Council has a single regular meeting Thursday morning with a draft agenda of 88 items, with 73 requiring a vote. They range from accepting a $16,170 Homeland Security Grant for Tampa Fire Rescue to approving a $235 million reimbursement resolution. All told Council will be approving over $80 million in fund reallocation and new spending.
Reimbursement Resolution – Item 73
The budget and bonding conversation is complicated and I took a deeper dive including a full list of the projects named in the resolution on the subject because it was just too much for the weekly update. I don’t want to lose anyone and there other important votes on the agenda. The key takeaway is this—it’s not new spending. This $235 million has been approved by Tampa City Council over the past 3 fiscal years (FY). Not every project has been started; some are nearing completion. But in the 5 year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) including the current FY, they have approved $235 million in projects to be funded by issuing bonds since 2022 (FY23-25). That’s not up for debate. Sure, Council could still not vote for a contract or require a different funding source for them to go forward, but that doesn’t alter that there has been a majority of Council approve the use of this much for these projects.
So a reimbursement resolution is simply a way for the city to say to the IRS, “hey, eventually we plan on issuing bonds on all these projects not to exceed X amount.” That’s it. It’s not an obligation to actually issue the bond or does it obligate the city to do anything really. What it does allow is for the city to use short term debt or spend out of pocket and then “reimburse” ourselves when the bond is actually issued. But you can’t spend out of pocket on a project for 3 years and then say, “hey, after all, we want to issue bonds to pay for this and use what we’ve spent on something else.” That’s in essence what this step prevents.
Which gets to what is being asked of City Council this week. They are being asked to combine two previous reimbursement resolutions that have already been approved for a total of $130 million PLUS another $105 million into one giant resolution with a giant list of projects it covers. My question is why? Is there a legal requirement to do so? Can’t have more than 2? Why include the items from the 2022 $80 million list (last time I checked, $78 million of that had been spent, including $35 million for Fair Oaks)? I think smaller, more discreet resolutions binding a set amount of money to specific projects would better. But at the end of the day, this is purely a procedural step regardless of how it plays out in front of the cameras.
Audits
Two audits are being transmitted to City Council this week under items 36 and 37. The only real “vote” here is to receive and file, but it’s also an acknowledgment Council has received them. And they are not stellar. The first, Equal Business Opportunity (EBO) the issue surfaced was “EBO did not adequately document compliance with the requirements of the Code when certifying businesses.” And not minor issues, “One business had a note in the file indicating they did not have the bulk of the required documents, which included a resume, financials, tax returns, evidence of operating a business for one year, or proof of any investment into the business.” The audit also highlighted some areas that could be improved for expanding opportunities currently being missed by the EBO.
The second audit is Housing — Mortgage Servicing. “Monitoring of single-family mortgages for compliance with the owner-occupancy requirement is not being performed.” That seems egregious to me. More specifically
An audit conducted in 2017 noted that HCD had suspended its process of verifying that borrowers continue to occupy the mortgaged property as their primary residence. Our current review noted that these policies and procedures have not been finalized and documented verification of this requirement has not occurred since prior to the 2017 audit. This is a repeat
finding.
Granted, “management response” was oh, yeah, this is bad, it will be implemented starting June 1, 2025, but the track record here isn’t good. There should be a complete audit of all properties immediately to confirm they are in compliance or the city takes next steps. Not, we’ll make sure the vendor is checking annually going forward.
Rome Yard – items 45 & 46
The bulk of the decisions on this project predate me following Council closely. But it’s woefully behind schedule and this is a request to push back the date on Phase 3A (which is the first phase to be built) another six months. March of 2024 they asked to push the start date until December 2024. They are now requesting starting in July of this year and not completing until July of 2027. It would be interesting to know what the cost other than time would be if Council said no, no more extensions, no more easements.
Also no indication that any accommodations for the displaced Yellowjackets Little League are part of this request.
Other Items of Note
I would be remiss to not mention item 72, the $40 million contract with NAPA for parts and supplies for city wide fleet maintenance. I covered it on the agenda it first appeared, but the formal vote wasn’t until this week. There wasn’t a lot of discussion when presented to Council so while a big number, it’s the cost of doing business.
Which is why I wanted to mention item 7, $2.2 million for SoundOff light bars for Tampa Police Vehicles. We spend almost as much money annually on light bars for police vehicles as we do in total supporting non-profits in the social action and arts fund. It amazes me how this city treats vehicles like expendable commodities replacing them every 5 years.
Item 49 is a lease agreement with GasWorx to build a park around Channelside Dr and 3rd Ave. 1.12 acres of city property “which shall include public restrooms, open space for events, a multi-use trail, shaded seating areas, and recreational amenity areas, along with food and beverage concessions (such concessions to be limited to 3,200 square feet).
There will be a lot of discussion about Fire Station 24 between the reimbursement resolution and several staff reports related to TFR. File under “good work if you can find it”, for Item 13 – the city is going to pay $250,000 for a consultant to oversee the building of fire station 24. There are 5 other major projects planned for TFR, are they each going to cost an extra $250,000 to “manage”? Couldn’t the city hire someone for less to facilitate these projects? That’s more than the Fire Chief makes a year.
But before Council gets to the conversations about bonding, budgets and public safety, they will be hearing two petitions for review, both with strong public opinion. Item 65, the city denied an application for an Auxiliary Dwelling Unit (ADU), neighbors call it a flop house already a nuisance. Item 66 is a neighbor petitioning Council to review staff permitting a development under a Special Use 1 application. There were several letters of opposition in Onbase when I checked the agenda Friday evening and would expect more before Thursday.
