City Council FY27 Budget Workshop — August 3, 2026 FINAL
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Alan Clendenin
09:09:19AM Everybody, I would like to call this meeting of Tampa City Council to order. Can we get a roll call, please.
Charlie Miranda
09:09:28AM Here.
Guido Maniscalco
09:09:29AM Here.
Lynn Hurtak
09:09:30AM Here.
Bill Carlson
09:09:33AM Here.
Alan Clendenin
09:09:34AM Here.
Clerk
09:09:35AM We have a physical quorum.
Alan Clendenin
09:09:37AM Welcome to this beautiful morning as we replenish our water supply in the community. I see the water people cheering and fist pumping into the air. Good to be back. I was with a conference last week in bogota awarding them for their achievement in gold status for LEED and doing site visits to learn what they are doing for environmental and -- you know, quality of life for the people that live there. It was quite fascinating. I learned we need to start planting the damn trees. We need to get out our own way and plant the trees. If they can do it there, and in bogota, we should be able to do it in Tampa. So, with that being said, Councilwoman Young will be a little bit late. Council member Viera will be a little bit late and will be coming shortly, but they are on the way with the weather. This is a budget workshop. A budget workshop. We will do presentations, and then we will have public comment after the presentations. It is only on enterprise funds today. For those of who have been here before, we have divided our workshops into three different categories, and each workshop will take their little piece of the pie. And until we get to the end where we have the big General Fund budget workshop. So we are here to discuss the recommendations for FY '27 for the City of Tampa related to enterprise funds, Solid Waste, wastewater and parking. Staff, who wants to start?
Hagar Kopesky
09:11:31AM Good morning, Hagar Kopesky, City Council budget analyst. I did provide a note to most of people here that we are on deck to present. So I know in past, we have done a format which is very open and at times we kind of had the books or looked through the material and had a verbal dialogue with the staff. Because the presentation was made on Thursday, and I don't know how much have used the digital version of the material to actually go through, I wanted to allow everyone just the option that it will be for the two areas of parking and for Solid Waste. There have been some work in the background with those two departments in prepping what we thought might be some of the questions that were coming. So I will leave it to you and simply say although you have those two areas, if -- if you would prefer to just shoot from the hip and just have questions related to -- I was going to basically take parking, Solid Waste, and then move to the water and wastewater areas. So I don't want to force the format if there isn't a desire to.
Alan Clendenin
09:12:37AM Being disconnected for about a week, I think we have to have at least some semblance of structure. And since this -- departments are coming to council for a budget request for FY -- I think it will be prudent and wise for them to come present their case for the budget for FY '27 and what their wants, needs, desires, where the struggles are, where the challenges are, and what they are looking for. My expectation from staff and as we go through all the workshops going forward, this is your opportunity to come to the legislative body who will give you money to run your departments for FY '27. Give us your best pitch.
Hagar Kopesky
09:13:15AM Okay. So with that said, thinking of the order we talked about, so do you want to go through in that same structure of parking, then stormwater and then water and wastewater or tackle it in the order that you feel most comfortable today?
Brad Baird
09:13:35AM Good morning, City Council, Brad Baird, infrastructure mobility administrator. We have made a presentation of the four areas of accomplishments over the last seven years: water, wastewater, Solid Waste and parking. And it is about a 20-minute presentation, 24 slides, and I am happy to do that. It is your pleasure.
Alan Clendenin
09:14:00AM I think -- council member Carlson.
Bill Carlson
09:14:04AM I think it is better that we focus on the budget. I mean, accomplishments are all over press releases several times a day.
Alan Clendenin
09:14:13AM I think that having somewhat of a baseline is fine, but, again, I think as we are looking at this as a true working workshop to come up with a fiscal '27 with all the challenges we have, I think it is -- again, I think it will be incumbent for you guys to come to us and give us the information we need to be able to understand and -- so it is my understanding we do not have a printed copy of the budget yet?
Hagar Kopesky
09:14:40AM It is going to be available digitally, and if we need something, we can certainly work through it.
Alan Clendenin
09:14:47AM I want to say I have been very clear in the past for myself, I want a printed budget, period.
Hagar Kopesky
09:14:53AM Right, okay.
Alan Clendenin
09:14:55AM I said that time and time again. Anybody in the staff in the division looking at this. Every freaking year, we have gone through this now, and I have said I wanted a budget. I want a printed budget.
Hagar Kopesky
09:15:06AM I do agree it would be good for them to talk about some of the work they have done, because I think it will parlay in. That is my opinion.
Alan Clendenin
09:15:15AM Thank you.
Dennis Rogero
09:15:17AM Good morning, sir.
Alan Clendenin
09:15:20AM I think we can afford a printed budget.
Dennis Rogero
09:15:22AM We are working on it. Every year, you have been very clear, and every year, we provided it, and we will provide it too. We are working on it now.
Alan Clendenin
09:15:30AM Thank you.
Bill Carlson
09:15:31AM Can I finish one thing? I think the public is tired of propaganda. They are ready for substance. I think it is better that we spend our time on substance this morning.
Alan Clendenin
09:15:40AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
09:15:42AM Miss Kopesky, you've created, like, some outlines. I think that would be a great place to start with parking, if nobody else wants to make a decision. I would love that.
Alan Clendenin
09:15:56AM Thank you.
Lynn Hurtak
09:15:57AM Is this -- I guess some of this is passed?
Hagar Kopesky
09:16:05AM Some of this is passed?
Alan Clendenin
09:16:07AM A baseline. You have the baseline.
Lynn Hurtak
09:16:09AM Same thing as to what they are presented?
Hagar Kopesky
09:16:14AM Glad we have the kinks to work out because we have two more to go. Data in here for fiscal '27, as well as the projection or anything to do with '26 budget, is directly out of the data that is uploaded in open gov. So anything that you guys are looking at potentially online or presented to the Mayor, This is all the same dataset.
Lynn Hurtak
09:16:33AM Okay.
Hagar Kopesky
09:16:37AM So my one comment will be if we go through this structure, fed is online, and it will be obviously up to him to kind of chime in on some of those things, but I can certainly walk us through the structure.
Lynn Hurtak
09:16:49AM Yes, I think that would be great.
Alan Clendenin
09:16:53AM Okay. Let's go.
Hagar Kopesky
09:16:56AM So CCTV, we will go with the parking deck first, please.
Alan Clendenin
09:17:01AM Council member Viera, good morning.
Luis Viera
09:17:07AM Sorry.
Alan Clendenin
09:17:08AM That's all right.
Luis Viera
09:17:09AM Traffic.
Alan Clendenin
09:17:13AM Good reason. Rain, let it rain.
Hagar Kopesky
09:17:15AM I want to pause for a minute and see if he is actually on the line. You are? Great. Good. Okay. So the intention here was, again, first time out of the gate, what is this budget actually look like? This format is the format you traditionally have seen in the past that goes through the expense matrix. The intent is to go through a global shot of the same timeframe that you typically see on an annual basis. I am not going to spend unnecessary time, but for you to have it as a takeaway because it could potentially help you if you have questions down the road. What I circled here are the larger items in this particular area. So I'm going to click. Charges for services. Can you guys read that okay?
Alan Clendenin
09:18:12AM Yes, looks good.
Hagar Kopesky
09:18:14AM Simply to call out where the contribution is coming from. Really, at this slide, you can get a sense of where we are with trends. It is obviously ticked up. You remember that we did put in place new rates on October 1. So we would have expected '26 to certainly exceed '25. Tampa did. And it is actually coming in better than planned. So in this particular case, just giving you the mix so to speak, the largest contributor coming from daily, second with the on-street, and monthly parking providing the third. Excuse me. All right, so what I wanted to do was kind of -- this is essentially a walk, right. So we are talking about we started this year at $43 million for the biggest revenue account we have. And it is showing contributors that drove the increase to the projection. And in this case, the daily has exceeded. I don't want to speak for anyone. How the '26 budget new rates will materialize is not a perfect science. Good news is, we have actually exceeded the '26 plan. Again, giving you some basis is from where we started. And now walking forward, one of the things that I wanted to just discuss while we had fed was to tie to the actual '27 recommended. It does reflect that the revenues actually step down slightly. And I think that maybe because we have a couple of situations where projects will be occurring, for example, the royal regional lot or some of the selmon crosstown lots or something. I am going to pause because I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it was not a natural direction that you would expect the revenue to go, so I did want you to verify that.
Alan Clendenin
09:20:04AM Fed, are you there?
Fed Revolte
09:20:12AM Fed Revolte with mobility. Can you see me? I can see the camera --
Alan Clendenin
09:20:18AM We don't have to see you. We can hear you.
Fed Revolte
09:20:21AM Perfect. Hagar, you are correct. The reason for the monthly parking increase in the daily parking is anticipation of the selmon lots -- lots 2, west lot, also the lots that will be basically off line for right now in the next 18 months. And also, the royal regional lot will be losing that for the affordable housing project. So that will be taken off line for parking revenue as well. So you are correct.
Alan Clendenin
09:20:50AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
09:20:51AM But I just want to set everyone's expectation that that royal lot, they will be replacing those spots once that affordable housing is purchased. I want to make sure that folks knew that. But from my understanding, the selmon lots will not be coming back, because they will be -- it is going to go in a different route and no longer park under the selmon, is that correct?
Fed Revolte
09:21:25AM They have not made that clear what their plans are but for the surface lots to go away. Some of them will be public use spaces, dog park, pickleball. That is what is under the master plan, but they have not confirmed yet if we will get any of the spaces back.
Lynn Hurtak
09:21:39AM Okay. And what -- what I am also curious about, and this might be too early, so if it is, tell me it is too early to talk about it, but we are right now in the middle of renegotiating the pam iorio garage and all surface parking surrounding the arena. So it shocks me that this -- that the projection is lower when ideally, we will be getting a lot more money if we can negotiate that correctly. Because it was negotiated very poorly 30 years ago.
Fed Revolte
09:22:14AM I'm not sure if Dennis or Mike Perry is able to chime in on that. That's correct. Administration is currently in next with the lightning.
Alan Clendenin
09:22:26AM Council member Carlson.
Bill Carlson
09:22:29AM Yeah. Fed, two things. One is I think we have all gotten in -- we all have gotten in a fair number of complaints about people parking downtown, especially for the first hour, and the second area is Ybor City. Parking for the first hour. Thank you for your help on a day-to-day basis with constituent issues, by the way. One, I wanted to get your feedback on that and what the flow is and it compared to your experience and what would you do. And secondly, last year when we were talking, we talked about maybe buying out Hillsborough community college for the remainder of the noriega garage or building new garages in ybor. Second question, will you tell us what your vision is then? One of the reasons to increase rates to maybe distribute -- well, first of all, break even because we were losing money before. And second, trying to solve some parking issues in other places in the historic district and ybor. Hard for property owners because there is no built-in parking that they can use at peak times. Can you tell us the response and what is your vision?
Fed Revolte
09:23:47AM Yes, really the majority of complaints are typically either there is not enough parking in ybor, and then for downtown, it is more so if somebody is parking in the 717 or private lot, nothing that the city can do. Most of the complaints come from, for example, last week, we had one where someone came to downtown for basically an hour, and they parked in a private lot and charged them a flat rate of $15 for just one hour. We received that complaint, but unfortunately, there is not much that the city can do on a private operation. But our plan is to start looking into replenishing some of those assets that we will be losing like the surface lots, the royal regional lot, and also, one big one is the twiggs garage. As it stands, city and the county has an agreement come 2030 that twiggs garage will be converted back to the county. In this budget, we looked at a full master plan looking into our assets. One that current existing assets will be sustainable long term and looking at ways to replenish those assets. The Whiting Street garage takes two square blocks and 400 spaces. That can be redeveloped. There is private -- I will say redevelopment in the east ybor that would like to go up, but not enough parking in ybor. So right now, two garages in ybor. Both of those garages are basically on west side of 16th street. If you are on the east side of 16th street or ybor, there is not really any public parking. A couple of surface lots but they don't have a whole lot of parking spaces. My goal is hopefully -- and I have not seen if it was approved yet, but that $1 million will basically kick off a long-term five-year plan to look into how we can look to be sustainable coming forward.
Bill Carlson
09:26:02AM Can I ask a follow-up question?
Alan Clendenin
09:26:05AM Sure.
Charlie Miranda
09:26:06AM In terms of capacity, we were told ten years ago somebody would have some uber-style service and no one would own cars, and we will be in some kind of a robo taxi and pay a subscription per month. We are at least five or ten years behind that. But tesla launched robo taxis. Waymo is launching here. From your analysis in looking at other cities, what -- what are you Planning to do to prepare for the day when there are thousands of these and people, many people have given up their cars and using those instead. What about your plan?
Fed Revolte
09:26:51AM Some of the cities are preparing for it. When you are building a structure, you build on where they can be converted into, like, affordable housing or office spaces essentially. So I would not say we stop building entirely. We build in a way where if the use you have of that space has changed, then you can change with it essentially.
Alan Clendenin
09:27:10AM Are you done? Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
09:27:15AM I think that -- I think waymos and tesla and all that may happen, but they quite frankly will not work for poor people. Let's just be honest. Those folks are going to own a car because they can't afford a service. So cars will be important for quite some time. I would say rest of our lifetime because we can't move that fast unless we can get transit. Something that people who can't afford things can afford. Certainly not uber or waymo subscription and all that. Not economically feasible for the majority of tampanians. My question wouldn't be that but would differently be that when you are doing this parking, like evaluations, you talk to council members too and hopefully members of the public on what is really needed. I know you talk about a garage where the Whiting Street is, but I am hoping that it wouldn't just be a seven-story garage, but it would also be a public-private partnership with an office tower or residential above it, similar to what we are doing with the army-navy and the royal lot, I suppose you call it. But something like that where we would have seven stories of parking or however much parking you are anticipating for public. And in addition, something that could make us money on top of parking for private -- public-private partnership. So, basically, what you are saying is that in this budget, there is a lot of stuff we don't know, because we don't know the revenue that we are going to achieve with the reorganization of the pam iorio garage and surface parking around the arena. That is a really giant question mark, correct?
Fed Revolte
09:29:18AM That's correct, yes.
Lynn Hurtak
09:29:19AM What would you say is the revenue currently from those spaces and those garages that we are going to it be renegotiating?
Fed Revolte
09:29:29AM For the pam iorio garage with the parking agreement line item under operating expenses at $1.5 million. That is what the contract calls for up to the 1.5 if --
Hagar Kopesky
09:29:47AM Page 5.
Fed Revolte
09:29:48AM And in years past, it has been close to $1.3 million to $1.4 million. That is, we like the parking to cut them a check to reimburse them for ticket surcharge. Also, as part of that agreement, they get the 900 spaces and the pam iorio garage for every event. So I am not basically able to sell the spaces for the public. They keep that revenue. We can't account for that unless we get those spaces back, if we do.
Lynn Hurtak
09:30:21AM Okay. How many spaces are approximately in play with this renegotiation?
Fed Revolte
09:30:27AM I am not aware of where we are at in the next process yet.
Lynn Hurtak
09:30:30AM I am saying how many parking spaces are -- other than 900, because, again, we have surface parking around the whiting and the -- like, so how many spaces in total. Are we --
Fed Revolte
09:30:51AM Oh, I believe it is just around the 900 spaces that is in the pam iorio. The $1.5 million comes from all the parking of the South Whiting Street. That is where they get the $1.5 million. Actual spaces are part of the agreement with the 900 spaces in pam iorio.
Lynn Hurtak
09:31:12AM We are not renegotiating anything south of whiting?
Fed Revolte
09:31:16AM Again, I can't speak of on negotiations right now. I am not sure where we are at.
Lynn Hurtak
09:31:21AM Okay, thank you.
Alan Clendenin
09:31:22AM Problem with that is we are looking at budgeting subject to negotiating and until that is done --
Lynn Hurtak
09:31:28AM Kind of my point. It is interesting to look at this, but we are not going to have real numbers until the next. And if I am correct, the next or the idea for an agreement is early spring?
Fed Revolte
09:31:44AM Well, the current agreement actually expires September 30 of this year.
Lynn Hurtak
09:31:52AM I am sorry, that soon?
Hagar Kopesky
09:31:56AM For the whiting.
Fed Revolte
09:31:58AM And 900 spaces.
Alan Clendenin
09:32:01AM Whole parking agreements.
Lynn Hurtak
09:32:03AM I know that I have already -- I have already asked for a briefing with chief of staff, because apparently, you are not negotiating, that is the chief of staff, correct?
Fed Revolte
09:32:17AM I believe chief of staff and Abbye Feeley have been in contact.
Lynn Hurtak
09:32:22AM I already asked for a briefing. Y'all shall hop on that as well, because I think that is really important. And I am also a little surprised that our director of parking isn't included in that, but that is just a personal aside.
Alan Clendenin
09:32:36AM I am fully engaged in it.
Lynn Hurtak
09:32:38AM You may be fully engaged but all of us need to be engaged.
Alan Clendenin
09:32:44AM I was just responding because you asked that we should do that, but we have been.
Lynn Hurtak
09:32:49AM Fed should be, but all of us should be aware of it. The fact we weren't aware this is coming up on September 30 is kind of a big deal. Council member Miranda has been talking about this long before I have been on council. He has been waiting on this. You had it, like, circles on your calendar, right.
Alan Clendenin
09:33:09AM Council member Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
09:33:11AM Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Along those lines, does that include the parking garage at the Convention Center or not?
Fed Revolte
09:33:19AM They get basically -- the $1.5 million comes from all parking spaces south, you have Whiting Street. So that's where we get the $1.5 million. Parking agreement is a component. $1.5 million guaranteed and 900 spaces they get in the pam iorio garage.
Charlie Miranda
09:33:39AM I am not here to criticize or praise the negotiations. I wasn't privy to that. So -- I will just wonder what loss of revenue. All you have -- I don't think we get a penny out of it, but that was done way back from Kennedy south. I don't know. They included the parking garage at the Convention Center. You said yes so it is concreted that it is. The problem is that the other businesses that do this. We don't do it for any other business. We don't do it for the hotels or for anybody else. And I hope whoever is doing the negotiating understands that there has got to be some type of responsibility of those who want to take advantage of what we have been and belongs to not just us but others that came around. When there was no hotel convention -- there was a Convention Center that was really suffering. When one hotel came in, and that was hard to do with the greco administration. They brought in other hotels. But, however, they knew Tampa was a spot that was moving at that time and now the hotels sprung up, and four or five or six others came up. These are the things you need to look at, and they are not getting a piece of the pie that I know of. They are maybe bringing a lot of people in.
Alan Clendenin
09:35:08AM If council is okay with this, because there's lot of questions of the parking lot south of whiting, Mr. Rogero or Mr. Perry, anybody versed on this can give us an education on what the current agreement is so we have the exact funding mechanism.
Charlie Miranda
09:35:28AM The funding.
Alan Clendenin
09:35:30AM Yes.
Bill Carlson
09:35:30AM I just want to add one thing. Administration says we are always available for briefings, but then there is information that is consistently applied and I use other sources and find out that the information I am given is not true. If we want the chief of staff to brief us on something put him on the podium and have him come and face the public and answer your questions publicly. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
09:35:59AM Mr. Perry.
Michael Perry
09:36:01AM Good morning, Michael Perry, financial officer. Parking agreement was put in place to support two debt issuances, series 1996 and is reese 1990b. I will tell you it is a good attempt of doing a nexus between parking revenues and those debt series; however, regardless how much parking revenue we earned within parking revenue sharing area, the city had to provide funding to support the debt service and the lightning. So I want to take it into two areas. First is a base requirement for city to pay $750,000 annually. And that primarily was to support the debt service associated with one of the bond issues. And, of course, those bond issues I do believe -- final payment September 30, 2026.
Alan Clendenin
09:37:04AM Can you say what the bond issuance were for?
Michael Perry
09:37:08AM To construct amalie arena.
Alan Clendenin
09:37:11AM Thank you.
Michael Perry
09:37:12AM Second component of the revenue sharing agreement had to do with the number of attendees going into amalie arena or what is now called the market. But up to a million people going in there. We had to pay a certain amount. And once we have exceeded a million customers into the amalie arena, we paid a different amount, but that was capped at a total revenue sharing of $1.5 million. Now we will tell you that at times when the Parking Department did not earn revenues, during last recession, General Fund had to step up and make the contribution for the parking revenue sharing agreement. Do you have any questions?
Alan Clendenin
09:38:06AM So just to be clear, this -- initial construction of -- what is called the benchmark arena was part of -- how that was finance, but a portion of it was through revenue sharing of parking. Is that --
Michael Perry
09:38:23AM That was the mechanism that was developed by the administration back then. To say this is how we are going to pay the debt.
Alan Clendenin
09:38:30AM Okay. I just want to make sure that we do have two debt issuances. And there are four bond issues out there.
09:38:42AM What portion of it goes to the lightning organization and not the city?
Michael Perry
09:38:51AM You had the initial 750 for the debt. And anything -- additional 750 went to the lightning.
Alan Clendenin
09:38:57AM Capped to the 750.
Michael Perry
09:39:00AM Correct.
Alan Clendenin
09:39:01AM That's what I was digging for. Councilwoman Hurtak and then -- did -- council member Miranda, were you done? Okay.
Lynn Hurtak
09:39:09AM How much was debt all together?
Michael Perry
09:39:11AM I'm doing this off the top of my head.
Lynn Hurtak
09:39:14AM That's okay. About $750,000 annually we have been paying to lightning.
Michael Perry
09:39:20AM Depending on number of customers going in and out.
Lynn Hurtak
09:39:24AM The debt we are paying to pay off. 750 every year for 30 years. And now my other question is, when does the rest of that debt go away having to do with the arena?
Michael Perry
09:39:43AM Debt gets retired September 30.
Lynn Hurtak
09:39:46AM All the debt surrounding it.
Michael Perry
09:39:48AM A second component of the debt. Every time you purchase a ticket to go there, $.25 went to pay off one of the smaller bond deals. And if that ticket surcharge will continue to go into effect, I do not know.
Lynn Hurtak
09:40:06AM Okay. I have a question since you are standing up there -- well, actually, I will see if anybody else has as question about this before I ask.
Alan Clendenin
09:40:15AM Again, just so everybody knows, September 30 is the end of that contract, that agreement, debt services for that portion of the bonding amended to be paid -- to be retired on September 30. And we will have -- once those negotiations are completed, we will have an understanding of where we stand, pretty much --
Michael Perry
09:40:37AM Pretty well summarized. Do you agree, fed?
Fed Revolte
09:40:44AM Yes, sir, that's correct.
Alan Clendenin
09:40:46AM Thank you, Mr. Perry. Anyone else have anything on this particular subject? Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
09:40:51AM Thank you. If you can go back of slide 2 of the schedule of revenues and expenses. One more. There you go. So we have expenses here that all these makes sense. Personal operating debt to see that debt expenses are going away. But my question is about the other. What is this, a lot of money and basically just seems like it kind of slowly is either creeping up and down. What is the "other" for?
Michael Perry
09:41:30AM That is fairly easy. I'm going to take $7 million of that going to that. $2 million for sidewalks.
Lynn Hurtak
09:41:44AM $7 million. We have five for paving.
Michael Perry
09:41:49AM Yes.
Lynn Hurtak
09:41:50AM And two for sidewalks?
Michael Perry
09:41:52AM Correct. $3.1 million is going to pay parking Bonds that are currently outstanding and are retired on or about September 30, 2029, I believe so.
Lynn Hurtak
09:42:05AM September 30, 2029.
Michael Perry
09:42:10AM Fed, that's where I need your help. Remaining amount, does that go to the CIT?
Fed Revolte
09:42:18AM That's correct.
Michael Perry
09:42:18AM Capital improvement program.
Lynn Hurtak
09:42:21AM Why isn't that in capital then?
Michael Perry
09:42:25AM Again, you have two funds. Again, we do fund a county here. So revenues and operating expenses are in the operating fund. We do capital improvement projects in the specific capital improvement fund. You do have a transfer and that is the remaining amount.
Lynn Hurtak
09:42:46AM Do we have a slide that is showing what we are going to be spending $13 million on this year? Ah, perfect. Okay.
Hagar Kopesky
09:43:01AM I believe the 9.5 will be representative of the longer term capital.
Lynn Hurtak
09:43:14AM Great. That is very helpful, thank you.
Alan Clendenin
09:43:16AM I have a question for fed or anybody else who wants to answer it. Long push off of the capital improvement plan for way finding for the garages, where do we stand on that?
Fed Revolte
09:43:29AM Right now, actually, we have some funding now already approved for way finding and we needed to update the same at fort brooke garage. And we already worked with purchasing and that contract will be coming to council in the in the next 30 to 60 days for the fort brooke garage.
Alan Clendenin
09:43:49AM Total CIP for having available parking spaces and way finding for all of our parking garages in Ybor City and central business district, what will that look like?
Hagar Kopesky
09:44:02AM Fed, so they can see existing.
Alan Clendenin
09:44:06AM Fed, hold on a second. Go ahead, Hagar.
Hagar Kopesky
09:44:10AM First slide is what you get to see every month on the internet when they publish -- current spending against the active projects. In your example, you can see where the pam iorio has started, and that is when you approved the elevator equipment to be purchased. And you can see that the next one up, I believe -- and I know I am talking of modernization and you are talking of other way finding. These are projects that already have funding and to your question specifically about -- let's see, last one says garage aesthetics and way fining. $3 million. Fed, that is part of what you are referring to, is that correct?
Fed Revolte
09:44:54AM No. what council member Clendenin was referring to was the full wayfinding package. We actually broke that down instead of having one full project, we basically did it in small pieces. The garage status and wayfinding upgrade, we intended to do one full to have on-street spaces talking to each other having the guidance when somebody leaves. They get off the interstate, they know exactly which garages have open spaces. So what we are doing is each garage individually first. And then over that, we will work on the on-street. First one approved is fort brooke garage. We already did that project. And purchasing already has a vendor coming to City Council in the next 30 to 60 days. From there, I don't have any money for any other garages yet. Aid briefing with Councilwoman Hurtak. What she actually subjected -- at first, we wanted to tap into the CRAs, but because the project was going to move between different CRAs, we were not able to use different CRAs monies and central ybor and Palm Avenue garage separately, maybe tap into the CRA for those two garages. I will reach out to the county to see if they can exist to the ybor and the pam iorio. But we don't have one full number for all the garages.
Alan Clendenin
09:46:39AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
09:46:40AM I was going to say exactly that. That I am hoping that CRA might be able to help with some of this. Problem is if we put it in capital, we may not be able to use CRA funds. We will have to see because perfect Cra-Funded project -- and I said it two, three years ago when we took it out you have the budget, but --
Alan Clendenin
09:47:05AM I guess my question is, break this down in idiot form for FY '27 and the capital budget. Show me where that money is specifically for -- for this -- these particular projects.
Fed Revolte
09:47:21AM We don't have anything budgeted for FY '27. That was already --
Alan Clendenin
09:47:29AM Okay, now I understand. You are talking of moving forward with these things I thought you recall telling me that you did. I don't see it.
Fed Revolte
09:47:37AM No, we already had money for fort brooke garage.
Lynn Hurtak
09:47:41AM On Thursday, basically, they said that all you have these forward projects for capital are basically on hold because you have November. Because you have amendment 3.
Alan Clendenin
09:47:53AM Anybody else have anything on this one?
Bill Carlson
09:47:57AM Just wants to ask.
Alan Clendenin
09:47:59AM Council member Carlson.
Bill Carlson
09:48:00AM Fed, do you -- this is an enterprise fund so you can move money around from one structure to another, but do you internally have, like, a P&L for each structure to kind of pay back if -- if we are taking profits from one and upgrading other. Do you eventually settle it out between different structures or look at it as one big enterprise?
Fed Revolte
09:48:29AM No, we have them separated by each different structure.
Alan Clendenin
09:48:33AM Council member Carlson's microphone has a ring of reverberation or feedback to it. So fyi.
Hagar Kopesky
09:48:46AM If I can see the presentation again, please. Okay. So we will make this quick. So just as we talked about, revenue in the primary piece being obviously the space rental that happen, the two -- you can see larger expense drivers within operating expenses. $21 million and by the largest component of their -- well, of their expenses. So similar situation. So fed, I am showing them a walk forward here to give them a sense of how '26 is performing against budget. Two accounts you use heavily. One is "other services" and the other is "other contractual services." "The other services" count had unfavorably there, and I don't know if you are able to speak to that a little bit.
Fed Revolte
09:49:45AM Yeah, mostly that comes from the credit card fees. All the credit card fees fall under the "other services." And as we move forward with basically most of our pay stations taking credit card only, those fees have gone up as well, but we anticipated that when we did the rate increase as well to taking it into account for -- for the additional credit card fees. And I know I had talked about as far as how -- how parking or any City departments can recoup some of those credit card fees. On the parking side, we have ways that we have done that. So, for example, for all citations that get paid online, there is a $2.50, like, convenience fee that basically offsets the additional credit card fees for that.
Hagar Kopesky
09:50:43AM Okay. So moving forward into next year, fed, so thinking of your "other," the "other contractual services" going up $1.2 million, that is by and far the largest increase for new OP ex areas. Reflecting certain vendor changes. Or can you expand on that a little bit?
Fed Revolte
09:51:05AM The scope of services changes as well. The two biggest ones are the security contract and also the maintenance for parking equipment contracts so we basically are covering more of the fully automated with the two vendors. The two biggest changes, security and the maintenance contract for equipment.
Hagar Kopesky
09:51:30AM I am going to pause. Anybody else have questions on the slide, no?
Alan Clendenin
09:51:35AM Anybody? No.
Hagar Kopesky
09:51:37AM Again, I moved on to the monthly report that comes out for capital. The reason I circled the project is to have fed have a chance to explain, a project that amasses money every year and accomplishes multiple things. And I wanted him to speak briefly too. You can see, of course, you have times but actuals to date could be years. Fed, give a little color as to what has been in the hopper and what has been done so far in, like, the last 12 months.
Fed Revolte
09:52:08AM Yeah, that is basically our catch-all CIP bucket. Where the perfect example is the river gate garage basically fixing the leaking from it from the garden down to the garage. That is about $900,000 with that one. But majority of the garages, we have leaks, issues. They are just older garages. So that line item is where we take all of the funding for improvement of garages. Really just to kind of keep things going. Not a major project like the pam iorio garage and centro ybor garage. Any nonspecific CIP project goes in the city-wide parking garage improvements, and we have done quite a few. Like fort brooke on the second floor was leaking down to the offices, and that is a catch-all CIP item for us for all of the garages.
Alan Clendenin
09:53:15AM How bad is the river gate garage? How bad is that maintenance and what is the, like, long-term goal for the?
Fed Revolte
09:53:29AM It is a really bad. $330,000 a year in lease revenue, but every three, four years, we have to put in another $600,000, $700,000, just because you have all of the rainwater coming from top seeping down. We have the concrete. We have the rebar. We have to constantly, you know, maintain that. Until we have a long-term solution for garden, we will continue pouring money into keeping the structure afloat.
Alan Clendenin
09:53:58AM Is there any -- okay, so I will save that for off-line. Anybody?
Fed Revolte
09:54:05AM We talked to parks and rec for a long-time solution, but we don't have anything permanent with the garden.
Bill Carlson
09:54:15AM Fed, last time there was a major renovation or repair 15 or so years ago, it was $10 million. Does that sounds right? Do you have any idea -- I don't want to say move the kylie garden, but do you have any idea what it will cost today? Would it be a much bigger number?
Fed Revolte
09:54:37AM It would be -- I don't believe they put all of the $10 million into it. I believe that was quoted. We also had a quote about five years ago. And that was about $15 million to actually do the work -- actually do work there. And again, we don't have funding to do the full scope and piecemeal it, and every two to three years, we will keep doing it until we have a permanent solution in mind. My understanding is parks and rec makes that decision. There is nothing parking can do because they own the top of the garage essentially.
Alan Clendenin
09:55:13AM Can you, fed, or someone else on the council refresh the council's memory of the status of the garage. Who owns it? What the revenue share is? Who owns dirt? What is the maintenance responsibility?
Fed Revolte
09:55:29AM I can speak on the parking portion. Last time I spoke with real estate, city still owns the land itself and then the private entity owns the bottom and the division owns the top level. Type surface which is kylie garden is owned by parks and rec. Parking is essentially in between parks and rec and the private Bennett capital.
Alan Clendenin
09:56:04AM Dirt underneath is municipal owned and everything else is like a condo.
Fed Revolte
09:56:11AM Association type, yes.
Alan Clendenin
09:56:13AM When does that agreement expire and a way to parlay that into something else?
Fed Revolte
09:56:19AM I am not sure. Real estate has that information but last time -- I think we still have about ten years left.
Alan Clendenin
09:56:25AM Very good, thank you.
Hagar Kopesky
09:56:27AM Okay. Can I see the presentation up again, please. Thank you. Okay, so, again, included in this slide, you saw this at the midyear. You see it a lot. So what I like about this, walk us through initially where they thought -- where the revised budget will end. Projection to end at 5.1. The June update, you can see with the middle column some improvement. At this point, the ending fund balance is closer to 9.4, which is great. All I have done is try to reflect based on numbers again in earlier slides where would that essentially have us land if everything were to come in as expected for the '27 recommended. Now I will tell you, I do want Mr. Perry to review this. I think I -- I think I got it right, but he didn't see this until yesterday. With that being said, part of the dialogue on this slide from me to you is to simply understand where is that fund balance. One of the things I think we all know is that there are earlier on in the page, how revenues themselves were flattish perhaps given temporary projects, decline happening and operating expenditure could continue -- well, a easily 4 to 5%. But some point after '29, of course, when that piece evidence of the debt starts to roll off, some relief there, assuming we won't have to restart it. Where I am going with this, a good monitoring tool to understand if revenues stay consistent and expenses go up, you will be eating away at that fund balance is where we are going. Important for us to look at the long-term piece of it and will imply when the race will be and when something will happen again.
Alan Clendenin
09:58:30AM Councilwoman Hurtak has a question.
Lynn Hurtak
09:58:34AM I have a question. And I know the -- because I just keep coming back to it. When I asked about the other, and Mr. Perry so graciously, like, knew that $5 million is paving and $2 million is sidewalks, and that's great. I need to know, is that all you have for the budget for paving and sidewalks for the City of Tampa for FY '27?
Hagar Kopesky
09:59:04AM I will remind everyone that next Monday we will be doing the mobility. I am not saying you have to wait until then, mobility for stormwater.
Lynn Hurtak
09:59:12AM I appreciate that and hold any question until then. But just knowing I want to know our balance on the $41 million we had last year. How many of that has been expended. Obviously, $21 million is not something we can consider because those plans have already been done and will take a number of years to use that money. But the rest of it, like that $20 million, how far have we gotten because that is still obviously one of the big main drivers that citizens ask about is paving and sidewalks. Hoping to have $7 million because that seems to be one of biggest issues for citizens, and that's what I will look for next week.
Alan Clendenin
09:59:53AM Literally walking into city hall and talked to Brandon Campbell today and said don't be surprised if you don't come with a good healthy budget for paving that I will be swinging for other people's budgets to supplement that paving budget.
Lynn Hurtak
10:00:08AM Yeah, but thing is though as they clearly explained, they are holding some money back. If amendment 3 doesn't pass, they will use more of that money, but I want a plan for that. You are right. T hank you so much for stopping me. Yeah.
Alan Clendenin
10:00:25AM Council member Carlson.
Bill Carlson
10:00:29AM Yeah, last two for three years we, City Council, has raided this balance so we could help with the road repair budget which was low for so many years and so much deferred maintenance and upset constituents. Last years, fed pushed back saying I need that for my own maintenance and other things. First question, fed, before somebody proposes reading the 6.3, what is your -- what do you plan to do with that. Number two, since chief of staff walked in, you talked about -- Miss Kopesky, you talk of how the debt is rolling off, but if the nexus with the lightning and benchmark arena is still going and in the discussion, new debt being proposed or if it puts a burden on this fund.
Hagar Kopesky
10:01:31AM Again, not being involved, I can't answer the question.
Alan Clendenin
10:01:35AM I asked the question of fed only. Fed?
Fed Revolte
10:01:41AM First part is the fund balance, correct. As far as long-term, one, if we are building any new structures, question would be, do we want to do bond or save to build the structure outright. That is a question for either council or the administration as far as what we want to do. Also, fund balance is there for us if the revenue projections does not come into fruition. We have the, you know, fund balance to support the additional expenditure without the additional revenue that we have projected. So for me, the biggest thing is having it there to build a structure because we need it for parking.
Alan Clendenin
10:02:34AM Do you want to add anything, Miss Kopesky?
Hagar Kopesky
10:02:37AM No.
Alan Clendenin
10:02:38AM A bigger discussion so if you want to close this.
Bill Carlson
10:02:41AM Can I have an answer from the chief of staff and maybe respond to both.
Alan Clendenin
10:02:44AM Yes, sir.
Bill Carlson
10:02:45AM Question to him, negotiating with the lightning or benchmark international arena, one, you have the items being negotiated with debt that may rely on this funding source.
John Bennett
10:02:57AM Good morning, council, John Bennett, chief of staff. Technical aspects of that association of the lightning have been going on for over a year knowing that this deadline is coming up. But problem is that next isn't happening in a vacuum. Mobility has been negotiating that all along because you have the business case between garage and the revenue between the city and the lightning. So that dynamic escalated to my office, because you have other things that the lightning wants. The multiple agreements with the lightning want to become co-terminus. And yes, Abbye Feeley's office is involved, mobility is involved, and parking is involved. Everybody is associating their piece of the co-terminus agreements. I can't answer your question.
Fed Revolte
10:03:42AM I can't answer the question specifically at your point, but the deal between the parking revenue and the city's need for that revenue as well based only previous agreements. So we have not settled on the co-terminus aspects of all those agreements. And I know may mobility has been negotiating that over a year for business case and the lightning and even reached the mayor's office to a point where we are trying to sit down and figure out. My understanding from Mr. Griggs that we are very close. And another factor in that as well, but I will leave that alone now.
Alan Clendenin
10:04:21AM Council member Carlson.
Bill Carlson
10:04:22AM I had staff members as part of that next that you instructed to give the lightning what is now the digital billboard there and part for iorio garage. Is that true?
John Bennett
10:04:41AM One, not in my office. Signs happened out of my office. Legal always been dealing with that because you have complexity of signs and billboards. Nothing in my space. To be candid, I don't know what that even means.
Alan Clendenin
10:04:58AM And you have other questions? Chief Bennett is here.
Bill Carlson
10:05:03AM I said earlier if we have a long conversation separate from the parking. Today, we are talking of parking, a separate discussion instead of each of us getting potentially separate information, we have to put him on the agenda and have him talking about it.
John Bennett
10:05:21AM I am always happy to show up individually or collectively in the public or elsewhere.
Alan Clendenin
10:05:25AM Because negotiations behind the scenes and not necessarily something you want to flesh out. Probably wait until he can come and brief us.
Bill Carlson
10:05:38AM One of the things talking to the rays since I wasn't included before, they should have put it in public. Because if he thought the details out, it would have avoided a lot of consternation of the community.
Alan Clendenin
10:05:50AM It is not an agreement until it's an agreement, you know.
John Bennett
10:05:55AM I can tell you at 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., everything changes each day.
Bill Carlson
10:05:59AM Example with the lightning is that the city's contract is totally separate than the county's. Had the city's been presented separately and more transparency in it, there would be less opposition to the city's parts of it than the county's part of it. Because the city's had so few parts to it. Just as an example.
Alan Clendenin
10:06:25AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:06:26AM I am just ready to go on to the next slide, and it is already 10:00.
Hagar Kopesky
10:06:30AM Wrapping it up.
Lynn Hurtak
10:06:33AM My question is about the next slide. Then I will be with you.
Alan Clendenin
10:06:40AM Parking organization.
Lynn Hurtak
10:06:41AM There we go. If you want to talk about the -- you know why we have vacant lots, and one of the complaints I have gotten a lot lately is there aren't enough on-the-street folks ticketing people who are not parking in actual parking spaces and/or handling other parking issues. Could you speak to that, and how we are going to use parking -- I don't know what you call them.
10:07:24AM Compliance officers. Because it looks like 28 compliance specialists?
10:07:31AM And finance, is there any thought you have adding more and organizing them better to reach out to the neighborhood who are experiencing more parking issues people park where they shouldn't be. From using the officers in the garages to now where we actually are using technology to enforce. So now those officers will be free to be out on the street more. Once we have done that, then I will be able to be better, you know, determine if we need more officers. But what we have done in the past two or three months now is using technologies for the garages. So, like, if you look at fort brooke garage, for example, 2500 spaces with ten levels. It will take the officers like two, three of them almost all day before they go all the way up and come back down and having to go up again. What we have done is remove them from all of the garages, pam iorio, fort brooke. They will be out on the street more. Other thing that I have done is request to get more vehicles for them. So that way they are not walking as much as they used to. That basically makes the process a lot easier to go from point PA to point b, and this year, we will determine if we need officers to be in place to be more efficient.
10:09:24AM Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
10:09:24AM Said vacant people. All I can think about is zombies. Zombie parking people.
Hagar Kopesky
10:09:33AM One more positive line item and then I'll wrap it up. You remember with the presentation on Thursday, parking is the amount to reduce head count to two. I think part of it related to some of the technology efficiency allowing to release one and shifting ratios of team leads and people under them. A nice savings close to $150,000 to $175,000. I believe if I can see the slide one more time, we will move on from this --
Alan Clendenin
10:10:04AM Fed, before you leave -- more parking stuff?
Hagar Kopesky
10:10:09AM Two seconds. Supplemental slides if you go forward and do what you are going to do, there is a reminder of the volume and where it exists within the parking garages.
Lynn Hurtak
10:10:19AM What is the percentage?
Hagar Kopesky
10:10:22AM Percentage for overall space of each location. Revenue and each space. This one has to do with the lots. No incidents to remind everyone from the selmon lot number two. Fed is -- oops, fed is helping me do a similar slide for on-street. The reason I wanted that to be something available to you is our area has grown a lot the last two to three to three and a half years. We listed revenue based only on location. Supplemental slides based on information. I will stop there. And if there are any other questions for fed, for myself?
Alan Clendenin
10:11:05AM I want to make a statement. Fed, on behalf of my office and our communication with your office, you are always so responsive and so professional, and I appreciate your contributions and how well you work with council.
Fed Revolte
10:11:19AM Thank you. I appreciate that.
Hagar Kopesky
10:11:26AM Okay. So we have options. I know we have an entire group here.
Alan Clendenin
10:11:31AM Who wants to go next.
Hagar Kopesky
10:11:33AM Let's go on to Solid Waste. All right, so we need to have the second presentation up, please. Great. Thank you. Okay, similar -- similar flow, okay, overarching. We are going to walk through similar slides that break down a little bit more of the contributors to the overall revenue source. And then you can see that we will have to do the same with operating. So we will just move on through. Okay, so we are going to do a similar walk forward that -- like I did on the previous presentation; however, we can clearly see from this, that the majority of the revenue comes from the primary rental whether it be residential or commercial. Not a surprise. Some of this is to give you scale. One, of the other things I will say is we had an increase that is planned and recurring every five years. The assumption, like a 10% or so increase for the water rates. Oh, my god. I am so sorry, that's what happens when you go from department to department.
Alan Clendenin
10:12:54AM We are talking garage.
Hagar Kopesky
10:12:55AM Yes, we are. Sorry about that. So moving on. All right, so some of the themes that you are going to -- you are going to recognize. So we know that we have moved away from energy. Prepared a great amount for 2026. Fortunately, that is a takeaway from revenue. So fed -- larry -- yeah, larry.
Alan Clendenin
10:13:21AM Hagar.
Hagar Kopesky
10:13:25AM I know. I apologize. I want to take a breath and keep things moving here and now I need to focus. Let me regroup. I was hoping I could speak a little bit -- obviously, the budget was built on a number of certain assumptions and supplemental primary rentals come in closes to $6.5 million less. So I don't have a lot of background on that. And I was hoping you could give a little bit of light.
Larry Washington
10:13:54AM No worries. Larry Washington, director of Solid Waste. With regards to the supplement rental, not primary, but supplemental. One thing is the additional car program. Anticipate $1.5 million, but we had to slow down the process. We didn't want to charge the public. Rest of it, I believe, is consolidated in another account. So one, we did the rate increases, and we consolidate a lot of our counties.
Hagar Kopesky
10:14:35AM Should improve going forward?
Larry Washington
10:14:37AM Yes. Supplemental and primary cleaning as well. We are still cleaning and repairing our containers. Primarily for the roll-off containers and our compactors and our front-load containers too. So commercial.
Hagar Kopesky
10:14:52AM So I think, for me, what I was trying to make sure that the overall drop that occurred, it was very easy to understand the shift in the traffic deal around seminole, but these others, they all temporary.
Larry Washington
10:15:06AM One will be temporary with the additional CARTs that will improve. Two, I will have to see exactly where all of the other accounts are aligned to answer that question.
Hagar Kopesky
10:15:15AM That is fair.
Alan Clendenin
10:15:17AM The new energy program with tyr, that is amended to more than double seminole energy?
Larry Washington
10:15:29AM No, half.
Alan Clendenin
10:15:30AM Half. That is what I thought and confused with the slides. I hope I understood it.
Larry Washington
10:15:36AM I hope so, but we were being conservative.
Hagar Kopesky
10:15:41AM $4 million is assumed.
Larry Washington
10:15:44AM Yes.
Hagar Kopesky
10:15:46AM Move on from here. Don't go too far. Many times, we will get questions in terms of where the content is coming from, and we will move over to the walk board. This is giving you the account names. Obviously, utility based. Franchise fees. How they operate being a business fund. I keep saying um. Moving over here. Call out here. And what we want to discuss is that you are familiar with the account motor pool. You see it. Motor pool encompasses the fuel itself for vehicles and repair and maintenance required only. Those vehicles and the repair maintenance is performed as I understand it will bill fleet. So this particular -- in '26, to give out baseline first. Part of the what they have to work through is kind of a hockey stick up in motor pool expense. So one of the things that I think I will have high level will talk to. We can certainly discuss more. This seems to be a little bit more of a one time. So that is what I really wanted you to understand to see how you moved that account forward, and I want them to understand some of reasons why it popped.
Larry Washington
10:17:04AM All right. Larry Washington, director of Solid Waste. In regard to motor pool discussing with the fleet, on-time, scheduled repairs, the repairs for asls, automated silos, and garbage truck. In six years, they need to be replaced, either rebuilt or replaced. It was determined it was faster to get that back if we replace them rather than rebuild them. A different approach going forward but we needed them to continue operations. A one-time thing. Every few years, we may see something like this but not only regular.
Hagar Kopesky
10:17:47AM You said this reflects the repair approach not going to continue but a CIP.
Larry Washington
10:17:52AM Repair approach. Should not continue over the next few years and then will have to revisit them. The other one was brakes
Hagar Kopesky
10:18:02AM Which one? Brakes? Okay. Point of this --
Alan Clendenin
10:18:06AM Hold on one second. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:18:09AM While we shift up, shift down. Shift up. Sheriff's department down. A way to see a balanced approach then every year instead of, like, $5 million every three years maybe evens out.
Larry Washington
10:18:28AM Should even out. Previous year roughly $8 million, $9 million and then steady. Mass increase in purchasing vehicles. At a point in time, wait for vehicles, a two-year wait. And they all came at one time. Now the repairs are due in at once unfortunately verses our staggered approach.
Lynn Hurtak
10:18:47AM Okay. That makes sense. When you say replace arms, you are talking just replacing arms, not the entire vehicle?
Larry Washington
10:18:57AM Yes, just replacing arms.
Lynn Hurtak
10:19:01AM I wanted to clarify so the public and I understood.
10:19:05AM Just curious, what does it take to replace an arm?
Larry Washington
10:19:10AM $24,000. $24,000 per each vehicle.
Lynn Hurtak
10:19:17AM Actually not terrible for replacement value of cost, but they are a lot of vehicles.
Larry Washington
10:19:24AM Yeah, a lot of vehicles. Over 70.
Alan Clendenin
10:19:27AM Not in my wheelhouse, but what is an arm of a garbage truck. Could have told me $150,000.
Lynn Hurtak
10:19:36AM That's what I am asking.
Alan Clendenin
10:19:37AM Miss Kopesky. >>Hagar Kopesky: councilman, the other contractual services. Favorability this year. I wanted to ask something. You pushed for it to reappear or had room in the budget and we didn't need to do it.
Larry Washington
10:19:58AM With fed. We had contractual services and cut back permanent so we shouldn't have an increase of those. Should be stagnant moving forward.
Hagar Kopesky
10:20:09AM Modest, the 500 is fairly modest.
Alan Clendenin
10:20:16AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:20:17AM I want to go back to a conversation we had earlier about -- when this came to us, I would say maybe a month ago about the cost of -- of personnel and the need for so much temporary labor. And the struggle of getting people to -- to work for -- in this department were long-term.
Larry Washington
10:20:46AM Was that from --
Lynn Hurtak
10:20:48AM I thought so.
Hagar Kopesky
10:20:49AM Maybe the group.
Larry Washington
10:20:52AM Aging out. Okay. We had two different things. We had our fleet -- not fleet but our waste energy facility and those are individual. And with regards to aging out, so a lot of them were working for wilbrator and now working for us as well. Getting that talent sometimes is hard. We are sitting at 5% as far as vacancies. So overall, we are doing very well. And we take time to build up our new employees. People come from the military. And now plants are shut down and coming over here. Takes time to get them churched up when it comes to our facility because not one facility is the same.
Lynn Hurtak
10:21:44AM You said churched up?
Larry Washington
10:21:48AM Yes.
Lynn Hurtak
10:21:49AM A phrase I never heard before. I liked that.
Hagar Kopesky
10:21:53AM Okay, moving on. We talked about this. Okay, so, again, looking at the report that would be available every month. Active projects. The four I circled in red are simply deal projects. Some need to be only great eight. I am going to pause. If any of you would want larry to comment on where the progress of these are going, if there are any, you know, issue, challenges. They are significant. For example that we had McKay Bay energy retrofit. For the most part, we went through this project. Some critical equipment that might be left and other than that, I think it is complete. I think we have one light only.
Alan Clendenin
10:22:56AM Council member Carlson, you have a question.
Bill Carlson
10:23:01AM Sorry if this is coming up in a future slide. Looking back, now that this is all done, with the shutdown because you have changing of the boiler. Can you tell me how that is reflected with the shutdown? There should be a savings with that.
Larry Washington
10:23:25AM With regard to the complete retrofit, you can see if you go back to the slide. Only thing that is left is the 4.1 million that is for transfer. We want to go back and have a relook at that because it powers the whole peninsula and make sure that we buy the right ones. Back to your question, I can't foresee any large -- any large retrofit like that happening again because we took over. And that was a lot of maintenance that should have took place previously and now it did not. So we had to pour a lot of money into the plant to get it up and running to perform like it is now, which is great.
Bill Carlson
10:24:04AM What is the total concurrencies in hindsight?
Larry Washington
10:24:09AM $100 million.
Bill Carlson
10:24:11AM Not the whole retrofit but shutdown part. That piece of equipment is the only one that you will shut down. If you have a bunch of transformers and replacing them, you don't have shut down for that. But I am curious what the shutdown cost was. We were shipping up to pasco and weren't selling energy then. What was the total?
Larry Washington
10:24:36AM Let's say if the shutdown happens again, and we have to shut down the plant for a whole year, if we have to haul all the way to a landfill, it costs us roughly $44 million for.
Bill Carlson
10:24:47AM For a year. Shut down for a couple months, $8 million was the cost -- you probably had other costs.
Larry Washington
10:24:59AM I can go back and pull up the slides and find it for you.
Bill Carlson
10:25:03AM That would be a savings. While I have the floor, I will say I get very -- I get review complaints of the department and larry and his team handle them quickly. I think we all travel a lot, and we forget every day despite the problems. So there are many places in the world where they don't pick up trash every day and are so inconsistent. If the truck misses your garbage once a year, it is really a miracle this service runs so smoothly and efficiently.
Alan Clendenin
10:25:35AM I will echo what he said. Coming from that LEED conference, when we talked unfortunately environmental issues and things and part of what your department is doing with composting, and, again, one of the only two municipalities that own waste energy plants in the united states and what that brings for our environment in the city. I say that, and we are coming up on the CIP. Hopefully, I will get reelected and four more years in council. Before I leave council, I would like to see starting CIP projects for the expansion and replacement of this. It is not going to be. I will be before it comes online but need the Planning for this facility. You have to plan 15 years in advance because you have the cost. Unfortunately, this will be so high. Thank you, again, for what you are doing. Go ahead. I am sorry.
Hagar Kopesky
10:26:42AM Yep, get the slides up again. Looking forward to the next five years. You can see compared to where we have come from and the significance, these are relatively light in terms of future needs. You chipped away on what you would like to see going forward. Larry, anything you would like to comment as far as this list?
Larry Washington
10:27:04AM I can speak to the last item, WTE, power transmission. That is our plan to power the whole entire peninsula. Given our financial statement, push that back a few years. More than likely will push that back a few years to make sure that we get caught back up and not depleting the fund balance as fast as we would.
Alan Clendenin
10:27:29AM Council member Maniscalco, you want to say something?
Guido Maniscalco
10:27:37AM Council member Carlson -- you are the -- your department is the most compliments that we get. People rave, and your level of service is very good. Wanted to say that.
Larry Washington
10:27:50AM Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
10:27:50AM Because you are a tik tok star.
Hagar Kopesky
10:27:57AM Last item. We won't spend too much time on this, but this is something that will probably come back to give a little bit more background. But last year when we did Solid Waste, we did a bit of a review of the equipment that exists in the area and the majority of trucks are for collection, inbedded in that other area, there are of things, trailers, you know, I am not going to even go for it. People will ask, what typically will some of these be, between five and six for the large trucks. Simple average of taking the entire group of assets that we have and roughly where we are. You are correct. There has been an incredible surge in the last, you know, maybe 18 months of enough vehicles. So I think it is just a matter of time, I will use my word, kind of a wait and watch and so how the new ones flow into the situation and balance out the maintenance in the motor pool account. And just to tie back to the early slide projection the $14.9 reflecting the $2 million through June. So I did not make a fund balance sheet. I would like to provide one for you. Revenue and financials. In terms of debt, we will have a larger conversation at some point, not today, in terms of what we know. I want to say this. We carry any debt today currently in the General Fund Solid Waste. The way it has been issued under the fund General Fund. No. I shouldn't guess that. Do you want to come up for a minute?
Michael Perry
10:30:09AM Can we put the wolf on please.
Alan Clendenin
10:30:12AM It will activate went you say your name.
Michael Perry
10:30:15AM Michael Perry, chief financial officer. We have two series of debt totaling a quarter billion dollars. They are split between the ad valorem. We did the retrofit of waste management plant before council approved of the new rate increases. And that is about $120 million. Then after the rate increased, it was approved by City Council. We issued a line of credit up to $130 million of a line of credit, that comes with two projects. One is the relocation project that is now under come construction. And the building of the new Solid Waste fleet facility now under design. It was to take them out in 2027, but given as we talked of financial status, we heard again generators $10 million and the annual revenue we will get in with the practices that are selling our electricity on the market. We feel it would be better to get another year of financial debt under our belt before we enter the market.
Alan Clendenin
10:31:44AM You have something, Councilman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:31:46AM A question for Mr. Washington or maybe Mr. Perry. You mentioned a little bit earlier in the presentation about the additional CARTs. The idea is if you have two CARTs, you will have to be peaking for it. And that was kind of slowing down. Where are you expected to be if you are going with that?
Larry Washington
10:32:15AM Great question. Larry Washington, director of Solid Waste. Great question. Right now, we are working with both -- our billing system centa and our routing system. And they are working well. We had a small pilot which was successful and no plan to do a full launch. We are working with the comp team to push this out to the public to let everyone know that they can either keep their additional CARTs out there or proceed with a small fee for processing. Very soon within the next fiscal year.
Lynn Hurtak
10:32:52AM You anticipate by the end of fiscal year '27 that will be up -- that will be fully complaint and just for the public, that if you have two cans, you would either have to give one back or start paying for both them.
Larry Washington
10:33:08AM Yes.
Lynn Hurtak
10:33:08AM Great, thank you.
Alan Clendenin
10:33:11AM Thank you. Anything else? That's it. Does that complete that presentation? Does council member have any further questions? No? let's talk -- Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
10:33:21AM Larry, sorry, can I ask you one more.
Alan Clendenin
10:33:26AM About his beard.
Bill Carlson
10:33:27AM Not about tik tok. The most common question I get is about the shortage of the blue cans. Can you just tell us what the status of that is and when that will be solved.
Larry Washington
10:33:43AM We placed multiple orders and had to get rid of a vendor and we have a vendor that was producing and multiple orders. We have a surplus of garbage containers and recycling.
Alan Clendenin
10:33:59AM Talk water and wastewater.
Lynn Hurtak
10:34:07AM A quick question between water and wastewater. I notice that our fifth enterprise fund that I don't talk about very often, the golf courses. It about doubled the cost this year. Can anybody speak to why we are doubling the cost for the golf courses? And, of course, I am trying to find it and I can't.
Michael Perry
10:34:33AM I am going to ask for an alibi. Ask for water and wastewater.
Lynn Hurtak
10:34:41AM Not a problem. I am glad I asked the question now. I was curious about that. Go ahead water and wastewater and I will find it. I know I will find it somewhere.
Roy Johnson
10:34:52AM Good morning, Roy Johnson with the Water department. I will try to keep this level. Basically, we are presenting to you a balanced budget. It is a $238 million budget, both expenses and revenue and $222 of that of services. Operating about $58 million.
Lynn Hurtak
10:35:16AM Do you have a slide on this?
Roy Johnson
10:35:22AM All is wrapped up in brad's. Focus on accomplishments and looking at the pitch going forward that alan mentioned.
Alan Clendenin
10:35:31AM You got the brunt of it because of officials to come. The week or the next week, people will make expectations.
Roy Johnson
10:35:38AM This is our audible, and unfortunately, I don't have a clean presentation but will be willing to answer any questions. So we do have -- our operating expenses decreased by last year. It's really a result of our chemicals that were down by $1 million. If you recall, we sunset the use of gases, chlorine, railcar system and had simultaneous chemical buying going on. That is not going to be the case. And our professional services is down by $3 million. We have got a bunch of various stuff that is going up this year, projected to go up. Computers and fiberoptics, voiceover ip, various materials, and is up miles. But overall, our expenses are down by $2 million from last year projected. You know, we do have a $28 million in debt services. $16.9 of that is of interest and $11.1 in principal. Our capital -- what we are bringing to the table here is nothing revolutionary. It is continuing to maintain $103 million project where we are focusing in on hundreds of different pipelines around the city. Wanted to bring to your attention in the past that our construction costs continued to rise, and we are having to make the hard decisions in prioritizing work. And we do see a slow -- a slowdown on timeline side. And we are prioritizing the David l. Timmen project above the timeline. At this moment, you know, we are full speed ahead with the timeline, and we have full success. The water loss is down. Our reactively large-scale main replacement reactive work is down as well. And we will use an asset management software that prioritizes this work. And it will rank -- each pipeline segment and two, a one and a five. Five being kind of worse. Emergency, you need to replace it. We use various criteria, physical, the age, you know, the pressure that it sees, the flow that it sees. Does it serve a hospital? Does it serve a school? A residential road? A risk-based account that consequences of the failure you have on that main and the likelihood of that failure. And like I said, we give it a score of five through one. And I can say over the first six years, we knocked out our fives and all you have are fours, and the result of what we are seeing today. And at some point in the future, we will have to have a conversation of rates to cover our construction costs, and in the meantime and not pulling the fire alarm because we have seen this progress and a trend that you will have to continue watching. So that's where we are kind of regrouping and focusing on our dlt projects. And like I said, nothing really new here. Six, our ozone filtered expansions, raw water pump nothing really new to the table and continuing to maintain that momentum and staying ahead of regulations here. I apologize, I don't have a pretty presentation, but that is really where we are focusing on money and reallocating our money and prioritizing our money at the moment.
Lynn Hurtak
10:39:45AM Thank you very much. You and I had conversations off-line about water availability. And by the way, I don't know about the rest of you, but I really -- every time it rains, I think of you, and you probably don't want that.
Alan Clendenin
10:40:00AM That is a problem that you live in my head. [Laughter]
Lynn Hurtak
10:40:05AM Raining, warren must be so happy. So you are in our thoughts right now, but one of the things -- you publish a wonderful report every week about -- about water and lack of water and what -- what are our -- how our water reserves are going. But my big concern is the cost of buying water from Tampa Bay Water. So I ask, because once you have your reports, and say we didn't have to buy any finished water this week. Thoughts, oh, I wonder how many we are buying. I e-mailed asking how much water have we bought this year. You said we buy water all the time. So that -- that, to me, is a problem, having too much water from another agency similar to Mr. Washington coming up and talking about when something goes down, having to truck our garbage elsewhere, an increased cost. So buying water is expensive. So if you can take a little bit about the cost of water. What -- how much water we bought, and what would it take for us to not have to buy water. I know it's a little bit of tangent but for me important economically as your department having to move back only these bigger projects. What is it going to take for us to stop buying water from Tampa Bay Water? Best. I am going to hit it straight -- straightforward here. I don't think we will ever be able to completely get off from Tampa Bay Water. We have a reliance on them. Pull 82 million gallons a day annual average from Hillsborough River. Anything above and beyond that is -- is something that we rely on Tampa Bay Water for. Now there are times where just like now, we are running at 69 million gallons per day. The river is not producing. And so even though we have the permit capacity available, the river is not producing so we are buying from them. So, you know, at this moment, it is a pass-through rate and whenever we buy from Tampa Bay Water, that rate directly gets passed on to our customers, and we don't see that really sunsetting. What we can do is work with our regional partners and keep cost less and share resources and keep costs low for the region.
10:42:58AM I think my bigger question is -- goes to what a lot of folks are concerned about additional development and -- and water resources that are required. So really my question is, how do we reduce water usage? And in reduction of water usage, is there a way -- when you pass through on the bill, does it say on the bill specifically that this water is coming from Tampa Bay Water and now you have -- I forget the exact term, but it is distinguished on there. Did you --
10:43:36AM I wonder if there was a way to make it clear to the public. Some of these questions we hear from our best customers and looking for our new bill design.
10:43:53AM I am happy to hear that because that is what people are going to start to understand is if you are paying -- and then the balance of that. So I will let Mr. Barrett speak to that, but I am thinking the folks who are reasonable with their water usage, are they also having to pay more? Or people who are just overusing water, are they the ones that are forced to pay an amount? A separate line item. When we buy water from Tampa Bay Water, every customer pays their share based on the volumetric -- the volume of water that they use. So you use less water, you pay less through the Tampa Bay Water pass-through.
10:44:53AM I just -- and maybe it is not possible, but I am just curious what it would be if people keep it below. Isn't -- there is a tiered system for water. If folks keep it in the first tier. They don't have to pay the pass-through, and the pass-through fee will be for people who pay more. May not be possible, but in looking at billing, I really think that is a -- that is a carrot for people who are not overusing water. That way. Obviously, we can certainly look at that. It would be very complicated in our billing system to try to do that.
10:45:44AM All right. I'm just trying to think of other ways to really incentivize reducing water usage and/or using reclaimed water. Like we have, you know, rain barrels at our house, and things like that. How are we -- and, of course, we are taking away more and more of our turf so we don't have to rely on -- on using potable water or, you know, drinking water to water a lawn. What -- I'm just trying to figure out ways that we can really incentivize that. While we may never be able to stop buying, I really believe that should be a realistic goal. I will just -- I mean, it should just be something minor of what can we to do stop. And maybe that is just -- anyway. I will stop on that because others want to talk about it. But it is really critical as we are talking about water. That is the way that we will be paying for more and programs and things like that if we don't have to keep paying for more water. More of our money will go torward improvements that our city so desperately needs.
Alan Clendenin
10:46:56AM Council member Carlson and Councilman Young.
Bill Carlson
10:46:59AM I know my colleagues know this, but just for the public. Tampa Bay Water was reformed or formed in 1998 as a regional cooperative between six member governments and regions. The idea that they will work together on common sources and common treatment plants and diverse sources of water, which included desal plant and reservoir and other things. The interlocal agreement and Tampa Bay prohibits new sources. And member governments can not add new sources. And Tampa Bay Water took on the department to buy existing sources from other folks, and the idea initially was to stop pumping of groundwater and working with other places. The desal plant. I was in Singapore and met with their water and wastewater people, and they don't use their desal plants much either because the whole ale rate in general little over $2 for 1,000. For desal, $8. Why use most the expensive water, and the rates would be higher if we use that all the time. We could, but depends on how much we want to pay. I talked to ed turanchik who was chair at the time and flipped a coin and use the deal for the city. There are some prior administrators and lawyers who disagreed with that and thought it gave Tampa some kind of rights, but the reality is that the other five governments sold their sources and hooked up to the regional system. We have some of our sources at the green swamp and the old treatment plant. We cement our treatment plant and cement our sources for the river. And so beyond that, we are reared by the interlocal agreement to tap in, because of the enormous costs of building regional systems and idea of collaborating. Tampa Bay Water is the best cooperative agreement in the entire world. Remember the city a few years ago tried to push the toilet to tap. We on City Council stopped them. Interlocal agreement prohibit it anyway and some of the lawyers thought it was okay. Question for purple pipes and they said purple pipes are the most expensive options. If they use purple pipes, use potty water, and in theory, more potable water that we can drink. A small pilot during the iorio administration and didn't do it as well. I want to ask, all in the cost of 1,000 gallons. Next, transmit from the river, transmission from the water treatment plant, the cost of treatment and then the transmission back versus what you are paying. I don't know what the current rate for Tampa Bay Water. 225 per thousand gallons. How many does it cost us per thousand gallons to produce the water from front to back including all costs compared to what we are paying for Tampa Bay Water? So we buy $2.62 per thousand gallons. Our treatment costs are running right around $1.40 to $1.42 per thousand gallons. Plus our distribution costs and meter reading costs and billing costs. That lower tier is aligned to that. And we are a little bit above, I believe, the $3 per gallon -- per thousand gallons, I believe, at the moment.
10:51:03AM If we can use purple pipes and put water. Everybody wants to do xeriscaping that will save us a lot of water too. If people put the potty water in the yards, and it will cost a lot to build it, but it will save -- save potable water in the end. But I think what my colleagues suggested in the billing is correct. Maybe there is a way to adjust it to further -- instead of -- I believe, instead of putting the wholesale water versus the water we are producing. What we can do, I believe, is sustained further incentivize people to be below a certain threshold. In doing that, we need to communicate it too. And say you are at x last month and just ten gallons less, you would pay a lot less or something like that. Baked in that I would love to share when the timing is right. But there are great opportunities like that.
Alan Clendenin
10:52:09AM Councilman Carlson, I believe you are in communications and PR. I think calling it to potty water on the yard is -- if you are trying to encourage the, use, you have reclaimed water --
Bill Carlson
10:52:24AM Drinking it.
Alan Clendenin
10:52:26AM Versus drinking it. You may want to revisit that.
Naya Young
10:52:32AM I want to make a quick point to Councilman Hurtak. I think thinking long term about, you know, how we are using the water and incentivizing people to use less water. He know it is not necessarily in the budget conversation but just as a long-term factor. Listening to these numbers from 82 million a day. And because the river is not producing is a little bit alarming. That is alarming. And so I think if we -- looking into the future, like, you know, the -- thinking about amendment 3. This is the possibility and the place to say, listen, we need to save our water and really going all in to help with that. I don't know, when you said that, it is like, running out of water? That is scary to think about. Just for future reference and thinking of longevity is something we should really think about.
Alan Clendenin
10:53:34AM A shame that Councilman Miranda is not here because his advocacy with Tampa Bay Water. One of those things. We got benefit of Tampa Bay Water. We got the benefit of both worlds. We keep some of the resources to ourselves. To the displeasure of many in our area that we have our own allocations and resources. Kind of designed as a fail-safe operation so we use the water in most cost effective way that we produced and have ability to pull into the greater co-op of Tampa Bay Water when need it. You know it's -- obviously, many folks warned us. We are living -- we are living in a world of climate change. And this is where we are now seeing it all over. We see out west and with our under predictable water supply and it is not happenstance, and for years people denied. Councilman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:54:39AM So one of the things, though, is that 69 MGD now in the drought? Not typical, but not in the count and annual average is what we are running. Resources from Tampa Bay Water, buying from Tampa Bay Water, and the update includes the regional reservoir.
10:55:05AM I will state this general. Another area where the city will lead in landscaping we choose and to be drought resistant, and we just don't do that. Landscaping. I mean, city hall is beautiful, and the area is really lovely, but if we put in native plants, we wouldn't have to water as much, quite frankly. And so I will really think that is an overall issue that if you want people to do something, you need to lead by example. So I am really excited about thoughts you have when it is appropriate to talk to people about what are these kinds of things we can do as a community to make sure that people really understand that turning on the atm is consequential. Water going forward will continue to climb. Councilman Carlson mentioned the desalination plant. Same way at Tampa Bay Water. Tim, we are going to continue to ramp up conservation and any opportunities to incentivize because it will go up.
Naya Young
10:56:25AM I have one more thing.
Alan Clendenin
10:56:29AM One thing.
Naya Young
10:56:30AM One, I love the native plant conversation. Two, saying earlier about the water. I am always curious about the environment, and not until I was elected official, I'm like, yes, it rains, we need the water. Things are looking a little bit better.
Alan Clendenin
10:56:49AM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
10:56:51AM Tampa Bay Water by interlocal uses a 20-year plan and ten-year supply and updates that annually and updating new projects. But we as local governments, and members have to tell them what our demand is. And I think our demand was lower than 13 MGD. That there are times when they had to supply 40 MGD, which is way above what they had promised, and they did it anyways even though they are not in contract. If they are hitting a time regularly hitting 39 or 40 or whatever, that we can go back to them in our supply projections and say we need to fill this gap. We need for you to add more capacity. Other thing and -- I hate -- and I get -- people make fun of me because I mention Singapore all the time. Budgeting in their stormwater and potable water system, they have these little microsensors that are connected to the internet. So they are everywhere on every line. So, one, you know, we have seen -- I talked to you anecdotally. Pipes break in people's front yards and wastes a lot of water. And microsensors, if one you have these things break in somebody's yard, they don't have to call. A neighbor doesn't have to call, sensors automatically sees it. I know you know that exists. The cadillac or something of sensors that we could do. But if is it saving 10 or 20 MGD because it's not pouring into the street from a broken pipe may be worth it. Something to think about.
Alan Clendenin
10:58:45AM One of the things for you all when we get to wastewater as well. Energy use of producing water and energy use of cleaning water is astronomical. One of the highest uses of our electricity in the area. Are you exploring and -- you don't have to answer me now. As we move forward, both departments -- and our Wastewater Department looks at new technology to explore energy consumption in these departments because it's the number one usage of electricity. There is a way of reducing those costs, I think, if there is technology out there to look forward to maybe -- I don't believe but is a challenge. Challenge to you and a challenge to reduce electricity costs. Are looking to incorporate it on all of our projects. There are additional ones that we will continue to explore and on the radar.
10:59:46AM I have to think some technology evolving out there as a way to reduce. Tanks. Pumping from one point to the next and online generators where you don't need that wasted energy. Water flowing into the ground in the storage tank, and we will capture that through an inline generator.
11:00:10AM Anybody out there that is ready to stand up and find these things? I know it will be you. So I appreciate it. Kind of crazy that you live rent-free in all of our heads.
11:00:25AM Every time it, rains, everything in our head is you.
11:00:31AM Let's talk about potty water.
Eric Weiss
11:00:34AM Eric Weiss, Wastewater Department director. By the way, I am the only person who doesn't like the rain because it puts it in our wastewater system, and we have to spend money on electricity. Talk about our '27 operating budget overall. We are at a $1.1 million under the current year. That includes some individual cost increases. $1.5 for chemicals, electricity, and fuel at the site. But we are able to mitigate that through our capital equipment purchases. I don't know if you know, but wastewater, we have 200 vehicles from 11 wastewater cleaners. If you see them down the streets, gravity pipes. Seven trucks constantly in our gravity pipes. Dump trucks. We rely on that budget every year from fleet maintenance. They do a whole analysis based on age of equipment, how many miles are on it, and come up with a formula. We rely on them to say your existing fleet needs to be replaced. That is what this budget reflects this year. So we are down to one position this year. We had a communication specialist retire after 40 years. We were able to share that with Solid Waste, and we will fill that position. Along the same lines, the Wastewater Department is down 49, 50 positions from the year 2000. We went through an optimization program because there was a threat like in milwaukee and atlanta that privatizers would come in, and we reduce our labor by 40 positions. Several years ago, we got a new safety person and trying to keep our operating budget in check. Talk about our capital project. $181 million this year. And a bunch of different projects, and I will go over some of them. One at a plant. Davis island will be happy. $19 million for a new odor control system at the head works of the plant. Design is done. Ready to bid that out in the next few months. Another. Oxygen generation plant. I don't know if people know, oxygen generator, $60 million that we use in the process. Existing system was built in the 1970s. You can't get parts anymore, and it's very old technology. There is newer technology that is out there. So this budget in '27 is the equipment purchase under the design-build, and we want to get that going before the GMP. Other neighborhood things. Knights avenue pumping station. In the neighborhood of knights avenue, west of macdill. I don't know if you ever seen, a big -- frontal tier of verizon from wallcraft street behind it and a big telecommunications building. We never put a generator, and it is coming to council the next few weeks. Sulphur Springs pumping station. Where you have our big regional stations. Take all that from New Tampa, USF, all the way there and heads south to our treatment plant. Projected this year is also design-build to buy the equipment to get that to save money and get it right away. And the last one is coachman. If you have seen Bayshore pumping station. You know that was to stop the wastewater overflows in Bayshore Beautiful. That is about 90% of them that is still in a bowl. We have to do a pumping station in that neighborhood and pump it out to a different collection system. The budget this year is to buy a piece of property for that future wastewater pumping station. That concludes my presentation. You had a question of electricity. Believe it or not, from the 1970s to about 10 years ago, a byproduct of wastewater is methane gas. We use that to offset 20% of the electricity cost at the plant. But generators got too old and where we are headed now the same methane gas, you can clean it up and put it out to the nationwide gas system, and sell it. We are constantly talking with public-private. Not what we do every day to clean gas and wheel it to whatever industry gets the best rate. We are really close, and we will finish an existing project we are doing with our digesters. That is what makes the gas. We are going to be done in about a year and a half. So they can then start going to these p3 firms knocking on our door to do a partnership with them. It's equivalent of a million gallons of diesel fuel a year.
Alan Clendenin
11:06:13AM I really appreciate the fact that you are looking back and forth and question in your FY '27 budget, is there -- I know you talked it with coachman and other overflow preventative issues. Larger scale with natural disasters and release of -- does this budget anticipate trying to future-proof release during natural disasters?
Eric Weiss
11:06:42AM Yes, couple of fronts. Ten years ago, we only had 26 back-up generators. As of now, it is about 81. What we do every time is we rehabilitate a station, take the electrical equipment above the 100-year flood plain and put it with a back-up generator. We are constantly growing every year.
Alan Clendenin
11:07:11AM The overflow with the issues of dumping water into the bay during natural disasters. More about storage or electricity.
Eric Weiss
11:07:24AM Two things, electricity is one, and the other is infiltration. And that is how we rehabilitate our pipes. Under the pipes program, we do 20 miles of rehabilitating those pipes where you put a fiberglass liner. You put it in the pipe. 500 feet in three days, and you would know it is there. We are still doing that and pulled back some to be honest because you have additional cost of production. Pumping stations, we have to collect the wastewater and get it to the plant and treat it.
Alan Clendenin
11:08:07AM Bottom line, storage of water coming into the system because the range is coming in from everywhere. Is it is just that we run out of the ability to hold on to the material. And that's why we dump? Is that a way of future-proofing us out of that situation?
Eric Weiss
11:08:25AM I think it is lining the pipes. That is what it is. There are cracks. 60% of our pipes are over 60 years old. Our gravity pipes are made out of clay, and there are cracks in them. What happens during a big storm, water returns through those cracks, and you will see a lot of cave-ins come in because the dirt from outside gets in the pipe. And if there is too much rain, the way to do this is lining pipe, but we will get there.
Alan Clendenin
11:08:59AM Lining clay pipes, not --
Eric Weiss
11:09:04AM Lining them. Structurally better, a new pipe within the pipe. The old clay pipe can go away.
Alan Clendenin
11:09:12AM If we line it, the clay pipe, lining disappears. Line pipes in anna maria.
Eric Weiss
11:09:23AM We do similar things. 30,000 manholes that are also old, and we go in there and put a fiberglass spray.
Alan Clendenin
11:09:31AM Infiltration of water. Most are coming through the cracks.
Eric Weiss
11:09:36AM Correct.
Alan Clendenin
11:09:37AM Not from surface points of entry.
Eric Weiss
11:09:40AM Called inflow where some people may -- the house connect the storm entrance into their wastewater pipes. That is an issue. We do smoking testing a lot. And you can put it in the system and come out to vent the pipe in your house, the inside of your house or in the house like that, you know, you are connected illegally. We then go after the people to get it fixed.
Alan Clendenin
11:10:12AM Interesting. I appreciate the agenda on electricity and the information on the future, so -- alleviate as much of a risk that we can of dump into the bay after storms. Councilman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
11:10:27AM I am curious of your capital project. Because we are donating a lot of different -- where are we with the treatment plant?
Eric Weiss
11:10:41AM Got some ways to go. We are doing a master plan update now. You guys approved that earlier this year. That consultant is going at it to see what is left, but it also includes new regulations. As you know, pfas where just this month we had to sample for it. EPA is doing that. The first step of them saying we will regulate, but they don't know what that is. Our sludge we produce, we can't take it for land application anymore. Unfortunately, to put it -- currently, we are taking it to a landfill. So constantly things are changing and updating our master plan, which is eight years old and come back to you guys. A cost is in there. Hey, here is what is left.
Lynn Hurtak
11:11:33AM Great. That is good to know. Again, appreciate all the work you are doing with the lining of the pipes and all you have that. It is a lot simpler than digging out and putting in new. Always impressed with what the work you do to think outside what you would expect to do. I saw phenomenal example of that using garbage, but I love the fact that we can do it using wastewater. I think it is quite amazing. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
11:12:17AM I don't think people know where we are, and it's across multiple lines of bills. In the municipalities of how we treat garbage, fresh water, and wastewater. Where we are going and appreciate the vision for the waste and fresh water departments as we look for opportunities in the future to continue to have that cutting edge. And, in general, kudos to the pipes and what we are doing with the administration and doing that, because in general, most administrations around the country are very envious to be able to have these types of programs because we see these problems arise in other cities and go then on the front end of it. And people are pushing limits on these things. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
11:13:13AM I want to circle back to my question about golf courses.
Alan Clendenin
11:13:17AM Say your name, and it will come up.
Michael Perry
11:13:33AM Michael Perry, deputy chief financial officer. Hopefully, everybody can see that. This is the total golf course budget. And the recommended is $12.7 million up from $8.3 million. And attribute that to two golf course projects. Oh, okay. Here. There are three golf courses in the city owned. It is managed and operated by the TSA. Just drew a blank there. They do a very good job and come a long way since the recession. You think we are doing a lot now, but you will see with us doing it monthly. Raining in August because nobody is playing golf. We know water and people on the golf course too. Three golf courses, two capital problems in 2027. One at rocky point. And Mr. Clendenin, I think that is sort of, like, you know, what they are doing out there.
Alan Clendenin
11:15:05AM Several different renovations happening and all aim at a business model. You got -- what is it called, like top golf. And it is all -- all amended to amend additional revenues.
Lynn Hurtak
11:15:21AM Especially when it rains.
Alan Clendenin
11:15:25AM Some of the rehabilitation and some of the holes. They just finish and the communities -- whatever the center is called.
Michael Perry
11:15:37AM Clubhouse.
Alan Clendenin
11:15:41AM All these things they are anticipating. I haven't gotten the budget presentation for FY '27 from TSA yet, but everything amended in these capital improvement problems will be revenue generators.
Lynn Hurtak
11:15:55AM I don't have a problem with it. Obviously, they are paying for it themselves. Going from $8 million to $12 million is a significant increase. When you go into that budget presentation, from, Miss Kopesky and their fearless budget staff.
Michael Perry
11:16:23AM One of the things we talked with the TSA on the golf courses, a minimum of five-year CIP, grown out to seven to eight. Another project is on roger's golf course. And I do believe they will resod the golf course out there between $600,000 $700,000. The way it used to be that the city was subsidizing operations in capital. It maybe anywhere between $900,000 to $1.2 million. This year is providing $300,000. Golf course fees are actually contributing and managing the operation in these capital projects for the golf systems. So they have done a wonderful job out there.
Lynn Hurtak
11:17:13AM Like I said, it's not talked about, our capital and our enterprise fund. And we really need to give it a little bit of its due. I appreciate that update. I really look forward to that budget presentation. Because that is -- continues -- when you go up your budget by a third, that is worth a conversation.
Alan Clendenin
11:17:40AM Again, want to give kudoo to eric and our golf course administrators and the folks that run that. They do a really good job. To be able to operate these things and be able to keep them at the level of service -- the level of service they are keeping it at. A great amenity for the City of Tampa for rocky point because of its location, and, of course, rogers, it is such a historic golf course with the community and background. And your birthplace, it is -- again, I will swing and defend the authority. As soon as I get more information and bring it to you, I will make sure I get a thorough briefing and get all the information to you guys. A great benefit.
Lynn Hurtak
11:18:38AM As long as it is coming back. The grand fact that golf can be played for affordable price.
Alan Clendenin
11:18:44AM Affordable price. Community golf course at an affordable price and with a great product. You are looking around the state, and you see some of these municipal courses and in pristine shape and a good product and gould benefit for those who are playing golf. And I haven't had an opportunity to look at the City of Tampa owned golf courses. It is a great amenity for our residents here. Anything else on golf courses?
Bill Carlson
11:19:17AM Were you really born on a golf course? [Laughter]
Lynn Hurtak
11:19:22AM Yeah. I lived in -- when I was born, my parent lived in Forest Hills like directly on -- cutting in place just three houses down from the course.
Bill Carlson
11:19:33AM She was held up at the golf course and said she is here.
Lynn Hurtak
11:19:38AM I have become a golfer, but it just wasn't for me. I mean, I can play though.
Alan Clendenin
11:19:48AM Very good. If I am hearing nothing else. 11:19. We will move on public comment. I see nobody is here for public comment. I am funny. Isn't that right, Stephanie? I am funny. Good morning. Stephanie poynor. I would like to know when the pdfs will be available. I have been on the budget committee since 2021. Every single year it takes at least a week to get the hard copy, pdf copy, whatever you want to call it to look at the document, because it is like window shopping. Window shop on paper and pdf and digital. I spent 45 minutes looking at the numbers with the payroll next to it. I couldn't find it, and I gave up. Parking. So we mentioned that. THEA is not going to have that much parking or any parking under the selmon. I am kind of concerned if they will have adequate parking for the facilities they will want to build. Parking benefit district to fund the streetcar would be a great idea. Someone should look into that. The compliance officers getting more vehicles in order to do their work quickly. Are they using micromobility downtown? I never seen them on any Solid Waste. I think larry does a fabulous job. His department does a fabulous job. I was talking about that before you guys came in today. Wastewater, I am always impressed. I was impressed with rory, Mr. Jones, right, talking about how they are evaluating what they need to replace and putting it together. And in fact, they are still only solid ground. I am sure Mr. Washington is jealous that one day he will be on solid ground and make evaluations and forecasting. Methane for money. I love it. You know I love when we make money. Above all, I want you to remember that Hagar works all by herself. She works all by herself to do this job, and she is amazing at it. I never asked anything that she didn't answer. She isn't from the government side of accounting and does an amazing job and continues to do it for you guys. I will have more to say of the budget when I see a copy of it that I can actually get to. I have been on budget committee since 2021, and every single year this council asked for a hard copy and pdf copy. It started with councilman dingfelder, and I really struggle to understand why the city can't come forward with the mayor's budget presentation. When she comes in to present it, we should have a hand copy johnny on the spot. It should be prepared for you guys to have and to hold, amen. Kudos to Mr. Washington. I talk to a lot of people, a lot of past employees and everybody loves his department. Never once heard a bad thing. That says a lot. I really was trying to figure out if I would come to this meeting. This is enterprise. I will come and learn this. And I did. Can't manage going to a budget meeting and not having a budget. I don't get it. Thank you, chairman saying for the agenda will be printed next time. I plan on the next Monday being here. I don't want to waste my time, guys. You know how many salaries in this room. Top in the city, and we can't have a piece of paper? I will just leave it at that.
11:24:20AM I will say something first. I can't talk to you guys outside of this. And I don't mean to be really that hard on staff, but it is it befuddling to me that we are coming to council for a budget -- a budget meeting to run a $2 billion operation, and to not have this. It truly has been communicated. Also, Miss Kopesky. Miss Kopesky works for the Tampa City Council. And she shouldn't have to do the presentation. She should be here working for us and asking us questions about the presentation that staff present asking to run the city. She is our resource. You guys have an entire administration of hundreds of people for your resource. She is one person for the seven of us. It's a disservice for her and her time to go through that. I appreciate what she has brought to council since she has been with us, and I think it continues to be a great move having that position filled. But, again, for those of you guys who are listening who are going to come next Monday and the Monday after that. You guys don't want us coming and crafting your budget. You have to justify your budget to the seven people sitting up here, and we need information and need for you guys to come to bat. I think for Mr. Washington and rory and everybody else that came today, you did a good job for what you have with expectations. And I think maybe it was good that we started with you all. We are very much familiar with your operations and what you have been doing so we have less questions because, hey, you are before us with your hand out all the time. So we -- so we are constantly in your budget. So -- I wouldn't say we are subject matter experts, but somewhat knowledgeable of all three of your departments. I want you to be here. Be prepared, and have presentations and pitch for services. Talking to Brandon when walking in the building for paving. I am expecting a paving budget. If the paving budget is there, I will look at other departments to find money for the paving project. Councilman.
Bill Carlson
11:26:57AM I agree with that too. I appreciate Miss Kopesky Presenting. I thought it was a great format and a lot for her and a great format that she set it up and the status of responded. One of the best formats. I appreciate we didn't do the video. The public can look up what happened in past. This is about the last year of this council looking forward to what we will do this year.
Alan Clendenin
11:27:30AM The other reference to Miss Kopesky. She can't be -- she is one person, and this budget is so big. Her being our counsel on this thing, and her doing the pitch for the city I think is a little out of whack for her role. Councilman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
11:27:50AM I don't really see this as a pitch. I understand what you are trying to say, but for enterprise funds too, they reasonably are coming to us asking for money. They make their only money.
Alan Clendenin
11:28:01AM That is why we started with this.
Lynn Hurtak
11:28:07AM I agree. We worked hard as a city to have fund this from fund balance and the General Fund and done a tremendous amount of work, and everything is so appreciated. You are really good. And your departments, you come to us with ideas for things that are really fleshed out. Really creative. And the money you are borrowing is always -- I mean, we are asking questions, but you are coming to us all the time for the big projects. Another reason to talk about the golf course, we don't hear from them that average and ideally a revenue generator. So I do agree. I do think -- I am really hoping that we will see stormwater and mobility next week. I don't know about you all, but I got some photos -- we all got some photos this weekend of the stormwater challenges that people are still facing in South Tampa. And it is an issue. I hope that next week we come forward with some really just, you know, very clear cut like today about what you are doing, how you are doing it, and what your capital program looks like. And I want to thank you all because this is really enlightening us always. And the thing is, there are places that have challenges, but we knew about these challenges coming forward. We are able to ask Mr. Washington about more specifics, but we knew they were challenges and we will budget, and I think if more departments did that, we won't feel so out of the loop. And thank you for working with us as council members toward this. We have had our ups around Downs, but I wasn't surprised. We are able to talk about things that would reduce, and I believe increase costs appropriately. And I think that is a good thing. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
11:30:25AM My only surprise is not having the printed documents. Mr. Perry, went can we anticipate getting printed a document?
Michael Perry
11:30:33AM Probably tomorrow.
Alan Clendenin
11:30:38AM Okay, thank you.
Michael Perry
11:30:40AM Probably.
Alan Clendenin
11:30:42AM I got the probably. A motion to receive and file from Councilman Maniscalco. Seconded from Councilman Carlson. All in favor, say aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. See you Thursday. Disclaimer: this file represents an unedited version of realtime captioning which should neither be relied upon for complete accuracy nor used as a verbatim transcript. Any person who needs a verbatim transcript of the proceedings may need to hire a court reporter. ▶ meeting video the information contained in these pages represents an unedited version of realtime captioning which should neither be relied upon for complete accuracy nor used as a verbatim transcript. Persons requiring a verbatim transcript may need to hire a court reporter. © - City of Tampa (813) 274-8211
Agenda
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1. B2027-2
Council to discuss the Recommended Fiscal Year 2027 Budget for the City of Tampa relative to Enterprise Funds: Solid Waste, Water, Wastewater and Parking." (Original motion initiated by Miranda-Maniscalco on April 2, 2026)(Updated motion initiated by Hurtak-Maniscalco on July 16, 2026)