September 17, 2026 CRA Board Meeting — Agenda Breakdown

The budget: $5.6 million, and what the added $2.6 million is

What it is. Resolution CRA-R-2026-44 adopts a "balanced" budget of $5,612,448.32 for the year that starts October 1. The bigger total is not new money for projects. The version in the September 14 workshop packet totaled $3,000,583.15. On the revenue side, the whole $2,611,865.17 increase is in the two tax-increment lines. On the spending side, all but 31 cents of it is two new lines sending money back:

Apart from the two rebate lines, every spending line matches the workshop version except the projects line, up 31 cents to $295,268.75.

What a "TIF rebate" is. Tax increment financing sends the CRA part of the growth in property taxes inside its area. The amount the CRA keeps each year is capped: the 2025 plan update describes a negotiated formula with Orange County that "caps the total annual increment contribution," at $350,000 in its text and $350,500 in its appendix table. This schedule records much larger payments from the two governments, $2,962,364.86 together, and budgets everything above $350,500 to go back to them. In December 2025 the Board authorized its staff to issue the "TIF Rebate per the Inter-local Agreement with Orange County and the Town of Eatonville" (CRA-R-2025-52, in the 2025 resolutions).

The Town's budget doesn't show it. The Town's proposed budget, as presented at its September 9 hearing, sets aside $232,136 for its CRA TIF payment next year, and its General Fund revenue list has no rebate line. In the current year, the same Town account records $1,789,254 paid to the CRA through May 31 against a $230,000 budget, a figure no Town packet has explained. The CRA now expects $1,842,932.02 from the Town next year. One reading, which neither packet confirms, is that the Town pays the CRA the full amount and gets most of it back. Even then the net figures differ: the CRA keeps $224,592.89 from the Town, and the Town budgets $232,136.

The $892,083.46. It appears as both revenue and spending: "Due to CRA from Town General Fund" coming in, and "Board of Directors Reserves" of $892,086.46 — three dollars more — going out. The workshop version explained that the reserve holds money that is "not currently available as cash," and said the Board "has waived any associated interest and penalties." That waiver failed 2–3 on June 18. This packet's schedule has no line-by-line explanations. No line in the Town's September 9 hearing packet identifies the $892,083.46.

The line of credit. A line of credit is a loan the CRA draws on as it builds. The Board approved this one in December 2025 as a revolving "Builder Line of Credit" of up to $1.7 million for six single-family homes (CRA-R-2025-53). The schedule counts the full $1,700,000 as revenue and budgets $1,280,000 for the housing project. The resolution says no one may spend CRA funds "except pursuant to the adopted budget." The workshop version said the CRA projects "the expenditure of the full $1.7 million LOC, or substantially all available proceeds," and described the $1,280,000 as "the remaining project funds that have not yet been expended, after accounting for the reimbursement of eligible predevelopment costs."

That leaves $420,000 of borrowing with no housing line of its own. The workshop wording may mean it repays money the CRA already spent on the homes; the packet does not say. As arithmetic only: the rest of the spending — $828,497 for staff, operations, the "CRA Projects / Loan Reserves / Acquisitions" line and programming — is $419,997 more than the $408,500 the CRA has that is neither borrowed nor owed to it ($350,500 in TIF, $51,000 in bank balances and $7,000 in interest).

Staff and operations. Unchanged from the workshop version. Salaries and benefits are $200,728.25 for three positions: the Executive Director at $82,500, a part-time administrative assistant at $20,800, and the Economic Impact Manager at $70,000, a position whose approving resolution on August 20 priced it at $65,000. Operations are $262,500. The workshop breakdown covers the line-by-line changes from this year.

What the resolution sets. Money from the line of credit, grants, tax increment and reserves "shall be accounted for and expended only for their legally authorized, contractually permitted, and budgeted purposes." Adopting a budget line "does not independently authorize a contract, debt, purchase, conveyance, or project award when separate Board, Town, lender, grantor, or other approval is required." The Executive Director or a designee may make administrative and accounting adjustments without a Board vote if they do not raise the total, do not change a restricted purpose, and are allowed by state law and CRA and Town procedures; a new material program or project goes to the Board. The adopted budget goes to the County Commission within 10 days and onto the CRA's website within 30. The legal-form line is for "Greg Jackson, CRA General Counsel," and is unsigned.

Worth watching. Five of the CRA's seven directors sit on the Council that holds the Town's second budget hearing on September 21. Unless one of the two budgets changes, the Town's budget at that hearing would show one figure for the CRA and this budget another.

The manual: adopted by a resolution it isn't attached to

Correction, September 14. An earlier version of this section said CRA-R-2020-9 had not appeared in any packet Cheatonville had reviewed, asked whether it would be made public, and described bylaws §5.2 as the only provision swapping a Town title for "Executive Director," a gap it said was part of Cheatonville's project-manager finding. The resolution has been posted on the CRA's website since 2021, and it replaces "Mayor, Finance Director or CAO" with "Executive Director" in the Town procurement policy the CRA adopted in 2020; the finding does not address that gap. This section and its questions have been revised.

What it is. Resolution CRA-R-2026-43 would adopt the "2026 Town of Eatonville Community Redevelopment Agency Comprehensive Policies and Procedures Manual" as the CRA's official rules for purchasing, finance, grants, personnel, records and safety. The September 14 breakdown walks through the manual. This packet holds the resolution, its cover sheet and a placeholder Exhibit A (pages 19–25), but not the manual.

The paperwork doesn't agree with itself. Section 2 adopts the manual as the "draft dated August 17, 2026," the date on the workshop copy. The Exhibit A page calls it the "Draft dated September 17, 2026," and says the complete manual "is attached to and incorporated by reference into Resolution No. CRA-R-2026-31." CRA-R-2026-31 is the number the Board used on July 16 for its May 2026 financials. The clerk's certification line and the "CRA Attorney" approval line are blank.

What the resolution itself would decide. In plain terms, wherever the Town's purchasing policy names the Mayor, the Chief Administrative Officer or the Finance Director, the CRA would read "Executive Director." Section 3 "expressly reaffirms" CRA-R-2020-9, adopts the Town's 2023 purchasing policy for CRA use, and says those titles "shall mean the CRA Executive Director to the extent authorized by CRA Resolution No. CRA-R-2020-9, this Resolution, the adopted CRA budget, and other lawful written delegations." The Town's purchasing table gives purchases of $7,501 to $25,000 to the "Mayor or his/her designee." A title swap already exists: CRA-R-2020-9, adopted February 18, 2020 and posted on the CRA's website, adopted "the Town of Eatonville Procurement Policy" and "replaces all terms of Mayor, Finance Director or CAO with the new term of Executive Director." It predates the Town's current policy of November 2023, and the bylaws' own clause that swaps Town titles for CRA ones, §5.2, names only the Chief Administrative Officer. Section 3 would apply the swap to the 2023 policy, and it adds one the 2020 resolution did not make: references to the Town Council "shall mean the CRA Board when approval by the governing body of the purchasing entity is required." Cheatonville's project-manager finding quotes the Town policy's rule that purchases above $25,000 "must be approved by the Town Council." The same section adds a limit: "No role substitution shall transfer to the Executive Director a power that is nondelegable by law or expressly reserved to the Board."

Which rule wins. The manual gives the Executive Director sole approval up to $25,000; see the three-way comparison. Section 4 of this resolution says a manual provision that conflicts with "a higher or later controlling authority" gives way, and lists "duly adopted Board actions" among those authorities. The bylaws resolution on Item 5 says in its own Section 4 that "[a]ll resolutions, policies, procedures, bylaws, or portions thereof that conflict with this Resolution or the amended Bylaws adopted herein are hereby superseded and repealed to the extent of such conflict." Neither says how the two would be read if both pass the same evening.

Worth watching. The packet was created September 11, before the workshop. Unless a revised packet is posted, residents cannot see any changes made to the manual after September 14.

The bylaws: on consent, with nothing attached

What it is. Resolution CRA-R-2026-42 would adopt amended bylaws "substantially in the form attached hereto as Exhibit 'A'," replacing earlier versions wherever they conflict. It is Item 5 on the consent agenda, which passes in one vote unless the Board takes an item out. The cover sheet marks it both "CONSENT AGENDA YES" and "CRA DISCUSSION."

What is attached. Page 18 ends with the heading "EXHIBIT 'A' / AMENDED BYLAWS OF THE TOWN OF EATONVILLE COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY." Nothing follows it; the next page is the manual resolution. This has happened before. The August 20 meeting packet's Exhibit A was a cover page with nothing behind it, and that resolution, CRA-R-2026-39, was tabled.

What the resolution says. It credits the amendments to "General Counsel, Attorney Jackson and the Board of Directors," as recommended "during the August 20, 2026 and September 8, 2026 Workshop." The most recent marked-up copy, in the September 8 workshop packet, was identical to the August 20 copy the Board tabled. This packet contains nothing from the September 8 workshop, so it does not show what, if anything, changed there.

What the last marked-up copy proposed. If the adopted text follows it, the biggest change is to purchasing. Purchases from $7,501 to $25,000 would move from a Board vote to the Executive Director and the Chair acting jointly. The manual on Item 7 gives the same range to the Executive Director alone.

The bylaws' own rule. §8.1 says the bylaws "may be amended after an annual review at any regular or special meeting by a majority vote of the Board members," and that "[n]o such amendment shall be adopted unless at least two (2) days' written notice thereof has been previously given to the Board members." The public packet does not show whether that notice was given; it could have been given outside the packet.

Worth watching. A director can move to take Item 5 off consent, as the Board did with other items on June 18 by a 3–2 vote. If no one does, the bylaws change without discussion, and without the new text in the public packet.

Consent: the March 19 and August 20 minutes

What it is. Two sets of minutes, both attached. The March 19, 2026 minutes are six months old. The number CRA-R-2026-09 had been used for two different resolutions, so the resolution approving these minutes gets a new number, CRA-R-2026-40.

What the March 19 minutes record. The Board's attorney addressed the Executive Director's termination and the status of Board members who had resigned. The recorded votes on business:

• a motion, passed unanimously, tabling consent Items 2–5 and moving Item 6 to Board Discussion;
• a motion "to REMOVE Resolution CRA-R-2026-9," titled "Nullifying Unauthorized Actions of the Mayor," which "PASSES, 3/2." During the discussion, Director Thomas asked that "former Mayor" be used in the resolution;
• CRA-R-2026-10, a lease for 243 W. Kennedy Blvd, Suite D, tabled;
• a motion by Director Thomas "to halt CRA projects including financials be provided to the Board," which failed 2–3.

A vote that doesn't add up. The roll call lists five directors present: Williams, Critton, Mack, Jordan and Thomas. The recorded vote on CRA-R-2026-9 reads "AYE: Director Mack, Director Williams, Director Jordan; NAY: Director Critton, Director Johnson." No Director Johnson is in the roll call, and Director Thomas is not in the vote. Once approved, these minutes become the official record of that vote.

August 20. The minutes agree with Cheatonville's recap on the two main votes: the Economic Impact Manager job description approved 4–2, and the bylaws resolution tabled. They record the consent vote as "6/0," but they also record Director Williams's late arrival being announced after that vote.

Discussion: the general-contractor RFP for the single-family homes

What it is. A Board discussion of "RFP 2026-0853 General Contracting Service for Single Family Housing Project." An RFP is a formal public call for bids. Nothing is attached: no cover sheet, no list of responses, no ranking, and no award resolution. The agenda lists it under Board Discussion, not Board Decisions.

Background. The single-family homes RFP was pulled 7–0 on July 7 for re-release, under Resolution CRA-R-2026-28, which as proposed also created a permanent committee to rank construction bids. The workshop version of the budget counts on the $1.7 million line of credit to build "approximately six homes" next year. The packet does not say whether RFP 2026-0853 is that re-release.

What the posted record leaves open

From this packet. Bylaws with no text attached, on consent. A manual resolution with two draft dates, a resolution number already used for other business, and no manual. A budget whose TIF figure from the Town differs from the Town's own budget by about $1.6 million before rebates, and by $7,543.11 after. The $892,083.46 that no line in the Town's proposed budget identifies. $420,000 of line-of-credit money with no housing line of its own. A March 19 vote that names a "Director Johnson" who is not in the roll call.

Carried from September 14. Whether CRA-R-2020-9, which adopted the Town's procurement policy in 2020, reaches the Town's 2023 policy. The Economic Impact Manager at $70,000, against the $65,000 in the resolution approved August 20. The workshop budget's statement that the Board "has waived" interest and penalties, after the June 18 waiver vote failed.

On the Town side. The Town Council meets September 15, and its second budget hearing is September 21. The September 15 breakdown tracks the Town's side of the CRA payment.