MINUTES
OF MEETING
PINE
TREE WATER CONTROL DISTRICT
The
regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Pine Tree Water Control District
was held on
Present and constituting a quorum were:
David Rosenof President
Margaret Bertolami Vice
President
Paul Brewer Secretary
Donna Benckenstein Assistant
Secretary
Mark Weissman Supervisor
Also present were:
Ed Goscicki Interim Manager –
Julie Klahr Attorney
Warren Craven Engineer
Peter Colussy CH2M-Hill
Randy Frederick Field Superintendent
John McKune District Staff
Dana Kaas
FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS Roll Call
Mr. Rosenof called the meeting to order and Mr. Goscicki called
the roll.
SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS Audience Comments
This
item was tabled until later in the meeting.
THIRD
ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval
of the Minutes of the May 3, 2007 Meeting
Mr.
Rosenof stated each Board member received a copy of the minutes of the
There
not being any,
On MOTION by Mr. Weissman seconded by Ms. Benckenstein with
all in favor the minutes of the
FOURTH ORDER OF
BUSINESS Award of
Contract for Culvert Cleaning
Mr.
Goscicki stated we put out the same bid for this District, Sunshine and CSID
and received the same low bidder. You
will notice this bidder is significantly lower than the other two and you may
have some concerns. Mr. Fredericks, your
Operations Manager along with the engineer reviewed the bid, the contractor and
their qualifications. This contractor is
using somewhat different technology. He
has some new vacuum equipment, which he is comfortable and confident with. This contractor performs work on other
projects.
Mr.
Rosenof asked do we have experience with this contractor?
Mr.
Goscicki responded no.
Mr.
Rosenof asked do we have his references?
Mr.
Goscicki responded we reviewed his references and insurance and feel
comfortable with what he provided.
Mr.
Rosenof asked is any bonding required?
Mr.
Goscicki responded not on this project.
We are comfortable and staff is comfortable with him and recommend award
of the contract.
Mr.
Rosenof asked do we have a budget line item for this project?
Mr.
Goscicki responded we budgeted $30,000.
Mr.
Rosenof stated we are $10,000 under budget.
Mr.
Goscicki stated correct.
Mr.
Brewer asked was our line item budget based on last year’s contract?
Mr.
Goscicki responded yes.
On
MOTION by Mr. Weissman seconded by Ms. Benckenstein with all in favor the
culvert cleaning contract was awarded to Fish Tech, Inc. in the amount of $20,000.
FIFTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration
of Engagement
Letter with Grau & Associates to Perform the Audit for Fiscal Year 2007
Mr.
Goscicki stated Grau & Associates is your current auditor and their
engagement letter is for the upcoming year. Their fee reflects a 3% to 4% increase over
the fee from last year at $7,300, which is comparable to fees in other
districts for audits of this complexity.
This is a straightforward audit.
Mr.
Rosenof asked was this amount budgeted for next year?
Mr.
Goscicki responded we budgeted $7,000 for next year, which I recommend we
increase by $300 to match this not to exceed amount.
Mr.
Rosenof stated the amount increased by $200 over last year’s fee.
Mr.
Goscicki stated correct.
Mr.
Brewer asked do we have any other competitive bids?
Mr.
Goscicki responded no. We typically go
out every couple of years and will enter into an agreement to renew them for a
period of three years.
On
MOTION by Mr. Brewer seconded by Ms. Bertolami with all in favor the Engagement
Letter with Grau & Associates to Perform the Audit for Fiscal Year 2007 in
the amount of $7,300 was approved.
SIXTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Manager’s
Report – Questions and Comments on Proposed Budget
Mr.
Goscicki stated we provided the revised budget for fiscal year 2008 to each
supervisor. The operational and administrative
expenses stayed the same with the exception of canal cleaning, which increased
from $30,000 to $50,000. The primary
change was to re-structure the fund balance forward. This reflects comments from the Board at
previous meetings in regards to how much money is in the bank, the amount of
reserve funds and what they look like. I
shared your concerns with the accountant in regards to the way this budget was
structured as the way we presented the numbers were confusing. When you look at the cash forward surplus in
the version of the budget provided at the last meeting, line five on the
revenue side was in the negative by $91,000.
Obviously this was alarming. We
were looking at whether we were going to run out of money this year, go into
deficit spending and need short-term financing to cover our debts.
As
we looked at the budget again and had our finance people from CSID review it, we
recognized this was a presentation problem more than a fiscal problem. When we re-worked the numbers and removed the
reserves, the budget fully disclosed where the money was. The reality is you are going to end up with a
$74,000 fund balance forward at the end of this year. This is not a significant amount of money and
quite honestly, an insufficient amount of money but still on the positive
side. We took the carry forward surplus
and netted it out to zero. In future
budgets, you will not even see this number on the top line. It is not a revenue item but a Reserve
Fund. If you look at the CSID budget,
you will see the presentation is much more in the format of what we revised
ours to look like to where the Reserve
Fund was below the line. The
revenues and expenses need to net out to zero and then you come up in the
reserves. It then becomes a policy
decision of the Board to pull money from reserves and use it to offset
revenue. By putting the numbers below
the line, it is much clearer. It is your
decision as to whether or not you want to pull down reserves as part of the
funding going forward or increase your assessments if required to meet those
revenue requirements.
If
you look at the last two lines on page two of the revised budget for Field Operation Expenses, you will see a
first quarter operating reserve of $94,000 and reserve for R&R of
$50,000. These did not show in the
previous part of the budget. The reserve
for R&R is an annual amount and not a total reserve amount. It is an amount you are putting in this year
and next year to start building your reserves.
As we discussed at the last meeting, this Board went through significant
reserves of $400,000. However, due to
hurricane expenses, you are down to $74,000 as of the end of this year. Compared to last month, you paid for it
through cash financing and the current reserves. You do not need to do short-term borrowing to
cover this expense. The bad news is you
spent down all of your reserves and are down at rock bottom. We are recommending a $94,000 reserve just
for the first two months operating expenses and at this time, you only have
$74,000.
We
are currently talking with SunTrust Bank to establish a Line of Credit. The Line of Credit will be there if we need
to draw on it but only if we need to and will require action by the Board to do
so. The concern is we are definitely
tight going into next fiscal year in terms of whether or not we have enough
operating capital until the tax receipts come in. As you know, we operate the first two months
out of our reserves until we receive our tax revenues. If an emergency comes up, we certainly want
to have the ability to tap into a ready fund of sources. We are looking at a $500,000 Line of
Credit. There will be no cost to the
District unless we decide to draw down on it.
In
summary, the budget we gave you last month showed an increase in the assessments
per unit from the current $142.72 to $226.
Because we are increasing the reserves, the budget will reflect an
assessment of $254.66 per unit. This is
a significant increase over where you have been but still an exceedingly
reasonable amount when you look at $250 per year. You cannot find a HOA who charges $250 per
year and are providing those vital services of stormwater management and
drainage.
Mr.
Rosenof asked why is Building Rent
going to zero?
Mr.
Goscicki responded it is zero on the administrative side because CSID was
charging rent for use of office space by shared employees. Since I am also the manager for CSID, we
thought it was inappropriate to pay for shared staff under this line item. Therefore, there is no rent under the
administrative expenses but still rent under field operations. We maintain some of our field equipment at
the CSID building for $4,800 per year.
Mr.
Rosenof stated Engineering Fees
decreased by half in your projection.
Why?
Mr.
Goscicki responded many of the fees were associated with CH2M-Hill for the hurricane
repair work. We do not see the need for
them as we move forward.
Mr.
Rosenof asked how do you account for cost recovery?
Mr.
Goscicki responded we talked about this at the last meeting in terms of permit
fees.
Mr.
Rosenof asked not just the permit fees but there may be a case where Stiles
caused damage, not only resulting in construction cost overruns but engineering
and attorney expenses. We had a
situation before where staff time was unrelated to a project. For example, I think there should be cost
recovery for the broken culvert, not only to repair it but for Mr. Craven’s
time.
Mr.
Goscicki responded the reality is we do not budget for it on either side,
because they are extraordinary events.
If you have an event occurring where we need to spend additional staff
time dealing with other entities and recovering revenue from them, the expense
would be listed as an extraordinary expense and the revenue will hit as
additional revenue.
Mr.
Rosenof asked why did Repairs and Maintenance
decrease from $317,000 to $16,000?
Mr.
Goscicki responded this was the Stiles contract.
Mr.
Rosenof stated you made a comment on the recharge water, which I was wary of
based on this year’s expenditures. This
year they stopped giving us water.
Mr.
Craven stated only for the last two months.
Mr.
Rosenof asked does $8,000 represent a normal year?
Mr.
Goscicki responded yes. In the adopted
budget for last year, this line item was $10,000.
Mr.
Rosenof asked are we projecting to spend another $4,500?
Mr.
Goscicki responded we projected the remaining balance of the budget on this
item.
Mr.
Rosenof asked is the definition of a unit an acre or fraction thereof?
Mr.
Craven responded yes
Mr.
Goscicki stated I do not know.
Mr.
Rosenof stated I never received a straight answer because every year the numbers
of units change. I do not know how you
change the number of units.
Mr.
Craven stated the Tax Assessor gives us the number of units. The only change was in areas taken from
private to public or public to private.
Mr.
Rosenof asked does this mean there are 2,150 acres within the Pine Tree W.C.D.?
Mr.
Goscicki responded the way this gets defined is in your Assessment Methodology
Report, which is part of the original bonding for the District. I will research this and find you an
answer. Typically the process is you
have an Assessment Methodology Report, which sets out how you are going to allocate
across the different types of land uses or development.
Mr.
Rosenof stated we received three different answers from the prior manager on
the way this was calculated. One week a
unit was an acre or fraction thereof, meaning if someone has a half acre lot,
they pay the same as the person who has an acre lot. Then we heard if someone has a quarter acre,
they only pay a quarter of the $254. How
was this calculated for someone in another neighborhood where the city owns
their street? No one has ever been able
to give me a definitive answer.
Mr.
Goscicki responded I will see what I can find out for the next meeting.
Mr.
Rosenof stated whatever it is, needs to be written down and memorialized.
Mr.
Goscicki stated absolutely. It should be
in a firm document, not arbitrary, which establishes the practice. I will see what the base document is. If there is none, we will have to create one.
Mr.
Rosenof stated one of the projects we were working on was trying to firm up the
ownership of the majority of land within the District, especially along the
Sawgrass Expressway and the canal. Are
there any costs in the budget for this task?
Mr.
Goscicki responded no. The previous
manager was looking at creating a team and shared staffing between the multiple
districts. However, this never came off
of the ground. The additional staff coming
on board performed accounting activities.
Two staff members have already been terminated as there was no need for
them. The program was never structured
or put into place. The answer is no. You as a Board and me as your staff need to
look at the best way to do this. The
concept of dedicating one full-time staff person to go through records is a
long-term tedious effort.
Mr.
Rosenof stated I am not sure we will ever find out the truth.
Ms.
Bertolami stated I think they will perform a title search but it will be very
costly. Do we have the rights to the
canals?
Mr.
Craven responded I do not think it is going to be as costly and time consuming
as you might believe. If we can get
copies of all recorded plats for the recorded subdivisions, we are 75% there
because they will show the dedications of the canals and easements. For the others, we performed a Yeoman’s
search on the main north/south canal when we got the title clarified.
Ms.
Bertolami asked do we need to obtain plats from the city or county?
Mr.
Craven responded Mr. Brewer and I can sit down and make a list of all of the
plats. Each plat costs $10 per sheet.
Mr.
Brewer stated we can probably get them off-line.
Mr.
Rosenof stated a year and a half ago when Hurricane Wilma hit, we were
frustrated there was no Federal money to be found, because we did not know
which part of the canal we owned. We
made a statement to our former manager that we cannot let this happen again. A year and a half later, we are still not
sure what we own and do not own. There
needs to be enough staff time in our budget to fix this.
Mr.
Goscicki stated the right way to go about this is to do what Mr. Craven recommends. This is actually an engineering type of
function. We do not keep plats on
record. They are kept by the county and
the city.
Ms.
Benckenstein stated I spoke to Mr. Doody about this matter last week because
another hurricane season is approaching.
He told me it will be quite costly to go through this entire title
search.
Ms.
Bertolami stated it’s a good start.
Mr.
Rosenof stated the next time we have a storm and have to go to the Federal
Government, we can actually get some money.
Mr.
Brewer stated we have been arguing with the City of
Mr.
Rosenof stated I own my half of the road.
Mr.
Brewer stated no you do not.
Mr.
Rosenof stated it is on my plat.
Mr.
Craven stated you mean a survey.
Mr.
Rosenof stated I have the legal description.
Mr.
Brewer asked who maintains it?
Mr.
Rosenof responded no one maintains it.
Mr.
Brewer asked who puts a patch in the middle of the road when there is a pothole?
Mr.
Rosenof responded no one.
Mr.
Weissman stated if you complain, the city will patch. The city will probably never re-pave it.
Mr.
Rosenof stated correct.
Mr.
Brewer stated the city is currently in the process of preparing a map to claim
those roads.
Mr.
Weissman stated the problem is who is going to maintain the roads. The city is not going to maintain them.
Mr.
Brewer asked why?
Mr.
Weissman responded because there is no funding.
Mr.
Brewer stated I understand but they have to do something.
Mr.
Weissman stated we are maintaining
Mr.
Rosenof stated if we all want to pay for it, we can issue a special assessment.
Mr.
Weissman stated this is the only way it will get done.
Mr.
Rosenof stated my neighbors deeded half of their street to the city. They do this for liability reasons.
Mr.
Weissman stated from a maintenance standpoint, it is not likely the city is
going to be doing this anytime in the foreseeable future. These roads will start crumbling soon and
will continue to do so.
Mr.
Rosenof asked are there any other comments on the budget?
Mr.
Weissman responded in
Mr.
Goscicki responded part of the challenge you are facing is last year’s budget
was built on reserves.
Mr.
Weissman stated from a historical standpoint, the last increase was in the 80’s
to $142 and the District was able to accumulate reserves. Now we are looking at increasing the
assessment to $250. These are the issues
the legislators are speaking about in
Mr.
Craven responded there was a hurricane.
Mr.
Weissman stated we can special assess if required in case of another
storm. We will not have enough reserves
for the next storm anyway. If there is
another catastrophe, it is only through special assessment; we will be able to
recover the funds necessary for the District to do its job. We are not going to be able to build up the
$450,000 reserve.
Mr.
Goscicki stated you are building the reserve up slowly, about $50,000 a year in
the next five to ten years.
Ms.
Benckenstein stated maybe this year we do not have to put the assessment
in. I agree with you.
Mr.
Weissman stated everything has to do with the timing. When no one is looking at taxation and the
Pine Tree WCD replenishes its reserves, I do not think anyone will care. However, I do not think we want to be on the
front of the newspaper like
Mr.
Goscicki responded I agree and fully understand the concern. In last year’s budget, you had total
expenditures of $757,000, which did not include the $300,000 for hurricane
preparedness. You have a $700,000
budget; $450,000 budgeted out of surplus funds.
The reality is the $450,000 did not exist at the beginning of the
year. The actual fund balance is on page
two, which at the beginning of this fiscal year was only $281,000. There was an over-statement going into your
budget as to what the reserves will be on hand at the beginning of this current
fiscal year. It was not $450,000; but
was actually $281,000. It is a double
whammy for us. Knowingly, we were
funding more than half of the budget by the reserve funds in this current
fiscal year and then those reserve funds were not as robust as we thought they
were. You cannot do this year what you
did last year and fund out of the reserves.
The reserves are now gone. To go
back anywhere near where the assessment level was in the current year, will
require a drastic cut in services since we are looking to reduce the budget by
almost half. It is not that we cannot do
it but I am just letting you know where we stand.
Mr.
Weissman stated you are saying we can do it.
I do not think we have much of an option.
Mr.
Goscicki stated this means we have to go back and take a hard look at how we
can do this.
Mr.
Rosenof stated we talked last month about having a contingency plan. What happens if they do not have a special
session and do not come to an agreement?
Are we being irresponsible by not funding ourselves with a reserve since
we have the opportunity?
Mr.
Weissman responded having the opportunity to do it does not necessarily mean we
should. Regardless of what the
legislature does, the spotlight is currently on taxation. All we need to do is give the newspapers a
reason to write a story about us. Then
you will be sitting here figuring out exactly what I am saying now on how we
can do without this massive increase. I
am not saying we should not have an increase but going from $142 to $250 is an
excessive amount.
Mr.
Rosenof stated I like your idea of having quarterly meetings but rather not cut
the reserves.
Mr.
Goscicki stated $115,000 is for your two field personnel and the shared
employees from CSID, especially Mr. Fredericks who spends 25% of his time on HR
and accounting. I want to talk to the
Board about the accounting and computer services and how this was managed. Funding your basic staff and no equipment,
supplies or materials, we are looking at a $200,000 plus budget. The Board requested a contingency budget and
I apologize for not having this budget with me today.
One
of the items in this budget is the shared employee expense with CSID. In some aspects, this is beneficial for the
District. We pay 25% of Mr. Frederick’s
salary to provide oversight supervision and technical expertise on stormwater
management. This District could not
afford to hire a full-time supervisor with this expertise to manage the
program. Sharing some space at CSID for
storage of the equipment used by our field staff makes sense. Using their HR Manager 5% of their time to
deal with payroll personnel issues for the three employees the District has
also makes sense. What is no longer
making any sense is using the CSID accountants to provide accounting
services. The reason is you are not
getting synergistic benefits and it is a requirement of our contract to provide
those services. According to our budget,
we are required to provide accounting, budget, general ledger and accounts
payable services. Over the years, Severn
Trent Services started using CSID employees because one of our senior financial
people was in their office and it morphed into a way of doing business the way
we used to. You paid us, we deducted the
amount charged to CSID and reduced their fee in recognition of some of their
employees providing us the service. The
budget last year changed this to a direct payment. However, this creates a number of
problems. Contractually we have a contract
stating we are going to provide this service to you but instead of us doing it,
someone else is doing it and instead of paying us, you are paying them. There is no contract between you and CSID. Therefore, contractually it is
confusing.
Primarily,
the concern we have is they have one accountant and one accountant clerk versus
our 22 accountants, CPAs and financial managers. We are currently in the process of pulling
accounting information from one accountant at CSID to our accountant and get it
into our system to be able to provide you budget review and analysis. However, it is not functional or giving you
the benefit or living up to our requirement.
Therefore, I recommend to the Board we take back the accounting
responsibility and mold it into the current fiscal management services we
provide to you, which does not require any action by the Board other than your
input. It will not change the budget
amount. The amount you pay to CSID for
providing the accountant will be put into our contract. Right now, this is causing issues for us; as
you can see in the budget presentation.
We are dealing with people who are not our employees, which we cannot
direct in terms of how they do the work and what they do. In this case, we end up having to re-do the
work anyway.
Mr.
Weissman asked did you say the accounting fee was part of your contract?
Mr.
Goscicki responded the way our contract is structured, our fee is what was
approved in the budget.
Mr.
Rosenof stated if I am not mistaken, you do not have a contract.
Mr.
Goscicki stated there is a signed contract by Mr. Jim Fortner in 1998.
Mr.
Rosenof stated I never received a copy of it.
I requested a copy several times.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I called my Records Department last week and requested a copy. I received one the next day. The way the contract was originally
structured, both the scope and fee will be part of every budget. Therefore, if we change our scope, we change
our fee. This is what you approve as
part of the budget each year. If the
scope did not change, the fee will typically increase by a cost of living
increase.
Mr.
Weissman stated if we were meeting quarterly, similarly your management fee
decreases proportionately.
Mr.
Goscicki stated not proportionately.
There will be some decrease.
Ms.
Carr stated your fee schedule says, “As adopted in the budget”.
Mr.
Goscicki stated this is not something we typically do today. Our current contract lays out a fee schedule
with a fee of $45,000 for the basic services and the fee for additional
services. The fee would be adjusted each
year based upon cost of living and as approved in the budget. This is an old contract and not the way we do
business anymore.
Mr.
Rosenof stated we do not have a contract with the attorney either.
Ms.
Carr stated I spoke with Mr. Doody about this and he said there was a
resolution adopted many years ago providing for his services.
Mr.
Rosenof stated at the start of every fiscal year, I want all agreements renewed
and approved.
Mr.
Goscicki stated the budget process is a good time of year to do this.
Mr.
Rosenof stated I want a certificate of insurance naming us.
Mr.
Weissman stated I assume these agreements have a 60 or 90 day termination
clause.
Mr.
Goscicki stated they usually have a 60 to 90 day clause.
Mr.
Rosenof stated the reason I asked for a copy of the management contract is in
order to do the RFP.
Ms.
Carr stated we have a 60 day termination.
Mr.
Weissman stated I want to see a proposed budget tightening this up as much as
we can including having quarterly meetings. I want to fund the reserves as well. However, with all due respect, I do not see
us doing this in light of what is currently taking place.
Mr.
Rosenof stated you have support from me in one aspect in that we are owed a
contingency plan.
Mr.
Weissman stated I have a proposed budget using 2004 assessments but it shows a
shortfall of $268,000. We cannot vote
for this. We need something showing no
shortfall and operating next year on a much slimmer budget. I do not hear anyone agreeing with me. Maybe I am the only one who feels this way.
Ms.
Bertolami stated I agree. Will this get
us a first quarter operating reserve?
Mr.
Brewer responded to be honest with you; I think we are in a bad position.
Mr.
Rosenof stated as is every city government.
Mr.
Brewer stated not true.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we are in the worst position.
Mr.
Rosenof stated meaning we do not know what the future is.
Mr.
Brewer stated we have a responsibility to supply services. If we get hit with a hurricane, the District
is going to be hung out to dry.
Mr.
Weissman stated you are heading in the right direction by looking for a Line of
Credit or some agency we can go to in case of a catastrophe. We have the ability at this point to do a
special assessment to replenish whatever needs to be utilized for storm
recovery. We are probably going to face this
anyway if something happens during this storm season.
Mr.
Rosenof stated I heard special assessments were not going to be allowed.
Mr.
Weissman stated it depends on which taxing districts are going to be
affected. I do not know what they will
do in the case of a hurricane. I am sure
they will provide for something in case of a catastrophe where even city
governments are going to be able to.
Mr.
Rosenof stated they have to.
Mr.
Weissman stated we are not going to have the funding available to recover from
the next storm. If it is going to be
worse than the last one, we certainly will not.
Mr.
Rosenof stated for years we were not able to recover.
Mr.
Weissman stated this is why we accumulated reserves, which have not been
depleted.
Mr.
Goscicki stated the first quarter operating reserves are from the tax
roll. We typically do not receive
revenue until three months into your fiscal year. You need to be able to fund your operations
for the first three months out of cash on hand and you need to have a certain
amount of reserve in the bank just to fund those first three months of
operations until your revenue starts coming in.
The double whammy you are facing as a District is this current year
budget was funded 40% out of reserve funds and then you had a hurricane, which
further exacerbated your reserve funds. The
reserve funds were not as big as we thought when we got into this fiscal
year. Last year and this year you were
running off of reserves. To go anywhere
near where you were three years ago, will take a significant change.
Mr.
Rosenof stated one of the items I want to get rid of is the recharge water but
then we will get people yelling at us from Terramar.
Mr.
Craven stated overall, this is not a significant number.
Mr.
Brewer stated the bottom line is when we wake up; there will be a cost to run
the District. We need to know what the
cost is. Then we can go from there. You cannot go into the next fiscal year with
a deficit. Whatever this cost is, we need to examine it.
Mr.
Weissman stated we need to look line by line at every expense and discuss what
is absolutely necessary to operate the District and where can we save.
Mr.
Brewer stated exactly.
Ms.
Benckenstein stated like printing and binding.
Does it cost us $2,000 per year for this agenda packet?
Mr.
Goscicki responded mostly for this agenda packet. Your big expenses are on the operating
side. Your Field Operations Budget alone is $400,000 with revenue of $300,000.
Mr.
Brewer stated we need an increase because we have not had one.
Mr.
Weissman stated the assessment did not increase more than a few years ago.
Mr.
Brewer stated for my house, I paid $180 a year.
This is only 50 cents a day.
Mr.
Craven stated in the last several years, we came close to having the District
fully built-out. This makes a
difference. In the last ten years, we
increased the number of culverts tenfold.
I agree with you but you have an obligation.
Mr.
Rosenof stated our enabling legislation tells us what we have to do.
Mr.
Craven stated we have to provide a means of disposing of the water.
Mr.
Weissman stated the means of disposing water on a normal daily basis is
there. We have to maintain and operate under
whatever cost is there. In the case of a
catastrophe, there is no way we can fund it, either with this budget or next
year’s budget. The only way we will be
able to recover it is through special assessment or borrowing the money and
raising the taxes.
Mr.
Goscicki stated using part of the money and then doing an increase in your
assessment for the following year. This
is the only way we are going to be able to recover through a storm. I see no other way.
Mr.
Rosenof stated this storm was especially bad because it had been a long time since
we had one and so many things overgrown in the canal. You could not see many of the canals because
they were so overgrown. We are causing
ourselves a problem by approving the budget today as we have to go back to 2003
levels. At some point in the future, do
we have to stop what we are doing and lay off people?
Mr.
Goscicki responded if you are going back to the 2003 levels, you are talking
about laying off people.
Mr.
Weissman stated we will be doing the same thing every other government agency
will be doing.
Mr.
Rosenof asked logistically, how do we do it?
Ms.
Carr responded you are basing it on a certain amount of revenue.
Mr.
Rosenof asked how about if we spend all of it?
Ms.
Carr responded you and I both know realistically you are not going to in this direction. It is either going to have to be now or a few
weeks from now.
Mr.
Rosenof stated not necessarily.
Ms.
Carr stated you are going to know something whether or not you make amendments
in the next couple of weeks.
Mr.
Weissman stated this is contingent on whether the legislature enacts something
between now and June 22nd. If
they do not enact anything, the Governor can call them back for a special
session in July.
Mr.
Rosenof asked what if some of the changes they are working on affect us.
Mr.
Weissman stated it depends. If they can
do it through general law, this is the way they are going to have to address it
because they will not have time to do so before the TRIM notices go out.
Ms.
Carr stated if they enact constitutional issues such as Save Our Homes, a
referendum is required.
Mr.
Weissman stated they will have spending caps, but only through General Law.
Ms.
Carr stated it depends on how they do it and how they go about it. Every time I hear someone come back and say
this is what they agreed to, I also hear someone else say something completely
different. I do not even know what to
believe at this point because I heard last night they probably will not have a
session at all.
Mr.
Weissman stated they are not going to send 160 people plus staff to
Mr.
Rosenof stated what concerned me was if the House plan goes into effect and
there is a 50% cut, we cannot do what we were legislated to do for this amount
of money.
Ms.
Carr stated many government agencies at this point, are watching them closely
for this reason. Depending on what they
are going to do, cities and counties are lining up at the courthouse
doors. They do not know what they are
claiming yet because nothing has happened.
Mr.
Rosenof asked do we let everything happen and close the doors?
Ms.
Carr responded no. If they are sitting
at the courthouse steps, there are going to be emergency hearings on what they
can and cannot do.
Mr.
Rosenof stated our obligation as a Board is to approve a budget. What is the deadline?
Mr.
Goscicki responded September 30th.
Ms.
Carr stated the budget must be adopted by September 30th. Certain information is required to be provided
to the Property Appraiser’s office for purposes of including information into
the tax rolls. However, it needs to get
there sooner than September 30th if you are increasing the
assessments.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we normally try to get it there by the July timeframe. August is the latest you can submit to the
Property Appraiser’s office to get on the tax roll. The worst case is you do off tax rolls but
this is not good because you do not always know when taxes get paid.
Mr.
Rosenof stated we can ask staff to prepare three different scenarios of the
budget.
Mr.
Weissman stated I do not want to base it on years, but on real costs. It has to be a balanced budget. It cannot show a shortfall of $260,000.
Mr.
Goscicki stated this is the way we developed this budget. There is a balanced budget going in.
Mr.
Weissman stated the revised one is, but the prior version shows a shortfall of
$268,000.
Ms.
Bertolami asked in the version dated May 3rd?
Mr.
Goscicki responded yes. This is why we
gave you the amended one, which shows more realistically where we are. This version is zeroed out and balanced. However, in order to balance the budget you
needed to increase your tax levy from $296,000 to $520,000.
Mr.
Weissman stated I see this. What I am
talking about is taking the 2004 numbers on the expense side and making it
work. In other words, I am using the
2004 revenue and making the expense side a balanced budget.
Mr.
Rosenof stated it would have been balanced had there not been a hurricane.
Mr.
Weissman stated we are not budgeting for a hurricane.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we never have. You
budget a certain amount of revenue and replace with reserves.
Mr.
Weissman stated which we hope to build up in time for the next storm. I do not think this is the year to look at doing
this. Maybe next year if there is a
rollback in real estate taxes, no one will be paying attention.
Mr.
Rosenof stated I understand what you are saying.
Mr.
Weissman stated we need to look at the best we can do with the least tax.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I am hearing two different scenarios.
Mr.
Weissman stated you are looking at an assessment of $142 and $254. Take the $142 assessment and increase it to a
nice round number like $160 or $170.
Then make the budget work.
Mr.
Rosenof stated in addition, if they make us go back to the 2003 budget numbers,
we can go back to $110.
Mr.
Weissman stated let’s keep this separate and look at doing something realistic
such as having quarterly meetings and the savings this entails.
Ms.
Bertolami asked are we mandated to have monthly meetings?
Mr.
Goscicki responded no. I will increase Revenues by 20% and start at the $142
assessment number.
Mr.
Weissman stated I was thinking more along the lines of 10%. $160 is more than 10%.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I will come back and show you what this will do to the
budget. I need to be told if anything is
off limits. I honestly think we are
talking about staff layoffs.
Ms.
Bertolami stated you are dealing with pennies but when you have to cut the
budget so drastically, we should look at decreasing the canal cleaning line
item. I believe last year’s results of
the canal clearing indicated there were small amounts of sand built up to not
such dangerous levels as needed to be cleared.
I am wondering whether this can be done every two years.
Mr.
Rosenof stated no, as it is going to be more expensive the year after.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I will examine every line item.
Quite honestly, a 10% increase in assessments is going to require
drastic cuts across the board. We are
talking about a budget 40% less than what is currently in front of you. Let me look at this budget from the expense
side and see what can be trimmed, if we are going to keep the same level of
service we are currently providing. We
can see the savings to the budget by going to quarterly meetings or freeze
salaries for a year with the employees and tell them we cannot afford to give
them a raise this year.
Mr.
Weissman stated we can either layoff some employees or freeze their salaries.
Mr.
Goscicki stated you can only have two full-time employees.
Mr.
Brewer stated I spoke to Mr. Jeremy Ring last night after he spoke to the
commission and he says they have to justify someone paying $500 in taxes and
their neighbor paying $5,000 in taxes. There are many “For Sale” signs from residents
who cannot afford to pay $5,000 in taxes.
It makes no sense to me and I am a businessman. They have a big dilemma to face as it is a
big tax problem.
Mr.
Rosenof stated the irony is I pay $5,000 in taxes and my neighbor pays $25,000
and we are talking about rolling everyone back 10%.
Mr.
Brewer stated the problem is determining where all of the money went. No one can tell us.
Ms.
Carr stated Chapter 2001-320 states:
“The Board of Supervisors shall meet at least one
time every month to conduct the business of the District, provided that items
shall have been submitted 14 days before the meeting. In the event no items are to be considered by
the Board of Supervisors of the District, the District Manager may cancel the
monthly meeting.”
Ms.
Benckenstein asked do we have to advertise our meetings on a monthly basis?
Mr.
Brewer responded we have to advertise every meeting. We can have an emergency meeting if necessary.
Mr.
Rosenof stated in past years, unless we were busy with the hurricane, this was
the way we always ran our meetings.
There were years where we had only four meetings. We only met when we had items to discuss.
Ms.
Benckenstein stated this should save us several hundred dollars.
Mr.
Goscicki stated as we clean up our hurricane issues, we do not have any
engineering costs or major construction.
I do not see any problem having quarterly meetings. We typically have one extra meeting around
budget-time. This is what we have seen
in other districts where we have four regular meetings plus an extra meeting
during budget-time for a total of five meetings per year.
Mr.
Rosenof asked for curiosity sake, what increases do other districts have?
Mr.
Goscicki responded most of our other districts are looking at the same
increases. No one is looking at much of
an increase but CSID just approved a 45% water and wastewater rate
increase. At the public hearing, only
one resident showed up but they did not live in the district.
Mr.
Weissman stated everyone is raising their water rates. They are hoping it will encourage
conservation.
Mr.
Goscicki stated they dealt with the same issues where they had not raised rates
in 14 years. Every district is different
in terms of what they are doing.
Mr.
Rosenof asked are the other districts facing the same types of increases?
Mr.
Goscicki responded yes. Your increase is
more extreme but it was because you started at such a low level.
Mr.
Brewer stated in addition, we have a low unit count affecting us dramatically.
Ms.
Bertolami asked how many units do we have?
Mr.
Brewer responded 2,150.3 units.
Mr.
Rosenof stated there is acreage in our district, which is not accounted for.
Ms.
Bertolami stated because some of us might have over an acre and are only charged
one acre.
Mr.
Brewer stated the Archdiocese sold off some land, which now has some very
expensive homes. Were they exempt?
Mr.
Craven responded I do not believe they were.
Mr.
Goscicki stated usually not in these types of special assessments. There is no legal basis for exempting
them. We seldom exempt them on a policy
basis. Most cities and counties do not
exempt religious organizations from assessment or impact fees.
Mr.
Weissman stated they do not pay ad valorem taxes.
Ms.
Carr stated some pay special assessments depending on how they are
established. This is part of a political
question as to whether to allow an exemption for charitable organizations. Some do and others do not. It has to be factored into what they charge
everyone else.