board of County Commissioners of Brack County Florida it's April 1st 2025 at 9:30 uh at this time I'm going to call the meeting to order but before I do uh Commissioner Dry would like to make a uh uh a prayer request and then Commissioner Thompson's going to lead us
in prayer and Yeah i just want to make a special prayer request for one of our employees Mr chris Norman uh he fell ill during our employee appreciation lunch that we had the other day and uh he couldn't have been in a better place being right
there at rescue and uh Chief Carter and his folks were able to take care of him and transport him over to Gainesville uh he's not doing so well right now so he's going to need all the prayers he can get so if you would please keep him in your prayers I'd certainly appreciate it we all would appreciate it thank
you let us pray heavenly Father we thank you Lord for your goodness this morning and Father we just thank you for the mercy you show each and every one of us Lord and Father we thank you for our country that we live in we live in Lord our families father we just pray this
morning as we go into the meeting Father that you can and wisdom Lord that we will make the right decisions that will be pleasing to you and to the citizens of this county father we're going to commission adultery Mr norman lord Father we just pray it be your will
Father to touch you Lord father for the many ones that's sick in our area Lord with this cold Father we just ask you to show mercy on Lord everything you do for us Lord we want to thank you and praise
you and we ask you with us through this meeting again Lord amen amen to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible
with liberty and justice for all all right at this time I have uh two public comment cards uh the first one Mr paul Steel I'm Paul Still 14167 Southwest Avenue Star Florida uh I want to talk to you
this morning about the uh NP5 vulnerability assessment that was presented to you at your last meeting on on March 18th uh I wasn't able to attend the meeting but I watched the video and then ordered the doc or asked
for the documents the supporting documents and in reviewing those uh and also based on the discussion that occurred during there I think there are serious problems with that uh assessment and I urge you to hold a workshop that
you could have some uh input about that assessment from uh people who have been impacted by flood studing in the past in Bradford County there are also a number of serious errors in the presentation and I'm not sure whether those errors uh carried
over into the actual assessment document i am also not sure where that assessment uh currently stands i think there's one early planning uh document that said it was supposed to be submitted on March
31st uh the errors included a map error Alligator Creek is incorrectly shown on the map that was in the presentation uh also identified presentation also identified
a flooding at on water water creek that was supposed to be significant but it was at the intersection of two county roads uh that has much doesn't seem to be a significant point flooding issue
uh and there's uh several other errors like that that I that I think should be corrected before that assessment is officially submitted one of the problems is that uh it doesn't look like uh the consultant
used any uh local resources to evaluate what they were saying people who were knowledgeable uh about previous flooding events this is really important because if you want to look at flooding impacts you really need to begin uh starting
with the 1998 flood and going through the present because that gives you kind of the modern or the current flooding situation and the uh referred zone on water conservation district uh began developing flood information in 2012
after Debbie and they they have a robust uh set of data looking at water levels and I'm also interviewing people during uh various floods particularly Irma and that data is very valuable in
understanding what the floating situation currently is one of the things that All right thank you Mr l i have Mr strong good morning my name is Strong Office box
530 i just bought my notebook today and I have several pages after reviewing the agenda I spot a notes i decided to um take the notes
today and review them i really don't want to be the Elon Musk of Bradford County but I find myself being that person we have a lot of waste in the
county and I've said it over and over and over again and I really don't want to be that person but we continue to waste i looked at what we've spent a lot
of money on in the last several months and I said "Why does the road department need a voting stick it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for $184.95." also said "Why is the road
department continuing to buy from multiple vendors also to fire also fire and rescue?" said "Why are we paying someone else to do our oil changes?" I looked also and said "Why do
we continue to pay multiple monthly subscriptions over and over and over do we really need these multiple subscriptions do we even know what these
subscriptions are have we even checked to see if they're still the best has anyone looked into library spending have we even paid attention to that have we looked into any of this
stuff that we're paying monthly for do we even still need some of this stuff have we looked into see that some of this stuff is really happening are we just paying it i look to make sure that
I'm getting my money's worth did we look to see that what Meridian said that they did was what they did because we had fire and rescue tell us that they didn't have the positions that they were
supposed to have but we paid them did anybody check to see that they did what they were supposed to do no probably not we have these things that we continue to pay each month but nobody
checks to see that that's what we're supposed to pay then we have multiple attorneys are we still just paying attorneys fees just because
why why do we have so many attorneys why are we just paying attorneys paying attorneys thank you Mr strong hey board i apologize for this and um um state
attorney I I apologize to you i I should have moved you up to the start i I wasn't really one paying attention i apologize so if you'd like to come on and go because I know you got a busy schedule and I do appreciate you being here more important than the citizens well good morning thank you for a couple
things first of all thank you for allowing me to schedule to be on your agenda um and I also want to say thank you for the facilities that you all provide here in Bradford County for my office um Bradford County uh has been incredibly supportive of me and Bradford
County was overwhelmingly for my re-election which very very thankful for for the people of Bradford County i wanted to take an opportunity just to do a couple of things i won't take very much of your time the first is I want to introduce you to Rebecca Shinholzer she's uh been with my office for many
years but she is now the executive director of the office so she's going to be one of the people who communicate directly with Bradford County when we have issues that might regard physical plant or technology those type of things um and I also wanted to you know to tell
you I don't think I did a great job being in communication with all of you during my first term in office i think I came and saw you one time and it was on a very specific issue um and so I wanted to be much more available to you in this at this time and so one of the things
I've done is I've given each of you my business card that has my personal cell phone number so if anything comes up that within the criminal justice system that you feel needs to be brought to my attention you're more than welcome to always call me the other thing is that uh one of the roles I kind of play is
that if you don't know who else to call I'm pretty good at figuring out who we should call to figure things out you know so I always invite you to call me if you feel like you have a need to do that um and the other thing the final thing I wanted to talk to you about is
sort of the future the horizon office with Bradford County so as you all know I'm a circuit officer so I'm not a county officer and I'm not a statewide officer i'm basically a circuit officer
which means I represent the people of Elatchua Union Baker Bradford Levy and Gilders County it's a pretty wide area and so within my office we run a large number of budgets we run a budget for every one of those counties we run a
budget with the state of Florida and then we run a budget that's called the shared IT budget so one of the things my office does in order to make sure that we use county monies most efficiently is that we we centralize and utilize
centralized IT services and then the way that that is done is that those costs are divided out amongst the six counties based upon population and my recollection is that normally Elatcha County which is the circuit seed pays
the cost and they distribute the bills out to the counties and so historically I became the executive director of the office to the position that Rebecca is now in in 2012 and so I can tell you that from 2012 until now that here at IT
budget has been stable it really hasn't changed very much at all over the past 13 years but as I think everybody's aware a lot has actually changed in the criminal justice system and so I wanted to kind of give you an overview of where
things are changing and why that cost is going to increase in the future so my office runs and always at least since the '9s has run a case management system just like the sheriff's office has a records management system we have a case
management system we're completely paperless system everything that we have exists exists on computer um and so for time you pay a portion of that case management cost and just so you understand why because I'm guessing you
do but just so everybody understands the way that the money is split is that the state of Florida pays all of the costs associated with human beings who work in my office they also pay certain expenses like if I have to buy a deposition transcript they would pay for that we
pay for travel for a witness they would pay that we call that due process expenditures the counties all of them are required to pay for telephones computer services and to provide facilities to to the dogs that's
called article five under the the constitution so we've had that program for many many years the cost of that program has remained relatively stable even though it's gone through now it's in its third iteration it's a very specialized program there's only 25
users of it in the entire world it's most it's about randomly split between public defenders and state attorney's offices mrs scott and I share that same program and that allows us to work efficiently by things being able to pass
offices without a lot of complication one of the things that has changed and you all may be aware of this is the amount of what we call digital forensic evidence that exists in the world which is anything that can be reduced to bits and bites and be part of so license
plate readers we have license plate readers all over the circuit surveillance cameras cameras in Walmart Ring doorbell cameras all those type of stuff that's all digital forensic Then you have photographs which are now of course all
digital but most importantly is now almost every agency in within the circuit has fully deployed body cameras so in every minor events you might have four officers who are developing
multiple body cameras every time they start and stop it's a new it's a new thing for us so what is in the future is that we have now deployed a digital forensic evidence management system it's called nice justice that allows us to do
a whole bunch of things that we were never able to do before but most importantly what it does is it will automatically obtain and download these items we were downloading about 26,000 individual files per month it's
taking over that process of down um it also is helpful to our citizens in this in like this I'll give you one example but there are many so if you came to the office and you have your Ring doorbell camera and something has happened at
your home before the imple implementation deployment of this system we would have had to call over a detective to come to the office to take your phone to take that phone and download it to a device right to take it away from you for some period of time
download the phone it was inconvenient for sure difficult and overly cumbersome so that what this system will allow us to do is from our desktop simply email and use something that will allow you to touch it and then you go into your phone and say touch this touch that downloads
that and it sends it not only to my office but it categorizes and indexes it right to the case file it belongs to so it's it's really sort of a revolutionary piece of equipment for us but it doesn't it's not yet so that cost
is being is being deployed across all six counties by population and then our normal vendors is who is provided that same case management system they are going into fourth iteration of their software so the software costs for that
as well now I understand and fully recognize this is not budget season this isn't a budget meeting so I expect that you may need to have me come back at another time to explain it further um I do have a general idea of how much the cost would increase for county i believe
Bradford County would be approximately $23,000 but I wanted you to be aware that this is on the horizon that it is something that's necessary uh an integral part of the office and it's it does serve to benefit um the citizens of Bradford
County i'm available for any questions you all have on this topic or any other but I don't want to take too much of your time yes ma'am re um Mr credit i know you said that the
um digital forensic cost is based on the population of work proportionately what about the overall budget is that based on case number or is it um also based on the population percentage so the overall
budget is is developed by the total cost of what my office and miss has the same budget what are the costs were incurring per year for uh the the items that we
need so while this to give you an example while this cost is going up where we're going down is that prior to this the way we dealt with this is we stored everything locally so for instance if I needed a new server to
serve because we were up to 120 terabytes of video so if I needed a new server to to for this I would have basically my IT person through your budgeting process would have said part of it would have gone on our budget we need a new server it's x number of
dollars that would have gone into the budget that budget gets divided in the proper format it's by six but not everybody's getting the same percentage of that six and then it would go to your budget people your budget people would look at it they may call and question me
that's not unusual um and then or they'll call and say "We can't do this make arrangements." We work with them like that but the budget is is based upon the total IT costs that are necessary so it's evenly divided between the six it's not evenly divided it's divided by
population so I believe the Lo County pays approximately 60% of the total and then the other five counties pay a appropriate proportional percentage and it's I think it's done as a reimbursement actually pays
100% but we provide all this information budget questions there any other questions question oh thank you all so much for granting me this time appreciate the Thank you let me know if there's anything thank you we appreciate it
thank you for coming all right we'll move back to the approval of the consent agenda and before we approve it I just want to make sure that everyone knows that item G was the sole provider for the towers so um with that
uh can I get a motion for the approval of the consent agenda motion Motion presented i have a motion from Commissioner Thompson second second by Commissioner Dry all in favor by side of I i motion carries 5 mr
chairman if I may uh could I ask that uh we move the presentation or the acceptance of the um the ladder truck from the city of Mcccleinia uh Chief Carter has Chief Bruce here and we would like to recognize him if we could please sure yes sir
good morning board so you may when you pulled in this morning you may have seen a ladder truck sitting out here in the uh in the parking lot we did not purchase stuff so don't don't uh don't worry about that and I think we've already had that discussion with many of you but u you know I truly believe that we've become successful by building relationships in life and uh we've built
a great relationship with the city of Mlenny Fire Rescue u crews and his staff over there uh have decided to donate this ladder truck they've owned this truck since it was purchased brand new uh he was just telling me this morning it's never been in a wreck so you know some taken been taken very good care of
uh and we're we're certainly thankful to have that uh asset here in our community now at this point it's the first ladder truck we've ever had in the in county u and so it's going to be a huge thing for for us we've always had to call for mutual aid if we needed a ladder truck um it would not be an apparatus that's
that's staffed all the time or that's first out um into the community uh but we some just a tool in the tool box to be something there that we need uh you know if we need it when we need it and so I just would like to ask Chief Cruz if you he come up and uh welcome to say a few words if you like to
or good morning board for a few minutes to uh to address y'all uh like Carter said relationship fire service and any other type service that like provided is we kind of came into contact with each other through some mutual favor of our departments here a few months back
at our location and uh on some discussion discussion that we was down downgrading a ladder we was fortunate enough to to upgrade to a different one a little newer one find out they had a use for one and my city manager our board all our
best decision was to try to sell it recoup something off those to help the neighbor and county and uh so that's what we decided to do i hope you all accept it get good use out of it now any questions I'd like to answer for you or just just just a comment cruise
thank you so much and uh I consider Baker County um part of my home i spent 30 years over there at state hospital and I remember the great work of your department i thank you for this contribution and it shows our communities working together thank you
thank you i again just want to echo thank you so much for doing that for us and um if we can ever do anything for you I know that Chief Carter that that you know that we'll be there for you and uh thank you for everything that y'all have done in the task force we really
appreciate it thank you ma'am i was sharing with Chief Carter some of the guys that went over training this goes a few years back i've been associated with cleaning almost all of my life and uh we actually brought this label to a number of fires over here the bowling alley fire the mattress warehouse fire some of y'all may remember that's been here a few years and uh so been here a few
times to work over the last 30 plus years of SL and uh found a home now and serve y'all chief and chief behalf of our board if you would please thank your board them and make that decision so thank you thank you very much
any other donations that you might we we do thank you so much and thank you so for your board you know allowing y'all to to provide this truck for us we sure do appreciate it and thank you so much for coming here today we definitely appreciate that miss great morning thank
you very much thank you good good time to deliver it i said "Well just in time we got board meeting so come on come on over." But I do have a couple challenge points and he brought Larry Murphy one of his firefighters over with him today as well to help deliver it so let's just give him a round of applause for
Item number five the uh proclamation declaring uh April 2025 child abuse aware awareness month and I apologize I forgot your name and I didn't write it down but would you
it's Yes i'm Stephanie Cox i'm the executive director of the UF Child Advocacy Center here in STAR oh did you Okay are you going to read the proclamation first do you want me to or I thought you was going to presentation or Okay yes I can do
that yes yes um I've been to a couple of different commission meetings so we kind of all do things a little differently so um our child advocacy center is at 403 uh Georgia Street right across from the courthouse there um we were lucky enough to bring the child advocacy center um
here to Stark in 2018 we we opened our initial doors in 2015 in Chief um so we serve rural counties of Bradford Union here in Stark um and then we uh served Dixie Gilchristen Levy in Chief and
Trenton um so all rural communities um we if anybody noticed the pin wheels out front for child abuse prevention month um those are supposed to represent a very healthy and happy childhood that we believe that every child deserves um the
number signifies the number it was 132 this year um that's the number of children that uh were serviced over at our child advocacy center locally here in Stark um currently we have uh we provide clinicals um so when there's law
enforcement and DCF investigations into child abuse and neglect uh they bring the children to our neutral environment where we conduct forensic interviews medical evaluations and we offer free counseling um to help the children in their trauma recovery um we were able to
see 32 children um here locally free of charge um at our child advocacy center which if anybody knows how hard it is to get counseling that's quite the feat um so we are um all grant funded i know it says University of Florida that big
money is football money and basketball money and baseball money specifically basketball right now um so but we're grant funded um we have our signature fundraiser in Chief at the golf course on April 12th if anybody knows any golfers that want to come out I've got
some flyers I can leave you in some brochures for the center um but we do appreciate the support um of the county our law enforcement agency um and DCF and all of our community partners that um support our mission here in Stark
well thank you so much and because children I mean that's there's a special little lives i mean so I thank you so much for everything you do for for the little children definitely appreciate thank you we appreciate you um thank you leave these with Okay would the uh Tony
like to read a proclamation for us or or Scott thank you Mr chairman board of County Commissioners of Bradford County Florida whereas children are our most valuable resource and they are also our most vulnerable
population and whereas child abuse and neglect cause significant trauma to the abused children resulting in long-term physical and emotional effects and whereas child abuse prevention activities succeed because of the partnerships created between child
welfare professionals mental health organizations law enforcement agencies and community-based organizations and whereas the University of Florida Children's Advocacy Center was established to achieve better outcomes for children and their families who are
victims of child abuse and neglect by providing collaborative community-based services to all those affected and whereas during the month of April public and private sector agencies child care professionals child advocates and residents will increase the public's
awareness of child abuse and neglect prevention now therefore through the authority vested in me by the board of county commissioners of Bradford Florida Bradford County Florida I do hereby proclaim April 2025 as child abuse prevention month in Bradford County
Florida proclaimed this first day of April 2025 by Danny Riddick board chairman do I have a motion um Frederick I would uh offer a motion for approval of the proclamation declaring April 2025 child
abuse program this month you have a motion and a second any other questions all in favor by side of I i motion carries by vote again thank you so much those children are so innocent they're just I
really do appreciate everything you do for them thank you so much all right item six public works did you want to Yeah uh Director Dodge will come up we um we were made aware this morning that we're going to have to make an adjustment in the method
of of funding the um the dirt that we sold the landfill uh I can't remember the specific dollar amount but it was over $100,000 and uh it was when we to it was part of the 24 budget so it went into
the general fund this year 2425 so going forward the entire amount of the purchase of the steel building will have to come from the general fund uh rather than the line item from the dirt plus additional money if that makes
sense so there's no change in the dollar amount it's just the method of which we're going to be funding the project is that fair is that fair okay everybody i'm trying to find the paper that Dana
sent me so I guess a better way to describe it is the entire amount will come from the public works department of preserve for contingency you better correct because the $106,000 that we had
was actually in last year's budget so it rolled over so when we explained that in the beginning that funding had already been counted forwarded last year revenue and the total cost would now come out of the reserve for
contingency okay right you want to go ahead and move forward with Yes sir yes sir okay so do I have a motion to award the bid uh for RFP
2025-001 for steel building for public works to M&R Construction of North Florida Inc chair I recommend motion okay have a motion from Commissioner Sper second from Commissioner Andrews
any other questions yeah what is the total amount yeah I believe it's 326,000 got it right in front of me 328120 thank you and Jason just to
confirm that's for the bid and then we're asking for an additional $78,120 for the project it was originally wrote that way but that was before Dana caught that the 106,000 that we had got rolled over last
year so now that total number is changing we're asking to use the total amount out of reserve for contingency i just wanted to make sure we weren't asking 328,120 to come out for contingency or are we asking for 46,240 being the
328,120 plus 78 78,120 no ma'am it would be just that total number yes Jason well there being this building that we're putting is that just for the um like the mechanics and it's not for
anything else it's not big enough to accommodate any other function that we may have that that we need it for no ma'am it will only have the mechanic fleet shop for the entire county and um it will have one office and one
bathroom any other questions okay all in favor by sign of I motion carries five vote thank you thanks Jason okay so then B we already
talked about so that's that okay all right moving on to item seven uh folks report this huh okay sheriff's report okay all right county manager
thank you Mr chairman one thing we need to uh make you aware of is that we're going to be we of this coming Friday to close on fairground property um going forward we need to select
uh six applicants to serve on the uh on the board is that I'm sorry five applicants to serve on the newly constituted fair board and what we would like to do is uh seat our review committee um our senior staff talked
about yesterday and recommended that we uh we keep our same process for our RFPs or RFQS where the um the county manager the executive assistant public works director and the fire chief form that committee and in this particular case we
would ask someone from the a extension office to also sit so it would be a five member review committee to uh review the applicants that come in plan on advertising the the positions on our website this coming week and then the uh
review committee will review all the applicants and then bring recommendations to the board for approval so uh we just need of that process and then we'll move forward right do I have a motion to um Mr ch do
I have consensus of the board do we have anybody else that we could add onto that board that's that's really kind of more involved in the livestock and and uh you know like the the the everyday activities that go on during
fair yes sir that was the that was the idea of adding someone from the extension office i was thinking somebody like in the community u somebody from swine association somebody from the association especially those two you know maybe
there aren't many farmers left around here but there's some some that um has very strong emotions about that Mr clemens is in the back maybe I said maybe Mr appointments that might
be on that board well it's not we're not constituted no I understand the committee i'm sorry the committee yes review committee but again I I I think it it you know it would serve the public you know if we had somebody else that was added on to that committee at least you know instead
of it being all county and you know and if as well you know just someone from someone from the public that uh that has a an agricultural background and uh that's that's also been involved you know with the the
the you know like somebody that comes to is like a like a Greg Alvarez uh somebody that's been around a long time that that's that's been involved um you know just just again just throwing his name out there doesn't have to be him but you know
somebody again that uh you know he may end up being a board member we don't know but uh again you know I I think it would be Well yeah and see that's the other thing we were uh we were hoping to to limit the folks on the review committee to people that were not
interested in being on the fair okay well I think we could probably find out if somebody's not interested if they're not interested but they still want to be a part of that committee that I I think it would behoove us to at least put that out there and get somebody on there okay that
that's my thoughts on it anyway so I concur and and two you got a lot of people down there that's over the years has worked the barn that place down there work down there i mean got a lot
of good fix we have a lot of good all right well why don't why don't we do this excuse me i'd like to pick one that's you know had hands on and knows the back well why don't we do this um why don't you why don't you throw out two or three
names and we'll write them down and then we'll contact each of them and if they have interest in being on fair board we'll eliminate them from participating in the review committee on to the next right yeah it' be a complex certainly
so the name you the name you mentioned Commissioner Dhy was I mentioned and Greg Alvarez but like I said Mr clemens I don't know if you'd be interested in being on that committee um okay so Jeffrey Clemens okay um Wilbur
Andrews old farmer very connected to the Catman Association and he I don't think he would want to be on the board but I definitely think that um he would like to help bring people that would be very beneficial onto the board so Wilbur
Andrews okay and you got Brad Thomas and Clay Whitehead both of them workers right and I do believe that both of them will will apply so they wouldn't be able to participate
on that it um I don't know if I would offer Miss Class to Sue to see if he would be interested excuse me i got stand up commissioner Spooner was that uh you
Miss Dude Mr doo was that to be on the review committee yes okay all right then i think uh we've got a good understanding of how to proceed and uh hopefully like I said we'll we'll put out the um the advertisement later this week and start to accumulate
applications i anticipate receiving a number of applications so which is a good thing and we'll uh we'll vet those out and bring them back to you hopefully next the next I ask how will they how will they know about it get a form or is there a form that will be filled out i
mean so we're we're going to ask for a resume and also a letter of their intent why they want to be on the fair board what they what they think they have to offer and that sort of thing um it will be we will advertise it on our website on the county website and uh we'll come
up with two three other ways to communicate all right we good yes sir that's all I have Mr chairman thank you thank you county attorney report nothing to report
county commissioners um Mr anders um let me go back just a minute and just ask you a question about the fair um with us with us accepting everything will we will we have the I mean I
understand that the board will will function as the board but will we have any like recommendations on what we would like to see um happen like I think all of us would like to see the arena put back um for the horse for the the
riders to come will we be able to make that recommendation at all um I I can handle that um having worked on the arrangement um absolutely matter of fact that's kind of what's envisioned um you're when when the
transactions completed the board's going to have the problem um now you're not going to be dealing with the dayto-day because it's a big deal it's a lot of work there's a lot of a lot of um details to go times and that's what you
have the board uh that is being constituted to do as far as these major decisions capital improvements about you know overall vision uh certainly the board that's being constituted is going
to be involved in making a lot of those decisions but if they go astray and they go in in a direction on those major decisions that's inconsistent with what a majority of the BCC does well that's kind of why you hold the cards in terms of having a majority of the appointees
on that board number one number two that's why we're going to revisit this all in a year right um and it's going to be and if things are going well then maybe you want to make the lease longer but this is a period of
transition uh and part about that transition that that I would envision for you for what it's worth is that when it comes to major decisions major moves out there uh the BCC is going to need to be on board um but you're not unless
unless I'm missing something and I don't think I am based on discussions I've had with with all of you at various times brief as they may be and my colleague um you know you're not interested in running the dayto-day you know things and all of that and there's a lot of
wonderful things that happen and will continue to happen that you want to see continue to go move forward and thrive yes if I could say something real quick does anybody else want to speak I just want to ask
u when do we expect the least disagreement so we we've set a date for this coming Friday to handle the closing with the money pay off the note and also the signing of quick claim deeds by the current fair
um board chairman in terms of the lease we'll be relying on Senator Bradley Mr amanda putting that together for us and I'm thinking probably yeah probably on the next meeting um but the agreement
that sets forth of it's already been signed i understand okay uh also if I kind of spoke about this say things go right they're not
maintenance funds aren't being spent the way we think funds should be spent it's my understanding that we can break that lease in a big bill at any time um well it's like any lease um you know it depends on the terms of lease right
and um certainly the idea is to have um situation where as I just articulated and set forth because the BCC owns the property they're the ultimate arbiter of these matters all right so that includes
flexibility on on all contingencies that may arise in the future um I I I the only reason you see the slight caution is that things happen sometimes where the board
may hold an event or something that people don't like or whatever it is and you know you want to you know unless you plan on it's like poverty barn is you break it you own it i mean in other words I mean you own it now but you also
don't want to just own every little thing that goes on out there at every little time i mean you want to empower brats and people from the community to come here and sell in the sport you want that to be meaningful service you want that to be something where they're running the dayto-day operations in the
back but you also want to be able to have an over you know to be able to step back and watch how things are going and if things are going in the wrong direction to be able to have the ability to move in and uh and make it right um and that's what you now have so that's
sort of the balance the only reason I asked that because we haven't spoke about any kind of revenue sharing the fair association or anything now we own the buildings meeting with the insurance agent carries the insurance on the buildings and it's only $30,000 just for
the Well certainly it should not cost the taxpayers money okay in other words if the revenue you need to um that is going to be the responsibility of the um of the county make no mistake about it
uh but um because you got liability that's why you have insurance right now clearly uh it would should not be something that the taxpayers if the revenue is available to pay for those costs those basic costs then that the it
should be provided for in the lease arrangement right so that it's a neutral so it's a neutral um what's envisioned and this is all subject to discussion and this is why this is new you know that's why we have a year probationary period right um you
know we we We we want it to be successful though too right i mean this isn't a revenue uh generator for to pay for the fire department you know what I mean if they you want it to to be a successful ongoing operation and um and
so there we're not charging them to my knowledge any lease beyond you know payment other than a dollar or whatever nominal fee it is because we want them to be successful and it's and it's a it's a public interest fee right um but
it doesn't there shouldn't be new costs incurred that aren't incurred right now you understand what I'm saying in other words if costs are not incurred right now to remain set on insurance and
such right but the insurance has been our name so they're going to reverse this back that that would be um that would be an example that would be your name yes it would be your responsibility tax pay for
yes and at least should provide that um monies that are that are gains and activities out there um are used to pay for the pay for the insurance as it's happened right now with the with the with the um they they
use money that they make to pay for the insurance it just the insurance is in their name right so it really didn't change who's paying for the insurance it just changed who's own who owns it and has the policy right i just want
officers board that big building out there is only insured and Scott and I kind of look at each other when we found that out imagine that be a two and a half million dollar building go back right and these are all things these are the big picture
stuff right and that's you're the clerk scott's the county manager that's what y'all do for a living is make sure the county people are protected their assets right that's your asset now and so I would encourage to do all that type of due diligence and make sure that the
revenues created um you know cover the cost of property insurance insuring the property which is what y'all do every day thank you yes comments mr m good morning um I just wanted to um
express my appreciation uh to Mr daws and to the road department for the work that they're doing with the roads and loading u sometimes you guys are expressions of appreciation is not given but I want to just let you know
how much the community appreciates also I want to um thank um the the count county our board uh for the staff appreciation for our county staff and all of the work that went into it the cooks um Mr conor and Smith
and Mr thompson and many others from the sheriff department who helped to do all of the cooking and it was a wonderful meal everybody had a great time and just um it was just a warm day um and I'm just appreciate it and then uh I wanted
to express my appreciation to Pam Whittle um and um the group that helped with the strawberry festival this past weekend um the first day was great of course you know yesterday it rained but they had so many vendors out there um
and people from our community just wanted to express my appreciation um for the good turnout from the vendors and um and the um participants who went up to um town from our board and um from the
community we had a good showing in town for county i want to just um um remind you of some activities that are coming forth on April the 12th um Allan Chapel is having a prayer walk at 8:00 on Pine
Street um and just remind you um the health department is having I think it's called a walk run it's a 2K walk run or roll and that's on April 23rd starts from uh 10:00 go to 1 um and I uh I'm
the Charleston Scholarship Foundation is sponsoring a cancer awareness walk on April 26 to start at 9:30 on County Road 1008 in Lincoln City um and um if whatever we can do um April
22nd 2nd is Earth Day and support any events that children or the community is having to u protect our environment thank you Mr i just want to piggy back off of what Commissioner Slater said but Raymond
Roman Raymond Rhoden and Jason Smith Kirk Thompson and Jason Dods as far as preparing the food for the county appreciation day it's quite an assembly line uh seeing those guys do their job outside of what they normally do you
were there for a good day well I was just kind of observe it so anyway but uh appreciate you guys very much um and I I just want to mention um just going back to the uh vulnerability study the
resiliency study um if you'll recall board at the end of that I did mention to Mr cornne that we wanted to get together and go over that there were some things that we wanted to button up so certainly you know they put a lot of work into that but there are some things
that we do need to go so to Mr bill's comments um we we do recognize there are some things that we need to go over and look at so just don't want that to go unheard i mean certainly some things that can be addressed there so that's all I have thank
you um I just want to thank everyone for being here today and um also Mark MR Construction the the uh fire station it's coming along great in Samson City appreciate the work and also uh looking forward to you getting started on the uh county maintenance building that would
be a big big improvement for the road department so thank you very much for that and um there's there's one thing that I that this is just always been on my heart ever since I've been a county commissioner and uh that's our children
for the uh for wreck um I go to tournaments all the time i was in uh Orlando this past weekend and uh sitting at a softball game and and I know it's hard for us to compete with stuff like that but those fields that they play on
unbelievable and uh and then also I was at a basketball tournament um uh seventh grade uh basketball tournament down here huge huge event i mean it's just it's amazing how many people come from all around to play in those three and four
day tournaments and um so what I'm getting at is um and I've I uh have talked to several people in our community in fact last night I was at a um a basketball practice right here at our gym which is is fantastic if you've
got any children fifth I mean first through fifth grade that basketball program that that the high school is running those coaches are fantastic i mean to see those little children and when you give a a first grader a
basketball and you try and tell them to stand there and hold it while you're talking to them good luck when there's about 50 of them there so but but they do a fantastic job it's just it's amazing and the turnouts on Saturdays for the games but I say all that to say
this when I was sitting in the bleachers last night talking to some people that y'all would know and I won't bring their names up but I'm going to ask them to come to our board meeting and talk about this but you know we have no soccer fields here in Bradford County we have no flag football and I'm telling you
flag football is a very popular sport and uh and also soccer and as I was talking to them they said that if you go to Keystone to the soccer games almost half the kids over there are from Bradford County you know and um it would
be nice if we could bring soccer five football back to Bradford County and then we could go and play Keystone and go and play against Union County it would just give more opportunity for more children to play sports because somebody from Liby isn't going to drive all the way to Keystone to play soccer
you know that's that's a long ways that's a that's an extra burden on parents that shouldn't be there and also um and I've been talking to Mr cornay and uh Randy Andrews with this this fair there's 8 acres right across the street from the
fair that if we cleared that we could get four soccer flag football fields in that area you know we'd have to clear it mow it but um I'm just saying I would like us to really start thinking about what we can do for our children to bring Rick in
and and also I would like us to especially with the budget coming up look into hiring a some sort of uh Rick department uh person to do the softball baseball fight football soccer and um I I really
believe that's something we should do for for our children of Bradford County and And uh we've got a bunch of them out there that like to play sports and um I just hate to see them have to go to another county to play so yes my own
played on the fairgrounds for years right right but but then they if I'm not mistaken they took that away from and wouldn't let I'm not aware why they had they would play on the actual fairway yeah that that midway yeah yep but I remember they they stopped that's a
possibility right there you got the dirt ride out there when it's not fair it just we have the Body that's available okay yeah because we just you know if we could look into it to try and get get this rolling to help our our children it
would be it would be great um you know again my grandchildren they go to Keystone to play soccer they didn't build all those Keystone until they got all the pictures and Middleberg started to build i was deputy down there that's when I started pulling money at
peace and the game that you're talking about is it owned by the fair association well I just found out this morning that the fair association owns it but it was not part of the property that they signed over to us right and I just want to say
I concur with what you're saying about hiring someone to be the because we all know that we pour a lot of money every year into buying a new equipment and everything equipment that I think that if we had someone managing we might not
have to buy it every year and um but I think it would really help if we had somebody helping put put all that stuff together and taking care of it yes I agree i agree yes sir uh Commissioner you may want to just confer with the
city because if I'm not mistaken I think they hired a recreation director they have all the fields at Edwards Road they have the fields over at Thomas Street um for different um events like football or baseball or what have you so you may
want to do something with them happen maybe what we can do together i think they'd be very interested in and I did check with the city cuz I believe right now and we actually put money toward it is the parents athletic
and such i forget what it's called um I looked it up online and that was the other thing you know and I'm not very good on going on the internet looking up stuff but anyway make a long story short my little grandson wanted to play baseball and by the time I found out about the signups right here in Bradford
County it was already too late luckily we got him on the basketball so um but I'm just saying there's there's if we had somebody fulltime to do that it it would it would help our our children so just something to think
about and I'll keep talking with the uh county manager about it and see what we can get going maybe put it on an agenda while we Okay sounds good and and I'll just say this back and this is years ago i used to coach baseball we
had Hampton Brooker Lahi and Stark i think Stark had three teams around the same age and it was fantastic i mean the rival between Hampton and Brooker and Lah and those little children they loved it i mean we would go to all the different fields and play it It was fantastic it really was um I've been
talking with Gene Melvin about this same thing on the TDC board to maybe get funding from them to to help but uh and Gene Melvin was a big part of uh Brooker way back then and uh like I said it was it was it was
fantastic it really was anyway just something to keep in mind okay um there's nothing else going for the board um take about a 10-minute break and then we'll start on the uh public workshop county Florida uh April 1st uh 2025 it
is uh 10:46 and at this time we're going to start our budget workshop and uh to open it up I'm ask Commissioner Spooner to open us up with prayer and a flight loop let us pray heavenly Father we thank you
for today we thank you for your peace thank you for your love thank you dear Father for everyone who's here today heaven Father help us to uh engage in our budget in a productive way let us listen to one another dear Lord and thank you for all that you've done for
us and help us to do your will and what is best for our citizen in Jesus name we pray amen amen i aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under
God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay this time I'll turn it over to uh Mr corn thank you Mr chairman so we're going to go through each department budget individually and first on the list is
the UFIFA agricultural extension office and Dr sanders if you'll come up to the podium we'll start there good morning here we go okay so our budget requests are pretty
flat um the only thing that that I talked to Mr hornady about is a few increases especially with gas um line item 52 250 just because of the increase in gas prices and we now have a truck
versus what we used to have um and other than that the other request we had and it was a question for for maybe um finance but personal services and service mainten agreements we were just asking if we could combine those two line
items and I don't know who I'm looking at y'all okay but that's the that's basically we have no large requests everything's pretty much the same so you do have other than the 3% I'm sorry other than I was just going to say
you have the you have the budgets before you so if you can't see the screen and the 3% coal will be included as well any questions are you buying all your fuel in Bradford County yes well unless we travel outside
of the county okay fill up before you leave that's right don't don't fill up south that's right come back on games all right thank you all right thank you very much thank you Dr sanders next up is our uh
community development ship office Miss Kennedy good morning good morning morning um the only increase in mine was the um 3% and then on our projects we are going to increase the maximum amount allowed
so that did increase the demo replacement just slightly but that's the only increase any questions went down quite a bit i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm looking no that's okay okay an increase i'm sorry
it's the 3% increase for employees for salaries and then just on the demo replacement we went up a little bit because the maximum amount allowed is also going to go up yes ma'am one question any opportunities for any new grants that state or federal grants
i have I but as of right now any other questions i thank you for all you do the the public runs very very smoothly i really do appreciate it you're welcome thank you thank you all right next up is the senior center
good morning good morning so my budget's pretty much the same we're just going to let it roll with the uh 3% cola increase and that's about it we tried to be as fiscally responsible as possible down there
the budget went down 10 about 10,000 last year yeah so and and then we had extra leftover from you know that's good that's good yeah any other questions any questions
commissioner R that didn't include 3% cola no it didn't i didn't have for the operating expenses you said it did not okay you said it did not did not okay so it would be up to the 75 then
correct okay so basically Mr it would be about the same as it was last year approximately except for 3% yep yes and thank you for all the wonderful things that you all do about
yes yes thank you very much and also board keep in mind we we're not sure about the insurance adjustment this year so we So this is including 20% so the bottom line number but we
just don't know go down yeah we thought it would be best to to aim high because I think last year or this current year we got it down to what 12 right around 12% so hopefully it'll be around 12% again this year but like I said for budget purposes go ahead
and overestimate all right very good then next is um veteran services morning morning the only increase I have is the 3% cola everything else is staying the same
all right and I appreciate you helping our veterans definitely appreciate all everything you do for them any questions thank you very much thank you next is the building department Mr
crawford good morning board like everyone else here the only uh cost I have the u increase I have is a 3% cola for myself and my administrative assistant everything else is the same good all right all right all right thank
you we appreciate all y'all do and I appreciate all you do inspecting the buildings thank you all right it's your turn now Rob oh oh okay i'm the same as pretty much everybody else we just did the 3% cola nothing has
changed pretty simple and Rod again I do appreciate everything you do and um I I'll tell you all Rod does a great job inspecting um I was building just a little small garage
uh Rod cut caught some issues on it um with um one of the vendors on a um a huge um rollup door and um we got the changes made but um once the changes were made I saw where a lot was coming from and I I really do
appreciate it that was a good catch thank you thank you sir next up is solid waste and mosquito control morning only increase for mosquito control would
be 3% cola and the CIP of course for the grapple truck that will be split between saw waste and mosquito control everything else pretty much will be the same okay saw ways and
control any questions for Vinnie i appreciate what you do with the mosquitoes and definitely every time I call you're right there so I do appreciate it citizens appreciate yes thank you thank our collection and everything i really appreciate that yes
ma'am thank you thank you Vinnie next is the library good morning good morning chair commissioners we have a bit of a change this year um this year all salaries are paid out of the county budget and other operational
costs are paid out of the state budget the Santa Fe Community College budget will go towards improving resources for teens and young adults as it was originally slated and the New River Public Library Cooperative will continue to support the libraries in Baker Bradford and Union um the co-op budget
has line items to help with programming expenses office supplies collection development uh software databases equipment building maintenance travel and staff development and our only increase is the 3% cola as
well and we do appreciate the great work and programs the library offers to our community the credit really goes to the staff there yeah it does miss Kimberly you'd be hardressed to find someone with more institutional knowledge of uh Bradford County Library itself as well
as her community she knows everyone personally and provides personalized service and loves her community so kudos to her and we still want to give high quality programs
yeah and if I could recognize and uh I'm sure Commissioner Thompson would as well Trisha as far as the work you do with the Tri County uh library co-op you do an excellent job and with all the counties with Bradford Union and Baker and we certainly appreciate you and it's
been a pleasure working with you the last what six years is it seven seven yeah um done an outstanding job and we're glad to have you thank you board thank you kim did you have something you wanted to
No actually she did it for me oh okay i would like to say thank you you do a super job for your support and you and you make large jobs easy at the battlefield
and and just to let you know that the library is something that is talked about um all over the county they love the library and so thank you for giving them that that output that that place of of peace and enjoyment so thank you all
for what you do we appreciate that thank you so much thank you thank you thank you all right Chief Carter you're up that's all I have to say about that all right so Jason are you ready i can
you Okay I got you straight in your op yeah oh yeah i plug mine in switch i assume mine won't be those that quick um so we're looking at a $945,000 increase over last year uh I
will explain all those numbers and what the contribution from the board will be requested so if you look at our budget um if you look at the top half here uh again this is the increased salaries uh
employee benefits as you can see the benefits is really what hits us hard uh when it comes to our department uh operational costs have have gone down we actually removed the ambulance request out of um any anything that doesn't have
a revenue source or that doesn't have an offset a cost offset we've moved out of the operational requests and so if you say "What does it take to run fire rescue what would your budget be?" That would be this number right here the 8 million right at $8 million um and so
that would be our our uh request like I said if you said cut out anything extra what does it take to run fire rescue it's this amount right here then we look at grants we look at our capital outlay and how we can offset those costs and so in order to do that uh let's take a look over here at a different
page so this gives you a breakdown of and you may not have all these pages in your in your books here um when you look at when we talk about benefit rates every payroll dollar that we spend in fire rescue is actually $1.56 cents
because of benefits so we pay 50 56% on benefits here um life and health insurance is the $17,72.88 that's a 20% increase over last year that cost may go down so our numbers may fluctuate a little bit there um if you look at our personnel salaries
and wages like we talked about just a second ago uh department operations benefits and wages uh salaries and wages all comes out to 8,2,460 when we add in our grant state funds and contingency so for capital outlay we've got $450,000 in there
$350,000 for a new ambulance 100,000 for grant match our Baltimore airway course is $20,000 um state appropriations for a new engine is $620,000 state appropriations for a new fire tanker is
$635,000 our uh buyin for the uh PMT the MCO program is uh approximately $350,000 those numbers we still don't have yet so those are not exact numbers as of yet and then for the parame medicine department is 217,000 for their budget and then fire
marshall would be 93,000 and contingency we had add in there for 500,000 so if you run a financial report report in the finance system and you look at our budget it shows that we have a $10.8 million budget or that's what we would request for next year but again 8 million of
that is our operating cost 2 millions of 2.8 8 million of that would be what I car call inflation or artificial inflation in that budget of yes it's it's um things that have to be added into the budget for expenditure lines but it also has an an offset
um so again we're looking at a $945,000 uh increase over last fiscal year but let's take a look at revenue as well also if we look at revenue projections uh 2.3 million in fees for service we've got 350,000 in inter facility transfers
80,000 is for the hospital weight times um fire inspector services we have 3,300 20,000 to offset the Baltimore grant um 620,000 for the estate appropriations 635 for the tanker opio development
funds for the non-qualified county the LSF funds we have 167,000 in there uh and then the city county funds 49,000 and then from our PMT revenue we're looking at 750,000 so total projected
revenue for next year uh is $5 million so what that boils down to is we're going to generate 46% from our services and from the other uh state grants and those type things and then uh from the board of county commissioners the request would be 5.8 million so that's
what is left over to fund out of the general fund or whatnot this does not include revenue from the fire assessment if that were to pass through um so that would be another additional offset there and just to put that into perspective uh this current fiscal year that we're in
right now our projected revenue was uh $5,830,239 our projected revenue for next year is 5 million i'm sorry not projected revenue our offset uh what we need from the board to the board's contribution last this fiscal year
5,830,23982 uh our projected contribution from the board for next year is 5,862,000 so you're talking a 30,000 difference is what we're asking from the board to contribute from uh last year to this year and that includes three staffing positions uh the three new staffing positions that we discussed in
uh the last budget workshop and I will gladly answer any questions those added positions they're supposed to bring the overtime budget down that's correct and and this um the budget that's presented here did not include
the amount that would be transferred in at the end of this year to offset the overtime costs so um and in the 30,000 that we're asking for the from the general fund essentially you know that number that 30,000 could also go down depending on what the insurance rates are so if insurance rates aren't 20%
increase then you know we could actually offset that that 30% or that uh that 30,000 and and be a net zero for for the year mr chair um forgive me Chief i was going through all these numbers trying to look at all shuffling papers here no you're good so I wanted to ask again
going back to North Florida and the transport services um where do we stand on that right now is there any updates as far as um what may come of that as far as them offering more services and us doing less and bringing in less
revenue from that no sir not right now they have no no intentions and no plans that I'm aware of to um to make that a hospital or increase their services provided there at all okay so I think I think that's going to be pretty consistent over the next year okay okay
thank you yes sir and if I may um I'm sure you've given us the number but the three positions how much did you say that we um thought it may save us and would that be clue in is it already
included in the amount that you're showing up there now the numbers that I have um presented before you here yes they Yes ma'am they do include um the See here they do include um that does
include the three extra staffing positions yes ma'am oh now the numbers from again the the current fiscal year's request it does not include the amount of overtime that we're going to have to transfer in at the end of the year to balance the budget so that number is not
included so in reality we may actually our request from the board may actually be less next year than it was this year depending on how much is transferred in from uh to offset the overtime at the end of the year and chief if you could again excuse me Mr chair uh if you could again explain
on the overtime where there looks like there's three of them that are extremely high in the hours yes sir um and and and why is that so that is you know again somebody has to staff that position right whether it be um somebody on
overtime or whether and that's why we looked at bringing in these extra positions for um to to so we could pay them straight time rather than paying them in overtime um but yes sir there's it's that's volunteered to to pick up that overtime and work those extra shifts and we do balance that we
nobody's allowed to work greater than 48 hours without a 24-hour I'm sorry 12 hour uh break in between um this person you know again we we do have uh the on call system to where if somebody is calls out that day we we staff that um
we use the on call system to staff that person into there um but those positions have to be filled and and that's something that again because we've we've lost a few people it's opened up those positions it takes time to hire somebody on get somebody trained up to be able to put them out on the road by themselves
and so those are just things that open up opportunities for over overtime um which again is hopefully going to be offset with the three additional uh personnel so that's just the willingness to to want that's just them want wanting to be at work and you know again whether
we pay that one person if he wants to work or she wants to work um you know one day on one day off or if somebody else wants to come in and and pick up that overtime we're going to pay overtime for that position regardless of of whether it's uh that same person or
whether it's spread out amongst multiple people and assuming there is a regard for safety as far as the the time that they have off and not fatigue or anything like that okay and that's why that was uh that was something that's been as part of part of this department as long as I've been a part of this department was you can't work more than
48 hours without at least a 12-h hour break um and we try and avoid that as as much as possible okay but uh Miss Andrews to your uh question about the possible savings the minimum potential savings that we're looking at with hiring the three additional personnel
would be uh $81,872.35 ben I'm I'm just going to bring this up i I keep bringing it up uh quite a bit and um and and I I just I really feel strongly about this um that we should go to the 56-hour work week and um you know
because it and then also to have all our firefighter be dual certified you know firefighter EMT or firefighter paramedic and um you know that's the way a lot of the other fire departments do it and um I know when we started out we didn't do
it that way cuz at the time we were only rescue and you couldn't do it on rescue but now that we're fire and rescue you know as long as all of our employees are dual certified then we could go to the 56-hour work week like everybody else
does and I you know I I really think that's something moving forward we should start looking into is going to that that 56-hour work week so there's a there's a couple things with that and with the um it's actually most departments are 53 they pay over u
overtime over 53 hours okay the the difficulty with that is for our circumstances you have to right now we pay overtime anything after 40 hours at the end of the year their annual salary is what it is you know
let's say that it's $50,000 for their annual salary if we were to move them to a 53-hour work week to where they don't get overtime until after 53 hours you wouldn't be able to reduce their annual rate you would still keep their annual rate at 50,000 so at the
end of the day you're not saving in their annual expense you're you're saving in you know their their hourly rate would be actually higher um than what it is right now and so when they do make overtime they're making more in overtime because of the hourly rate is
is adjusted higher um the other negative thing about about moving to a 53-hour work week and making everybody dual certified well for one everybody has to be dual certified if you move to a 53-hour work week um you know and I'm I've
I've want to be careful how I say this but I think that we really risk um the medical care that we've always been known for in this county you know like I said we just won uh a state award for being the the top EMS agency in the state of Florida and I think we risk
losing that uh when we have to mandate everybody go get fire certified um there are a lot of people who work for me who are really good paramedics who just want to be paramedics they don't want anything to do with with firefighting and I really think that the
two jobs are are totally separate jobs and I know we've merged the two departments together but they're you know it's essentially like I look at it like building a house if I have somebody who's a really good framer they're most likely not a really good plumber also so I want somebody in building my house who
is a really good frame framer and I also want a really good plumber but a lot of times those two don't over overlap and there's no no crossover there it's no different in fire rescue you have people who are really good firefighters and you have people who are really good paramedics sometimes those things don't overlap sometimes they do i mean we have
great paramedics who are also great firemen and fire women but um you know the the the problem is I think we risk strongly uh losing our losing our quality of medical care that again we've always been renowned for providing here in Bradford County the other part of
that is that a lot of departments are moving the opposite direction a lot of departments are moving to hire single service because of recruitment there's we're all recruiting the same firefighter paramedics and the next county over is going to pay better the next pen county is going to better offer
better benefits um and so we're all trying to do these different type ideas to try and recruit and retain people and that's something that's allowed us to maintain our staffing level the way that we have and not totally lose everybody else to to other departments is the fact
that we do maintain um you know that single care and and uh not require everybody to go to fire school again that's a very attractive option to come work here um so that would be my my stance on it my take on it but um and I would I would ask that you take a look
at other departments uh you know recently I know a lot of departments used to require everybody be dual certified but that's not the case anymore as a matter of fact a lot of departments are going the other direction and letting single certified paramedics come on to their department because of exactly what I just spoke about and that's that's recruitment
well that's that's why I wanted to bring it up because I know we've been talking about it for over a year now uh but I can't call the board members and talk to them about it so no i appreciate you bringing it up here and talk to to uh the chief our county manager and you
know come up with what's best i I truly don't believe it's going to um hinder our performance because I think our our personnel are are all highly trained and I respect every one of them and I think that no matter what
the whatever job they do they'll do it to the best of their ability so I have full confidence in uh in any of the firefighter paramedic DMT that we have yeah and I certainly didn't mean to imply that that I don't have confidence in in my And I understand where you're coming from but you know but at the same
time somebody that's super good at paramedic you don't have to put them on an engine but if they're dual certified I'm just looking at 10 years from now what is best for the county starting to go with the 53-hour work week or continue on with what what we're doing now and that's all I'm talking I'm
talking about you know cuz y'all are going to be here from now on and what's best moving forward for us to start setting up this department and uh if it is best to set up going this way or or keep it the way we've been doing so that's why I'm I'm bringing this up well
and I think that you know that's a it's a great way to look at it right we want to look down the road and I think that's something that um can be worked into but I think that to to jump in and say we're going to go to a 53-hour work week and everybody has to be dual certified you run into okay now the ones that do want
to stay that are single certified that have to go get dual certified now we we're you know probably going to be obligated to pay for them to go to to fire school if we requiring that we would you know pay for them to go to school um you know I just think you run into a lot of of those things and we
encourage it right is something that we strongly encourage and um and and that's something that we're going to look at is is being able to sponsor people to go to fire school so that way it's a more attractive option for them to uh to if they're out if they are a single certified uh person to be able to send
them through fire school and get those credentials and uh I think that's a that's a something that could also help with that that process but I do think that's going to take uh some more time i I would hate to see us rush into that and and I'm with you i think that our people are going to excel at whatever they do but I do think there's people
that have zero desire to go to fire school and we would lose some really good people if we if we mandated that and can I ask a question um how does the do are you aware of how the city does that how how how do they operate yes
ma'am they hours and and I mean like that so uh I believe they're on a 53hour work week that pay overtime after 53 hours and that's because they are all uh you know fire certified um they are not all all paramedics uh so they don't it's different they're opposite of us where
you know we require everybody to be a firefighter uh EMT or paramedic um they require them to be a firefighter EMT minimum but there's no paramedic requirement there so do they have both i mean they have paramedics and firefighters i believe they still have uh a couple paramedics that are on staff
there but they can't operate as a paramedic they don't have a medical uh license to be able to to operate as a paramedic within the county oh I see okay um just um um thank you i know I have brought it
up before and I do um understand that having the full-time persons will help to reduce the overtime but also um just in consideration of the possibility of having some part-time folks which would
reduce the the um expensive for all of the extra benefits if if that's a consideration um that could possibly help us in reducing some of the cost for benefits and also the cost for over time yes ma'am so we have currently about 15
part-time employees but most of those part-timers are employed in other places so a lot of times it's it's tough to get them in you know in to come work um if we have them on the schedule sometimes they they don't show up because they pick up overtime at another department so uh it is it is tough we do have about
15 part-time employees currently but to get them to work consistently is is tough and just miss Andrews back to what you said I want to clarify what I what I said there about the city um so they they are paramedics you know some of them aren't are paramedics there they do have a paramedic license but because they don't have an ALS certification
from the state of Florida as a department they can't operate as paramedics in this county if that makes sense i think that's a better way to say that why Why wouldn't they have that they have to have uh there's there's certain requirements from the state to
be certified as an ALS department or an ALS apparatus um that they have to you know meet certain they have to have c certain equipment uh cardiac monitors you know all those type things on there certain drugs that they have to carry um and they just don't they don't have that at
the city uh they don't carry that at the city thank you any other questions all right okay thanks Chief thank you Chief all right now it's your turn Jason
i try to be quick like the others but Chief Carter I do want to say congratulations on the award that you guys received that was awesome thanks i saw it on I think it was on Facebook or somewhere but congratulations and please extend that to everyone absolutely
they're the ones who earned it absolutely hello again hello um on our maintenance budget um the only increase you'll see is just the uh 3% cola and also um for the
maintenance we did request for a pickup truck for new items requested um for 25,000 which will be something that I try to um work with one of the surrounding counties or cities that are
surplusing something of decent uh quality does Jason if I could warn you real quick just be careful with that because the auditors okay make sure that it's it meets the Kelly Blue Book yes
sir price definition with the options listed and and try to run it if you can try to run the bin and get the options because we went through a mess with auditors one time buying a used u magic car and we got a good deal on it but thank God when we looked it back up
through Kelly Blue Book we were in within $200 of what uh trade in or good value good condition was for that vehicle thank you any questions on
maintenance and custodial there's the tire machine and the wheel balancer is that yours too it is under the fleet maintenance oh I'm sorry i'm skipping yes ma'am this is facility maintenance any question yep good on that yes
now we'll move on to the fleet maintenance and that is the to answer your question miss Andrews is the uh we currently we tried something and it it didn't work to our benefit we ordered a
uh tire machine and balancer off of Amazon trying to save money and uh it got us out of a bind for a little bit but it did not last very long so we we understood now why it's so much cheaper than what a coach tire machine costs so
that's that's why that request is before y'all and that this man this budget does cover fire rescue equipment sheriff's office equipments in there also public works um and then we do a extension and libraries whatever county vehicles that
need to come through the fleet maintenance shop and it takes care of all the maintenance oil changes everything yes there was a time where we were having to do some outsourcing of oil changes just because we were down a senior mechanic but we've since rehired a new mechanic and that's picked back up
so you know when you're covering the whole county and you only have one senior mechanic and a helper that's it's a lot of work okay yeah the new facility will definitely definitely help that's for sure i know that they'll be very thankful to not lay in the water and
have every time it rains have a river run through their through their shop so and you know a good place to store their tool boxes and stuff how many staff do we have to do that with we have two
senior mechanics and one helper um and they they operate 24/7 anytime fire rescue sheriff's office call calls them out they they go out and take care of it to try to eliminate the record bills and things
like that and try to get those emergency vehicles back on the road immediately mr dod um does the Vortex still have the auto mechanics program no no ma'am okay cuz I know that used to
be a source of Yeah okay i'd like to see it come back but it's not there any other questions on fleet maintenance okay moving on to road and
bridges or we're on grants I'm sorry this is all your FDOT grants whether it be scraps scop sigp lab um these are all grants we've applied for and got which is set by the state so that is not out of the county
general fund that is strictly grants from the state and I don't think y'all would want me to reduce that gas tax i can't wait to see what it's going to come in with the uh two new stations yeah we're we're all excited about that yes do we have any
kind of projection or idea of what the additional revenue is going to amount to have we looked at that at all and I will say this and I I meant to take a picture of it but I was driving so I didn't but um when I was coming through one of the counties coming back
from Orlando they had a sign about this big and it said uh it said uh your gas tax dollars at work at work yes sir cool little sign you know I thought man you know on the on the projects that we're doing that we're using the gas tax money
you know I've said this from the beginning that would be pretty neat to if you had some of them signs you could put up you know temporarily just so the public knows that hey we're not just blowing their gas tax money this is we're actually getting something done this is what we're getting done with that money because it can only be spent
we don't and if that's what the board would like to see we can definitely make those in our sign shop and uh get those out there on the project so I fully support that would that be good with the board or I would think so because it would help
explain it to people that maybe don't understand um where it's going so yes and I'll be heading back that way in a couple weeks i'll I'll stop take a picture of the sign and send it to you if you will i've seen them i know exactly what you're talking about yes sir so we can definitely duplicate it
and it should be in our sign program so okay we can make them all right thanks yes sir you can make some signs that he can take with him that say buy gas in Bradford County well we we've set it up as a whole you can't leave Bradford County without
buying fuel exactly you got to fill up like Chris said you got to fill up before before you leave all right moving on to Bridges um just something I like to point out every year to y'all um that
you know there is $895,000 that's in Road and Bridg's budget for everybody's gas and diesel and I like to make that clear up front that the road department is not spending $895,000 on gas and diesel a year that
is to cover everybody in the county so um the only other change you'll see is in a prior budget meeting there was discussion about adding three personnel and potentially purchasing a tractor i have built that into this budget for
y'all's approval um if if y'all see set to move forward with that um other than that everything stayed the same other than the 3% uh cola i just like to comment that the additional personnel is definitely
needed in order to be even just to maintain um it's amazing that you all are able to do what you do with with the staff that you have so I can say that I have great staff but there's a lot of times they're very tired and uh you know
when you consider what we do with what we got and we're we're continuing to watch our growth coming so the infrastructure is going to have to grow with it and if we don't start making steps in that direction we're going to be so far behind that in the future
we're going to be in really bad shape i mean we're paving roads we're trying to mow roads we're trying to continue grading picking up litter which I think any five of you can agree that you could drive at any part of this county and we pick it up today and tomorrow to be back
there um job security when it comes to litter is not a problem um having personnel to pick up that much litter is a problem and boy I just want to um I thought in our last meeting that we had a consensus
for Jason to go ahead and hire those three to to start looking yeah so Mr chairman if we could let's let's go ahead and do even if we did it before let's do it again okay and that way it'll be memorialized and we'll be able to move forward with that so we're
just asking for consensus to hire three additional FTEEs and purchase a tractor and a batwing okay and that would help with mowing the the grass and things like that right Jason yes ma'am yes and just to be clear it is a bat a
tractor batwing and two zeroturn mowers um not to exceed that price of 200,000 but it will be less than that i can assure you that i just didn't have the numbers before I came in here to to put it up there but so Mr chairman we have
consensus we do is everybody good yes yes thank you okay okay any other questions on road department road and bridges well just wanted how how are we coming on the uh uh we're getting the
chip seal roads that we already approved started we have started prepping for the for the chip seal um so we are currently working on one of those chip seal roads now and uh once we get to a point where we know that uh we're still within our
funding then we will um start have them come up here and start their first phase because we'll have to do it in phases as the revenue comes in okay all right but we have started on it yes sir thank you yes sir mr chair just a question mr dods your presentation of the gas tax
projects and the grant projects i noticed that in the current fiscal year it wasn't complete are you still working on that then it was they were zeroed so I wasn't um I probably just didn't move them over okay the ones that are finished should
have said finished on them that was a copy of it my fault for not moving it over we actually fixed that yesterday didn't we yes and so it's saved on another machine done
anything else for me any other question no thank you appreciate all you all doing thank you thank you thank you sir mr chairman that uh that concludes the bud budget presentations from the different departments uh if you have any other questions we'll be happy to answer
them at this time yes um I was talking to u this is uh Rachel Ren uh before this meeting could we put a line item uh K on here for recreation and parks
is that a rhetorical question Mr chairman or I I know we I know we we we've already got a budget you know for it's recreation and parks at a club yes sir we have a recreations budget and it's about $13,400 and that covers your parks
Speedville Lincoln City Pleasant Grove for the maintenance of the parks okay so I guess what I'm asking board while we're doing our budget can we add some to that to move forward with possibly getting someone to help us with our recreation so Mr chairman that you've actually
touched on something that we're looking at going forward that involves uh the fairgrounds and the TDC and the potential hiring of a of a fair manager um we we've been talking about the possibility of rolling parks and
recreation into that uh I don't want to call it a department because it's not but um in folding in underneath that umbrella let's um can we just table that for now i I think we got a we got a long way to go
with parks and recreation um one of the things that that like what you're seeing Commissioner Riddick and some of those other areas is is how those projects are being funded much larger TDC budgets or much larger you know sources of revenue
that are coming in the amount that people are paying you know where I think to participate you know locally it's much lower here than it would be in some of those other areas and you know and you know that's just for people to be
able to afford to just you know come out and participate and um I think that uh it's something that you know as we move forward with the fairgrounds and as we try to create opportunities you know at the fairgrounds to uh create economic
development and have you know different things come in uh certainly right now that's that's a focus and I'm not again I mean I know my kids participated in in local sports and and u but you do see that where you go to other places you
say man I wish we had that here you know and and uh certainly you know we don't have well I don't say we don't have the restaurants we don't have the the ones that when people go to other places the steakous and the hotels and everything else that they have when they go and
they stay in those places so um but certainly here like you said earlier you know it's hard for people that can't afford to go travel to those places so I get it where you know you would offer something here locally um but then do
you get the people coming from those other areas to participate in an activity here when you can go to a Lake City or you can go to a Fleming Island or an Orlando or somewhere like that where there's a lot more to offer um I
think we certainly need to crawl before we walk but uh it's good to have the conversation um but with the fairgrounds right now I think that certainly is one of our uh you things that we need to kick off and and we do need to get Pop Warner back out there and let them have
the opportunity to use that as a practice field for sure um and then maybe it you know kind of grows into something out there and and go forward so don't disagree with you i just think that that's something that we need to to you brought it up so it's a good good
start but uh you know we we need to get there because there's a lot of maintenance that goes into them certainly you know with our soils here putting soccer fields just throwing them on a field somewhere yeah you can put them in Keystone because you have well draining soils over there here you know
I know when I coached and we played you know practice out at the fairgrounds the biggest problem we had out there was when it rained you couldn't practice there were ants everywhere um you know it's just there's a lot that goes into it and certainly even our ball fields um
you know down here at Edwards Road if it rains the night before chances are you know you're going to have to cancel games the next day a lot of these fields where you go to different areas it can rain the night before and you can play the next day because they have good drainage and there's a lot of money and a lot of engineering that goes into that
so um so I'm I'm not again raining on your parade but at the same time I think it's something that we need to slowly walk into and because with that budget being just as low as it is right now you know where do we come up with the additional funds i mean you know we're
looking at the fairgrounds right now so where do we come up with the additional funds to be able to to to get something like that up and going you know is it is it a private public partnership you know I've had some people that have called me and said "Hey you know we're willing to
do this." You know so if it's somebody that that wants to you know put money towards something like that to kind of get it going then we need to have a discussion with people that are willing to do that and then figure out again is it a is it a you know a county joint um
with a private side kind of a committee board you know that helps you know kind of run that or you know because certainly the city's been doing it for forever right right so anyway that's again that that's just my my thoughts on
it you know just maybe slow it back just a little bit oh sorry go ahead i I think um that's important too to call all those entities together from the city because as I mentioned earlier they did hire an
athletic um recreation um director but with all of the fields and I think the city was in the process of u redeveloping a lot of their fields for different activities so um bringing all of those together to see what the plan
is already that's that's in place and then seeing where we can go because when you think about the we had Thomas um Street Park that had baseball they've changed that but they have plans for it they have all of the four I think four
fields at U Edwards Road Park so see what is already in the works um and and moving forward from there and also you had all these entities the cowboys the pot warers and all had their different teams and what's what's the status of
them uh and a lot of them had stopped participation because they the fields were under um construction so before we take that leap to do our own thing let us collaborate together with what's already out there and see what we can do
together yeah I think and I like to work with the city too um but but I will tell you this i'm on the TDC board and Mr cornay's on it there's $800,000 sitting in a bank account that is is doing nothing and uh and so that's that's some
funding I believe that we could get to uh improve our ball fields and uh and even help you know like I was saying with the soccer and football fields so there's there there might be some funding available i'll be sitting in that meeting uh what the third Thursday of uh of this
month and um so hopefully we'll and and also the um city uh Jimmy Crosby is also on that board and um so we'll we will be discussing that too you know moving forward as to what we can do cuz I I just think I just hate to keep that's
one can I don't want to kick down the road any further i want to make it happen i I don't know how it's clear to make it but um but anyway but yeah yeah we'll start looking at all this and if I can Mr mr chairman there has been conversation about um all of us coming
together to um make that happen though in TDC um with TDC and um the city um if you start that conversation I'm I'm sure that you will find out that there has been sideline conversation about us
joining in that but and another good example maybe to um talk to now I know it's it's kids baseball um softball but Union County has a wonderful program down in in front of the uh beside the
prison i don't know how they do all that how they keep it all organized but that would be a really good maybe speak with Jimmy Williams or someone that would know and it may be with the school i'm not sure but they have a really good program as well okay
yeah they always have a good program right all right thanks all right so moving forward um are we turning this over for discussion for the public or comments or
where are we moving forward sure you can take public comment if you like sure if there's anybody from the public yes Mr still paul Still 14167 Southwest Avenue one comment about the presentations today one of the things I'd like to you to
look at is a different approach to mowing uh right now u you're destroying a whole lot of wild flowersowers and if you were to do a process where you do a single pass mowing or to the ditch
whichever you would save probably about half of your mowing time and half your mowing cost uh that area that's not mowed that's beyond the ditch uh would then turn into a very rich wildflower uh population uh and it's just been more
recently that the county has done this mowing way way out on some of these roads where we where they have to do uh two and three passes to get all the way out uh so I would urge you to take a look at that because I think if they uh
you let the wild flowers come back you actually can become a tourist destination where people would come and drive to see the wild flowers both in the spring and particular and the fall the other uh things that I looking down the road in terms of your budget I would
urge you to look at the possibility of having a county engineering department and having a county engineer i think you're spending a whole lot of money uh contracting with the engineers and the problem anytime you contract with an engineering firm you're paying this
extra bit that goes uh to the company if you had your own county engineer uh you then would be able to do a lot of stuff without going out to the uh to the contract you'd still have a a kind of contract for the big projects but you'd
have a the ability to do a whole lot of other small stuff that you wouldn't have to be paying these higher prices for and they also probably could help you compete for other grants and so having a count county account county engineer I think would be at this point where we're
you're at may be a way to save money um the other thing I'd like to suggest you take a look at is um is the conference center a revenue generator or a cost and if it's not a revenue generator I would
say sell it invest the money that comes from it and then use that money to try to help support uh the fairgrounds because I think the fairgrounds is going to need uh you if you have having both of those you started competing with
yourself if you got rid of the conference center you could then really focus on developing uh the fairgrounds as a conference center and also as a fairgrounds thank you thanks all right
is strong bond is strong post office box 530 L we have two fields in Ludy um the kids would uh greatly um be helped if they could uh
get a recreation program i was recently on the board uh the recreation board in Lai and um there's the field at the school that nothing is going on
um on that field and then there's the field uh on the east side that is just mowed um and nothing is going on on that field either so there are two opportunities
for a program to happen in Lahi for the children and for something to happen in Lahi so um the kids don't have anything to do in Lahi we tried to get the
popcorn nerd um football team to come to Lahi but there was a a issue with the children getting transportation um and that was one of the one of the issues because most of
the children live here in Stark so but we would love to have uh there's plenty of field space for Socrates uh or for Anything else on the east side okay uh there's lots and lots of space
on that field okay we'll look into it thank you anyone else all right well that's it yeah Mr chairman if I may I want I want to ask all my directors that are here and hold back for just a minute or two we'll all huddle up over there around Chief Carter
after the meeting's a journ okay that's it Mr chairman thank you all right there's nothing else in your job