2014-0911 Special City Commission Meeting (2)

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Summary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting September 11, 2014 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida First Budeet Hearing 3B. Budget Ordinance (Public Hearing) An Ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, Adopting an Operating and Capital Improvement Budget for the Fiscal Year Commencing October 1, 2014 through September 30, 2015, Pursuant to Section 200.65. Florida Statutes; Authorizing Expenditures of Funds Established by the Budget; Authorizing Encumbrances; Authorizing Issuance of Checks; Providing for Grants and Gifts; Providing for Local and Federal Law Enforcement Trust Funds; Providing for Post Audit; Providing for Severability and Providing for an Effective Date. Action: City Clerk Hines read the title. and City Manager Russo presented a balanced Fiscal Year 2014/2015 Operating Budget and the five -year Capital Improvement Program. He said this is another successful budget, and this was the first year of doing it with our team in the Finance Department and they did a superb job. He went over the highlights of the changes and summary from last year to this year and where we are emphasizing certain things. First and foremost, as the Mayor said, we did our budget Workshops in July, and we actually had a philosophical discussion a couple of months before that which led to some of the same philosophies being pursued this year. First and foremost is for the third consecutive year, we reduced the millage rate from 2.7 to 2.6. The City experienced almost a 14% increase in our taxable value which was approximately $800 Million of increased value. The point to make on that is literally just about all of it except for a quarter of a million dollars, really insignificant when you look at the numbers, was all from increased property value and not new construction. That is a pretty incredible thing when you think about it because everybody looks at the buildings going up in the City, we have 15 projects right at this moment approved, being built in some stage of development. We increased our value by almost 14% on property value increases, and so the Property Appraiser said to him, look out for next year because next year some of the new construction will start to come on, and so we expect that trend to continue to rise. City Manager Russo said as far as our operating budget where we have emphasized some changes. All of it is in conformance with the philosophy that we set, the concept of world class services, and maintenance of our facilities. As we have been saying for the past two (2) years, this will become the total focus in the City where we still have major Capital Projects that are being built and are in progress but the emphasis is starting to shift to the maintenance and the quality of our services and programs. With regard to that, we are significantly increasing this year our facility operation workers in our Parks area. We expect to have by this Fiscal Year a full time staff from the minute our major Parks open to closing, that includes Heritage Park, Town Center Park, Pelican Community Park Center, and an emphasis on Senator Margolis Park and Samson Oceanfront Park when it gets redeveloped will be significantly increased on the full time staff there. Along with that is our Community Policing which will be increasing by two (2) this year and two (2) next year in that area for some of the same similar reasons. Both for safety in the City in general but also in regard to our Parks. and having a stronger presence there. To summarize, Heritage Park, Town Center Park, Gateway Park when it opens early into next year, and Pelican Community Park Center, we will have full time staff there, and during prime time have staffing at Samson and Margolis Parks, and we are ratcheting that up. We started last year with the budget for this year, we increased during this year, and we have got staffing proposed over Fiscal Year 2014/2015, and