the, as our work
pertains to the william hilton parkway gateway corridor master plan
property impacts. What about the unknowns? How do we
continue to, I would say, heal from and build future trust with the
residents, especially after, um, what, what
I would say some of us inherited with some property
right of way plans, um, on the original projects. I, I won't
let us forget about that. Those, those right of ways were well outside the colored
lines of, of the current right of way well into front yards. Mr.
boxley has helped folks understand,
um, what the town's initiatives are not what they aren't.
um, wildhorse road, they acquired one in five wildhorse
road. Um, and I know that, that mr. Boxley and the board is
working with you on, on some plans there. I think at some point it's
going to be very healthy to have those conversations, board and council,
mr. Boxley and I participating together, but definitely the board
and the town council together. Um, 'cause the way I look at it every day,
it's in the budget. It's not separate. It's, it's a, it's a community development corporation
as a department arm of, of what I'm, what I'm overseeing.
um, but it's a lot, right? I, I think it's time for an updated strategic plan. And I think
the board and, and thomas are the ones that were saying that, not me. I think that's healthy.
um, they're also working on ongoing, ongoing fundraising
efforts, events grant writing, and I do know that they're working on it. Private foundations
included. Um, looking at the state, some of those grants that
were there some years ago aren't there right now. Um,
just different, different time. And then we also
had a, a planning department member,
veronica stewart, but, but the fte that we've always known, that was as part of the
planning department, um,
helping with, forgive me,
design studio 26 cases in 25 and 15
thus far. Veronica leads that veronica
also helped lead the home repair and the lateral sewer connection,
I'd call more business development on the front end, helping people qualify, helping
people understand the parameters and helping our, what at the time, our
building safety department implements. So home repair dollars have, have dried up
lateral sewer connection dollars, I believe we found a little bit. But all
part of that as well as the historic neighborhood design studio
shifted out of the planning department, which we're working on site plans
and zoning and other development projects, and shifted
veronica more alignment with thomas, because all those things that I just mentioned,
I think thomas needs some help with not just one person. I,
if I were thomas, I, I couldn't get to all of that and be successful.
and so the shift with veronica, I believe helps thomas and I believe
thomas and veronica are helping the cdc and then gullah geechee
land cultural preservation, uh, task force meetings, veronica as
point, but coordination and management and then heirs, property support, tax
record review, support with the goal, land loss
prevention and so on, so forth. Veronica has been working on a lot of that
in the planning department. But I do think that the alignment in the cdc has paid
dividends. And, um, uh, I share that
because I think in past years I've gone over that too fast and I don't
want to take for granted. Um, I don't want us to take for granted
and just fly through the fact that the salaries and
benefits at that amount and the rest, uh, understood as
expenditures. But most of which comes from a grant, um,
is, is overlooked
questions, housing funds, questions, or I did say, well, I'd
like to go back to what we were just talking about instead of skipping over. I
had questions. I don't know if anyone else raised their hand.
go ahead. Well, okay,
so I, I maybe I, I just can't hear from, we're on our way home
and it's, it's hard. But, um, so I appreciate
the, um, description. It, I'm not sure if people are fully
aware of exactly what the, uh, cdc
is, how it got started, and that was a really great history on
it. Um, one of the pieces that the
corporation, as I understood it, is that it should be
self-sustaining. So kind of a recurrent theme for me today
is folks reliance on the town and how
it impacts our budget, grows our town government, um,
neither, which I'm in favor of. So
am I accurate in the fact that the corporation should be
reaching out and becoming a business entity that has
a self sustaining, self-sustaining revenue source to
offset all of these wonderful things that they were put in place to do
for the native island community.
I, I, I, I, I lost the end of it. Oh, I, I
just wanna know if it, if there's an aspect to the cdc where they
are to be working towards a self sustain, becoming a self-sustaining
entity.
well, I, I, I would dare say, I mean, I'm not gonna speak for the, for the cdc, but
I would dare say that's the ultimate goal. Well, I think within
the documents and the, the intention that that was definitely the goal. Otherwise,
the intention would seem to have been, uh, misunderstood
that it somehow became a branch or another department of
town government. Um, and so that is
where I, I guess my concerns begin is that over,
whatever it has been, three and a half, four years that it's been in existence, the,
the amount of movement towards
self-sustaining itself and, and getting these,
the dollars flowing in, I see the a hundred thousand dollars. Um,
I'd be, as one of the grants that I'd be interested in knowing about. One
of the things that have to
say knowing, because this is an
in a budget that was prepared by the corporation
and never flowed through, as I understand it, f and a or through town council.
so this is our first look at it in a budget where we're supposed
to just approve it. And there are elements of it that I'm not comfortable
with, um, because it does feel as
though it is a branch, a department of
the, um, the, the government
that we are now funding. And I don't believe that was the intention. So clarity on
that, if I'm wrong, um, as helpful, certainly, um,
I see the good work, but I don't see anything within what they showed in
the strategic plan, um, as being driven
towards finding those streams of revenue on their own.
and that's, that's something I, I have to question. Um,
is there any discussion or, you know, on the strategic plan that
is forth that'll be forthcoming, uh, with the board? Um,
so before we approve a budget or after,
because it, it'll be, it'll be after. Again, you know, I'll state this again. You know, the budget
is not a, a, a actual promise of allocation. Um, but
it's, uh, what we expect to, to expend. Um, but no, that'll be
forthcoming in after the, uh, in the new physical year.
right. And again, I guess I'll point to to process, because if that's the case,
how can we agree to something that we're not informed on?
it's, it's, it's not in the, in the
proper sequence. And I'm uncomfortable with that,
having it here in a budget that I'm going to approve or not. However,
that works out. And there's a couple
of other elements that the, that are in there.
$60,000, which is a lease, um, income
for a building that's partly owned by the cdc and partly
owned, uh, you know, or money contributed towards it, is a town owned building.
so I'm curious and
wondering why the full lease amount, if any of it
is being put in as a stream of, um, revenue
for the corporation instead of coming into the town,
um, since it's a town asset. There's
also a question for me. Um, I understand clearly,
um, tom boxleys role and why he was hired, and
he's phenomenal. No one is, um, second guessing any of that. Just
so you know, my battery's about to die and I'm trying to switch to my phone. It's
been plugged in. But in any case,
the battery may need to be changed at some point. Um,
and I understand all of that, and I would assume that in time his salary will
be taken over by whatever revenue that the cdc
starts to create on its own. Um,
but in terms of the staff member, the way I understood
it, maybe I can be corrected or informed on this,
is in the community development department, there was a
designated person who, who was to
be available when anyone from the native islander community
would come in with specific requests with regard to their property.
and that is, that was done. And, and that, and
I asked at the time, so what would this person do with the rest of their time?
and they're like, oh, no, no, this is for anybody can come in and get these services.
this is just that, that there's a, the relationship that's being built totally
appropriate. Completely agree, that's fine. But the rest
of the time was to be spent, um, as a planner within
the community development department. What concerns me is that now
person is being taken away and being given another job,
uh, responsibilities. And
I think, um, unless it's changed and I'm
not aware that we are, we could use additional help,
um, in the, in the, in community development with plans
and that sort of thing. And so, are we now down one person with
more, uh, stress and birth on the rest of the department
as this person moves out completely and is being funded
by the town, again, goes back to
seemingly that this is becoming a branch and department of under
ms. Becker, you don't like my questions? Yes, go ahead. No, no, no. We're you're,
we're having a real hard time understanding everything that you're trying to say.
um, it's, it's, well, that's unfortunate. What, alright,
well, perhaps, um, I'll have to bring it up at the next, um,
workshop. Um, but these are, these are
questions that have to be answered. Um, I think that they're serious and
important and they may be easy, and that's fine. I'd like easy answers
and, and that's good. But until I get them, I
am bothered by everything I've said. Okay,
thank you. Any other comments from counsel? Well,
when can we discuss this again? Will it be appropriate for me to bring it up at the next workshop?
uh, I, I, I don't think that would be an issue.
okay. But as long as you say that, then we all said that time. Thank you. I would definitely ask those
answers again. Again, it's, it's, you sometimes you break in and out, so
it's very difficult and we're all strained to really hear and understand. And if
we're going to, you know, ask mark those questions because we wanna get 'em, he wants to get 'em right. We wanna get
'em right. So, yeah, no, I, I agree. And so I will,
um, again, put them out there so he has, so everyone has
them ahead of time, but I would like to have another set aside discussion
at the next workshop. Thank you. Okay, ms. Bryson. Sure.
um, as we look at our budget, we always look back at our strategic action
plan. That's what drives our budget. Um, and so it's
great that, um, mr. Orlando and his staff keep putting the
strategic plan before us when we look at our budget. So I just wanna remind
the council of number seven in our strategic action plan,
which says, preserve, protect and celebrate gullah geechee culture and
heritage. And the paragraph says, preserve, protect and celebrate the
cultural, heritage, historic neighborhoods and contributions of the gullah geechee
community through intentional policy development, targeted investment,
intergovernmental collaboration, and community driven planning and implementation.
and I wanna thank mr. Orlando for going through, um, all of the,
uh, work that, uh, mr. Boxing and his team have done
to help out with other projects that we have, like muddy
creek. Um, and, and like, um, uh, helping out with the
corridor plan, um, there's a number of different things that mr. Boxley
helps out with. And, and this says that we're gonna have targeted investment.
um, I have every confidence in the board of directors of the cdc,
um, and I do not have any questions about the budget because I have that confidence
and I think we ought to move on. Thank you, mr. Donner. Well, I appreciate
that pat. Ms. Becker. Ms. Becker, hang on. Ms. Turner was
getting ready to speak. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. No
problem. I just had a question. So, uh, when you were mentioning the grants,
you said one of them was from arpa, uh,
arpa related, and I was wondering if there was a timeframe on that of when you have
to spend it and if we've met that timeframe? Yes, thank you. Yes.
and yes, it was from arpa, from bufort county's arpa. Right. So when we
received 5.1 or $2 million of arpa, bufort county received more,
they transferred that. We've already spent that and closed it out. So I
just reminded us that there was some seed money both from bufort county through the fed
stimulus from arpa as well as department of commerce. And those were the only
two funding sources that started the towns cdc.
is there any limit on timeframe for the, uh, department of commerce?
no, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions
or comments? Well, I just wanted to follow up
if I can. Hopefully you can. Um,
I don't want what I said to be misinterpreted, and I think ms. Bryson may have done just that.
no one's questioning the good work. That's not what's being questioned. What I'm questioning
is whether or not the corporation is becoming
a self-sustaining entity, or is it becoming an arm,
a department, um, that's funded through the town of
hilton head, because there is a difference there. And that's
what I want clarify. Thank you. Okay. Thank you
mayor perry. I, and I'm, I'm glad we heard it that question, that clear? I, I did take some
notes, the self-sustaining question, I think I heard some comments to ask
me. I I do think that's a conversation that town council needs to have in
the budget workshop or in a separate workshop, including amongst yourselves
and or at some point appropriate, uh, time with the community
development corporation board of directors that you appointed. Uh, I,
I do and, and I will talk with thomas and the board to
update the strategic plan. I believe that work is planned and there have been some conversations about
it, and that will be in-house, so you won't see that as an expenditure, but that's an in-house
update. Um, lease
proceeds, uh, that was a decision that, that frankly some of us talked
about. Just for, for clarity, the lease proceeds of 30 to
the town and, and 30 to the cdc as we started to try
to balance dollars and, and look at fund balances and, and look at revenues
and realize that that grant's only going to go so far. And ms.
becker's asking the really good question, is it a self-sustaining department? I,
I mentioned all the ways thomas helps me and it's, it's, it's clear
that I've, I've moved some general fund dollars into it.
I just wanna make it a little clear. Veronica's salary
was always as part of the general fund, she was in the planning department. She
still does the same thing she does in the planning department. I would say that she does more
now supporting thomas supporting corporation board meetings,
and she has a little less time that, that we're going to the gullah
geechee task force and more time going to the cdc. Right? I think that's just a
natural for progression. But still, veronica is point on
the neighborhood design studio. She just doesn't sit up on the second story, the planning department,
she's down the hall next to, uh, thomas and, and
building d the fourth building and, and still in the planning department
still did heirs property support and research and helping
with business licensing. But I, I would say the, the difference,
and, and I appreciate the question, I just wanna make sure I answer it
with the cdc, it's proactive, not reactive. I
would say it's as much as I, as my terms, uh, playing as much offense
as, as as defense, right. As much trying to business development and
help people as opposed to waiting for the doorbell or the non knock on the door.
and so, yeah, I, I just wanna make it a point, the, it was always funded
there, at least the one salary. This, the difference this year
is just, rather than keep that in the general fund, I
wanted to be very clear. I, I don't, I wanna be very clear in where
the dollars are are coming in and, and where they're being used. And that's
the difference. One salary, not two. And same, same portfolio
of work by the, the assistant director. Forgive
me for not having your job title right here, but the veronica.
um, and there's, there's a lot of, a lot of work to do. And
it's not only cdc centric. Um, that's why I wanted to explain how,
how much more thomas helps me and this senior team than just
the cdc board. Thank you.
I'll be right. Okay. ,
move on to the next item. ,
are you gonna see,
I gotta turn that on. Sorry. Um,
the housing fund was created when the town,
the housing fund was created when the town established finding home. And
as part of the finding home document and approval by town council, it had
in there to create a staff member to add a staff member, right. As part, part of
the strategy and recommendations coming from finding home.
angela. Um, just a moment. If, if we can check in with mr.
sunday to see if we have lost ms. Becca. Oh,
she's texting. I'm working. Oh, okay. Alright,
so she's waiting for
new link. Alright. Um, so with that being
said, the, the budget, the revenues are derived
from transfer from state at tax. That is a town council policy of $619,000.
it's a 5% state at tax collection amount.
the south carolina code was changed recently a couple years ago to allow
and provide for it didn't require it, but you opted to approve that.
um, that is, is the town policy. Um, and then the other is from
the use of fund balance prior year, unused dollars in
the housing account. We have not used a lot of these dollars over time.
um, the budget proposed this year, 3.2, uh, million dollars.
you can see this the prior year unspent as well as the at tax
collection, the use of funds, uh, very clear,
the muddy creek neighborhood stabilization. We have been slow, I'll admit it. It
is not, uh, easy to say, but it, it's, it's the truth. We
have been slow out there to figure out what to do with the $1.5 million.
the reason that this isn't in the capital improvement program is because, again, we wanted
to be very clear that it was going to support the acquisition that the town
made, not just the, I'll call it subdivision for bryant road.
we weren't just trying to walk in and subdivide property and improve it.
it may cause gentrification, it may cause, uh, a neighborhood
to change overnight with several, a whole, whole bunch of new homes.
what we did is we earmarked as part of the housing fund, uh, I will call
it a front end capital improvement program account, $1.5 million.
we have a great cip team. They're here. I'm very proud of them. They have
taken the input from the neighborhood meeting that we've had some time ago.
um, and they have now scoped and, and I would say scheduled
some work out there. And we went over that at first reading sidewalks,
crosswalks, stop signs, low level lighting, landscape cleanup,
driveway end and, and curb cut improvements, um,
for $1.5 million. We also have earmarked a million dollars.
and that, um, is for the bryant road public-private
partnership. The rfq request for qualification came in, remember, I
I mentioned that we extended it. We have seven great bids from seven
very interested teams, and we are just now starting to score that.
um, what we will do is talk a a lot about this between now
and when we submit a request or release, a request
for proposal to start looking for our partner. We have a, a,
a base dollar in there that may help incentivize and entice the appropriate
developer. But the town council at the time will direct
where and how those, that million dollars is used in the exact same
way you did with the north point agreement. You, you won't just earmark
it and, and, and I decide, or we decide you will in an agreement
determine where and really if that's needed, um,
lateral or excuse me, and then bufort, jasper housing trust due. Those are
per an agreement we have with bufort jasper housing trust. And then, because,
because there's no other source of dollars right now, brian rhodes
a big lift we've just earmarked in the fund balance surplus future
use $619,000 fund balance.
pretty much everything I just said is on these, highlight that highlight page right there.
any note? Yep. Excuse me. No, just any, any comments or questions?
yes. Thank you, sir. I, I think the only comment I've got is that we're still looking for more
funding for lateral sewer connections. Um, and I see
that, um, the at tax funds 619,000, I'm glad we're
putting that money in there. And my question is, can any of those funds be used
for lateral sewer connection? I'm seeing mr. Orlando shake his head no. Okay.
always have to ask. I know ms. Turner and I are both hoping that we can find more money.
I I don't believe aax is, is, is a, is a good source or easy source
to use on that because those, those investments or improvements are on private
property. Um, which is why we're seeking some grants. We do have some word
from, um, beaufort jasper saying that,
right? Bufort jasper housing trust. Um, and I will bring that, that opportunity
to town council as a potential grant, uh, agreement in,
in the, in the coming weeks. Mr. Brown.
yeah. Um, to, to pick up on, uh, where ms. Bryson was going. Um,
just to, to give context. The, the town received
those opera funds years ago and, um, it,
it gave us enough latitude where we could use those monies for lateral
sewer, uh, connections and went through that money almost
overnight. I would, I would say, okay. Um, and
I, I remember very distinctly, um, me and mr. Orlando having this
conversation around that will then
show the demand. Okay? And there's still money
left over at the community foundation in low country in the safe program.
the requirements to receive those money don't necessarily
line up with today's conditions. Okay. Um,
I for one have, um, made an appointment to
have the new, uh, ceo, uh, mr.
falk, um, to ride along with me on a, on a little tour so we can look
at some areas that still are in need of sewer with the hope
that if we take a look back at the demand and how quickly we went through
the money and the stall that they have had over time and not allocating
theirs, that we can regenerate a conversation around
rethinking the current funds and if not so
re-energizing folks that were committed to donating
to help build a new fund. Okay. So, um, I I wanted to, to
publicly say that, okay. And then ask, um, you know, my colleagues
that, um, you, you assist with some type of, uh, conversational
influence in that direction because it keeps coming up. We keep
waiting for grants and it's not happening, but the demand
is still there and we need to address it. Do we know
brown? Do we know what the number is?
septic versus I, I think that's something that we can
quickly get from psd. I thought we may have a
number. You have one mark.
we know that, but not, not here, but I, I can get that. Septic, septic,
what's left for septic, what's on on sewer. It's not easy to always obtain from,
from psd and real time,
lemme just add this mr. Decimal since you asked that question. Um, and this, this
really relates to the, the housing initiative, right?
um, obviously there a lot of cost in,
in development here on hilton head and, um, you know, and most times
when you, when you, when you put a unit on the ground, if you seeking market
rate, you can absorb all of those costs. Okay? I, I,
I know for a fact that, uh, psd, um, has a very,
very high expenditure when you want to do just one
unit when it comes to capacity, fees and so on. So all of that
in my mind is a discouragement for folks to put affordable housing
on the ground. So to me, the lateral sewer conversation is a little deeper dive
as it relates to us putting housing that is affordable on
the ground. So, um, it's a deeper discussion. Um, but I think
leveraging our partners is something that we need to, to
do at this moment. Alright, thank you for that.
any others? Okay.
okay, now we'll jump to special revenues. As we've discussed before, there's
multiple funds that make up special revenues that I kind of
call it the hub of a lot of fees that we get. Beach preservation hospitality.
um, hello? Just second. I gotta, he's
gotta let miss oh,
we'll take a quick five minute break and yeah, yeah, while they,
but we need to get the screen back up.
okay, now we're back to special revenue funds. I'm just going to skip real
quick to the income statement 'cause this has the overview
of the revenues that we generate. Uh, inside the funds are different
beach, pre beach preservation, hospitality, tiff, road usage, data
tax, real estate, palmetto, electric, short term rental, license fi
grants and investment income. So we are projecting around 55 million
in 27 coming from all of these, uh, uh, separate
funds. Um, the one couple of changes that you'll see there,
um, we, as we mentioned, we're not budgeting any grants that are not signed.
so that's zero up in operating grants and on the federal grants
it's zero. Uh, the 1 million we had in the projection for 26
was the, um, arpa arpa grants that came through. If you look at,
uh, the budget there, there, this fund was not
budgeted, so you don't see any dollars there. So the comparison
we did for 26 to 27 was to the projected numbers.
and, um, so that's really modest growth in the, as we
talked about before, for beach preservation fees and hospitality taxes.
and, uh, we did come down on, uh, the state a tax, which
we talked about. And then our real estate transfer fee we came down as well,
primarily based upon just taking a more conservative view. As
we can tell, we did about 4.9 million in 24, 5 0.2
and 25. We're having a really, really strong year this year, but we scaled it back.
it's hard to predict that. So we took a conservative view on that. Um, use of
fund balances, we do this fund, the special revenues
fund a lot of our other funds in the town. So, um,
you know, that's what you see here and what funds that they're coming out of. But
we are using $27 million of fund balance
in the special revenue funds. And at the end here we have the firetruck lease proceeds
coming through as well, uh, for four and a half million dollars. And that totals
the 86 million when you look over at expense.
um, the most of the direct expenses are really at
tax grants. So we've got just under four 4.1 million
in 2027 for at tax. And their dmo is around
3.7 million. And then we do have $50,000 for the
bufort county, uh, deed processing fees that were accessed from them. And,
uh, beach consulting services, uh, getting down to, uh,
our transfers out. As we mentioned before, these are
dollars that we're transferring to the general fund, our debt service,
cip and for our housing fund. And that's,
uh, $67 million. Um, we have a
total fund balance surplus of $10.5 million.
and this is in our natural disasters fund. That's really investment
income that's being added to the fund balance as well as
monies in beach preservation. So we collect that 15 million,
we allocate out, uh, money for capital for debt, and now to the
general funds. So we've got about 4 million left over there. And then our real estate
transfer, we don't budget any land other than 250,000.
so, um, we have, uh, real estate transfer continuing
out to the fund balance. Uh, we
talked a little bit about this on monday, um, or tuesday,
sorry, but this is just an overview of the state accommodation
tax and I think the really the highlight there is that we are using
more dollars for capital than we have in prior years. We're using $5.4 million
and then we're also transferring 600,000 to housing as well. So that
fund balance is roughly gonna end up at about 6 million next tuesday.
when we close out the session after cip review, we do
have a fund balance walk that we'll go through to kind of show you what we're looking at for all of the
different funds, including these special revenue funds. And this is just
a highlight that we talked about on tuesday of the state accommodation taxes,
um, where they go and the, and the allocation logic for them.
and then I'm gonna jump in, oh, here's an eye chart, but I'm
gonna jump into the, um, fund, ba fund balance sheet,
excuse me, proposed reserve policies for
our funds. And so we've got this broken out into
operating capital special revenues and
um, sorry about that. Am I
okay, there we are. So trying to go to the end. So,
um, when we spoke on, uh,
tuesday, we talked about the methodology changes
to some of these. One of those is on the general fund. Uh,
we are changing the minimum
fund balance from 50 or to,
excuse me, from changing that, growing that to 50%
of the spend, the expenditures for the general fund,
for the minimum reserve of the fund to
a maximum of 55%. Okay? And so
right now that 50% minimum in 2027
will be 32 3 72. And
um, we are just a shade above that in our proposal for
the end of 27 in this budget, any amount
over the 55% will be transferred to the natural
disasters fund. However, if there's encumbered dollars
that were not spent during that year that are causing
us to be over the 55% that would be, has been spent
in the following year, we will not use
those dollars to transfer to the natural disasters fund.
I think I said all of that right? Got it. So, um,
it's a lot. So, um, on storm water we talked about,
uh, changing that minimum to $3 million and
um, and then this year we are proposing $10 million to
accommodate for the, um, fixed asset, uh, re reserve
as well, which we can talk about more in the review next tuesday for storm
water on the capital fund we have the capital improvements program
fund reserve of $4.341 million.
uh, that's the town council designating that amount for economic development
opportunities getting down to real estate
transfer fee. We are not changing the million dollars that we have currently
on the books today on beach preservation.
uh, we are at $20 million currently. Um,
now we're looking to change the amount to have a
fund balance of 40 million minimum, but to
be adjusted as available each fiscal year
to that fund balance that's available not to exceed
$60 million at the end of 2033. And so
there will be more than likely, hang, hang on, hang on. It's,
it's, it's not, not to exceed, correct? It's the
minimum would be 60 million. Well, they target reserve balance of 60 million. Right,
but not, I mean, because I thought that there
was an opportunity to have actually more than that in there. There is,
but let me look at how I can, let me, let me help, yeah, I'm trying
to read this. Yeah, I know. I can read it from right here. And we apologize. The town shall
maintain a minimum beach preservation fee balance of 40 million to support the long-term
shoreline protection beach re nourishment and coastal resiliency initiatives.
each fiscal year, the town shall reserve available
fund balance amounts exceeding the established minimum exceeding,
right? So exceeding the 40 with a target reserve balance of 60 million
by the end of fiscal year 2033 to prepare to prepare for
the next major beach renourishment project. Reserved funds
shall only, or excuse me, shall solely shall
be used solely for beach preservation, renourishment shoreline
stabilization and related coastal resiliency expenditures approved by town
council. By the town council. So that's what that says. And so the, the story
there though is it was 12 upper moons ago,
we moved it, you moved it to 20, and right now in
this budget, that 20 is shifting to 42 8. And on the next
slide, and I don't want to go to the next slide yet, you'll see the projection to a hundred million
dollars, um, with a little bit of use, I would say, I shouldn't
say a little, but, uh, minimal use, um, over time.
but, but the point being is that right? We don't have to stop at 60,
there's no, no sir, that's, I just wanna clarify that aspect of it. No sir. But we proposed a,
we, we proposed this where that anything over 60 that you start making
decisions right on maybe, maybe the next beach improvement
project past islanders from a resilience standpoint, a parking, a usability,
uh, an upkeep is fish hall beach park, right? There's, there's some opportunity there.
I would also say that dreesen is a very, uh, important, uh, opportunity as
well. So we don't just wanna move it up to a hundred and then have no dollars
to improve our assets where, where folks are visiting a da
got it. Act, everything. So, alright. Okay. On
the next one is, uh, hospitality tax and there's no change recommended
from the current $5 million minimum current policy. And the
last one we have is natural disasters fund. So now I can read this.
um, the minimum shall the, the, the
minimum required fund balance shall increase annually by the amount of assigned general
fund balance transferred above the 55% general fund
threshold. And by investment income earned within the fund, the natural
disasters fund shall have no maximum fund balance limitation. So
it will grow slowly over time based upon those two opportunities
for additional funding and, and a, a reminder, right? How did, how did we get here? It,
I believe it was 20 and it remained 20 for a long time. And town council
would ask me every year to do some assessment on what would it cost
if right, based upon inflation, based upon added so
and so, where it was 20, we moved it to 36 in
this year, just because of what dave is saying, um, it increased as
and policy at least to 39 7 45.
so again, a, a little bit, but we made that 20 million to 36 million
jump based upon our recommendation. And then the 36 million
current to 30 39, almost $40 million.
so if you look at the roll up of all of them under the current policy, we're at 91,000,003
70, the proposed minimum is gonna be 1 23 9 63.
and based upon what we're looking at for 27, it would go up
to 1 3 5 7 67. So if you look at our ending fund
balance of just under 235 million will be at 58%
reserved. Go ahead. Um, I think you need a title
change over that last column because it says
projected reserve fund balance, it's 6 30 20 27
and that's not, that's the project, that's the minimum
amount.
the, so we're starting at $254 million
in our fund balance. And then you talk about our
current reserve policy ties up
91 million, right? And that the proposed minimum
for is 124 million, and then you've got 136 million.
but it says that's the projected reserve fund balance.
that's the, the, the 1 35 divided by the 2 35, the
percentage that would be reserved, but the,
the third, but with the title, it makes it look like that's all the money that we have in total.
oh, that one. I was asking if that column header is the right terminology. Right.
what, what should it be? What what would you prefer? It should be the proposed minimum
balance policy as of 6 30 20 27.
okay. I don't want people to think that we we're
going from 254 million to 2027. We're
going to 136 million in our total fund
balance. Right. I think. Okay. So it's just a, it's
just a titling on the top. Okay.
all right. I do have a quick question. Pardon me. Um,
only because I had to try to make a motion on tuesday night because we had a revised,
uh, page on the reserve policy. Um, and I
think I'm looking at the one that I was looking at on the screen on um, tuesday
night. But just looking at those, uh, and comparing them,
and I apologize if, if, if what we have before us tonight is
what you showed on the screen tuesday night, then we're, we're good. But my only
question is, um, and maybe we take care of this at second reading, um,
is that there's some numbers that are different. Um, and, and
I would call out the ones I can quickly compare each preservation
fee. The last revision I saw was 40,000
proposed minimum balance policy, and this shows a little over 42 8.
um, the other number that's different is the natural disasters fund.
the last number I saw was 36,000 and this is 39,745
et cetera. Um, and then that changes the subtotal and the total.
um, so if, if these are the ones you wanna revise, then I guess, and
I, I know mr. Coltrane is sitting behind me, , um, then will
it be okay if we make the further amendment to this page at second
reading? Right. And that, as I understand your question, you're
asking if it's a material change because the town council already voted first reading, we
talked a lot about it or a little bit about it in terms of terminology, but then we
also saw some opportunity to calibrate based upon your expectations.
and so we moved the, a couple of those numbers upward.
it's, it's still, at the end of the day, the same amount of
dollars in the budget, just a different reserve policy. Is that
a material change to the budget? Especially because you've already had first reading,
I believe that is what you're getting to. Yes. And I'm looking at the total,
it's a little over $6 million, uh, almost $6.6 million difference
in the total down at the bottom. Um, ,
you know what I'm talking about? Maybe we don't have these, and I, I'll help curtis with this. We, we, the town council
in the past has adopted the reserve policy
as a policy, but attached as an attachment to
the ordinance. I think it was, it might be exhibit ei can't
remember, right? Yeah, it was page, it was page four exhibit, but
it was page four of exhibit e and we went through, um,
well actually spoke to, to mr. Burr about that a couple of times.
no, I don't think that what you are proposing to do by the,
uh, recalibration of the numbers on this amounts to a
material change between what you have adopted
on first reading and what will be adopted on second reading.
I mean the, the gross
numbers, if I understand mr. Orlando correctly, are actually not changing what
is changing. There's, uh, the internal calibration of how you get there.
okay, great. But we'll need to make sure that second reading has
these new numbers in front of us, okay? Mm-hmm . Thank you for clarity. You will have this,
but we also have, uh, what, what I would call the guiding policy document,
which isn't this, you, you've seen that and you've adopted it and it's part of your first reading
package that will be changed and that's what you're adopting as well.
so both will be changed. Would it make sense to have that changed
document for the next workshop? Because,
and if I understand it correctly, this is in fact still gonna be
page four of exhibit e. Okay,
then you, okay. As we were just talking a little bit about
beach, this is, um, what we are looking at
between now and 2033 with our revenue streams
for the beach preservation fee and investment income, less our
operating expenses, our transfer to the general fund, cip,
which we have highlighted. 'cause uh, that's still could be
modified as we go through the time. And then our debt service, which, uh, the
last payment of that will be in 2033. So there'll be three more million additional
dollars after that, but it gets us to a very strong fund balance
position of over a hundred million dollars by 2033. We have
a step up of what that projected reserve, that's what I was trying to say before to get to 60.
um, it could go higher than that, but that was just the minimum with other dollars available
as needed based upon direction for any other capital projects.
yeah, because one of the reasons why we
move up to that much is that you don't have any capital projects associated,
uh, with this. You have our regular maintenance
and support that we provide, but uh, there's no
large projects associated in here, so it
does provide an opportunity to your point, right? Yes, ma'am.
right. We, we just projected low of 470 of 1.9
of four 70 and, and I can't see the screen, but I believe it's up, up close
to $2 million over there. So to your point, there's a little bit of money, but most
of that would be maintenance, not, uh, a major lift. Like
we're looking at islanders beach park
and this is just, uh, the rollup at the end.
that, that concludes our, our presentation. Okay. Awesome.
any, uh, last comments, questions from council?
all right, well, seeing none, um, ms. Becker, do
you have any comments?
no, I'm good. I finally got back on and was able to, and I'll
go back and watch the portion of the meeting that I missed. So I'm good for now,
but I'll have questions. Okay. Alright. Thank you.
so, uh, kim, do we have anybody sign up to speak?
we have two people. Okay. Timer up. Um,
skip poland.
he, he actually, we've got, they're, they're both signed up for
the budget and non agenda items.
well, this is, this is on the, the, uh, the agenda items. I'm sorry,
I don't, this is on the agenda item and then we'll do a clock. I, I'll
just hit my clock. I'll do my clock. Give us just a second, just
just one moment. Okay, go ahead.
okay. Alan, do you understand all this?
and please don't interrupt me again. I'm here today because the taxpayers of
this town are not getting answers and that needs to change. Let's get straight
to it. Court and city doge audits are coming.
who gave the legal opinion that a tax funds can be used the way they are? Name the lawyers
produce a written opinion or admit it doesn't exist. Who told
this council it was legal to spend taxpayers money on 600,000 or dr. Harbortown
500,000 for heritage golf sponsorship. Millions of the chamber
of commerce and taxpayer funded legal fees for private lawsuits by
lawyer alfred and terry finger's criminal dmo contract.
because if there's no valid legal opinion, there are no mistakes. These
are just knowing violations. While we're multi, multi-year
multimillion dollar dmo chamber contracts have proved that violate 5 0 1
dash c six tax laws, south carolina, a tax code south carolina
constitutional law that prohibits the use of public money for private benefit
and profits. Why is a tax funded chamber and other non-profits
operating like private businesses, selling ads, no business business license
generating revenue, committing tax evasion, and refusing to disclose where
the money goes? Where are the full financial reports? Where are the profit reports?
where's the transparency required by law? Why do town officials
use taxpayer money to join the chamber, attend the chamber ball party? There's
a direct conflict of interest. Public funds should not be used for private memberships.
why are the foer requests violated, denied and incomplete? Transparency is
not optional. It's a law. Why are town lawyers drafting approving
illegal contracts that benefit private entities? Why taxpayers pay for
it? Who was overseeing them? Why are the legal fees outta control
lawyer malpractice and criminal contract fraud by coltrane? Who should
be sued? This is simple to stop. Follow the
money, show the documents, name the people responsible. If you cannot do
that, then you're not governing your protecting. A system is broken. I'm calling
for immediate action. Full public disclosure of all financial records, all legal
opinions released to the public independent cpa, uh,
uh, city doge audits and budgets and year end year-end audits,
a complete review of a tax and dmo contracts and lawyers law laws,
the taxpayers are watching and this is not going away. Last perry,
you said you saw millions of tax receipts and invoices with the chamber and bill miles, including
canada. Where are they? This is criminal fraud. Alex brown
must be removed from finance committee and replaced by cpa. How
will you all respond under oath? In your deposition of risk of perjury?
sue coltrane and replace him with a free ai lawyer robot
to sit in his seat. That's free and honest. No one escapes
forensic audits by the fbi and many are handcuffed and y'all need to prepare for this episode.
thank you very much, mr. Busy.
good evening, richard. Busy indigo run. I want to begin today where I left off
on tuesday, uh, before the mayor abruptly cut me off. I
had clearly stated that I had one final comment, but the mayor chose to bang his gavel
and order me to sit down. What I was trying to say was this, while
it's commendable that the proposed budget does not increase the millage rate, that's
only half the equation. I heard what ms. Tanner said. But
if the millage rate remains at 19.4 and your
property capped value increases, your taxes would increase.
and keep in mind the next assessment, which I believe is two years down the road,
uh, your taxes would increase by as much as 15% with no
mill rate increase. The goal of the town council
should be to decrease taxes. Remember in 1983, we were
set up as a limited government. A statement from
tuesday's meeting, uh, got my attention. Alex brown talked about
how the budget process had changed and he proudly stated that there's
no more horse trading at the dais. But perhaps that's because
this town council conducts business behind closed doors through what
I believe are illegal. Two by two meetings, the town manager
and the mayor meet privately with two council members at a time to discuss the
budget, followed by additional meetings with different council members. These
rolling quorums are designed to avoid public scrutiny.
I know that these secret backdoor meetings, they've been going on for years and in
fact, my rep tammy becker, believes they're legal and anyone who
questions them is just plain wrong. In fact, she's openly participated
in these secret meetings as all of you have, becker believes
they're normal, and that way you can advocate for the things you want and fight
things you don't agree with. But all of this takes place in private, out of
the public view. So while some believe horse trading of the past
is ended, I suspect it has simply moved behind closed doors.
and many of you have praised the budget process as transparent.
I believe the opposite is true. All of the questions I raised tuesday
night, that to me, one of the most important remains unanswered.
does the town used zero based budgeting or does it simply
add to the previous year's budget? I've sent all my questions to mr. Orlando
and the town council tuesday night as I promised, but no responses so far.
and the issue of government is spending at the federal level, the state level,
and the town level. This town council should explore any
and all ways to decrease spending. Thank you.
thank you, kim. That's all we have on the budget. Okay,
so now we move on to non agenda items. Mr. Hoagland,
uh, skip hoagland, windmill harbor, running for honest watchdog mayor for
all taxpayers. The town lawyers for the last 40 years has severely
violated our community. They have committed criminal dmo contract fraud and malpractice
approved the illegal use of millions of tax funds like the 600,000 to dredge harbor town
and worse criminal used tax funds for their private pockets and clients. They also
use a job to profit their private practices and lawyer friends. The town
has violated procurement laws for the last 40 years. No opportunity for local lawyers
who pay taxes here and allowing the same corrupt lawyers to control our legal
services with our compromised town managers, internal cpas
and outside audit firms. Also, legal fees buried in the public
view in our budgets as as as mayor with a city doge.
all legal services and contracts will be reviewed by independent local volunteer
cpas serving on the city doge finance committee. And this will end all the
legal abuse. No more illegal contracts, no more malpractice
and no more illegal funding by the lawyers of this town council abusing
taxpayers. You serve ms. Becker. Mr. Perry, you understand this.
please stop your illegal votes. New lawyer you choose.
must be foremost honest. Take a town oath to follow all laws including state
and federal that prevail over local, especially when outside lawyers present
hard evidence to stop the new hired lawyer using this town job to profit
his private practice and his law per partners and friends, we need to hire a young
in-house lawyer, paid an ai recommended salary. This needs to
be a hilton head resident lawyer that has his community best interest in mind
and pays taxes here with ai. Legal answers, legal fees will be
reduced. I don't even use lawyers that much myself. 90%
of the time I use ai. So we all have to, we so we will have
an honest ai robot lawyer sitting in curtis coltrane's chair
that will answer every legal question this counsel wants to know for free
soon. Ai will eliminate both lawyers needs for judges, juries, and
decide most cases in a few minutes based on laws and facts, not emotions,
assumptions or failed weaponized legal, judicial, and political system.
curtis coltrane should be sued for his legal advice and his malpractice insurance
company paid the 600,000, the overcharged legal fees and ex
and explained these in the island packets explained these in the island packet
provided. This includes lawyer albert and, uh, coltrane's firm law partner
who robbed this community blind of 200,000 and fraud. Terry fingers'
firm, uh, drafted the illegal dmo contract. He is
corrupt and he is not qualified to apply to be the new town lawyer. If you do it,
I'm gonna get on you hard, harder than you've ever seen. Stop the corruption.
stop it, richard. Fizzy.
that's all we have. Alright, thank you. So we are adjourned.
thanks for everybody being here tonight.
thanks for watching bc tv.
I am memory campbell and this is beauford county moments. I want
to talk a little bit about food today. The food
has been a great part of our life in terms of gathering
food and preparing them. Our food is
based on the land and the sea. The land food
has always been rice. We don't feel we have eaten dinner unless we've
had rice. Rice was mixed with
various items from the sea, like oysters or shrimp.
and when they're cooked with rice in one pot, we call it a rice or
shrimp or an oyster perlow. And then we have
the watermelons and the sweet potatoes. Sweet
potatoes was always eaten with fish and fresh
fish with gravy and a sweet potato. There is nothing better.
okra has always been a very important part of our food ways.
we, we, we raise them as well as we prepare them
with shrimp and tomatoes. And some people would call that
a gumbo. And that's what exactly what it is. Okra,
gumbo. And so
enjoy the food of the low country because it's been
very much a part of our history. This is emery
campbell. This has been your beaufort county moment.
to see more beaufort county moments go to the beaufort county library homepage and click
on the local history tab.