Good evening, everyone. Please turn off your phones or put them on silent.
And I will start the budget meeting at 6.30. Please stand for the pledge.
Thank
you.
Roll call, please.
Commissioner Brocky.
Here.
Commissioner Dharminio.
Here.
Commissioner Roli.
Here.
Vice Mayor Caputo.
Here.
Mayor Newton.
Here.
City manager.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the commission. This is a follow-up to the last budget workshop
where the commission thoroughly reviewed all of the funds in the city budget as well as
gave direction on the tentative milligrate. At that commission meeting, the proposed operating
milligrate was flat from the current fiscal year at 6.2270. The commission authorized
tentative millidrate of $6.000 resulting in an overall budget reduction of $500 and about
$542,000. Within the backup of this evening's agenda is a summary of the budget changes
that were made to balance that the primarily were I'm sorry it's about
five hundred and sixty thousand. There was a negotiation of our fire
agreement and we were able to lower the cost of the general fund portion of that
agreement by one hundred thirty two thousand as well as reduce the city's
contribution for exempt organizations for fire services of about seven thousand
and other operational reductions were made.
The city commission provided direction
to reduce capital expenditure by $100,000,
and that was related specifically to one project.
There's also an appropriation of fund balance.
There was a discussion about that at the budget workshop
and trying to bring that down
as an overall percentage of the general fund operating.
So at this meeting, our intention is to
see if there's consensus on the recommended changes and to understand your direction on the final millage rate because we have our
public hearings and
Need to publish our advertisements in September
All right. Thank you now. We'll ask anybody from the public like to speak to
Come up. You get three minutes. Just state your name
If you would and address
Mary all two eight one nine Northwest 12th Avenue. Good evening
Last week you were emailed a petition from 75 Wilton Manors residents who are seniors
in response to Mayor Newton's request for input into the 26-27 budget.
Programs offered through leisure services such as brains and balance, chair volleyball, library
activities, music, and movie events in our parks play a vital role in supporting the health
and well-being of older residents.
These activities help us stay socially connected,
physically engaged, and mentally stimulated.
Social isolation among seniors is a huge issue
as supported by scientific research.
It is particularly damning for older adults who are less able
to cope with its negative effects
and it significantly increases the risk of death, heart disease, stroke, and dementia.
As of June 2025, residents of Wilton Manors age 65 and older comprise 23% of the population.
As you consider budget priorities, we respectfully ask that you recognize the importance of
programs to maintaining a healthy, connected, and thriving senior community and ensure that
they remain supportive and accessible. Thank you.
Thank you. Anyone else like to come up?
Come on up.
Somebody can't hear? What?
You can come up. Okay. That's okay. Anybody else for budget? Seeing none. I'll close
the public hearing, and if we could turn up when we have ComMess during the
River City Commission meeting so people can hear. And if you just pull the
microphone closer to your to your mouth it's better so you can hear more. You
are talking about there whoever said they couldn't hear, right? It's everything.
Sit closer.
All right there's only one comment and I'd just like to make
comment for it not a comment but City Manager, has there any of those
progress been cut from our budget?
No was the answer just so you I don't think any
of us here wanted to cut that part of our budget. No. All right let's start
anybody want to have any comments on tonight? Go ahead Don. Sure so at the
last budget workshop we reduced the we agreed to reduce the millage rate from
from 6.2270 to 6.0.
We are almost at the rollback rate, which is 5.9835.
And we've cut the taxes for next year by $542,000 already.
It's only an additional $40,000 or so
to adopt the rollback rate, which would mean no new taxes.
is it would be the same taxes last year.
So I really think I don't ever recall our city adopting
the rollback rate.
And I think that we have an opportunity to do that.
So I would like to recommend that we
adopt the rollback millage rate of 5.9835.
Where would you suggest you take it from?
It would come out of the unassigned balance.
OK.
anybody has any comments about that so I got my my trim notice and it was based
on though what we had set here the highest limit and my taxes only went up
$8 which I was pretty excited because that was the lowest increase of any of
the things on that bill and that was knowing that we were still going to
take it down lower from there so as much as all the taxes are all too high
everywhere it was encouraging that ours were sort of the the lowest of
them in that way as far as supporting the world-back rate for
$42,000 I I mean I think it's a it shows good financial stewardship to do that
and it doesn't matter to me if it comes from the fund balance or I continue to
argue that some of our stress revenue like the fine revenue is a little bit
low if we took $42,000 under that that's fine too it doesn't matter to
me which where you want to play with it from okay anybody down here yeah I
would support the rollback rate I would support the rollback rate but I
I wouldn't take it out of the fund balance.
I would suggest that we raise our revenue estimate for code
fines.
I do.
Thank you.
Mr. Terminio, I appreciate you coming back
and proposing that I've been talking
about the rollback rating since the first budget meeting
that we've had.
So I appreciate, finally, somebody
or more people now agreeing with me.
I don't necessarily agree where we get those funds from.
I believe we should be pulling these from recurring costs.
I don't believe we should be using the unassigned balance fund to pay for that.
Nor do I think we should just artificially raise revenue to make up for that.
In that 542,000, there's already 194,000 from the fund balance.
Correct.
And again, I don't think that's the right way to do it, right?
When we talked about going back to the rollback rate of previous meetings,
that 542,000, it's about a 2% reduction in the general fund.
That's, again, two pennies people.
We're talking about two cents in efficiencies.
And it's up to the city manager to find them.
I had conversations with her.
She said we may need to discuss potential services
that may need to be adjusted.
Times, I think that's the way to go.
I don't think it should be increasing
a revenue artificially or from the unassigned balance
fund.
And then I also just want to make a comment.
Again, people will not be paying the same taxes as last year.
Although we are reducing the millitrate,
all the other fees, except for the fire fee, are going up.
So city manager, what was the average cost increase?
I think it was $230 or $230 from the fees.
Yes and for anybody that would like to see a reference to the numbers that you're
speaking about we do have in the backup an overall household change to fees and
taxes for an average taxpayer and an average utility rate customer for I
I think our house would save our homes
with a taxable value of 400,000.
We'll have a reduction in taxes of 27 per year
and the fire assessment of 19 per year.
However, utility rates will be increasing.
And so for a typical single family household
with an average consumption,
they will see a $264 per year increase
in water, stormwater, sewer, garbage, fees.
And so again, can you say that number again?
Just so everyone can increase.
264.
So although, Commissioner, I appreciate your bill going
down $8, just specifically based on the millage rate.
With this budget, everyone's taxes are going up.
And that's an average.
Europe is an average of people who would save our homes.
Do we have an estimate of what the change in the millage
rate will do to people without saving our homes. You may be saving $1 and people
always say $40 depending on the value of your house if you're homesteaded.
No, that actually was difficult to calculate. A house would save our homes. It's based upon
the taxable value of the property. A property would save our homes taxable value increased
across the board uniformly 2.7%. And that's based on a state statute formula. For a property
that doesn't have save our homes, and we're talking about commercial and residential properties,
properties, it's not uniform. There are properties that decreased in taxable value and some properties
that increased as much as 10%. The average taxable value of a non-homesteaded property
between 26 and 25 actually decreased when we look at just the averages. And I don't
think that that's, it's not consistent for every property. So looking at overall
It's a decrease in Avalorum, but we know that's not the case for many non-homestead properties.
So for a non-homestead second homeowner that has a million-dollar house here supporting
our community coming down during the winter, potentially their taxes are going up 10%.
If their taxable value increased by 10%.
So potentially their taxes are going up $1,000 while yours may be going down $8.
In addition to the $265 that's going up.
So it's hard for me to talk about here
how we're reducing, reducing the budget, reducing the budget.
Folks, just be clear, this budget
raises every single one of your taxes, OK?
I'm not a mathematician.
I'm not an accountant.
All I know is if I'm paying more next year
than I'm paying more this year, it's a tax increase.
Ultimately, that's what it comes down to.
And I struggle because people on this commission
will talk about, we need workforce housing.
people on bartenders should be able to live on Bolton Drive right close to
where they work. It's already unaffordable they can't do that and by
increasing taxes on non homesteaded properties you think landlords are going
to eat that cost? No they're gonna pass that cost right off to the tenants just
to make the city more and more unaffordable. Again my point is with
this budget your taxes are going up no matter how much you hear the word
reduce reduction rollback rate. Your taxes are going up unless we continue to
fine recurrent savings and it may be a form of another $500,000. I don't think
the city manager we talked about it yesterday was able to get to a number
of where your taxes will be zero increase with those assessments.
Ultimately that's where I want to be. We all shop in publics, we know how
things cost and I think it's our duty to the public to try to help just a
little bit with this affordability crisis.
Well you're right about one thing everybody's water bill and electric bill
or water bill and screw bills going up. Check every city in Broward County.
They all have the same problem. Pipes are getting old. They have to redo their
pipes, stations, everything that we do they're doing. So it's not uncommon right
now to do that. I think we're ahead of the curve compared of a lot of cities
in Broward County on doing that. It's going to cost a lot of other cities a
lot more money is costing us because we've been doing it for quite a few years now.
But get down brass tax. If the city has not charged you any more money in taxes this year,
the city of Wilton Manors and the city commission up here is doing a good service done. It's
just for ourselves because we all live here, of course, but for all of you. How many of
your homesteaded homes? Just curious. How many live in Wilton Manors? I'm just curious
because I mean there aren't people I know come in not from Wilton Manors. So most
Most of you are home-setted, so most of you will not see an increase in the city part
of the taxes.
And yes, the rest will be school board and others that are going to be raised.
But I think we've done a really good job here this year, especially when we don't know what's
going to happen because of Amendment 3 coming up.
Sorry, you pushed the button.
Go ahead and turn it.
I think it's the red one.
No?
All right.
Meeting's over.
No.
It's alright. It's alright. It didn't hurt anything. You're okay. But we can take it
out of the, you know, add fines for code and put it in there. If we come up short, it's
going to come out of unfunded balance. We can take it out of unfunded balance and,
you know, if it doesn't meet, we can average that way. So it doesn't really matter where
we take it out of. So I don't care. Whoever wants to make a motion and put in either
one let's do that but I think we're on the same page here. There's additional points I just wanted to
finish this conversation. Yeah no I wanted to finish up this part of the conversation so
I don't know if you all want to come to an agreement on where the money's going to come from
or well first of all are we agreeing upon the fact that we're going to lower it down to the
rollback rate? I am. Everybody in favor say aye. Yeah I am. All right now. Can we just can
can we just ask the city manager to explain to everyone what that means the rollback rate?
The rollback rate? Sure. The rollback rate is the millage rate that would need to be assessed
for the city to receive, collect the exact same dollars from property taxes as the prior fiscal
year. It doesn't translate to each property paying the same amount because there's changes
individually from property sales and homestead versus non-homestead, but it's the rate that
would result in the city collecting the exact same amount.
So from property taxes, it would be no, a zero tax increase to the city from the property
tax perspective.
From a collection, yes.
From a property tax collection.
And the aggregate.
Okay.
Thank you.
So you, anybody want to make a motion to, I will make a motion that we.
This is workshop.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
We're just giving you direction.
That's right.
Thank you.
All right.
I have additional questions for that for this part not for necessarily for this
part now okay I mean it's about where I couldn't take it from oh yeah no you
could all decide that where the money's gonna come from yeah well we got to get
the city manager direction or you come from recurring some type of recurring
cost otherwise next year we're in the same position of here we are now we
need to find additional dollars because we took it from the unassigned balance
balance funds from the revenue perspective.
On a recurring basis, we have understated some revenues,
including code, which is why the fund balance continues to grow.
Let's not make up revenue and just say arbitrarily it's going to come from there, but consistently
we have understated the code compliance revenue over the last three years
and we have pending foreclosures, a growing list of pending foreclosures.
I'm confident that we can get from the
one million to the one million forty thousand.
I just I think it doesn't make
sense to do that otherwise. I agree with that. Can the city managers just
remind us of what the current code revenue is in the budget? I know for the
last three years we've had a million dollars or so of money coming in
consistently every year for the last three years. I just don't recall what
we budgeted for code fines. The proposed budget includes one million
dollars in revenue okay all right so I'm for taking it out of a fun balance yeah
so or we can increase it by the forty thousand dollars and if we don't meet
that target to your point mayor it would come out of the unassigned fund
balance that's fine for me I didn't understand how you I suggested that we
Let me increase the code, find revenue, but I think it's $40,902 is the amount.
And I said, if we don't meet that target, it would ultimately come out of the undersigned fund balance.
Just like any other expense.
Right, I agree.
All right, so you have place four, I don't know where you're at.
It's just bad accounting for us.
It's four.
Okay, anything else for the budget?
Yeah, so I talked to the city manager.
We have two years left on the city hall bond.
we have payments paying interest on and you know there's a debt millage rate that
we have here. The interest that we collect on that is variable and it's
extremely small so I want to just have the conversation maybe City Manager you
could provide more edification to the residents of what I'm talking about
here. This city hall construction was funded through a voter approved debt
service millage rate meaning the city put on a referendum for voters to approve
an additional millage rate which shows up on your tax bill each year that
provides the exact amount of revenue to the city that's needed to make the
annual debt service payment on the 2008 City Hall bond. Once that bond is paid off, that
debt service millage rate would go away. We have two years left to pay for that. So for
the next two tax years, our voters would be paying .1598 mills. The total amount that
the city owes is $780,736 with an interest rate of 1.46%.
There is no prepayment penalty if we make the payment in full.
So I'm making the recommendation that we take the 740 to something
thousand from the unassigned balance fund,
pay down that loan, and then we
could take that debt millage rate off of the books.
Do we make any interest on our money?
Yes.
Our cash is part of a state investment pool called Florida Prime.
The interest rate that we receive on those investments is 3.83%.
There's a, obviously if we pre-pay the loan, there's an opportunity cost of revenue loss.
$13,588 is the difference between estimated interest received versus the interest that
would be paid. So just to be clear what would we save by paying this off instead
of just leaving it alone and paying the two years like it is now since we're
getting pay or getting interest on our money as it is now. Assuming the interest
rate doesn't change over that period of time we would receive $13,588.
That's what we would lose by pre-paying. So it would be that plus
Because the interest paid 24,000, about 25,000 is the interest we would earn.
Just want to make both sides of it, because we're earning money on that money, so.
Anybody else have a feeling about this?
You know, just with the interest that we're earning being higher than what we're saving,
it's like, it's the opportunity cost, it doesn't make sense for me to do that.
Because then it really means we need to figure out where that 25,000 revenue ultimately
is going to come from because that is certainly playing into our overall budget as it is.
It's a variable interest rate.
Interest rates may not stay the same,
and then you get to reduce the debt billage rate
and just take it off the books.
The money's sitting in the unassigned balance fund.
Just an idea?
Don?
Yeah, no, no, I appreciate the thought.
My only concern, of course, is that we have tax reform looming,
and we will know the results of that November 3.
But if we've already agreed to reduce the rollback
to adopt the rollback rate, which reduces our taxes by $600,000 or so.
We may need, part of that unassigned balance, if tax reform passes.
This city will need to cut $4 million a year, it's a lot of money.
And we do need some money to survive in the interim.
So, while I would tend to agree with Commissioner Brocky just because of tax reform looming and
the low interest rate, I'm just not sure that now is the time to do that.
If tax reform doesn't pass, I would tend to agree with you to get rid of that portion
of the debt-militrate.
That's not through votes, we can move on.
The other thing I wanted to bring up, I talked to the city manager, we have some
line items in the budget for contractual services and professional fees. They're just
listed. And the actual detail is not in the budget book. I would like for transparency
purposes to the residents. I would like that to be published before part of the backup
before the next meeting. This way everyone could see what those expenditures are.
We'll do.
Make sense.
Thank you.
Sounds good.
Anything for the good of the budget? All right. There's a meeting at adjourn. We'll
Well, it started at 7 o'clock for the regular sleeper.