Miami Forever Bond Program Citizens' Oversight Board

Miami Forever Bond Program Citizens' Oversight Board — May 19, 2026 - 6:08 PM

is everyone present from the city? Do you think we're ready to get started? I believe so. We're good. Yeah, we're good to go. Thank you. >> all right. Good evening everyone. Everybody. >> I want to call to order the forever bond citizens oversight board meeting. Um, it's, uh, 610. So. Um, we're only missing, uh, MR. Martinez this evening, but everyone else is in attendance. Okay, um, the minutes from the previous meeting were already distributed, um, from the JANUARY 26th, 2026 meeting. If you all have had a chance to look at them. MAY I have a motion to. >> approve the minutes so moved. Second. Second. >> all in favor? Aye. I. They're approved. Thank you. So old business updates on previously requested items. I would like to thank, uh, MR. Gabriel for providing all of these wonderful large sheets that we can read without a magnifying glass. Thank you for providing this materials for us tonight. Thank you. At this time I'll open the floor for any public comments. Hearing none, we'll move on to our new business and the overall status and expenditures report. Um. Good evening. This is gabriel brito, budget board coordinator for the city of miami. Um just as a recap of the the last meeting since our last meeting we've allocated. $20,000,539 million. >> from the public benefits. Um I'm sorry public safety. Category and the uh, uh, roadways category. And you'll see under the public safety and roadways category we have uh notated that right under the total issued amount. So you'll see 5,000,590. So that's currently pending issuance but it's been allocated through official intent and right under that pointing to the roadways category the top number seven five. 7,000,005 90 was had been issued and the remaining amount is. 14949 that's pending issuance. Um and then proceeding to affordable housing. Component as of this as of today's date 92 million. 784 has been allocated through official intent and about 5.1 million remains unallocated. To. So on the next slide you'll see a summary of the expenditures to date on the left box on the leftmost box. See as of today's date we've actually spent 120 million of the overall bond with 47 million for housing. 30,000,030.3 from parks uh. 341 from public safety, 6.8 million from. Roadways and 36 million from sea level rise flood prevention. And that would sum up to a change of. 8.6 million. >> from the last bond board meeting held. Um and just to give you a um background on that, you'll see from the last board meeting we roughly had spent about the same amount $8.5 million on the top right corner you have the actuals expenses against uh the bond. So that's a comparison between the. 120 million. >> actual expenses. And the $400 million of the miami forever bond referendum. And then on the bottom right corner you have the total. Allocated by official intent and includes the issued amount and official intent totals for a total of 386,000,365. So the. 386 is what has been allocated in totality of the $400 million as of today's date and between. Encumbrances and the actual expense meaning active contracts that have been encumbered, the total committed amount is. $208 million. >> 906 so roughly. 54% of the. $386 million allocation. So on the next slide we just wanted to revisit uh, same slide from from last meeting. We wanted to go over and make sure that there's understanding of the. Structure of the financial. Projections and uh, just as a recap on the color key of the spreadsheets that you that you received anything that any cell that you see that's orange would denote the anticipated month that. 85% of the project bond funding is expended. Blue would denote three year the three year time frame or point in time from the date of issuance and the green cell. >> would denote the five year time frame from the date of issuance. Okay. >> um and before we proceed to the next. >> slide, I just want to make sure that there's any questions specifically asked per the projections. Are there any questions for MR. Gabriel? All right thank you. Okay so proceeding with the next slide um this is a recap of the. Projects that have been chosen for the allocation of 20 million. 539 which would be the public safety uh category and the roadways category. And we'll have the department of oci and public works. To give you a feedback as per where these projects are today. Good evening. Jose perez director of capital improvements with regards to fire station ten uh, that. Project currently is in the final stages of permitting the next step which is what my office is working on is. Acquiring purchasing. The trailers for to relocate the firemen into the trailers while we get the general contractor to demolish the building. So we anticipate to have that general. Contractor by the beginning of next year. So we're going through a c, c m at risk. Process and that process is going to take us a few months. We already have uh three contractors that procurement stone of the cone of silence once that contractor. Selected and we go through the final stages and get the final. >> price from. >> the contractor, then we can start. Construction of the fire station next year. So it's on track. Okay. >> so um. >> for the roadways category we have our office of public works. Good evening board members who are santana director for the department of resilience and public works. So. >> starting off with the miami river greenway curtis park east that project has already been put out for bid. We added some additional roadway money to complete the funding that was needed. So that project will be going into. Construction in the next few months. The next segment, which is an abutting segment of the. Greenway that projects roughly at 90%. It has various funding sources. Including a lap agreement from the state of florida. That one is still short on some funding approximately 1.3 million that we're working on bridging the gap in the next fiscal year when that. >> project will then. >> be ready for. >> construction.. >> so the timing works out well. Um the edgewater flood improvements project that's a design build contract that has M.F.B. Sea level rise and flood prevention money on it currently. So we brought in some additional M.F.B. On the roadway side to. Complete the first phase of that work which includes a new pump station wells and and road racing. That's uh one of the worst. >> flooding areas that we have in. >> the city southwest 15th road that is a project that we've been working on with miami-dade county. There's a school in the area that includes a a brand new traffic. Signal to. Improve traffic and. Pedestrian mobility through that area. That project is roughly at. 30% and it also. >> is going to. >> encompass improvements around the abutting triangle park. The golden pines know all the streets as a group of streets that we have in in that. Neighborhood that will have new water mains and roadway reconstruction. The that is a. Multi-phase project. All three phases are currently under design. Um with the first group going to be ready. >> to. >> go into construction before the end of. >> the. Calendar year northeast third avenue this is a ongoing project. We have already had miami-dade water and sewer come in and put in a new water main on that project. The plans are being. >> finalized. Some minor adjustments for to accommodate some of the existing trees. But that project also will be going into construction before the end of. >> the. Calendar year hopefully towards the latter part of the summer. And last but not least on this appropriation that was done for roadways is district five roadway improvements. This is basically a general fund um in district five. So it's just a pot of money that we have. Numerous roadway. Improvement requests. In the. District and we're going to be using this money to bring those. Projects to fruition. So that's. >> on this roadway portion. Update excuse me of course. Um. So the. >> I. >> guess for the project for northeast third avenue, um you said that there is a a. >> situation associated with trees. Are you. Relocating trees? No no the design is being. Adjusted to. Accommodate all the existing trees. Yes. So some additional on street parking that would have impacted some. >> trees and and we're we're not. >> putting in that parking we're keeping the trees. And then. >> for the. >> last one for. >> district five. Roadway improvements. Is it my understanding that you're saying that. >> the. General that the funds for that also included general funds? No, no it's just I, I know I realize that when I said general funds and mixing up terms, it's a pot of money that we're setting in district five to to do roadway improvement projects that we already have request for. So we're going to be. >> tackling several. Roadways with that money. But it's bond money that's it is money for bond roadway money. Yes. Okay. We're into. >> these projects considered projects of concern. Was that question if. >> there were projects. >> of concern. Um are these just. >> updates perhaps. Perhaps the edgewater one. >> had. >> come up because go ahead you can answer that in in line to what we have been calling projects of concern in the sea level rise it has. Mostly to do and in that. Category it has more to do when the mfb bond uh the mfb uh. Expiration date the grant dates. So this is actually just recently allocated and these projects are well underway. So there's no concern at this time as far as expiration dates and there's a shortfall in one of them. Uh, that uh, director santana mentioned that that we're looking at uh, getting the additional fund before it goes to. Construction. >> but it's not a concern at this time. So so. Basically the what we have been referring to as concern because of this have been just issued. We have basically. Plenty of time to complete them. I'm not sure if that was what you were referring to but yeah, this. >> is this is not a concern and we're expecting that it will not be. >> a concern. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. So on the next slide we're we're listing the projects for sea level rise and flood. Prevention which are called out in the projection sheet. Specifically projects of concern or those that exceed the. 85%. >> um time period and um and then right on the bottom where you'll see a line that shows you anything that's which is anticipated to exceed that or extended. >> beyond five years. So. >> those are those specific projects. Um. >> and then. >> to to discuss the projects in detail. We have we have our bw here to give you a detailed breakdown. So on the first slide that you're seeing you'll see the projects. >> are in the order of the. >> project. >> list appearance. Thank you. This is um you're familiar with this list. You've seen it from the from the previous meetings. uh we basically updated the list. You have an. Attachment with the with the. Projected expenditure. What we have been presenting before is that. >> there are different. Stages of this projects and the and yes, everyone that would. >> be this spreadsheet that's this one. All right. This is the one for. >> the uh. For sea level rise which has the. Projections. >> the actual costs. And the allocation. Yeah. And and you have the the projection by month and and the per project and when. >> they would. >> reach there's a highlight of when they would reach the. 85% and when it would be completed. So based on that. Projection it's it's based on the level of. Design. >> the level the the the the stage of. Construction and the the. Expenditures as we see it associated with that schedule. The all part of the. Consideration we had with that. Projection is the. Requirements by the grants that we have. But the grant agencies that we have limitations with some of them that expenditures need to occur this year. There's some that are more flexible that we can use the mfb first. So we we are uh accounting for that on that with that projection. So we have. Presented this list. We have uh been. Preparing the supporting. Documentation to. Request um, uh, the. Additional period to complete being that we are reaching the. 85% within . >> the three and five year timeline. Uh, we're working with uh, with the uh. Gabriel and and, uh, and and bond council to prepare those. Extension. >> uh, so we can project by. Project provide the schedule, the the the, the details that are needed to to request that. Extension. >> uh, some of the projects as as uh., auburndale. >> is flagami. Edgewater that are design build and that we are spending the grant funding first. Past this summer you're going to be we're going to be using purely miami for our bond. So you'll see that level of expenditure. Increasing and and our goal is to complete it even before or. >> to. >> reach the. 85% even before the the timeline. But we are preparing those extension letters because of the of the, uh. Uncertainties that you have with delays and in construction and procuring materials. So so we're working into. >> into, uh, those details into the. Projection. Other projects that are in design there. Okay. My question about the extensions. So. >> what's the date to which the extensions are being asked for? There is one group that is uh, that the. Expiration is in in they're both in in the timeline is both in. 2027. >> uh, different depending on when the bond was issued. So that would be. >> the the time that before that we need to to request the extension. So I just want to clarify and will confirm to confer with the city attorney. Uh, we're using the term. extension but it's not an extension. It's really a an additional. Timeline. >> um, of of up to five years. Depending on the state of the. Project and. >> the reasons behind the. >> additional the need for additional time. So uh, just to elaborate on that and gabriel, can you kind of walk us through that application? What does it look? Is it you get five years or is it hey, I'm going to be done at this date specifically. And so if you pass that date what happens kind of just giving a better a clearer picture of, you know, air quotes I know that recorded but air quotes what is. >> an extension look like. >> that process and what does it actually mean? Uh, so so if I MAY have a deputy city attorney generally as we've mentioned, right, you have three years to expend the funds, right? And that's usually those are kind of scc irs compliance requirements for maintaining tax exempt status. Um, however there are many circumstances that can affect it, right? The complexity of the project, the size of the. Project. >> um unforeseen. Circumstances right? I think for a lot of roadway projects, we always run into a lot of conflicts that we don't know about. We have to redesign or fix it. Um. Additionally if there's any um delay in the timeline because of um inclement weather, right? You know, those are kind of things that have occurred to the city in in previous bond issuances as well where we just aren't able to do it right. So we have to document all those things. We work closely with bond council. So um gabriel and I have been speaking with bond council to make sure that we document and we can we are able to show that there are. Reasonable delays. In getting these projects done or that the complexity does require to be a little longer. So that's kind of. >> what. >> um is is what occurs here for some of these projects. I understand that aspect. I guess I'm asking what are you extending it for five years? How does the actual extension work? Because some of these. Projects you can see that the spending timeline even here is behind right? So are you asking. Specifically I need six more months but then what happens if you cross those six months or are you asking for a blank set of time saying 24 months, 36 months? How and is it project by project? Are. >> you. >> setting a specific time and what happens if you exceed that time once again? So yes it is it is project by project. It can't just be a blanket statement for the entire um program right? It has to be project by project and analysis of each project. Each project is different right now. Um from a timeline. Standpoint. >> um. From a legal standpoint we always just tell them kind of this is what the the edges of your table are, right? That's kind of what we how we explain it now we have to rely on our professionals to tell us exactly what is going to happen, right? What is your timeline? Um what are your issues? How long are you going to take? Right. So they have to give us that construction schedule, the updated schedule based on engineering. Reports or anything else. >> that they have. Um and then from there we have to kind of advise. All right. You know this is kind of the timeline. This is the edge of the table. We need to try to see what we can do here and make sure that it's done right. But at the end of the day it's a lot of those timelines are based off of our. Professionals. >> telling us this. >> is our experience and this is kind of what's happening with this project and and to double click there then are we asking for the edge of the table just starting at the very top right? Uh, flood. Improvement like the orange boxes, the. 85% I'm seeing on this long this big spreadsheet, right? And it says that we're hitting the. 85% on MARCH 28th, which is well beyond the three year limit. So are we being told or is that the ask going to be hey, that's when we want to extend it to because two part question or the second piece of that being we're already significantly behind on the spend. So if we're asking that to be the deadline, it seems very logical that we're going to pass that anyways. So I just. >> curious. >> where. >> are we setting the edge of that table? So I guess to clarify, I know you're saying that they're asking for the timeline, right? There's no one that's really. Approving the timeline right? There's no one you ask and they say yes that's it right. Um so we are you know, from a legal standpoint, what we do is we we advise this is what it is. >> this is how you. >> need to do it. We try to make sure we stay within timelines. Unfortunately. >> you know we can't. Control what happens out in the field. Um but the idea here is to really maintain it now when do the timelines start? They all start differently right? So I know that a lot of people are saying well you know. >> the. >> bond was approved back in. 2017 and you haven't spent anything right. The timeline really starts when you do your first expenditure, your initial expenditure that's when it starts right? So if we had a project in 20 if we approved in 2017 but we didn't start the first expenditure around you know. 2024 right? That's when your timeline starts right? So um so I think it depends on the project where it started, but yes, there's no one approving it right? What we're doing is we're documenting it, we're making sure that is it reasonable to say. >> yes these projects are delayed for whatever reason uh occurred. Just I guess simply to understand what happens when you I'm assuming this orange is kind of what we're saying. That's when you hit the. 85% spend. What happens if we cross that again because some of them are already beyond the three year limit from this chart. So what happens now if we. >> do. >> get approval whatever the case MAY be but. >> then. That date hits and then we exceed it once again so nothing happens. Immediately right. Um as I mentioned there's nobody that's actually approving it but what happens is there's certain compliance requirements we have to comply with from an sec and irs. Disclosures and. >> different. >> um, you know, regs that. >> we have to apply um comply with. So um it puts us in it increases our liability should those. Agencies decide to come down and do, uh, to audit us or to look into these things. Right? So that's where the documenting and making sure that we are clearly. Identifying why this is taking longer than it needs to take is. >> occurring because at any point any of those agencies can come down and say, hey, what happened here? Do you for any reason at this time foresee an issue in providing substantial enough documentation to either of those. >> agencies. >> to justify these extensions on. >> any of the projects? As of now I don't see you know, I don't see anything that would justify them coming down and checking it. Um however. >> that is part of our job here right where we kind of sit with them. We go through all these. projects when the request comes in telling us hey, we need um and I think the word they use the word extend because I believe that's just a technical term for oracle. If correct me if I'm wrong um uh gabriel it's like extending the award is like the term in oracle but it's not really the term for it. Um but when they come and they tell us hey we need to do this and we say okay give me the documentation, give me your reports, give me you know, the spend down everything so we can have it all together and then we that's when we give a call to bond council and we say, hey, this is what's happening. You know, what can we do here to make sure that um, we we stay in compliance with all our our our our offering statements, our disclosures and all that. So bond the bond council would indicate to you if there was a potential issue. Yes. >> and they're they're not doing so at this time. At this time there there's so to. That we are we are monitoring it but I wouldn't say that there's an issue immediately. That's what I. Would say. >> okay. In this scenario that we are audited what is the impact specifically on projects that have extended their three year limit? So it's not on the projects as much. It's more on the city. You know there MAY be penalties that the city has to pay. Um you know um some certain rebates that we have to do you know, payback certain things. So that's kind of what would happen. I mean it depends on on kind of the the severity of the finding of the audits or anything like that. Right. So and just so you know, the city has been through this situation before. Um and we have, you know, been able to show that any delays that we've had in our projects are reasonable, right? It just happens, you know, if it rains, if you run into a conflicts, um, you know, one of the projects here is flooding right? So if it starts raining and then the area floods we can't do any work right. So we have to stop until it clears out. So um you know this is not something that that is new to any municipality. So we have done that kind of work and that's why we're doing it now just to make sure that we are crossing our t's and dotting our eyes. MR. Chair. Chair go ahead. Yeah. >> I have a question on some of these, uh, projects that have cdbg funding my understanding. Cdbg funds are being cut at the federal level. So these projects that have grants from cdbg are they of concern or is the funding already committed for these projects and the funding cuts won't affect it? The funding has been committed for the projects for the two projects is little havana and wynwood. Uh florida commerce is the agency who's overseeing the the cdbg grants. We have been in coordination with them. Uh they they have certain several requirements before when you to actually start designing move forward with construction and they have expressed that they will be extending the the grants and they have they haven't provided the overall program duration at some point they mentioned to 2031 that will be dependent you know, when we're showing progress they will keep extending. In the past couple of weeks they have uh, brought up uh, additional alternatives to to upfront the expenditures on on the grant actually. So that's what we're working with them now to, to, to, to understand what they want to do with the grant spending because they have requirements of matching that if they want to waive that we can show the expenditures early on and that's basically that came up last week that th