The promise
The plan: water, sewer and drainage through 2029.
Drainage was to get $58.1 million. $181 million of the whole program was to be borrowed.
Three wallets
- 1
Property taxes → General Fund
$117.5 million a year: police, fire, parks, City Hall. The tax rate is 7.3848 and has not moved. About 13 cents of every tax dollar goes to the redevelopment agency (CRA).
- 2
Your bills → the utility
About $48 million a year from water, sewer and stormwater bills: pipes, pumps, treatment. Every increase you have felt since 2022 lives here.
- 3
Loans → a separate account
Bonds: money borrowed from investors for big construction and paid back, with interest, out of wallet 2 for 30 years. Borrowed so far: $58.8 million.
What you pay
The water base charge doubled. Stormwater fee: +46%.
A fixed monthly charge before the first gallon, the same for a studio and for a house with a pool.
What it means for youYou pay $42.02 a month for water and $26.72 for sewer before using anything; next year $44.96. The base charge is the same for a studio and for a house with a pool, so the increase falls hardest on those who use the least.
- Planned, 2022
- Water $134.7 million, sewer $37.8 million through FY 2028-29, part of the $230.6 million program.
- Done, FY 2024-25
Base charge: water $21.79 → $42.02 (+93%), sewer $21.02 → $26.72 (+27%). In FY 2025 the utility spent $18.5 million on construction ($9.6 million water projects, $7.5 million sewer and lift stations), paid for out of operations.
The $54.4 million of bond money it received in December 2024 was still in the bank: cash rose from $7.6 million to $58.9 million, plus $29.1 million in investments.
- Who pays
- Most of the increase came through the base charge, a fixed amount before the first gallon. A retiree in a studio pays it exactly like a house with a pool. Doubling the base charge shifts the bill onto those who use the least.
- Moved in the new plan, 2027-31
Compared with last year's plan (file 26-176 vs 25-287):
- the SW 3rd St 10" water main, paid for from the 2023/2024 bonds and scheduled for 2024 in the 2023 plan, moved to 2025, then 2027, now FY 2028-29
- Treatment Units 2 and 3 rehab 2028 → 2029
- lime plant decommissioning 2028 → 2030 ($3.0M → $3.45M)
- the Miami-Dade sewer trunk line 2027 → 2028 ($6.0M → $6.9M)
- RO Skid 3 pulled forward from "future" to 2028-29 but $7.5M → $10.7M
New: $41.5M for replacing asbestos-cement pipes from 2029, and the Floridan wells got real money ($10.4M in 2027-28). The purchase of extra C-51 water ($5M in 2029) no longer appears.
- Own water or bought?
The City pumps about half of its raw water itself and buys the other half, raw, from Broward County's regional wellfield at $0.23 per 1,000 gallons; all of it is treated at the City plant.
The City's own wells are contaminated with PFAS above the EPA limit, so the plant is moving to 100% membrane treatment by 2029.
The City's consulting engineer (Hazen and Sawyer) names two ways to cover demand after 2029: new Floridan wells with reverse osmosis, or buying finished water from a neighbour. The City chose the first.
No 30-year cost comparison of the two has been shown to residents; the options study (presentation of January 7, 2026, slide 26) has not been published.
Aventura is different: it has no utility at all and is served directly by Miami-Dade County, where a household pays $62.75 a month for water and sewer.
- Planned now
- Water base charge $44.96 in FY 2026-27. The rest of the $172.5 million program depends on bonds still to be issued.
- Where the numbers come from
- The City's audited annual report for FY 2025 (ACFR, published June 30, 2026): Utility Fund statement of cash flows and capital asset note.
Source: Utility Fund, FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget · ACFR FY 2025 · CIP presentation, Sept. 28, 2022
"No tax increase" is true for the rate. The bill grows through the fees.
What it means for youThe millage rate is 7.3848 and unchanged. But the fire fee, the water base charge, the stormwater fee and the garbage rate all rose, and none of them needs a tax-rate vote.
- The headline
- Property tax rate (millage) held at 7.3848.
- What moved
- Fire fee $347.98 → $394.15 (+13%). Water base charge $21.79 → $44.96 proposed (+106% since FY 2022). Stormwater fee $88.44 → $145.57 proposed (+65%). Garbage rate raised in 2025.
- The hidden tax
Raising the property tax rate takes a public vote and makes headlines. A utility rate is also a Commission vote, but nobody calls it a tax, and the effect on the bill is the same.
In FY 2025 the utility also transferred $2.1 million to other City funds: water already pays for more than water.
And from FY 2027 the stormwater fee moves onto the property tax bill: the same money, now collected together with the tax whose rate "did not change".
- What it adds up to
- For a typical home, several hundred dollars a year more, without the words "tax increase" ever appearing.
Source: City Manager's Budget Message, June 15, 2026 · Resident's Guide to the FY 2025 Budget · Hallandale Beach Fees and Rates · Rate ordinance 26-310, Sept. 2026
Rates went up for the first time since 2017. Recycling pickup went away.
What it means for youYou pay more and get one service fewer. The budget's own words for cancelling recycling pickup: "due to cost inefficiencies".
- Before
- Garbage rates flat since 2017.
- Done, 2025
- Rates raised. Recycling pickup discontinued the same year. The Sanitation Fund runs at $8.2 million a year with 23 staff.
- The question
- What did residents get for the increase, and when does recycling come back?
Source: Sanitation Fund, FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget · Hallandale Beach Fees and Rates
The loan
Borrowed for 30 years at 3.99%.
The utility's bank balance went from $7.6 million to $58.9 million in a year. The stormwater account: $17 million.
What it means for youThe interest on this debt comes out of your utility bill: about $2.5 million a year. In FY 2025 the City raised water 10%, sewer 7% and stormwater 10% "to support the debt service" on these bonds, in the words of its own audited report.
- Planned, 2022
- $181 million of the $230.6 million program to be borrowed, in several issues; $51.8 million of it for stormwater.
- Done, Dec 2024 - Sep 2025
First issue sold December 12, 2024: $58.8 million face value, rated AA and A1, 5% and 4% coupons, true cost 3.99%. Split: $54.4 million to the water and sewer utility, $6.6 million to stormwater.
By September 30, 2025 the utility's cash had grown from $7.6 million to $58.9 million; the audited report says a "significant portion" of the surplus is unspent bond proceeds.
The budget book quotes $63.9 million for this issue; the audited figure is $58.8 million plus a $2.2 million premium.
- Planned now
- The plan has grown. The utility construction program is now $278.7 million, with up to $232.7 million to be borrowed (in 2022 it was $230.6 million and $181 million). Borrowed so far: $58.8 million; about $174 million more to come. The 2026-30 construction plan depends on it.
- What waiting costs
Interest on the full amount from day one, about $2.5 million a year. Under IRS rules the City must expect to spend most of the money within three years, by December 2027; anything the idle money earns above the bond rate goes to the U.S. Treasury.
The City's redevelopment agency already paid $0.8 million of arbitrage rebate interest in FY 2025 on other notes. Question for the Commission: what is the spend-down schedule for Series 2024, and is a rebate accruing?
Source: Series 2024 issue page on EMMA (MSRB) · ACFR FY 2025, Note 9 and MD&A · CIP presentation, Sept. 28, 2022 · FY27 rate presentation (bond plan $232.7M)
The bond contract requires net revenue of 1.2 times the debt payments. The utility has 7.5 times.
What it means for youThat margin is your money: $21.4 million of net revenue in FY 2025 against $2.8 million of debt payments. Most of it did go into water and sewer construction, which is the right use. But the rate increases are still sold to residents "to pay for the bonds", which needed one sixth of that.
- How it is supposed to work
- Rates cover operations and debt payments, plus the cushion the bond contract requires: net revenues at least 1.2 times the annual debt payment.
- Done, FY 2024-25
Audited FY 2025:
- gross utility revenues $48.7 million, operating costs $27.3 million, net revenues $21.4 million
- debt service $2.8 million
- coverage 752% against 120% required
Of the $88 million in cash and investments on September 30, 2025, about $54 million is borrowed money still unspent.
The utility's own surplus mostly went into construction: $18.5 million in FY 2025, of which $17.1 million water and sewer and $1.5 million stormwater.
- Planned now
- The FY 2026-27 budget assumes only $0.8 million of interest income, a quarter of last year's actual, and on that basis proposes another rate increase.
- Where this is written
- Only in the annual report to bondholders on EMMA and in the audited ACFR, documents residents never open. The budget book that residents are shown has none of it.
- The question
- If the utility builds from its own revenue while the borrowed $54 million sits idle, why was the debt taken now, why are the increases explained by it, and why did stormwater get $1.5 million?
Source: Utility Fund, FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget · 2025 Annual Report to bondholders (debt service coverage) · ACFR FY 2025
What got built
Built for drainage in a year. The plan said $58 million.
Meanwhile the utility spent $18.5 million on water and sewer pipes, out of its own income, not the loan.
What it means for youYour stormwater fee went from $88 a year in FY 2022 to $129 today (+46%), and $146 is proposed. The big pipes it was raised for have not been started, and $17 million sits in the fund.
- Planned, 2022
- $58.1 million of drainage pipes and pump stations through FY 2028-29, $51.8 million of it from bonds.
- Done, FY 2024-25
Audited FY 2025: $1.5 million of stormwater construction; $0.6 million added to projects in progress and $1.6 million completed, mostly the Schaffer Canal dredging. The budget book shows capital outlay of $0 in both years.
Of the first bond issue, stormwater received $6.6 million. On September 30, 2025 the Stormwater Fund held $17.0 million in cash.
- Planned now, 2027-31
$104 million, in the plan of September 2026 (file 26-176).
The same five trunk lines have been carried from plan to plan since 2022:
- Atlantic Shores 96" was promised for FY 2025 in the plans of 2022, 2023 and 2024, now FY 2029-30 (moved 5 years, $10.6M → $13.4M)
- Foster Road 60" was FY 2025-27, now "after 2031"
- NW 3rd St 48" was FY 2025 design / 2028 build, now FY 2031 design
- SW 11th Ave and NW 7th Ave keep their years (FY 2027 and FY 2028-29)
The tide flap gates for Golden Isles and Three Islands ($4.2M) disappeared from the plan in 2025. New in 2026: NE Section drainage $16.6M and NE 3rd Ave trunk line $5.6M for FY 2027-29. All of it to be paid with bonds not yet issued.
The fund's own construction money: $450,000 a year, and that is federal CDBG grants.
The City's rate presentation of September 2026 adds: stormwater fee +12.4% this year and +12% a year through 2031, a 114% cumulative increase by the City's own count, and from FY 2027 the fee moves from the utility bill onto the property tax bill.
- What the City answers
To reporters after the September 23, 2026 flooding: it has "invested millions in stormwater infrastructure", the pumps work, and the cause is heavy rain plus a King Tide.
The "millions" are the drainage projects FEMA praised in April 2018, paid with federal money from Hurricane Wilma (2005), designed in 2008 and built by 2018: ten years for one set of pumps.
Four years later the City adopted a new $58 million plan because the streets kept flooding. And a King Tide is a scheduled event: NOAA publishes the dates a year ahead. Pumps and backflow valves exist precisely so the tide does not matter.
Blaming the tide means the pumps that were promised are not there yet.
- The neighbour next door
Dania Beach, the next city north, 32,000 residents, same coast, same King Tides. In fall 2024, the same season Hallandale sold its bonds, Dania Beach issued a $30 million stormwater bond secured by a $120-a-year assessment per home.
In FY 2025 it put about $30 million into drainage construction (adopted budget FY 2026, pp. 42, 54, 128). Hallandale, 43,000 residents, $129 a year per home rising to $146: $1.5 million built. Same year, same kind of loan, twenty times the work.
Dania Beach still floods too; the difference is that its loan is in the ground and ours is in the bank.
- What the documents do not explain
- Why pipes promised for 2023-2029 now start in 2027 and wait for bonds not yet issued, while the fee has already risen 46% and $17 million sits in the fund.
Same year. Same kind of loan. Twenty times the work.
Drainage built in FY 2025, adopted budgets: Dania Beach about $30 million, Hallandale Beach $1.5 million.
Source: Stormwater Fund, FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget · ACFR FY 2025, cash flows and capital assets · CIP presentation, Sept. 28, 2022 · Adopted CIP FY 2026-30 · FEMA press release, April 2018 · CBS Miami, Sept. 23, 2026 · Rate ordinance 26-310 and FY27 rate presentation
Meanwhile, on the street
Five days apart. The City's answer: "King Tide".
Streets under water twice in one week while $105 million sits in the utility and stormwater accounts.
What comes next
The borrowing plan. Taken so far: $58.8 million. The rest is still ahead.
The big trunk lines are scheduled for 2027-2030, on new loans. To service them, the City's own schedule raises the stormwater fee 12% a year through 2031.
The budget grew 47% in four years. Another 17% is requested.
What it means for youSame population as Aventura, 528 city employees against their 208, and about twice the General Fund spending per resident. The streets flood the same way they did in 2021.
- Where it started
- FY 2021-22: $147 million, all funds.
- Done
- FY 2023-24: $201 million. FY 2025-26: $217 million. Growth of 47% in four years.
- Planned now
- FY 2026-27 request: $253 million, +17% in one year.
- The comparison
- Aventura, 40,242 residents: a $66 million budget and 208 employees. Hallandale Beach, 41,217 residents: $217 million and 528 employees.
Source: FY 2026-27 Recommended Budget, Summary of Financial Sources and Uses · Hallandale Beach Budget in Brief FY 2021-22 · City of Aventura Adopted Budget FY 2025-26
Promised $4.6 million. Now $5.43 million, before construction began.
What it means for youOwners on Three Islands pay a net $3.5 million over five years through a special assessment on the tax bill. "Project overheads and traffic control" alone grew from $223,000 to $697,000.
- Promised
- $4.6 million, the figure presented to residents.
- Done
- The City's own project page, April 30, 2026: $5.43 million. The audited report adds that the district contributes $1.1 million and the General Fund $834,140, leaving a net assessment of $3.5 million on owners. Work has barely begun.
- What happens next
- The assessment is billed to owners over five years; any further growth lands on the same bills.
- The 4% loan
September 2026, file 26-375: the $3.5 million is lent to the district by the City's own General Fund as a promissory note at 4% interest.
Owners repay it through the assessment over five years, so on top of the overhead they pay interest to the City's own budget, while the City itself holds about $88 million in reserves.
- The question
- Who approved the overhead increase, and what did residents get for it?
Source: City of Hallandale Beach, Three Islands Special Assessment, project budget page · ACFR FY 2025, letter of transmittal
Seven decisions nobody has explained
Not opinions: each one is a fact from a City document, what could have been done instead, and the question that is still open.
Borrowed at 4% from the market. The State lends at 1%.
What was done
December 2024: $58.8 million of 30-year bonds at 3.99%. Ten months later $54 million of it had not been spent. Interest on idle money: about $2.5 million a year.
What could have been done
The State Revolving Fund lends to Florida cities at 0.9-1.38% and pays out as the work is built, so nothing sits idle. The City already has two such loans; it says so in the same audited report.
Why did $58.8 million, with up to $174 million more planned, go to the bond market at 4% instead of to the State at 1%?
Documents: EMMA · ACFR FY 2025
A $230 million construction program. No City Engineer.
What was done
The bond prospectus of December 2024 states it in black and white: the City Engineer and the Assistant City Engineer positions are vacant; a consultant fills the role.
What could have been done
Hire the engineer before borrowing the money. Every other city of this size running a program like this has one.
Who, on the City's side, checks the contractors and the invoices for $230 million?
Documents: Official Statement, Dec. 2024, p. 21
They collect 7.5 times what the bond contract needs. And raise the rates again.
What was done
The bond contract requires net revenue of 1.2 times the annual debt payment. In FY 2025 the utility had 7.5 times: $21.4 million of net revenue against $2.8 million of debt service. Still, FY 2027 brings water +7%, sewer +5.25%, stormwater +12.4%.
What could have been done
No rate increase while coverage is above 2-3 times. That is the normal range for a utility with big plans.
If the money is already there, what exactly is the increase for?
Documents: Annual report to bondholders, FY 2025
A new water plant for tens of millions. No comparison with buying the water.
What was done
The consulting engineer hired by the City (Hazen and Sawyer) writes: by 2029 the City must either build a new source (Floridan wells + reverse osmosis) or buy finished water from a neighbour. On January 7, 2026 the Commission got 66 slides on the plant: not one dollar figure, and buying appears only as an emergency back-up. Slide 26: "the City has completed a study to determine its options". The study has not been published.
What could have been done
Publish the study. Show the 30-year cost per 1,000 gallons: own plant with debt versus wholesale water from Broward County or Hollywood. For reference, a Miami-Dade household pays $62.75 a month for water and sewer; in Hallandale Beach the base charge alone is $68.74 before the first gallon.
Where is the comparison, and why has the options study not been shown to residents?
Documents: Official Statement, p. 30 · Presentation, Jan. 7, 2026 · Miami-Dade rate comparison
$2.1 million a year moves from your water bill to the general budget.
What was done
The audited report shows "Transfers to other funds: (2,134,650)" out of the utility. It is spent like tax money, but it never appears on the tax bill and needs no tax vote.
What could have been done
Show it as what it is: a line in the budget hearing. Or lower the bills by that amount.
Why is part of the water bill a tax that nobody voted on?
Documents: ACFR FY 2025, p. 48
Two City documents. Two different stories.
What was done
The budget book says stormwater capital outlay was $0 in FY 2024 and FY 2025 and still calls the loan "Series 2023, $63.9 million". The audited report says $1.5 million was built and the loan is Series 2024, $58.8 million, sold December 12, 2024.
What could have been done
One page a year, signed by the City Manager: reserves, interest paid, bond balance, projects finished, with street names.
Which document should a resident believe, and who checks them against each other?
Documents: Stormwater Fund, budget book · ACFR FY 2025
Sewage: $11 million a year to Hollywood, a five-year billing dispute, and the capacity runs out in ten years.
What was done
The City has no sewage plant; everything is pumped to Hollywood under a bulk contract that rises about 5% a year: $11 million in 2024, $13.7 million by 2028. The City is disputing Hollywood's bills for the past five years and considering a lawsuit. Its reserved capacity runs out in about ten years; the options (own plant, Miami-Dade, a joint plant with North Miami Beach) are "being studied".
What could have been done
Put the options and their prices on the table now, before the next rate increase is explained "by Hollywood".
What is the plan, and what will each option cost a household?
Documents: Official Statement, p. 26-30 · Presentation, Jan. 7, 2026
Could the City have done without debt?
Not entirely. But it could have borrowed less, later and cheaper.
After operations and debt payments the utility has about $18-19 million a year of its own, and that is what it put into construction in FY 2025. The 2022 program is $230 million over seven years, $33 million a year. On its own money the utility covers a little over half, and the program stretches to 12-13 years. Pipes last 50 years, so borrowing so that today's users and tomorrow's share the cost is fair, and building today at 3.99% beats building in ten years at inflated prices. On one condition: you borrow and you build. The City borrowed and did not build, the worst of both worlds.
- 1
Borrow against contracts, not against plans.
Not $58 million in one piece "for the future", but tranches sized to signed construction contracts. The money arrives when the shovel is in the ground.
- 2
Take the State's cheap loans, not market bonds.
The City already has two State Revolving Fund loans at 0.9% and 1.38%, it says so in the same audited report. SRF pays out as you build, so nothing sits idle, and the rate is a quarter of the bond rate. Why $230 million went to the market at 4% instead of to the State at 1% is a question for the Commission.
- 3
Start the drainage on the City's own money.
The Stormwater Fund holds $17 million, gets $450,000 a year in grants, and a city with 88% of its properties at flood risk is a natural candidate for Resilient Florida and federal resilience grants. The first pipes did not need to wait for a second bond issue.
- 4
Raise rates for a payment, not in advance.
Rates were raised for a debt that is not working yet.
Debt itself is not the problem. Borrowing at 4% and leaving the money in the bank, while the State lends at 1% as you build and $17 million already sits in the stormwater account, is.
The bottom line
Six numbers, four conclusions
- $58.8Mborrowed December 12, 2024 for 30 years. Total interest to 2054: $43.7 million.
- $1.5Mspent on stormwater construction in FY 2025, against a $58 million plan.
- $88Mcash and investments held by the water utility on September 30, 2025, about $54 million of it borrowed and unspent.
- 7.5×the utility's debt coverage in FY 2025. The bond contract requires 1.2×.
- +46% / +93%stormwater fee and water base charge since FY 2022.
- $58M → $104Mthe stormwater plan since 2022: almost twice the price, the oldest pipes moved back five to seven years, none started.
- 1
The money is there. The work is not.
The City borrowed $58.8 million and raised the rates; $54 million of the loan sits unspent. Stormwater construction in FY 2025: $1.5 million.
- 2
Residents pay for waiting twice.
About $2.5 million a year in interest on money that sits in the bank, and higher construction prices by the time the work begins.
- 3
Rate increases come without the full picture.
Increases are explained "by the bonds", which need one sixth of the utility's net revenue. And they come through the base charge, which a studio pays the same as a house with a pool.
- 4
What Viktor will ask for.
Not "give the money back". Publish where the surplus goes, with street names and dates. No rate increase while debt coverage is above 2 to 3 times. Build first with what is already collected and borrowed. A one-page annual report: reserves, interest, bond balance, projects. None of this is populism: every number is from the City's own documents.
The City Commission is five people
The Mayor and four Commissioners (Seats 1-4). Only they vote on the budget, the rates, the construction plan (CIP) and every bond issue. The City Manager prepares the budget and carries it out; the decision is always those five votes. Viktor is running for one of these seats in November 2026.
What nobody outside City Hall knows yet
How much of the loan has been spent since October 2025 (the next audit comes in summer 2027; a public records request can get the answer now), and the date of the second loan. Everything above is from the City's own documents; the links are in each card below.
Four words
- Bonds
- a loan from investors; the City pays interest every year and the principal over 30 years
- Debt coverage
- how many times the utility's net income exceeds its annual debt payment; the bond contract requires 1.2
- CIP
- the City's five-year construction plan, with a year and a funding source for every project
- King Tide
- the highest tide of the year, around the autumn new and full moon; the dates are published a year ahead
Where the numbers come from
The City's audited annual report for FY 2025 (ACFR, published June 30, 2026), the Series 2024 bond disclosures on EMMA, the FY 2026-27 budget book, the September 2022 CIP presentation and the adopted CIP 2026-30. Have a correction or a source? Email the campaign.