Council return this week after their Spring Break to an 88 item agenda, 75 requiring a vote. An agenda full of dollar signs. Over 41 of the items with almost $250 million in spending referenced.

Some is good news, like the closing out of the $83,692,007.82 Harbour Island Force Main Replacement project 9 years after the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) went out (and $616,571.52 less than expected). Some are like item 38, $9.4 million related to debt-free financing the city facilitated for Trinity School for Children. The city has no financial obligation in the transaction but still requires a vote to approve the refinance.

There’s also a $16,855,530 reimbursement resolution for the West River Walk. Originally approved for $26 million in bonding, this procedural step doesn’t approve new spending but is required if the city wants to spend money now and recoup it later when the bond is issued. It’s being used as part of the local match for the federal grant.

Others, like item 72, $50.7 million for a trio of paving contracts is eye catching. With closer inspection it’s over 2 years and is “subject to appropriations”. Meaning if a project is in the budget and funded, these are 3 companies the city can assign work to. It’s not in addition to the $41 million budgeted this fiscal year for paving and resurfacing. How and where the projects are prioritized is another issue.

Some are Tampa City Council approving items approved by the Community Redevelopment Agency Board (the same people mind you). Speaking of, one of those items is the services agreement between The CRA and city, including the $4,254,558 the city collects for services rendered.

Once you remove all of that, it’s closer to $20 million in what’s actually being requested. They range from the $6 million design-build project for Sulphur Springs Pump Station rehabilitation bringing the full cost of the project to $11 million to $213,257.14 for a robot dog.

In between items of note:

• item 5 – $1.7 million to replace TPD service weapons
• item 70 – $3,959,881.12 to Feeding Tampa Bay for the work they did to city water line upgrades. The agreement that dates back to 2021 determined it would be less costly and disruptive for the developer to do the work as part of the site improvement. Staff estimate the contract cost would have been $5-7 million if a 3rd party had done the work.
• item 77 – $3,280,201.90 for a one-year renewal of the contract with the company providing janitorial and conversion services to the Convention Center.
• item 14 – $1.5 million for fencing. Your guess is as good as ours.

The last item highlighted is item 39 $2.7 million for the Revenue and Finance Department to purchase an Application Builder add-on to the OpenGov platform the city uses for budget tracking. The primary feature noted in the request is a Disaster Preparedness & Recovery “app”. Another use would be for a “grants management” toolbox. The department believes the development of these projects will lead to additional custom “apps”.

Tampa Monitor doesn’t have a problem with OpenGov in general. It’s not the most intuitive platform but it does provide for public, online, historical records of the budget and spending at the macro level for each department. The dashboard metrics seem designed for middle management however. That said, there are some caveats in the fine print for the Disaster Recovery Suite that TM would like to note:

• Configuration is limited to forms defined in the Initiate and Validate phases.
• Additional form variants or post-go-live requests will require a change order.
• Workflow automation is limited to in-scope form processes
• Custom visualizations beyond the native toolset are out of scope.
• OpenGov is not responsible for deduplication or remediation of dirty data.

All of which is to say, if you don’t have a very clear idea of what you need before you start you’re stuck following the cookie cutter model they’ve built and they’re not responsible for the outcome if your incoming data isn’t pristine.

Additionally, a lot of what the Suite describes is not financial in nature. It’s full blown emergency management—rapid intake & registration, shelter management, reunification & welfare checks, transportation & accessibility. Has Tampa Fire Rescue, TPD and the Emergency Management team gotten on board for this? Does it fit their operating procedures or are they going to modify their SOP to fit this new tool?

And if only a portion of this Disaster Recovery Suite is going to be used by the Revenue and Finance Department then is this really a good use of technology and funds? And to be clear, the Technology & Innovation Department are not mentioned in any of the supporting documents. This is a request from the Revenue & Finance Department.

I hope to be proven wrong but my prediction is if unfortunately Tampa is faced with another hurricane or disaster this investment will be a failure and questions will be asked by a future administration and council what was anyone thinking when they approved it.