[0:05] Budget hearings started. It is Tuesday, September 15th, 2026, 5:15 p.m.. Georgia.
[0:15] Can we get a roll call? S2:
[0:16] Mayor Brooke here late because of trial, but I'm here by Zoom for the moment.
[0:22] Thank you.
[0:23] Commissioner Sarah present via Zoom.
[0:27] Commissioner Simmons.
[0:29] Here.
[0:30] Commissioner McCue here. City manager Givens here. City attorney Hearn here. Thank you.
[0:35] All right. If we could stand for a moment of silence, if you are able.
[1:00] All right. I'll ask City Manager Gibbons to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
[1:05] Thank you. I pledge allegiance.
[1:07] To the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. There are no recognitions, proclamations, or presentations at this moment. We are now going to open the floor to public comment.
[1:31] Are there any signed up speakers? S2:
[1:38] Welcome, Gloria. Please make sure you state your name and address for the record.
[1:46] I have some handouts.
[1:49] Can I hand them out? S1:
[1:58] Good evening. My name is Gloria Guillo and I live at 106 75 North West 38th Street in Coral Springs. With rising energy, with rising energy costs and an unsustainable national debt, our country is rapidly headed from abundance to scarcity. It's concerning that Florida had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, and the first half of this year, with filings up 33% from last year. As homeowners, we are asking our elected officials to do more with less and avoid costly mega projects like the $100 million Sportsplex. Fortunately, it is now on hold until after the vote on amendment three. Maybe you don't know this, but Coral Springs had the highest millage rate increase against the lowest population growth in the state over the last ten years. Without population growth, there is little need to expand infrastructure. Only replacement and upgrades are necessary. So ideally the millage rate should have been rolled back or stayed flat. Unlike other cities, that did not happen, combined with electricity, insurance, inflation, and our high water and sewage rate, the tax increase has squeezed homeowners, especially young families and seniors, on fixed incomes. Yet Coral Springs budget documents contain no cost cutting metrics, no headcount reductions, no hiring or salary freeze, and no department restructuring that streamlines the provision of services. Fiscal control measures should be reported. Value engineering should be required on all projects with savings documented. The city should perform a zero based budgeting exercise and publish the results. Let's not just add inflationary increases to departmental budgets. Let's search for waste and remove it. Let's track and report cost cutting as a good thing. We cannot do that if fiscal control is not even one of the city's stated objectives. As homeowners, we propose this language be added to our city goals. And if you take a look at the chart, there's a new one added, and that would be that Coral Springs government is a fiscally restrained, effective and efficient organization that delivers premier services at the lowest sustainable cost to taxpayers. Then savings could be tracked, measured and reported. I'm voting yes on amendment three. I support seniors and young families keeping their homes safe from closure, and I wholeheartedly support the reelection of our mayor, Scott Brooke, who is kindly considering our conservative advocacy on behalf of homeowners and taxpayers. Thank you for listening.
[4:39] Thank you so much, George.
[4:43] Are there any other public commenters? S2:
[4:45] All right. Public comment. Well, is there anyone else in the public that wishes to speak? All right. Well, at this moment, public comment is closed. We are now on to our budget presentation. Eliana, you have the floor.
[4:59] Thank you. Good evening. We are here for our first public budget hearing.
[5:09] Speaking of our strategic goals, our vision here is to be the premier community in which to live, work and raise a family. We use that to guide the five strategic goals that we have had since 2022, that we revisited them and have cleaned them up, and this has been our vision and our strategic goals.
[5:30] When we started the fiscal year 2027 budget, it was back in January. There was a lot of information you can see from here. We have from I know it's fuzzy. In February we had strategic planning. Getting ready for strategic planning started in January. So this has been a nine month process. Today is not the first day that we have started on the budget. It's been a very long process to get here. Part of that process is that we are listening city. We listen. We listen through many avenues. And from that listening, we're also learning from these two areas. We are able to take in a lot of information. And from all of those different sources, is how we are bringing information to our commission and then going through the strategic planning process to say, what? Where do we want our city to go? Part of that, our surveys, one of the surveys is through our community, which is our residents. Our residents have responded 91% that responded to the survey that they are satisfied with their life here in Coral Springs, and the rationale for why they are satisfied with life here in Coral Springs is the attractive neighborhoods and affordable housing, the quality education, their feeling of safety, which, as you can see down at the bottom, is a 95% 95% of the respondents have said that they are. Um. I can't read that. I'm so sorry. 95% of residents feel the city is a safe place to live. That's of all the respondents. There's a feeling of safety here and of course, recreational opportunities. We have 49 parks here in the city. That is a big driver for why residents are happy to live here. The other community that we ask our survey to is our business community. We ask them, why are you investing your money here in the city of Coral Springs? 95% of our businesses surveyed are satisfied with the city's customer service. And that's coming in through a feeling of safety. Through the low crime rate, 92% of the businesses are satisfied with their overall feeling of safety here. And that speaks volumes to the public safety that we have here in the city. It's a premier service. The attitude of local government towards businesses, the level of taxation and the overall image of the city. These are reasons why businesses are investing their money here in the city. Again, we are a business friendly community. We're not just asking our residents. We also speak to our business community. And also you can see that we've been investing into those businesses as they invest into their city. When we started the facade grant back in 2021, since then, we have invested $730,000 to the businesses, and that's to help them with their facades and other of the areas of that matching grant. And it is a matching grant. So if if they put up up to $50,000, if they put $10,000, they get ten. If they put 100,000, they still only get 50. But what they have reinvested right back into the city of Coral Springs is $12.6 million. That's come right back into the city. And the value and the feeling of safety and the look and the esthetics and all of that, that residents say that they are very happy with this, the city with.
[8:57] So I mentioned strategic planning. Strategic planning was in February during strategic planning, we met with the commission and you said, continue with the plan. And that is what fiscal year 27 is doing. It is continuing with the plan. As a reminder, we are in year two of visioning. Fiscal year 27 begins year three of visioning. We are moving more towards our mid-term and our long term goals that we we put into the plan. And these are the seven areas that the visioning identified as our focus areas. Vision in motion. That is where we are now. A vision is in motion. Last year we were a vision to action. We are now in motion. The good majority of our short term strategic plan items have been completed and we are moving on to those. Like I said, the mid-term and the long term, this fiscal budget, fiscal year 27 is focusing on our workforce. The city vision, continuing the plan and capital infrastructure.
[10:01] So just to highlight, excuse me, just to highlight for fiscal year 26, some of the great things that have been accomplished from everyone here in the city is we have had the walk and roll to school, our public safety, again, a premier public safety. We had a town hall for bikes and scooters. That is a growing trend nationwide, not just in South Florida. We had a town hall surrounding that, our K-9 facility. We had a ribbon cutting, and that was an Arpa funded project where we were able to utilize other sources to get a facility that the city needed. We've put investments into the real time crime center through state appropriations that we were able to get, which is, again, not not property tax dollars. And these are other alternate revenue sources that we have. Um, our wonderful fire department was recognized by the Florida Fire Marshals and Inspectors Association for our out for an outstanding event for our Water safety day. That's a great accomplishment. And then our fire department also is the top 10% in their Rosc rate, um, which is their return of spontaneous circulation. This is a wonderful acknowledgment for our premier public safety fire department.
[11:19] We have community building. During the fiscal year 26 budget, we were able to do two meet year municipal government events. We had nine youth ambassadors attend um NLC conference. We've done let's move with the mayor, which turned into let's move with your commissioners. We had five of those events this year, and then our high end concert series that we were able to expand on the enhance the 4th of July. and then we were able to add the patriotic concert and a Cinco de Mayo concert. Again, all from visioning where the residents and the respondents of the survey said, this is where we want our city to go in our parks. We've made a lot of investments this year. We have in the Mullins. I believe it's the Mullins Park, the four fields. We have the new turf fields for our baseball fields, turtle run, playground updates. Um, we enhanced the flag football that we started last year. So this year we've enhanced it. We don't just start something, we keep it moving. We keep it Premier. And then Kiwanis that came online again, another Arpa funded project that we were able to utilize those federal dollars to bring something online that is now going to benefit teens and seniors and anyone who wishes to visit the facility.
[12:39] As I mentioned earlier, we didn't just start the budget. This has been nine months in the making. Our budget documents are available year round on Coral springs.gov/budget. Our strategic plans are there. Our business plans are there. Our strategic plan was adopted in May and has been visible since then. Our business plan was adopted back in July and has been visible since then as well. This has been open and visible to our residents. Transparency is key for us and we have this available for anyone who wishes to to view it and then ask us questions regarding it. We held our normal budget and bruise that we normally do. We had our budget academy. It was virtual for those who might not be able to attend. We also recorded it and made it available online. We have dashboard for our metrics. There's a ton of information.
[13:28] We also had a property tax public forum on August 25th, and we have another one coming up on October 8th. That is in regards to the amendment three. That is on the November election.
[13:48] We've talked about where fiscal year 26 has gone, how we've kind of started looking at 27. Where is 26 going to end? Right now, the city is in a very good fiscal position. We are looking at a small surplus in our general fund, which.
[14:07] The next slide we'll talk about it. And then our other funds are looking very healthy as well. We don't foresee that any of them will have any deficits and they're doing well. So if there is a surplus it will roll into the fund balance. And then on our general fund we will abide by our financial policy. Any surplus will first go to funding our stabilization. And our policy is to have between 17 and 25% of our operating expenses. And right now we are sitting at 20% and we'd like to stay at the 20%. This also helps us with our credit rating with those who hold debt for us. And then if there is any funds left after we put the money into our fund balance, they go to our replacement plans. And we do have three. We have a computer replacement plan. We have a facility replacement plan and a replacement plan. This allows us to budget for things that maybe are unforeseen. We didn't know that it would need to come up due a little bit earlier. And this allows us to not have to take out debt. And they are one time dollars. So once they are utilized, we have to rebuild them. So they cannot be used for ongoing or recurring projects.
[15:20] This year, fiscal year 27 is the last year that we will have two voted debt bonds. Next year it will be down to one. So our voted debt will decrease next year. You can see that by 2040, the debt that the city holds is reducing substantially.
[15:39] We were recently reaffirmed with our SMP and Fitch Triple A rating. We are one of only 14 cities in Florida for one of. Only four in Broward for SMP. We are one of only 11 in Florida and the only city in Broward who is Fitch triple A rated. And again, that's only if the city has debt. But for those that do, this is where we rank. This is the highest rating that you can have, and it indicates that you are a low risk. And we receive a really low rate when we do have to take out debt. And myself and Kim. Thank you, Kim, for having a wonderful relationship between my department and yours. We we really are transparent between the two of us in the budget department. We go out for the Gfoa Distinguished Budget Award, and we have received it consecutively for 35 years. In Kim's department, they published their annual comprehensive financial report, and they submit that for a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial reporting for six consecutive years receiving that award. That is transparency in reporting, and that is what those two indicate.
[16:54] Fiscal year 27 is being guided by many different things. It's our strategic plan, our business plan, but it's also external things that are happening to the city, the state nationally. So state legislature, as we know, there is an amendment out there that could affect us, that will affect us there, the future grant funding. When this fiscal year started, the federal government shut down. So that affected us when we were trying to draw down funds and the possibility that maybe they would not be available as we intended or expected until they opened, or maybe when they the government reopened, that they would make changes. Those are things that we monitor. We pay attention and just be ready to pivot if we have to. We are seeing a slowing in the real estate market. I'll talk about that a little bit more when I get to a slide with our total taxable assessed value. And then of course, there's things that we see just some growth over time. And we're hoping that we see that they change. But things, um, you know, inflation, rising costs, things of that nature.
[18:06] As I mentioned, on the total taxable assessed value, we're seeing the slowdown. I know the numbers are a little hard to read because they're fuzzy. But this year our increase over the prior year was 4.4%.
[18:22] The prior year it was 6%. The two priors, they were the highest years before that, we were averaging six five around that area. Those were the historical averages for a decade. So now we're seeing this 4.4% increase. We're going back to fiscal year 14. So 12 plus years ago of a slowdown. And that's where we're kind of monitoring in our five year forecast. We project a 4% growth and that's us being conservative. And that is why we stay down at the 4% and not increase it on over the years, even though it's been higher than 4% historically for over ten years now.
[19:09] Other areas that we are monitoring are our state revenues. The state provides us estimates that they send funds to us based on our population and other different, um, reasons. The municipal revenue share. This year we saw a decrease over the prior year. The estimate came in lower than the the amount from the prior year half cent sales tax. Also we saw a decrease. This one was one of the larger decreases that we saw this year. We were able to to cover it though it was over $1 million decrease. Sorry, it was just under $1 million decrease. But we were able to to capture that within fiscal year 27 without affecting services that the residents are expecting. Um, in our top eight revenues, you can see in fiscal year 20 that the revenues did this high increase and they were climbing very fast. We we watched them the whole time and tried to stay ahead of it without increasing ourselves to a point that we were expecting those revenues to stay that high forever. And I think we did a pretty good job until half cent came and kind of changed that. So we are monitoring these and trying to to be aware and stay as conservative as possible.
[20:27] But that affects, of course, is our top eight revenues typically is about 25% because of that drop in the half cent, now it's 24%. AD valorem taxes are 48% of the the total revenues that come into the city charges for services, user fees. This is what our residents, when they are using a very specific, um, like in the parks, a facility, pavilion rental or a field rental, things of that nature and then others, just other miscellaneous dollars that don't fit into those, those buckets.
[21:03] The money goes to all of these areas that are listed. Our police department, our EMS, so fire and EMS are split the fire, the fire services are in the fire fund, but the emergency medical services are rescue. Those are in the general fund. Those two together make up the the almost half of the pie that we're shown here. And then we have our public works, which is streets and infrastructure parks, so on and so forth, and everything that supports the city.
[21:37] Our five year forecast. Very proud of this one. When we went into budget meetings this year with all of the Budget director, sorry, with all of the department directors, um, we had wonderful conversations. And then the city manager tasked us with, let's balance two fiscal years. And we looked at everything and we balanced not just fiscal year 27, which started the year with a deficit. And there is no millage rate increase on this. So we balanced it without a millage rate increase. We look to all our line items, we looked through everything and we said, how can we balance this year without affecting services? But what we also did was take out the millage rate increase that was programed for fiscal year 28 and balanced that year as well. There was a lot that we did to make sure that we could continue to provide the premier services that this city is known for and balanced two fiscal years. We have also moved out those millage rate increases to fiscal year 29 and 31. And just as a reminder, there were two programed millage rate increases for fiscal year 24 and 26 that we did not go through, um, go through with in the, in the past fiscal years. So we did not go forward with those.
[22:55] And just very quickly on this slide, it shows where the increases are based on the departments. The expenditures is about a 4.3% increase. Then we added in some initiatives that we were able to accomplish. There will be some dollars in some later slides. Um, which took the increase overall for the general fund 5.3% over the prior year.
[23:22] Our strategic plan by cost $698,000 for initiatives that we programed into this budget, Um. Taking care of the five different strategic goals. Those things are the ability to continue making enhancements in esthetics. So in esthetics, we are not just utilizing property tax dollars. We're also utilizing the tree, the tree trust fund. Those are funds that come in from permits for the trees. And those are being utilized to help repair medians and other areas where the tree trust allows us to utilize the dollars. We also have Cdbg funding, which is grant funding, to help us accomplish even more of the esthetics that we are looking to continue enhancing the city. We've also put in, um, uh, traffic management and other areas like that to enhance esthetics in economic development. We've put a big portion of our investment into economic development by providing, Um, the funds to do a business community engagement platform, workforce development training and an entrepreneurship program. So our Office of Economic Development will be working on those in fiscal year 27. Public safety. We are always investing in public safety. This year is no exception. Um, we've put money again utilizing alternate sources to our fire academy to help them become an even more premier facility here in Coral Springs. We've also put an investment into our real time crime center. So the state gave us money. And now we are also investing money into the real time crime center. Last but not least, our parks, we've definitely made some big investments in our parks. We've utilized a lot of alternate funding sources to help us with our parks facilities, without putting that into what is in the ad valorem property tax portion. We are for this fiscal year 27, putting more Cypress Park softball field upgrades. We are putting more Marlins Park enhancements, fencing, solar path lights. We have a city mobility advancement program that's surtax that is also helping fund that. Um, and then we've added, um, in our line items, we've increased our special events to help continue to make those events. Premier.
[25:57] The staff that we are recommending in this proposed budget is 12 firefighter paramedics. This continues the collective bargaining agreement that was adopted last year and one part time to full time executive assistant in the fire department. Those are the 13 positions that we are recommending this year. Our total full time employees in the city of Coral Springs is 952. We do contract with two other cities, the city of Coconut Creek and the City of Parkland. Between them, there are 65 contracted positions, and we do have two other. That we do pay the police pension board where they have positions with us.
[26:43] As a city staff comparison, productivity. This is based on our budgeted full time employees to our, um to our population. So this is per thousand residents. The the sorry the trend is 10.76 on the um the green line. We are at 6.87. So we are under the trend. We are, we are doing more with less. And we're comparing ourselves to some similarly sized cities that hopefully, um, sorry that are um, full service, but the ones that are not a full service city, meaning they do not have their own police department or fire department are indicated in gray and purple. The gray is. They don't have their own. I can't read it. The purple is BSO contracted and the gray is that they don't have their own. But we are. This shows employee productivity. Again, we are doing more with less.
[27:45] And our grants, our small little grants team appreciate everything that they do. Um, they work hand in hand with a lot of people in the city, um, that help support them to write the grants, but we also have our intergovernmental affairs manager who helps with appropriations, um, Cdbg in, um, in the development services office. There's, there's a lot of pieces to this. Last year we were just under $7 million awarded and I've blinked. We made five. We were awarded $5 million. That $5 million came in through exploring $158 million of opportunities, applying for 24.5 million. Um, and then we still have 99.5 million out there that may be awarded up through September 30th or later. Um, and then our federal, um, federal funding request this year was very high. We received a lot of good money this year to help us. We received $1.8 million that helped with the water plant. Um, and the, the $800,000 was for the Everglades, um, to continue the Everglades outlook.
[29:07] We are also here tonight to talk through our. Good evening. No problem. Good evening mayor. Thank you. Um, to talk through our non-ad valorem assessments. So we are bringing forward our fire assessment. We're comparing with neighboring cities and similar size that are all ISO class one. So these are similar city similar fire departments to ours, meaning that they have the same classification of ISO class one high, the highest level. And it does help our residents to have lower insurance premiums when your fire department is rated ISO class one. So we are the fourth from the bottom here. Um, on the, the assessment that we are charging to the, to a residential properties and the service that they are receiving for that assessment is, um, a very high level fire department, as I mentioned earlier on their awards, these are the total number of calls that they are receiving. And they have a very, um, short response time, five minutes and 11 seconds. You call in within five minutes and 11 seconds. On average, you are getting response for EMS or Fire.
[30:31] The proposal that we're bringing forward is our residential rate is increasing $16.74 from 318 to 3 2492. Our commercial is increasing from 4327 to 4562, industrial from 585 to 617. And the institutional is 5892 to 6212. We did have our um every five years we do a fire assessment study and it was recently completed in 2025. We knew that the collective bargaining agreement was going on while we were doing the study. So we were able to tell them, here's where we are moving in the next five years. And they said that study says that the assessment rate could go up to 45823 that is what is allowable. We don't move that high. We look at what do we need in that fiscal year to do what we need to do and still be a premier city, and we are moving that to 32492. We do not need to move to 458, but that is where we could.
[31:32] Comparing on our solid waste assessment. These are comparable sized cities by population and some neighboring cities.
[31:41] We are moving to 464 from 434. What I will say very quickly going back to this slide is this slide doesn't say the services that that assessment is receiving for what our residents are receiving is a green card twice a week. There are blue recycling once a week. Bulk trash once a week. We also have the waste transfer station that is available, and the waste transfer station allows for additional bulk and yard waste during their normal hours. And we also incorporated composting for those who enjoy composting and the compost does pay back out to those who participate with compost twice a year, just showing the increases in where it's occurring. It is the contractual increase with coastal, some increases to other areas, and I'm going to talk about it in a moment after I get through stormwater. The tax collector, which did increase the cost of what we have to collect to be able to still have the funds that come in for us to complete what we have been doing historically. Operationally, we are offsetting $20 of the increase with fund balance. So this should have increased to 484. But we are using fund balance to help decrease the overall increase to our residents.
[33:13] And our last Non-ad valorem assessment that we're bringing forward tonight for adoption is our stormwater assessment. We are shown here with other cities that have stormwater assessment. Again, this doesn't show what their stormwater is taking care of, what phase they are. Maybe they just enacted it, or maybe they're not in a heavy construction. Maybe there's a lot of different things. This is just showing the comparison of our city's rate to other cities rates. So what has the stormwater fund done since its adoption back in 2020? In 22, there was the Commerce Park drainage in 20 and the Meadows and Dells in 23. Meadows and Dells continued. Um Westchester started in 23 and 24. We just kept continuing and building on all these different capital projects, heavy capital projects through the stormwater. And now, in fiscal year 25, the master plan design was completed. And using that is how we will move forward with the stormwater assessment on the tax collector that I mentioned earlier during solid waste, we are now in 2024. The voters were asked if they wanted the tax collector to be an elected position, and the voters said yes. That came with a cost, and the cost is that the tax collector, statutorily can collect 2% off of what the what she or he. It's a she right now collects from each entity off of their non-ad valorem. So to do that, we've we've historically had a discount that we know our residents receive if they pay their taxes early. We've now had to increase it from the 4% to the 6%, because there's the discount plus what the tax collector is collecting. And this allows us to stay in the premier operational services that we have been providing to our residents.
[35:17] On this slide, I just want to point out the pink area is the City of Coral Springs Water District. There are four water districts listed here. They are color coded. I am only speaking to the pink district. This is about 65,000 residents in this area. The our water and sewer fund, our water facility will be undergoing a very large project. Um, it's a very, um, intensive large project that we've had studies completed. And the study said that we had to increase our water, um, our water rates 29.5% to be able to, to manage paying for that facility in the future years. So we're continuing that. It's an average of about 14.1 of a weighted average increase. Um, an average resident will see about 1288 per month, give or take, depending on their water usage. to to facilitate this increase.
[36:20] Our budget for the museum continues. We did not increase the. The general fund subsidy. The museum is starting to support itself a little bit better. Tree trust. I mentioned the tree trust earlier. This is funds that departments request and that is what we bring forward. The projects that we are doing this year is University Drive Landscaping, about $280,000, median repairs, $20,000. And then last year we had university drive landscaping improvements and a tree subsidy program that we did not get to utilize all the dollars. So we are bringing them forward for fiscal year 27 and our public art fund. This is not property tax funded. This is funded through permitting in the permitting process when we have new construction and renovations of existing construction. Of existing structures that they are subject to the public Art ordinance. Section 606. Those. Those dollars collected are the dollars utilized for public art. So for fiscal year 27, we're doing the 30th anniversary of the museum, an art mural, the 250th anniversary of the United States in Veterans Park. And then an opportunity for projects and maintenance of the existing art that we have.
[37:45] I talked through quite a few of our our funds. When you look at the net budget, because some funds flow between each of the funds, so we don't double count them. Our net budget is 30 $327.2 million. There are 13 funds through that money. Um, and that is being supported by 1019 employees. The general fund is 40% of the net budget, $147 million. Our special funds enterprise funds are 49% of the net budget, or $180 million, and our capital funds are making up $38.9 million this year. We have some big projects, good investment into the city.
[38:30] Our city is predominantly residential. This is showing that we are just under 80% residential properties and just under 15% business with the other categories within the industrial and other other areas. What does that mean for the city as a whole? There's 41,525 parcels in the city. Of those parcels, 38,363 are residential. Of those 38,000 residential properties, 25,821 have a homestead exemption. That homestead exemption equals 67% of the residential properties. That is a bedroom community, that is people who have made Coral Springs home and they have stayed here and they have not left, which we can show by this showing the last five years of our percent of homes homesteaded is very stable. It doesn't fluctuate, doesn't go up and down. It's people come here, they buy, they stay.
[39:35] Our operating millage rate is unchanged from the prior year and has remained unchanged since fiscal year 22. 6.0232. That is us compared to the other cities in Broward County. As I mentioned, fiscal year 22 was um it's been unchanged since fiscal year 22. That was the year that we brought it up 0.15. Um, and then you can see on the bottom bottom, the yellow is our voted debt that has been steadily decreasing every year since 2016. Next year, we'll drop by just about half on the voted debt for the the bond that comes off next year.
[40:18] If you were to pick up your home and take it anywhere in Broward, again, this doesn't account for services you receive that your home might be worth more or less in a different area. This is just the value and what the assessments and the millage rate is in these other cities.
[40:42] What would you pay? Where would you pay more? Where would you pay less? S7:
[40:58] Our homesteaded residents would save. Our homes were capped at 2.7% increase on their assessed value. That's their taxable assessed value. And then for them, they are seeing about a $56 increase on their ad valorem. The voted debt is going to see a decrease because we have not taken on new debt. And so that decreases every year. The fire assessment, as I spoke earlier, is 1670 for stormwater for 35, solid waste 30. So we're looking at about $106 annualized on this average, $360,000 taxable home. It equals about 886 a day increase. For everything that I've spoken about, the services and everything, um, provided in the fiscal year 27 budget, when you look at your property tax bill, let's break it down a little bit more because the total tax bill, looking again at that $360,000 average value home the total the total tax bill on that house would be $8,706. But that's also accounting for Broward County Public Schools, the county and four other taxing authorities. And if you're in CS, D or D, they have a different, um, non-ad valorem assessment that's accounted for. So the City of Coral Springs portion of that 800, $8,706 that you're paying 3167 is what comes into the city. And that includes the Non-ad valorem. What do you get for that $8.67 a day? You're getting a premier police and fire EMS department and the services that they provide. That's maintenance of our roads and drainage. Recreation services for seniors, teens, all ages. Maintenance of our 49 parks, city sponsored events, and all the other items that are listed. All of that is what those property taxes are paying for. And as a reminder, I have one more time with. Commissioner Simmons. Mayor, absolutely. This is just a good reminder that that tax bill is large. Yes. The funds that come into the city are just a portion just about under 30%. 29.8%. If you're looking at that $360,000 taxable value, again, depending on what your taxable value is, this number changes, but we're looking specifically at that 360 marker 29.8%. Another way to look at it is for every dollar of ad valorem property taxes you are paying, you're paying about $0.34 to the school board. About $0.29 are coming here to the city of Coral Springs. You're paying $0.27. That goes to Broward County, and another $0.10 that goes to the four smaller special districts that are also levying taxes on the ad valorem.
[44:00] Tonight, the.
[44:04] The millage rate that we are bringing forward is 6.0232. It is unchanged from last year. State law is that any millage above the rolled back rate must be advertised as a proposed tax increase. As we are going to collect $4.07 $4.07 million more than we did the prior year, and that is why we have to advertise such. If we were to go to the rolled back rate of 5.
[44:34] 7487, S7:
[44:52] Any questions?
[44:55] I'll go left to right, Commissioner.
[44:59] Thank you for you and your team for putting on such a detailed presentation. Um, a lot of positive things I'd like to hear. I like that we use in federal dollars and grants to fund a lot of our projects. And obviously your team and as well as the grant team take a lot of time to write those grants. I love that we're applying for them, even if we don't get them. You don't know if you're not going to get it if you don't apply for them. Um, triple a rating. Awesome. Really great. Um, the only question I have is on the one slide where you, uh, where does the money go? You had 7% non-departmental. Give me an example of what non-departmental is non-departmental is.
[45:36] Um, we send money to the fire fund to cover the subsidized, um, uh, institutional, um, parcels that they, uh, churches, um, government agencies and things like that. Those, those, they don't pay into the fire assessment. So the general fund has to cover that. That's one portion of, I think it's close to 3 or $3.3 million. It is our $1.8 million property insurance. Um, things like that. And our contingency, we have financial policy that we have to have 0.5% of our operating expenses in a contingency. Um, so we meet that, that financial policy and that's, I believe 800 to $900,000. So those together is what makes up the non-departmental. There are things that are not associated with a specific department.
[46:33] Okay. And the only other thing I'd like to see, and you don't have to provide it to me today is a comparable city, um, which we, you know, I see Hollywood on there, Fort Lauderdale on there. What is their budget? I know we're worth 327 million. Are we close to them or are they, you know, like, like I said, I don't you need to tell me now, but I'd like to know if we're kind of equal or pretty close in similarities to that. Um, the one thing that I really like, we moved here in 1993, for several reasons, but one was parks, esthetics and public safety. And I love that we're continuing to strive to be the premier city to have all three of those. Obviously, our schools right now, we don't know what's going on with it. Um, but I just want to say thank you and I appreciate your time.
[47:14] Thank you.
[47:16] I can answer the question. Uh, when it comes to Hollywood's, Hollywood's budget is more, um. Thank you chief. You actually sent me a screenshot of this today. So it's, um, $436 million. So.
[47:29] Um, so chief, um, sent this actually over today, so $436 million is the city of Hollywood.
[47:40] Is there any questions or comments?
[47:51] You're on mute.
[48:03] Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, thank you for the presentation. Um, I've been able to sit through this a couple of times, especially going to the budget and brews conversations and seeing residents, very caring residents, show up for those events and ask questions about our budget and what we do when it comes to, as I am a board member on the MPO, and we often receive, uh, monies for projects and infrastructure projects from the MPO around transportation infrastructure, how do we factor that into our revenues when it comes to putting the budget together?
[48:39] So we, um, we put them into our capital, so we account for them in our capital. If you see the $38.9 million, it's probably our tax dollars that are in there. So that's not all just property tax or money that we are charging our residents. It is accounted for in that capital project because they are big, large projects.
[48:59] I would say maybe going forward, probably to have maybe that broken out just to kind of see, since that's a an entity that we are a part of, but it's, you know, it's something outside that we're receiving, you know, things in just so that residents can see all the different ways that we are receiving dollars to take care of things here in the city. Um, this commission has been very upfront about, you know, asking staff to lean on our federal lobbyists, our state lobbyists, finding different ways to bring in revenues to pay for things, especially infrastructure. And some of those major projects where we may, you know, if if it wasn't for those dollars, we'd have to go into debt or we'd have to do something else that would come at the cost of residents. I would love for us to at least be able to talk about that. Um, you know, going forward. But other than that, I don't have any additional questions.
[49:49] Can I, can I follow up on that? It's an excellent point. Um, because when we received $20 million of Arpa funds. Then when you're looking at the budget from 2020, because that's what we that's what we're hearing from the public. When you look at the the expenditure number from 2020 to 2026, 20 million of it is the fact that we receive government funding, and we had to be able to process it and then push it out. So $20 million wasn't the fact that the city, um, asked for more money. It was the fact that we received grant money. So grant money comes in with the MPO. Um, the fact that we are working with Broward County right now in surtax, we're looking at having 60 million being able to 40 million. Thank you Julie, being able to put that money into our roads. So some of that is very well pointed in the fact that we can call that out in our budget to say this amount isn't what our taxpayers are spending for the city of Coral Springs. Yes, it is taxpayer dollars because you're sending it over to possibly for Broward County, but we are truly investing it by grant funding in. So it's a very good point. Thank you.
[50:49] Great. Thanks for the acknowledgment for our commission.
[50:53] Uh, Commissioner Sarah, anything you wanted to share?
[50:58] Um. I'm good. Mr. Mayor.
[51:00] Great.
[51:01] As far as, um, Ileana and her team and Kim and her team, they've answered my questions through my briefing and over the last couple of months, so I have nothing new to add.
[51:12] Awesome. Awesome.
[51:13] Thank you so much. So I also want to thank you for your presentation. A lot of stamina to be there for that long. And of course you have a great team behind you. So I appreciate all of you. Thank you. Uh, so just a couple of things that I'd like you to highlight for us. Um, not necessarily questions, but more reiteration of some things that I think would be good for the community to understand.
[51:48] So one is, uh, the city staff comparison, uh, how do we look on page 38? Is that good? Is it great? Is it bad? S7:
[51:52] Uh, from from a financial perspective, it's great. We're doing more with less. We really are. Um, we're, we're managing to provide premier services with the, the productivity of that chart as it shows that it's under the baseline basically.
[52:10] So I did want to show the chart one more time. If somebody can pull it up again, it's page 38.
[52:18] As Eliana pulls that up, it truly is. We call it our productivity chart. And when she said it beautifully, it depends on who you ask. Because truly, sometimes staff is saying we need a little bit more help. We wish to be able to have more employees because the average is the fact that we should. If you look at what the average in another city or another agency would be, then it looks like we should be adding staff, adding more staff to where we are today. However, the existing staff, I do appreciate the way they approach their jobs and they're trying to be efficient. Yes, they realize that they have the work on their shoulders. But looking at this chart, you're looking at the fact that we are doing more with less. And if we're looking at what is industry standard, then at that point we absolutely would be hiring more people in the IT world. I'm looking at Stephen. He regularly tells us, you know, that he has gone out for studies to say we should be hiring possibly up to 30 more employees just in his department alone, 20 to 30 employees, based off of what our our city does. The fact that he does it with the team that he does is pretty much the same story in all the departments that we have.
[53:26] So I also wanted to share this, to say thank you to all the staff that worked so hard to be this productive for us to really be a premier community. We couldn't do it without your extra work, your heart, and your efficiency. So I wanted to highlight this for everybody. So thank you for that.
[53:45] Thank you. And can I just add one more thing in our budget, In our budget book, we also look at employee productivity from a FTE to the total budget. And if you look at that chart, it has been steadily declining as well. Meaning again, more with less. Yes.
[54:03] Mhm.
[54:04] Great. Uh, another thing is can you distinguish for everybody these different funds? You said we have 13 funds. That totals 327.2 million. Distinguish the major funds for us. So the first one you have is the general fund at 17147.4.
[54:25] And this is more for edification for our community.
[54:28] Correct. So that's the net budget. Mhm. Um, on the um the ordinance for our for our budget, there's what we're proposing, which there's dollars that are going to shift between, um, on the general fund. Um, I don't have the. Net budget, but the general fund is the $201 million fund. We have water and sewer, which is an enterprise fund. Fire is a special fund. The charter school is part of our funds. But that that is not our dollars. That's the dollars that come in from the state that we then let the charter school, um, do what they need to do. Uh, public art, as I mentioned, is from those dollars that come in and we only ever budgeted if we have projects we are going to do. Um, our debt service is, um, from that's a, basically a general operating. It's for debt. Then we have health and liability. That's an internal fund that is our ability to pay for our insurance for the city, property insurance, casualty, things of that nature and of course, health for our employees. We have an equipment services fund that funds all of the fleet, uh, true trust fund, which this year, um, is in at zero for operating because it is all capital. So you'll see it on the capital side. But again, that's from dollars very specific that are being received. Solid waste is another enterprise fund and stormwater another enterprise fund. And our museum is separate. They are 501 C three. And we're moving them to be self-supporting.
[56:05] Great.
[56:06] Those are the 13 funds that we talked about.
[56:09] Very good. And then the last thing I wanted to highlight, I believe it was page 39 is just the grant summary. Um, the FY 2025 total in the 2026 year to date.
[56:29] So are we receiving more grant funding these days than we have in the past? S7:
[56:30] Outside of Arpa.
[56:32] Outside of Arpa? Yes. Outside of Arpa. I believe that we've historically been about 3 million. And then we started on the rise. So I think we had a $5 million year two years ago. Then we had almost seven. Now we're at five. So we are seeing an uptick. And you know, it does take a lot to to write a grant and then submit it. They're very competitive. Um, because we do go for some very competitive grants. We're always hopeful every year we keep applying. We don't we didn't get it. We won't do that again. No. Every year it's all right. This is the year. This is the year. And last year it paid off because we did get safer. It was $2.4 million. It's helping us support hiring 12 firefighters over the next three years. So this current year and then two more years, it's it's those are dollars that are supporting us to do what we need to do to stay a premier city.
[57:25] Excellent.
[57:26] So I'm complete. I don't know if any of the commission has anything else to add. Great. Well, thank you very much for your presentation. So we're on to item number two.
[57:39] Mayor, this is resolution 2026-031. It's a resolution of the city of Coral Springs, Florida, relating to the provision of fire services, facilities and programs in the city of Coral Springs, Florida, approving the assessment rate for fire services and posing a fire services assessment against assessed property located within the City of Coral Springs. For the fiscal year beginning on October 1st, 2026. Approving the assessment roll. Providing for severability conflicts and an effective date. This request to hold a public hearing and adopt same.
[58:06] This is a public hearing. Would somebody like to be heard on this item? Seeing none, the public hearing is closed. Would somebody like to move resolution 2026-031.
[58:17] Move to adopt.
[58:18] Second.
[58:19] Any discussion?
[58:23] All in favor, please say aye.
[58:25] Aye aye.
[58:27] All right. Thank you. Next is item number three. Resolution 2026-033A.
[58:34] Resolution.
[58:35] This is a resolution of the City of Coral Springs, Florida, relating to the provision of solid waste collection services in the city of Coral Springs, Florida, approving the assessment rate for solid waste collection services, imposing a solid waste collection assessment against the assessed property located within the city of Coral Springs for the calendar year beginning on January 1st, 2027. Approving the assessment roll. Providing for severability and providing for an effective date. Request to hold a public hearing and adopt same.
[59:00] This is a public hearing with somebody from the public. Like to be heard on this item. Seeing none, the public hearing is closed. Somebody like to move it.
[59:09] Move to approve.
[59:11] Second.
[59:12] Any discussion?
[59:15] Seeing none. All in favor, please say aye.
[59:19] Aye.
[59:19] Aye. Carries unanimously. Next is item number four. Resolution 2026-032.
[59:28] A resolution of the City of Coral Springs, Florida, relating to the provision of Coral Springs stormwater collection assessments. Approving the assessment rate for the collection assessment. Imposing a stormwater collection assessment on property located within the City of Coral Springs for the fiscal year beginning on October 1st, 2026, approving the assessment roll. Providing for severability and effective date. Request to hold a public hearing and adopt same.
[59:51] Would somebody like to be heard on this item?
[59:55] Seeing none. Public hearing is closed. Somebody like to move this item.
[59:59] Move to adopt.
[1:00:01] Second.
[1:00:02] Any discussion? All in favor please say aye.
[1:00:06] Aye.
[1:00:07] Aye.
[1:00:08] Carries unanimously. Next is item number. Item number five. Resolution 2026-030.
[1:00:17] This is related to our tentative millage rate. We're going to do several things in this resolution. So it's a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Coral Springs establishing a tentative millage rate of 6.232 to balance the general fund for fiscal year 2627, which is 0.2745 or 4.77% more than the rollback rate, establishing a tentative general obligation debt millage rate of 0.1581, establishing the rollback rate to be 5.7487 and establishing Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026 as the date that a final public hearing will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the City of Coral Springs City Hall, 9500 West Sample Road, and providing for an effective date. Request to hold the public hearing and have a second public hearing on September 23rd and adopt.
[1:01:07] Okay. This is a request to hold a public hearing on item number five. Would somebody like to be heard? Seeing none, the public hearing is closed.
[1:01:16] Would somebody move it? S1:
[1:01:18] Second.
[1:01:19] Okay. Any discussion? Again, I just want to appreciate all of the work that went into this since January. Uh, and I really appreciate the open discussions we've been able to have with the public throughout this process. So thank you again for your work, Eliana, and for all the team's work. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say aye.
[1:01:43] Aye.
[1:01:44] Aye.
[1:01:45] All right. Ayes have it unanimously. Four zero. Next item is item number six. Ordinance 2026-114.
[1:01:55] This is an ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Coral Springs, Florida, finalizing and adopting the annual Operating Budget and Capital Improvement Program for the fiscal year 2627. Reviewed, modified and approved by the City Commission at meetings held on July 2nd, 2026, September 15th, 2026, and September 23rd, 2026, which includes the budget for the General Fund, water and sewer fire, solid waste, charter school stormwater, public art, debt service, health and liability equipment services, tree Trust funds, museum fund and capital improvement program funds. Providing that in the event of variation from the total budget is or becomes necessary, this ordinance shall be amended only by a subsequent ordinance consistent with chapter 166 Florida Statutes the Charter and Code of Ordinances of the City of Coral Springs, Florida, providing for severability and effective date. This request to hold a public hearing. Approve and set second reading for September 23rd 26.
[1:02:46] All right. This a request to hold a public hearing approve such second reading. Would somebody like to be heard on this item? Seeing none, the public hearing is closed. Somebody like to move this ordinance.
[1:02:57] Move to approve.
[1:02:59] Second.
[1:02:59] Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye.
[1:03:05] Aye.
[1:03:06] Carries unanimously. Our last item before consent policy formation is item number seven, ordinance 2026-111.
[1:03:17] And miss Moskowitz is coming in for the. Coming up for this one. This is an ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Coral Springs, Florida, amending the Land Development Code of the City of Coral Springs to increase certain sewerage service rates and water rates, providing for codification, conflict, severability and providing for an effective date. This request to hold a public hearing. Improvements at Second reading for September 23rd, 2026.
[1:03:39] Would somebody like to be heard on this item? Item number seven. Seeing none. The public hearing is closed. Would somebody like to move ordinance 2026-111.
[1:03:49] Move to approve.
[1:03:50] Second.
[1:03:51] Any discussion?
[1:03:55] All in favor please say aye.
[1:03:57] Aye aye.
[1:03:58] Carries unanimously. Thank you, thank you Kim. Okay. Very good. Eliana, I appreciate your time. Uh, we're on to consent. There's nothing here. Policy formation. Nothing at this juncture. Any commission communications, Mr.
[1:04:14] Mayor? S1:
[1:05:48] Great. Thank you.
[1:05:51] Anything from anybody else? S8:
[1:05:59] Sounds good. Commissioner. Sarah.
[1:06:02] I'm good, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.
[1:06:04] All right. Uh, just a lot of work to get here. I appreciate everybody's work, and I appreciate the work of our community. Uh, as Commissioner Simmons was saying, is a collaborative effort with our residents. Uh, and we couldn't get to this point without a lot of listening, a lot of conversation, uh, and without priorities put as the citizens have it to, you know, the citizens are on the top of our hierarchy. So we're happy to honor the citizens wishes. And we know that there are some, you know, crunch times ahead. Uh, and we hope that with the services we're providing, it helps alleviate some of the pressures you might feel and really enjoy the community that you've been known to take advantage of. So with that, my commission communications are are complete city manager.
[1:06:52] Thank you mayor. Thank you. Commission. Uh, you know that as a former budget director, I'm going to have something to say when it comes to the budget. So truly, Ileana, thank you very much for your leadership in the overall process that we go through. And so much preparation truly does happen. And I also want to just recognize the budget team for the work that they do continuously. We get asked, you know, when is budget season? It is it is every day. And you all do such a great job looking over things and trying to get in front of things and be strategic and be forth, um, forward thinkers. And thank you for, um, pushing the departments along the way on what they spend and asking the questions of what is, What is it? What is it that you need and why is it? And what can we do? So we can still provide the service and possibly provide it for less. So I do appreciate the work that they do after every commission, um, or at every commission meeting inter city manager comments. I give me an out of two every time I reference the fact that we do fiscal responsible decisions, we use budget, we, we use grant dollars to be able to move the city forward and expend in a most fiscally responsible way. Or we might have to do it in a different way. So when it comes to the question about grants, the fact that we're bringing in almost $2 million from appropriations this year is a big jump. Last year we brought in a half $1 million. The year before that, it was less than that. So we really are leaning into the appropriations, and that is a lot of your communication with your fellow electeds in Tallahassee and in Washington. As a city manager, I do remain committed to identifying opportunities for cost cutting measures. Um. Again, with the grant funding and appropriations and other funding sources. So. We're going to continue to be aggressive in that way. Um, just we know that we may have a tough decision ahead either which way we're going to be looking at this from a very fiscal responsible way, as we always have been doing. And I appreciate staff so much in that the fact that we have been at this same millage rate for the last six years, when we talk about other cities possibly moving their their millage rate, we have been consistent the last six years. We heard from the public previously, please don't raise it. Um, substantially. We have had small millage rate increases in our financial forecast. However, we've been able to do cost cutting measures. We've been looking at cost growth, trying to bring it down. And we are committed to being able to be balanced in the next two years. And I appreciate the work that that they've done. Lastly, the to the workforce that we have that are doing the public service out there. We are so fortunate to have the culture that we do. It's because of all of you and how much you have remained dedicated, committed and you're very intelligent in how you do your job. I'm very proud of leading the organization of more than 1200 employees. Having a culture that we say 92% want to refer other people to work here in the city of Coral Springs is outstanding. The fact that we know what our vision statement is, and we try to be strategic, more than 95% of our workforce says so. We're very fortunate. I appreciate it always from the top, from the commission and your leadership first. And then thank you very much for having confidence in me to lead our wonderful, tremendous team ahead. So thank you very much.
[1:10:13] Wonderful city attorney.
[1:10:15] No communication for the budget hearing, mayor.
[1:10:17] All right. Thank you so much. Our next regular meeting will start in about 12 minutes. Thank you. We're adjourned.