Financial gurus & Budget experts? We must have some on TOTV?
 

Admittedly, I'm not a financial genius. Especially when it comes to a budget as complicated as the Districts'.

I was responded to another post on here about increased maintenance fees and as I looked at this year's budget, I was appalled. I must be reading it wrong.

It appears that "Salary & Wages" budget item for the District, is increasing 90% this year, from $24,000,000 to $43,000,000.

Community Watch is increasing 50%.

They're carrying $9.6M for maintenance for: Equipment, Buildings, Landscaping, Vehicles, Pools, Gates & Irrigation (up 33%). Along with that $9.6M, they're carrying another $4.1M in "other" (miscellaneous) maintenance? How do you spend over $4M in non-specific maintenance?

The District is paying over $5,000,000 in interest. Based on what I think I heard at a budget meeting last year, they're taking after the US Congress and deficit spending is becoming a way of life.

Again, I admit to not being great with budgets or accounting, especially when involves numbers this large. I did attend 2 budget hearings last year and as lost as I can get with this stuff, most of our District Representatives seemed completely lost in space.

Is there anyone out there with the inclination to look at the budgets tell us what's really going on? It's not like we can get the straight story from any of the local news providers.

You ask some very good questions that need addressing. For clarity, when you say The District, exactly which budget are you looking at? The District and The Villages are terms that are thrown around by a lot of people that are referring to any of the many entities that are lumped under these name. This unfortunately leads to a lot of confusion and misinformation being propagated.

Give me a day or two to glean some additional information and I’ll go over some of the issues. There is one point you are wrong on, the State of Florida requires all government entities to have a balanced budget, so there is no deficit spending in the CDD budgets.

I have been involved with the CDD, amenity, project wide, and county budgets for the last 10 years so I have a very good understanding of what all the moving parts are in them. This budget season however I’ve not spent much time looking at CDD/Amenity/PWF budgets due to other pressing county issues.

"Deficit spending" might be the wrong terminology. I was at a hearing and they were discussing a budget item (I don't recall what it was) that I would have considered "expense". In order to balance the budget (or make the line item seem less imposing) they were going to "borrow" and reclassify the "expense" as CapX "investment".

The major increase for CDD14 is due to Eastport Maintenance Advisory Committee (EMAC) fees, these are to support the increased landscape maintenance (up from $420k to $2.7M) and irrigation water cost (up from $114k to $490k).

If it’s the new district, that makes sense. Last year, they didn’t need staff or security or landscaping. This year they do.

Go look at all the district’s budgets and compare a partial year of operations with a full year.
If you are looking at a budget of an existing district, that’s another story.

I’ve spoken to district staff on this issue today and have a good understanding of the changes and why things have increased. I could spend another hour typing out an explanation, but it will be easier to go over it verbally. Please join me on my YouTube broadcast today at 3:00 PM and I’ll put out the information.
Gold Wingnut Live #27 8/11/2024 at 3:00 PM - YouTube

I just saw this post now that I'm home from the golf course at 5 pm.

I will watch the video after dinner. Thank you.

Non-specific expenses sound like it’s a catch all bucket for things unseen that happen throughout the year. For example, do they budget for the times they have to flood the golf courses or water all their grass areas to maintain pond levels? They don’t know how many times they need to do this. How about debris cleanup after a tropical storm/hurricane hits? These are variable charges in anybody’s budget.

But the expenses that have gone up and shared by a lot more people⁷

Having not been a Don Wiley fan in the past, I have to admit that watching him listen and respond to uniformed residents tossing nonsense at him for almost 2 hours and staying patient and informative, may have moved me into the "fan" column. Thanks for your efforts, Don.

At the risk of again running afoul of TOTV rules by being somewhat personal in a post, having listened to Don for almost 2 hours last night, I found that he was much more fair-minded and neutral than I previously thought. He did seem sympathetic to the Developer, but I think we all should be, as the Developer has created something with TV, that no one else has ever been able to do on such a large scale.

That said, some questions I have about the budget and District spending, was not within the scope of yesterday's discussion, as Don was focused on the newer areas of TV. I believe it was also a bit confusing (unintentionally) for newer residents that may not have grasp on how CDD's & TV works and the differences between the areas still owned by the Developer versus those that have been turned over to a CDD.

Don explanation of why there was a huge (56%) increase in maintenance fees for CDD #14 was clear and simple. I'm surprised at how many folks, simply didn't want to listen to how that actually works (or worse, the people who seem anxious to argue nonsense and toss grenades over the transom, like it's Don's fault they didn't read their purchase paperwork.)

Don said, "the Developer owns all the recreational centers and amenities". Unless I'm crazy (which some would argue is true), the Developer only owns amenities, until they're turned over to the controlling CDD in a specific area (which I thought was either VCCDD or SLCDD)? This was probably confusing to many who were listening.

Also, there was discussion about "who pays for what" during the construction phase, with Don saying that the Developer pays to build amenities and is responsible for the maintenance of such (& pays the fees), until all the lots are sold (which makes the developer "anxious" to sell out).

Unless I'm misunderstanding something about the CDD Bonds, the Developer is "paying", but only temporarily, as these costs are absorbed by the bond when complete.

So I'm going to structure my earlier question, differently.

There appears to be a 90% increase in the Salary & Wages budget line item for the upcoming FY. There seems to be an exorbitant amount of "miscellaneous maintenance" going on. The increase in Community Watch expenses appears outrageous. Again admitting to not being an expert on financial statements or budgets, it seems that the Budget would be much easier to decipher, if line items that show unusual variance, were footnoted and detailed.

For example, in the case of a 90% increase in Salary & Wages, part of that might be attributable to the absorption of a new CDD. The same with CW (although according to newspaper reports, that's not the case). Perhaps in an effort to be transparent, the Budget package has so much information, it's nearly impossible for a layman to understand it and figure out how much money is going where?

Is there a simpler way to look at this morass of paperwork, that makes it easier to digest or I'm simply doomed to always view budgets as gobbledygook?

[BTW, I googled "EWAC" at least 10 different ways and can't find it. Google apparently has never heard of it. Don says it exists, because the folks who ran CDD 7 weren't very smart. What the heck is it?]

BrianL99-

1. Which budget are you looking at? There are at least 18 budgets for the various CDDs, utilities, and advisories

2. EMAC - Eastport Maintenance Advisory Committee. You can find it off districtgov.org under committees

No - the acreage stayed the same. The acreage that was not a home last year, was paid by the developer. As Developer sold a house, that amount of maintenacnce fee went from developer to home owner.

So the denominator stayed the same (it’s based on acreage)
It’s the numerator that increased - i.e. the amount to maintain - which was VERY clear with Don’s flyover of the area from last July.

Try googling the correct acronym, EMAC (Eastport Maintenance Advisory Committee)

Eastport Maintenance Advisory Committee

Brian,
Yesterday's show was a marathon I'd have to admit. I lost track of time and it really ran on much longer that expected.

About the Amenities, south of SR44 they are owned by the developer and the developer is responsible for all the costs of operation and maintenance (and taxes). They pay for this with the Amenity Fee contracts that they own and the residents south of SR44 pay. The Amenities are not turned over to the CDDs, in the past they have sold the amenities and their revenue contract to the commercial CDDs. Most recently in 2016 SLCDD purchased the Amenities between 466 and 44. The Sumter Landing Amenity Division (SLAD) now owns both the facilities and the revenue contracts, and now pays all the bills and is paying a $352M bond off for the purchase (the bond payment replaces the income and property taxes and profits that under the developer were incurred).

For the developer, the amenities operate at a loss for many of the early years until the number of homes sold and associated revenues start to cover the full costs. This is just the operating cost, the actual cost of acquisition and construction isn't really recovered unit they finally sell the amenities. Why they are willing to do this is simple, amenities help to sell houses. Also as a business unit operating at a loss has a tax advantage.

They retain ownership for many years to come (through the buildout of CDD19 or 20?) when it becomes more profitable to sell them than operate them. It's a business.

Bonds are not used to build the amenities, this all comes out of the developer's pocket. The bonds cover the local roads, drainage, retention ponds, right of ways and open areas and all their associated infrastructure. Once the bond is issued by the CDD - the developer doesn't have involvement in the bond itself - all properties start paying the bond assessments, if the home is sold the new owners pay it, if the property hasn't been sold then the developer will pay the annual bond payment (one of the many reasons they like to close out sales in an area quickly).

Salaries are lumped to gether from the Executive Sallaries and employment costs ($200/meeting X 18 meetings/year X 5 Supervisors = $9,000 + SS, Medicare, and workers comp) and the allocation of management cost which is targeted at 10% of the annual budget. Management costs are for the District Office and staff as each CDD doesn't have a dedicated staff needed to cover all the work needed.

The budget is cumbersome to say the least and going through each line item as the Supervisors do is not for the faint of heart. The CDD budget is child's play compared to the County budget. They are difficult to chew through but once you understand the process it really isn't too bad. In my time as a CDD Supervisor I sat through 60+ budget workshops and argued with district staff on nearly every one of them. The saddest part is that during those 8 years and dozens of meetings there were a grand total of 4 residents present and only 1 question ever asked.

Community Watch costs are an Amenity budget line item and not a CDD Maintenance Assessment item/cost, so not relevant to the discussion.

The Eastport Wide Advisory Committee (EWAC) exists because PWAC2 does not. PWAC2 was to encompass the CDDs south of 44 and PWAC between 466 and 44. It failed because the leadership (and I use that word lightly) of CDD7 did not want to bring the formation of PWAC2 to a vote at their CDD board meeting. Because the PWAC formation agreement required unanimous agreement by all signatories to make changes (form PWAC2) it failed. This is costing the CDDs between 44 and 466 each about $100K/year extra. I've not spoken much on the topic in the past because I was a sitting Supervisor on a different board, but I can now. I could spend an hour typing on the PWAC2/EWAC topic but I'll sum it up simply by saying the CDD7 leadership was clueless on what they were doing. They blindly follow the POA's I Hate The Developer mantra and think the developer constantly owes them something and sees the Developer as the boogie man hiding around every turn. One of the CDD7 races is contested this year and Mr. Gilbert Windsor has my backing to unseat the sitting ID10T.

Thanks for the feedback.

No it was not, the developer was paying the maintenance assessment on all the undeveloped/unsold lots during the previous year. As Papa_lecki has stated the denominator didn't change.