[music] [music] [music] Yeah. >> [music] >> Hey. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Uh, pledge will be led [music] by
Commissioner Felner. 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, we will move into the agenda of county department presentation C1 budget overview. We do have a public comment section. Is there anyone here that's filled out a card that wishes to speak? Seeing none, we'll move to board
discussions. I guess we're doing the board report. Do we >> I think we I I think we're doing the county department presentations budget refuse. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. >> We need to make a motion to have um Commissioner Goodson and Delaney. >> I think that would be good.
>> I'd like to make a motion to have Commissioner Delaney and Goodson join us. >> Second by Felner. All in favor say I. I. Carries. >> I have such great commissioners that keeps me on track here. I don't know what I do without you guys. Um so I got ahead of myself. We'll go straight to
budget overview. Okay. Uh, good afternoon, commissioners. Um, a couple things. What I'm going to do is it's just me today doing a little bit on the high level, keeping it a little bit informal, but we're going to talk about at at the board last board meeting, you asked what we're going to
do in the budget workshop. And I said we're going to talk facilities and you see infrastructure, but I also want to point out that facilities is infrastructure. So, we're going to cover a lot of stuff on infrastructure. Some might be surprising. just as me. If I talk too much, start waving your arm or talk too fast, start waving your arms,
let me know so I can slow down. Um, we have staff in the room. Uh, folks, if there's uh if they have a slide related to the department, they're here. So, if you have questions, we have the available staff ready for you guys. Um, and then just before we get started, just a couple thanks you thank yous to
Keith, Jill, and Tad who uh been stuck dealing with me for the last week to put everything together. of course the budget office and all the departments because we've been asking them lots of questions, lots of nuggets of information to put this together for you guys. Oh, sorry. It helps if I work the clicker. There we go. So, that you know,
so the topics we're going to talk about the county infrastructure and there's kind of the subjects we're going to go through. Um, and then, uh, believe it or not, a little bit of insurance funds, um, some revenue options and then questions and board discussions on whatever direction you want to go with.
So, um, you know, at the last workshop, we talked about the color of money, uh, you know, where we go through our $2 and half billion dollar budget. When you get down to it, it's about $288 million of operating funds in the general fund. And then last year to help balance the budget, we went through a a number of
recommendations to uh, general funds for cuts. So, I just want to highlight there. So, you can see what we uh, re cuts reductions is the better word, but what we did not fund in the budget that we would have liked to fund. So there was a number of public works items there. There was quite quite a bit of
facilities management items. We're going to discuss that a little bit. On the next slide is you're going to see the parks and recreation items. And so we have an asterk there. That was one of our last minute updates because based on your action on Tuesday to restore the uh
parks and recck through the MSTU. So those reductions have been restored and then you see a couple other reductions. But just want to point this out. This was in the budget message. This is this is the items that we removed from our uh recommended budget before we gave it to you so we can fund uh all the other
needs and the priorities that you had. Uh and I I don't have it in front of me. I should also point out when you look at the cuts um uh we give instructions to the uh you know the county charter cap is 3% or uh CPI or whatever is less. So
when the uh when we talk to the departments if they have general fund we don't let them ask for more than 3%. So when you look at the number of the cuts we've had a number of departments that actually received a little bit less in general fund. It was one they received about $70,000 less for with network
switches. Um then there was a number of other departments that didn't even receive up the full 3%. So when you look at this list of items removed requested budget that was even that was even that was even after we restricted the department's asking what they could ask for. So we went through a lot of folks
took a little bit of a haircut last year to make sure we can balance the budget for you. Uh along with the public works uh funding there's the our um the detention center. We uh we had correctional impact fees. Normally we spend about $3.5 million a year just on various function
of the detention centers anywhere from repairs to maintenance. Uh we had some impact fees so we're able to use those for this year. Now the three mill three half million dollars reoccurring is an issue that we now have to address. And then the road resurfacing uh it was kept the same amount of money as last year
but due to inflation and construction costs. So instead of 50 miles we're going to go down to 40 miles. The reconstruction went from 7 and a half to five. Uh at the at the board meeting on March 17th, what you did with parks and wreck, you also restored 1.5 million of that back into the road resurfacing
program. So So the miles will be a little bit better than 40. Now this is kind of a slide what we always show. Uh these are cumulative uh change in the CPI since 2009. I just want to point out especially for the folks on TV
and Zoom or Teams, uh you can see the blue line is the consumer price index. That's what we follow along with our cap. Um and so that's the blue line, but you can see our construction cost and the gener uh general municipal cost index is higher than what we've been able to do. And it's you can't tell it
in this slide, but we had two or three actually we had three years over 3%. the cap is three the cap is CPI or 3% you know whatever is the lower so those couple of the years where we had 8% inflation and another year 6% we only increase the the revenue by 3% those
years so if you have a a lot of bad years of inflation the cap keeps you underneath uh just even the inflation rate there >> CPI going forward >> uh our next for next this coming budget year it's 2.63% 63%.
And and I we just went over some budget guidelines for departments. They probably don't even know it this this year, but the guidelines to them will be uh 2.3 2.6% increase, not 3%. Nobody fell over in their chair. So, um uh under facilities, just uh I love
the chart here. Just some of the fast facts. There's 154 buildings of facilities is taken care of. There's 2.6 6 million square feet. They're under direct management of 76 billions and 1.8 million uh square feet. You're going to see from a couple departments. They're going to show that the different uh uh
infrastructures they maintain and they're in the our facilities budget is 45 million and we're having a hard time. Well, actually we can't keep up with everything with the current budget to be honest the way it is. So, so there's just some fat fast facts. Uh I like at the bottom the average building was
built in 1971. Uh this building we're in here opened in February. Let's see when did I come back? February of 91 this building opened up. So this building is 35 years old. So we don't have a lot of young facilities out there. And so the older they get, the more uh rehab and more
repair you have to put together. So this is a list of some of our critical needs. And public works was nice to divide it into different areas. I'll kind of read through it. I won't catch everything, but in the north area we have a couple million dollars. Um,
and this is beyond just constitutional needs. I'm going to highlight those, but you have the historical courthouse. We have the Bvard room, which is a community room up there that needs HVAC. The detention center, we're estimating there's at least $6 million of repair there. Four sprung structure tents. I
hope I got it right. Um, that that's the tents. Uh, but there's called sprung structure. We are working on replacing the fabrics with the sheriff's office on that. In the central area of the county service complex, that's the Merit Island for old folks still call it the Merit Island Courthouse. Timothy G. Mills Fire
Rescue Center. That's a a multi-story building in Rockish that houses uh fire rescue and public safety. And then the south area, south area includes Vieiera. So uh and you'll see some coming up next slide about elevators and HVAC, the more Justice Center across the street. We're working on envelope repairs. Uh we're
working on buildings down in Sarno. Um and then we have the Milbourne Courthouse children tower equipment. So, we have a lot of immediate needs already that we're trying to fund uh find and fund for this next year's budget. Major issues there. Um I I'm I got to
tell you, I'm learning a lot from Skip and from Mark and that's why we have him right here. Skip uh Bell is your facilities management manager. Uh Mark Bernath is the public works director. I'm going to start on the right side is the HVAC. Um we've been working last year we completed uh eight projects.
You're always, always, always going to be working on HVAC, no matter what you do all throughout. And then we have budgeted. We have another six or actually seven different HVAC projects that we're working on right now. And when I say we have what we have budgeted, that's, you know, we budget what we think the costs are. Costs could be different. You could get in once you
start tearing ceilings apart or walls apart, you find new stuff and floors. So that's what we have budgeted and that's what we try to accomplish. Elevators, um, uh, even without skip instruction, I learned about elevators can be a pain. Uh we had to do a major reconstruction of the elevator at the uh central the
Kathy uh Swinesburg library. Um when that went down, now you have to rebuild it to meet new codes. So all our elevators need to meet new codes. Uh we have to do new monitoring on our elevators. Uh the recommended lifespan um and you may hear me use the word useful life. That's a federal term, but the lifespan is 27 years. 19 of our 31
elevators are beyond that right now. And but you can see the crew has been working pretty hard over the last uh seven years. We've been able I didn't write down the number. There's about 10 of the elevators we've been able to replace, rehab, and fix up and we have budgeted for three of the elevators this, you know, this year. But so we
still got at least a half dozen more to go and that's just rehabbing. That's just not if they break down or there might be an issue with them. the detention center. Um we have multi- at one point we had multi-year major
projects and we had to take the s off because it was a duplicate but it does feel like multi-year um where there's a lot of work to do. You can see there's a pretty nice overview of the the detention center. You can see the the older existing building at the center. Uh the newer wing on the right and then if you look at because we're going to
talk a little bit about the pods, you can see the four green structures there at the lower right hand corner. Those are all the different pods. But so over the years we've been uh working on plumbing chases. Um uh I have a friend who's actually an architect and you know plumbing is different in a detention
center you know because they can back it up. You you know it's everything. It's it's not your standard plumbing you find in a building or even you know a house or a building. So we have a lot of work there. We're of course we're always working on the HVAC replacement. The jail doors which you just saw at the
last board meeting. A couple million dollars there to help finish up their jail doors. refurbished the showers in there. We got a more HVAC fiber cable. Then uh what we added was speaking with the sheriff's office uh some of the key points. The last inspan expansion of the
jail was 2006 and since then the population has grown by 25%. Um and the the tent structures were somewhere around 2005. That was the last expansion we've done. So um the capacity is still running uh there's a committee that keeps an eye on it probably running 80
90%. Uh but the thing to remember is it's almost impossible to have your jail at 100% capacity because if you're dealing, you know, if somebody gets sick or you have different things, you you you may not be able to double up in a cell. You have to move stuff around. So if the capacity is 1500, that doesn't
mean you can have 1500 inmates every single day in the jail. So the sheriff does a really nice job working with the various county departments to keep that number where we can. Uh I put in there hundreds of work hours annually. Skip and crew do a lot of work. The sheriff department's already in there doing a lot of work. And then, you know, for
expansion, the a rough rough number, a new pod might cost $40 million. >> So, uh, all you know, all there at once. >> The, uh, committee. Can I say something real quick on that? Uh, the committee is the public safety council that that meets here and and I chair that. um and
and they work collectively with with all the stakeholders with if you will and um to to keep the jailhouse population at a at a certain level. Um >> and and so it's a it's a diligent uh
thing that's always ongoing. Um even making sure that people get to state prison when they need to go because that's that's getting them out of our jail and and and onto state prison. So, uh, something they work on a lot. >> Yeah. And it that group's been pretty
successful. Uh, you know, Commissioner Alman remembers back, uh, when we had to add on, we had a sales tax for the for the detention center because we had to expand. We had suits to make sure in the capacity and that that committee came out of and that's been a big help to keep the keep us at the proper level of
uh, population. This is a constitutional officer uh, offices facilities needs. Um, uh, Tad and I, uh, met with, uh, let's see, tax collector, property appraiser, uh, supervisor of elections, and representative from the clerk's office
last week. We went through the six I call it the sixth story. It's the Bvard County Government Center North or something like that. I'm I'm old. It was the sixth story when I got here, so I'm going to call it the sixth story. So, we went through all the floors looking at what we need to do. But as you take a look at the HVAC system, there's at
least another $2.5 million of repairs where we have windows, we got electrical upgrades. So, you can see there's about $4 million of immediate needs in the sixtory. Uh we have reoccurring down at the Sarno complex of about $300,000 a year. Um uh some work, I don't know how
familiar are with the elections office at down on John Roads. Um it's a pretty it's a pretty comprehensive building. He's got a lot of functions in and out of there. Uh so we have some work there. We got east precincts uh we're working on with the sheriff's office and once again just to repeat the detention
center 4 million but there's also a couple other costs there that you know I I kind of almost called it almost nonprisoner related but I mean it still has to do with the facility so we have some costs there. Um a couple pieces of good news at least with this is um you
know as we come back in our midyear adjustments you're going to see that in April um we're going to be able to put some funding towards the HVAC system. So, we'll be able to start cutting down on that $ two and a half million dollars in need. And this meeting this morning, I at least heard that um we had a walkth through with the different contractors
for uh windows and we had a much larger number than we thought of contractors that are interested in bidding on the project. Um so hopefully that will lead to some lower costs than we hope. Um but there seems to be a lot of interest out there for that. So, uh this so this is uh this is this doesn't cover everything
of the constitutional uh needs but it gives you some of the highlights and uh what we were shown last week. [snorts] Um then we have there we go. So we have other UN we call unfunded enhancements. Um we've been working on actually throughout the county working on
bathroom replacements. Um you can see in this building the first two floors were able to be completed. Uh we we uh took the funding out for the third floor. There's other buildings. Buildings D and D and E next door here. They need some uh work. Um A and B aren't quite there.
Like I said, is uh well, the restrooms are 34 years old. Where's that we spent a lot of time um the crew was out today that work on the the washrooms up here and across the building. So, they're there every time. A bathroom is about $100,000 a pair, and I've heard it from
somewhere else that it would be about the right number. So, it's expensive to fix bathrooms nowadays. Um, and then we have other we have um LVPs. I forget exactly, but that's your flooring. Uh, so we have other needs out there. So, we're looking, you know, uh, we're even when we do stuff in house, there's about
$800,000 in need there. For flooring, we have another $2 million. So, just in the government center and the Melbourne offices and the Merit Island offices, we're looking at about another $3 million of needs for facilities. So, that's, you know, what you see under facilities. But I asked and some I'm
going to highlight some of the departments because there's more than just what facilities overseas directly. So, so you got the library system. Um, so they're operating out of 18 buildings. We have that many branches. You know, main library, 17 branches. Interestingly, for only 14 of them are
owned by the county. Some libraries are owned by the cities and a number of libraries actually sit on city- owned land. It's a little interesting how we put stuff together, but as you can see, um, if the library needs their needs just under $12 million in their budget, they have about $4 million funded. So,
at least I'm about an unfunded list of 7.4. Now, the libraries operates under their own MSTU. Um, so they don't use general funds, but what I point out is they generally spend about five million, a little over $5 million a year on infrastructure needs and they have $7.5 million in needs right now. So, that
shows that they're a year behind. it would take them a while to try to get caught up and that's assuming that we don't have any other issues that might happen to the buildings. But so there's there's more than a year and a half of uh needs that they have out there. Parks and recreation. Uh I'll start off
right in the middle. Uh it's a little hard to see there. Over 130 parks, over a thousand different buildings and facilities anywhere from fields, lights, uh playgrounds, bathrooms, boat ramps, um uh community centers. Uh there's just
it they got a lot um and they have they spent a lot of time and money on it. About average they allocate about 3.2 million for infrastructure needs. That's above what they do on a daily basis for maintenance and repairs and and um and constructions of new items. But you can
see their unfunded list is somewhere around $30 million. Uh so you know so you're looking at almost 10 years of needs with the parks and recreation. And then I asked them to put together, you see at the bottom, so we have uh eight community centers out there and they're divided up between
community nature and senior centers, lots of infrastructure, and then other senators and amenities. You may or may not know, we uh we went out to the voters in 2000 for a referendum to build more parks and to pay for more park facilities. Uh we had to go back out
again in 2006 to, you know, complete the funding. Um and luckily, all but one of the debt millages have been paid off. The last one will be this year. But what I want to point out is so these facilities we've been putting together, they're now reaching their 25 30y year lifespan. So they're going to start
requiring major repairs or major maintenance. Some things may have reached their useful lifespan. Um but we don't have to pay for those repairs. We're going to have to come out of our operating. When we built it, uh we issued debt to build it and then we had different operate separate operating
fundings to operate our parks. Now that the debt's gone and so we lose that ability to bond that out. So any major repairs or replacement of these facilities are going to have to come out of their operating millages or and and they also receive some general fund or general fund.
Just a couple minor things before we get into public works is to let you know there's some good news. So there's this just gives you an idea of the different departments what were out there. Natural resources needs a facility to put together the aquatic harvesting um equipment. The extension center has a
roof replacement. Did I say it right? >> Yeah. Okay. Roof replacement. Thank you, roof. Um, and then the MS and and I I want to point out because the extension center, it says a center that really kind of operates as a a separate community facility. They host lots of meetings. You know, they had the Blue
Origin, the famous Blue Origin meeting was there. It's used by a lot of the public. It's a public need. It it's more than just UF and the IAUS program. Mosquito Control has been putting a lot of money together and spending a lot of years and you can see their uh biology laboratory. There's a picture of it right there. Um, so they've been putting
together the money, but they're still about $800,000 short. Mosquito control has their own MSTU, so that comes out of their own budget. And as I'm pointing out, many of these MSTUs are also operating under the cap. So they just can't decide to raise the MSTU by $800,000 to fund it. We have to stay
within within the charter cap. So, Road and Bridge, uh, you know, we talked about and there's a slide about their maintenance and drainage and everything you need to do, but Road and Bridge needs to also they make sure their maintenance shops are well maintained and put together. Um, a few years ago, we put funding together to do
a needs assessment. And so, you can see up there that we have over $25 million of upgrades, replacement, fixing we have to do of the maintenance facilities. And that's just the three three of them that you see listed. We're working pretty hard on uh the Melbourne uh central
fleet. I'm old. I call it C. Uh when I got here, that's what we called it, but there's a nice picture of it. There's about $40 million in needs. We have $23 million of it funded and actively working on it right now, but we're still about $17 million short. So, I mean, this is the help the crews that go out and help the people uh as we go out and
fix the drainage and fix the roadway. So, we need to make sure that they're operating in good facilities. information technology. You may not think of that as infrastructure, but it definitely to me that's the backbone of everything we put together. Um there's been heightened awareness, you know,
security and attacks going on. We know of one place that has actually was attacked and their system was brought down. So, we always try to make sure we keep an eye on everything and try to stay up to date. Uh this last year, we're able to fund their department with their existing funds. Uh, but you can
see if you look at the boat parts, you know, we're looking at, uh, having to replace our network connectivities, uh, the switches, the firewalls, keep everything up to date. That that's going to cost us about $80,000 a year. When you look at the systems, uh, with all the servers and all the, uh,
infrastructure go the servers beginning in 29, we're looking at three $350,000. And then all our storage, once again, more equipment, uh, we're looking at $400,000 a year. So you're basically looking at a need between $400 and $5,000 a year of it starting in 2027.
The clicker you you've seen this chart before. This is a chart put together by utilities as you know and you're going to see in the next slide. We have a number of waste water and water plants that we have to uh bring online upgrade to make sure we meet all the new regulations. um based on the revenue as you can see
the costs are going to exceed the revenue um existing that we have and so there's the listing them all all literally from MIMS down to the south beaches down to Port St. John South Bard Sykes Creek uh Port St. John or regional
a new regional plant. So, uh they put together a list. They're they're their needs are going to be over 800 $865 million or so. Right now, we have about $71 million funded. That doesn't mean we're not moving forward. The projects we have $793 million of unfunded needs.
Um Eddie and the crew and our lobbyists, both federal and state, have been really good to help us with getting grants uh going through. So, we'll we'll stay active with the grants. At some point we'll be issuing debt to build some of the the plants and facilities. Um you will see us coming back to talk about
connection fee adjustments and user fee adjustments as the studies go along and we know what we need to do to meet meet our funding gap. Um right there the analysis and studies are ongoing and uh utilities has a deadline of 2032 to meet all these regulations. So, I mean, so
some of this stuff is occurring even without capacity needs that we have to make sure we have upgrades. Solid waste, uh, I kind of look at the two of them as partners because they're both kind of working similarly. They have to expand their capacity. So, the new solid waste facility up on up down
on 192. We we have the first part funded at about $35 million. Part two is still unfunded. Um, but we'll be looking at some kind of debt financing for that. The Titusville transfer station is currently under construction. It's right now it's funded with bonds and commercial paper. That's what the CP is.
Um that should be completed by July. So that that means that that's some good news for Tom and his crew. And the central uh cell three at the central disposal facilities is it's right now it's funded with some commercial paper, but we still have $31 million to go to complete that. Um, so to help funding
sources that is right there at the front, disposal assessment adjustments, debt issue, gate charges, impact fees. Um, and so he's got studies going on. They all have studies to show the costs and because we have to if we have to issue debt, we have to justify what we need the debt. Why it's not super
directly connected. Uh, you'll probably see us in the next month or two talk to you. We've been talking to or speaking with Waste Management. Their contracts up next year. Uh, and so we're they have a chance for extension, but so you'll see us talking about that and the rates for collection. Just a warning, just
heads up there. This is my favorite infrastructure slide because and uh I don't know if people think beaches are infrastructure, but this is Bvard County. It's extremely important to Bvoulevard County and to our tourism, to our businesses, to our residents. So, it's infrastructure and
we made major commitments. So, as you can see on there, so over the last over the years, we replaced 16 million cubic yards of sand. That has cost us $375 million. $31 million come the TDT stands for tourism information uh tourism
information, tourism development tax. Um and then the rest comes from various grants mostly from the core of uh army corps of engineers uh for the funding. Uh we have a commitment or a plan with the army corps for the 50 years and you see we're going to spend $600 million. So, uh, over the next 43 years and, uh,
as I was showing the slide to my wife, as she pointed out, she goes, "You better live to see the end of that." So, that would that would make me 101. So, I plan to see the end of, uh, that contract. The other one is across the street or close across the street is the UTO facility. We own that. Uh, that used
to be the spring training site. Uh, worked out a really nice uh, working arrangement with UTROS where they rent it from us. As part of their contract, they put in $250,000 a year of their own funding into the capital fund for the first five years of the agreement. We also put in funding, but we're now past
the five years. So that stadium capital fund has about three a little over $3 million in it. They they being UTA spends about $350,000 a year out of the fund. And just kind of a little off the side there, they have to run those approvals through tourism. They just
don't get to spend that fund as they see fit. We work with them. they have to get approval through the county to make sure they spend the funds. So, it's, you know, it's just not spend as they want. But the point I want to point out to you all is that we got 15 fields that require turf replacement. Uh, it could start beginning in about two years. Um,
the fields are getting that owed. The uh I think the first ones were coming in 2016, 2017, somewhere in that neck of the woods. That's about $10 million. As you can see, $250,000 a year from UTSA doesn't cover it. We'll have to talk with tourism and we're asked to sit down
with you how to address that need. Um, and I meant to mention and I didn't, uh, you know, we also have the turf over here at Vieira, uh, regional that was paid through tourism taxes. That was a $5 million project. They're probably about six years in. So, at some point, that's becoming due to for the parks,
too. So, um, I didn't highlight everything. I didn't want to torture every director in the world, but I mean, there's other important infrastructure out there that I I didn't highlight. You have Valkcaria airport. Uh Adam does a really nice job of getting grants. A lot of this funded
through DOT and federal FAA mosquito control. They have their own MSTU, but they have a lot of infrastructure in between their vehicles, airplanes, drones, buildings, labs. Um they put a lot together. You have you another good example is transit services. Their capital needs are survive on grants. Uh
they're 100% federally funded. So even if so they have needs that they can't meet with their grants but there so there's quite a bit of infrastructure out there and then I want to make sure I bring back to you all you saw this at the last meeting Mark did a wonderful job explaining you guys wanted to know what what we need to do about improving
our drainage infrastructure so that's the same slide as you saw before so you can see the impacts of what we would need to have additional drainage crews where we can get get the frequency down between you know two and three years to one and two years if you want to double the uh support staff and the drainage
crew again that we get to cleaning each ditch a year. Then he has a number of other projects in here that will help and you can see the the well it's the funding impact to go with it. Sure. Our last department we're going to speak about is employee benefits and
risk management. It's not infrastructure but at some point I do need to highlight this to you all. If if you take a look the top chart, that is our balance. Our fund balance for our uh employee benefits. That's health and pharmacy. Our claims costs around about $70
million. This past year, it's it's gone up. The last few years, it's been what low to 60 to 65 million. This year was a little higher year. So, as part of the budget, we are going to uh rate adjustment is 6% for employer side. And you can see on as we as an employer were
paying about $15,000 a year per employee for health insurance. At the bottom part uh the bottom chart is our risk management, auto liability, property insurance, general liability, and workers comp. The claims last year were a little over $8.5 million. Uh that, as you can see, we're down to
$4 million. That one's a little bit uh getting drained quicker than I want to see. Uh we're really down to like maybe a couple years before we'll have an issue with the the balance forward. So you see our rates are going to go up between 8 and 12%. Uh I'm pointing these out for both of you to show you both uh
uh areas because uh it's a budgetary need. It's a budgetary impact to everybody, not just us, the constitutional officers that may be in it. There's a couple other outside organizations that join with us. We'll be looking in 27 for uh going out for procurement on the health benefit side.
Uh we're doing we do annual renewals every year in risk management. More wonderful news is the legislature passed to increase the sovereign immunity limits. It's been 200 and 300 forever probably. I seem to remember that now. >> They they passed the bill yet to 350 and
500. Now it hasn't been signed by the governor. Uh Melissa, our HR director, just preliminary, they're thinking that may raise our uh our risk cost by about 20%. We don't know yet for sure. We'll see when we come with a renewal, but
that will have an impact. Um but so we just started taking a look at this is going to be a little multi-year. I I do want to look at it and change and how we charge out our to the difference whether it's departmentwise, employeewise, uh vehicle-wise risk. So we're going to
take a little bit more in depth look at that because we got to do something before we come to you guys with some help or some uh direction. We got to do something to make sure we can kind of level off the our our fund balance in these two uh items. Then last but not last but not least, but I do want to
point out a little bit of good news. Uh the Florida, you know, the Florida has their own Doge office and they put a report together. This is from page 15 of the report and I'll read at least the first sentence. To their credit, Bvard County leaders lowered the countywide milit rate supporting board of county
commissioners a agencies each year during this period over 20% in total. If you but if you take a look at that chart, you can see how we've been going down. Some uh uh one other county has gone down every year which is Pineellis County. Um other ones have kept their uh
their milit rates stable down a little bit. One actually went up Robert County. But if you look at that chart and it goes back to fiscal year 21, our fisc 21 mil rate is actually the highest we mil rate we have is fiscal year 21 in this chart. So our highest rate is actually
lower than any of the other nine counties lowest rates. So I you know want to put that out. That's that is commissioner direction that is staff working to keep the budget balanced and that's also but you're seeing a lot of effect of the cap in that. So this is and you've seen this, you've
seen this a number of times before. We had it in the budget message. We talked about it last year's workshops. I talked about at the last workshop. There's other different ways uh for uh to generate some uh revenue. Public service tax. Um we that is up to 10% on your
various utility bills. We don't uh implement any of it. Uh every municipality implements it in some form. that could generate somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million under our charter. That requires if even if you guys decide to do it 50, that's requires that it has to go out to the ballot. The
voters have to vote on it. We just can't implement it ourselves. The fuel tax, which you all talked about the last uh couple board meetings ago, uh it could generate up about 9 million supermajority vote or you can put a ballot referendum, but that 9 million only gets you the transportation related expenditures that we highlighted
throughout this report. The discretionary sir tax, the local government infrastructure right now that's a half penny we have for or half a percent for sorrel. The charter regional transportation tax is also a uh what they call the discretionary sales sir tax and that's for but that will get
you transportation related expenditures kind of similar to the gas tax. And then last but not least is the finding a critical need to exceed the charter cap limitations under our charter. As I said earlier, we can only increase our revenue um from millages by 3% or what
the CPI is. I'm double checking to make sure Keith says I he wants to make sure I say it correctly. Um if we go above that, and we have done it twice before that I'm aware of, that takes a supermajority vote by the board of county commissioners. You have to put a resolution out. You have to describe what you're doing, describe the costs
and the reasoning behind that. So that is also a way uh to help raise some revenue to meet some of our uh infrastructure needs. So um those have all been shown to you before in the budget message uh in last year's budget and in the workshops.
I didn't do too bad half hour. Uh I thought practice yesterday was 25 minutes. So, um, so we're open as, as I told you as we went around the briefings, we were just going to give you a high level overview, uh, give you some numbers there. Um, and then basically get out of your way to for
discussion. We have staff here to answer any questions. If you have anything specific on some of the numbers, um, and then we'll do our best and follow whatever direction or uh, information you need. >> One technical question real quick. [snorts]
>> You you said 3% uh, or the CPI. It's a lesser of the two. So again, we agreed it's uh 2.63, right? >> That Thank you for correcting me, sir. Yes, it is. So this this coming year's cap is 2.63%. Thank you.
So it's not spel from the commission. >> Um it's good to hear public. >> Yeah. >> That would probably be Yeah. Treat treat it like an agenda item, sir. That would be a good way to go. Yes. >> So we got one card.
That sounds familiar. Lisa, good to have you here. >> Hey Um, first of all, I want to thank you all for having your discussion about facilities today. Jim and Tad came to visit the government
center in Northard and I'm here to speak for the inhabitants of that building. This year has been pretty bad in there. We have no heat. There were days that it
was hovering around 60 in my office. I'm on the sixth floor and he rises. >> I'm sorry that microphone is on. >> Usually it's on. That's [laughter] not >> um I just want to thank Jim and Tad for
coming to visit the government center in North Bard and they took a tour of every single every single floor of that building and like I said I'm here to speak for those inhabitants of that building. Uh during this past cold snap,
of course, the building has no heat, so it hovered around 60 degrees in my office and it just got colder as you went down because heat rises. Um it usually stays around 53° on the bottom floor in the clerk's
office. Yeah, it's cold. I They work with gloves and it it's just I don't know how they do it. The HVAC in that building is um I guess I I guess Skip would say way beyond its useful useful life.
Uh there are the chillers that serve the building are no longer operational. So we have chillers that are setting uh portable chillers that are setting outside the building that thank goodness are are no longer powered by diesel
generator. That was another fiasco within itself. Uh the building's windows are not sealed. So therefore the cold and any fumes come right through the building
in every regard. Brain is a a constant u visitor through our windows as are wasps. On the first and second floor there is a rat problem. Um, I haven't experienced rats. I don't
believe anyone above the third floor has experienced rats, but the building is in serious need of some of attention. It is it is getting till it's almost inhabitable. On many of the air conditioning vents, you can see some
type of black mold or black substance that is coming through the vents. So, our HVAC has to be addressed and it's been passed over year over year and I would say if it was inspected, the building just needs to be torn down and
something else happened. So, I thank you for your time. If you have any questions, it's there's there's several hundred employees there and they need a better place to work. Thank you. >> Thank you.
Any other questions? I'm looking forward to my tour. I'm going to go up and take a look at it. Obviously, something we value. It's our county center, Titusville. Our county seat. >> Yep. Our county seat. We We definitely
won't take care of that. Um, any questions? That was the only card we had. Thank you for being here sharing that. I have questions. I don't know if the board has any questions. I'll start. Um I mentioned fascinated with first of
all staff has done an excellent job in presenting to us um the data very concise clear uh communicated extremely well and in a very very straightforward and simple way. On slide 19, the utility services
department infrastructure needs. notice countywide we have a this is a big ticket a $793 million shortfall. I'm curious what's going to be the impact of that shortfall. Is does that
mean we will be facing moratorum if we don't meet that unfunded need? Does that mean we're not going to get building permits because they can't get they can't get um sewer permits? I know we're facing a mortorium and a big part of the campaign in septics, but what does that
what is the impact of that? >> Uh consent order, >> pardon me. >> It would be a consent order from the state of Florida. >> What does that mean? Explain that. >> Um and probably Morris can explain it more from a legality side, but a consent order is an um the state of Florida. uh
it would come from the department of environmental protection through their legal department notifying us that we are not abiding with state law. So the projects associated on that list majority of them if not all are
associated with the Florida statute. So nutrient removal as we have those conversations and all of our laws as related to water and wastewater are in chapter 403. So if you go under chapter 403 403.064
point 40 403.085 and I say this because as a director it's just ingrained in there subsequent laws coming um it's a notification basically that within those laws they give you a deadline of when you have to
achieve your goal. So if we do not achieve it legally, we are not following the law which would then result in a consent order. >> So let me ask further. So this doesn't mean I if we have an
unfunded need and whatever that may be um main capacity in the plant does that mean we we don't have the ability to treat the sewage or we >> Yes, sir. The so the the question came
um commissioner that what what's occurred in Florida at least on the wa on the wastewater side is about uh 2020 2021 Florida started enacting a bunch of laws increasing the um standard of
disposal treatment. Um you know if we go back prior you hear the buzzwords of nutrient reduction. Well, that requires advanced wastewater treatment. That is the expectation not only the state of Florida but the
EPA expect. All of that has a cost association. Um, if you think of how the um, and I, you know, not to put it in such a way, but the business model of what utility services are, we are very
different from most other utilities, even from a Bvard County geographic. When we think of Coco, it's one continuous area that Coco oversees. When you think of Melbourne, it's the same model. When you think of Bvard County
Utility Services, we are essentially six independent utility services, none of which we have the ability to interconnect. So in the magnitude of um how our logistics are set up, we really don't
have the benefit of uh scales of economics so to speak. What we do for one we have to do for another. The issue then becomes if we look at them individually, some of the areas um again
from a um payback period from what we would generate in that area would be a lengthy amount of time. So we're constantly doing a fund shifting. But now with the intensity of these state laws and let's not forget what really
threw this into a wrench was 2022 2023 and I know there was the graph showing the construction index but that really threw a wrench in it because what I I'll give you an example. The norm for a typical lift station project used to be
about 1 1.2 million. Now on those same projects they're 2.4. And when I talk with other utility directors, it's just um you know, 30 years of doing this, the data points of what I used to think would be the price of a project have
been thrown out because they're constantly moving higher and higher. >> So what I hear you're saying, this is real interesting. This is not necessarily just quantitative treatment, but these costs are what are probably
qualitative treatment that we meet standards that are based by state law, which I assume a lot of those state laws were mandated by federal law as well. >> Yes. >> So, it's not just have to still defend state a little bit. [laughter] >> Well, >> it was probably many of the the nutrient
reduction requirements of federal law as well. >> Absolutely. But when you're going through the when you're going through the exercise of achieving the goals of whether it's water or wastewater quality, >> you have to look at it from the sense of what service area are we expected to
provide. And I understand um they may not be coming today, but as a utility, you have to be at least three to five years ahead of it because if you think in the world of development, they move much quicker than we do in government.
So again it's quantitative and qualitative. >> Yeah. So next question I have is are any of these standards eminent? Are we facing any immediate consent
orders? I mean, we're already facing the septic moratorum, but >> what are we looking at from a time frame when we have to suddenly find ourselves >> the the closest ones right now are going to be the water treatment plants. This
is related to the PAS rule. Right now, the EPA has set a threshold of 2029. However, there is conversation at a federal level of expanding that to 2031. The other ones with related to the
wastewater quality, I believe it's either 2032 or in 2034 are the threshold for that. But as we speak and we say this conversation now, there are still additional laws being um or bills being
provided. um right now um it's one of those things and you know uh commissioner you've spent a lot of time in Tallahassee and you know when you see the same common bill being floated year after year um it
might not pass the first year it might not pass the third but maybe the fifth or the seventh it will get through. And what's alarming to us as utility directors, we're seeing those bills. We're seeing those bills that have been floated now four or five years straight.
And in conversations, it will occur. So now that would be an additional cost on top of what's presented. >> And I know in Tallahassee, I I've been there. We run a victory lap, which is good. We have increased the standards,
the nutrient standards. We're going to clean up Florida waterways, which is good. But we're not providing the funding or we're not having the utility hearings or the rateayer hearings. We know there's got to be a follow-up. People have to step up and fund those. And there seems
to be a lot of public support. Do you think we have any immediate need to start looking at rate adjustments to meet this standard? >> Oh, absolutely. And it's already in the works, sir. So, upon the conclusion of this, and I've consulted with both Jim
and Tad, we've already completed the connection fee. Um, and again, the connection fees from this department go back from 1993 and have been unadjusted. Yeah. >> So, and as we are currently speaking, I
have a rate consultant um going through our financial model with recommendations on not to be um presumptuous, but if the connections fees were to be placed and if we showed that graph, there is still a delta
there. Um and let me say there isn't a project in our CIP that I would say we should be doing. These are literally we must be doing. >> The shoulds have been removed about two years ago.
>> Well, we know there's a lot of public support for clean up the lagoon. >> Oh, hi, Commissioner. You You have the floor. >> Oh, thank you. Sorry to interrupt. Um I I was just wondering just cuz we're on
this topic um is are these things that could be paid for by the infrastructure sales tax and what would that look like? Because when I talked to Morris Glass, we could still
possibly have some time to update the language to include some of this stuff. Morris, did you want to comment? >> I believe the question is if the board revisited its decision to um just renew
the Save Our Indian River Lagoon halfcent tax and instead make it a full penny with provisions for infrastructure. Could funds generated by that be spent on these projects? And the answer to that would be yes.
or even keep it at a half cent but just expand the allowable uses >> potentially. Yes. But it would be the even though it would still be a half, it would be the equivalent of implementing a new search
tax. >> Well, I'm looking at our our half cent generated last five years right about 500 million. I'm looking at 793 million. So it it would not fund it and
that's if you used every penny of it which means none of that money would be going toward cleaning up the lagoon. It would be providing sewer treatment. >> Can I ask one technical thing on that? And and if you and if you did, let's say you did the half the half penny and
expand it um [clears throat] in that last scenario, half of the funds generated there would al would then go to the municipal government doesn't just stay in Bvard County, >> right? Either by formula or you know local agreements, but yes, it wouldn't
be exclusively to the county. So, >> and if we sort of revised the existing half cent to expand the uses, we would absolutely be in a position where we be renegotiating those >> agreements with the municipalities.
>> And commissioner, let me add because you were mentioning about state funding. So, on the next uh on the next board meeting, you'll be seeing that we're going to be submitting for state revolving fund. And state revolving fund is it's a great program. It started in
the early 80s. It's associated with water wastewater. However, due to the demand, the rules have changed. What the rules have changed used to be you could submit for multiple projects. Um, now they've scaled that back. Now, what
they've done is they've scaled it back where you can submit um you can submit on multiple projects, but as an entity, the maximum we can get is 25 million. Now that's pending what the board what their committee decides excuse me. So um
you know we will be taking uh you know leveraging that because it is a lower interest rate. We always submit every opportunity that FT has and we've been in communication with our lobbyists both on a state and federal level to try to see how we can leverage it. As we know,
we're doing the effort as it's related with the space industry and we want to make sure that we're leveraging federal dollars and not county dollars on the infrastructure for that. So, um, we are definitely trying to stay as aware as we
can to to stretch our dollars as far as we can. >> I have a lot of questions. >> Can I ask you a question? >> Sure. Sure. um you know we're we're not alone in this and in in bringing uh our our wastewater up to the new standard right
so >> right so how do um how do other municipal governments how are they how are they tackling that >> well they have an advantage because like I said for for um you know and like I say I I'm feel
quite comfortable in that question because commissioner for 10 years prior to being a utility director I was an engineering consultant as a VP doing water wastewater with a variety. The logistics of these utilities are they
were um able to capitalize on a treatment plant and and there you have the ability to get you know the scales of economics in terms of um keeping your price down. But as we function we're
essentially six independent. So if you think about the nutrient removal, we have six wastewater plants. So what would what an advantage of, you know, whether it's a a cocoa, Melbourne, Cocoa Beach, they're putting their
assets all into one asset. We have to do that time six. And it's not just the nutrient removal. Um, now it's into the disposal, especially if you're in the Indian River Lagoon. So disposal methods is
traditionally a deep injection well. And going back 8 years, if you ask me what a deep injection will cost, it used to be 68 million was the swag number. Today we're getting into numbers of 25 and 30. The state now has now said but every
five years you have to do a test on that well. And the testing period is about a 5-day period. The state used to allow a period of time where they would allow you to discharge to the Indian River Lagoon during the testing period for the
benefit of testing the well. Come 2032, that is no longer allowed. So now that requires a second deep injection well at a cost of around 2530 million. So that you have the benefit of when you test
one well you transfer it over so nothing gets discharged to the lagoon. These are the challenges that we have is not allow reuse to be a primary disposal. They consider that a secondary. The reason being is um it's it's considered a
secondary because we have no control of the homeowner shutting off their irrigation pumps right now. Today we are producing more reuse than the demand. So if you can imagine we have the um the wetlands that we're familiar with by
permit. That is our primary disposal. Why? Because we control it. So, um, the D doesn't give you an option. If you decide to go full reuse, you don't need to do a deep injection. Well, they don't consider that an option.
That's interesting on the demand situation because we know when it gets dry here that there's pretty heavy demand on uh reuse at least in this part of >> so it's cooler weather right now but I'll guarantee you in about a month or two it'll be flipped
>> when it rains more maybe. Okay. All right sir. What are we looking at to fix this problem? We we see the gross amount, the number, but what are we looking as far
as potential rates and adjustment of rates? Is it a is it sign? So, for connection fees right now, just to to give you a sneak preview, um the sanitary or the sewer connection rates would double and the
>> What are they? >> Commissioner, I I I will, if this is a pop quiz, I hope I score a a passing grade. I think right now it's 2300, 2400, and they're going to go up to 48. the water because we have smaller we
have less um water but it's a calculation and again um I'd be thrilled to discuss this oneonone on how the calculation was formed. It's going from 1,700 to I believe 5,000
per ERC. >> And how about the monthly rates? What >> monthly rates are still being worked on? So, we don't have those numbers yet. >> I anticipate in the next two to three months we will. >> Okay. The other gosh, this is um
you know, I assume we have a lot of the rateayers that are using BVAR County Sewer in cities. This is not a jurisdictional thing, especially with the cities doing the the large annexations. So, we this is not a county city thing. A lot of our rate payers are in the
cities. Am I correct? Uh so when we talk about ray pairs and incorporated the beaches come to mind this is where we have satellite bead Indian harbor and whatnot. Um the only areas like what we call south central that we reside in
palm shores but the rest of it is really the sunree vieira area. Um we do merit island we do port st john so those are really unincorporated and then we have north boulevard. Okay. >> So, two or three months we'll get we'll
get more news and I'm >> you'll get >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> As far as the consent order, is that the right legal term to consent? >> It is, sir. >> Are we are any of those imminent? I mean, within the next year or two, I mean, that's probably a question of Morris. I I don't know. >> Not yet.
>> Pardon me. >> Not yet. >> Not yet. We still have a window. >> We still have a window. >> But you mentioned that window is about a three-year period. We need to start thinking >> Yeah. And and let me say sir that for the most part most of those projects if not all are already in motion. So we've
already gone through the RFQ portion. We have a consultant. We are working through the design. And the benefit of that is is because whether it's federal or state, even when you do come for an opportunity for a grant, they typically
ask you what stage of the project it's in. It's critical that we get these projects at least if not more than 90% complete because that seems to be the threshold that they're looking for you to be seriously considered. So, as we're
turning out these projects and even though we may be in a situation today to say, why are you go why are you designing it for the benefit you don't have the money to construct it? Um, we still need to because in order to be um,
you know, to be viable to get those grants when they do become available. >> Makes sense. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? I'll give a little history here. I've
been, you know, when I first got elected in ' 84 to the county commission, our prior commission in the early late 70s, early 80s, we're facing a consent order or federal mandate uh to get there was
direct discharge into the Indian River Lagoon, part of the federal clean water act. And a lot of those plants that we had were not county plants. They were with the growth of the 60s and 70s and the space programs they allowed developers to come and develop these package treatment plants and there were
all kinds of package plants that were just not working. The developers then put capital reserve there. We had to inherit them and and affluent was just being dumped into the lagoon. I mean raw sewage practically. So it was a lot of
courage. our commission stepped forward and you know in so many things I probably never get the due credit but the commission of the early 80s late 70s really had a great solid waste director I mean a wastewater director which as we do now great staff a lot of capability
but they they well they were had a gun a federal gun pointed at their head but they stepped up and had to do a rate adjustment. The public hearings were so big they had to find some of all the largest churches they could find. They couldn't fit
people into any of the public meetings. But it was the issue of the day. And uh but they laid the groundwork for so much of of what has got us to this point now. Our prosperity that we have now and has
been based on what they did. And um it sounds like history does repeat itself. We're going to be faced with some challenges here. and I appreciate it. The good news, it sounds like we have a little bit of lead time, but I what I'm trying to get is
where are our decision points? Do we have a a set of benchmarks that we need to act and react? And I hope that I know the staff gives us though that we we don't catch ourselves in a situation where we, you know, we haven't really
thought ahead and addressed those. So, I appreciate you bringing these numbers up. It's really interesting. Any other questions on the on the presentations? Okay. Well, that's great. We we uh matter of time with plenty to
spare. I want to thank staff for their >> chairman chairman. >> Yes. I would I would like to make a motion. Okay. >> Okay. Can we can we take an action as a workshop? Are we able to vote?
>> The board cannot take final action at a workshop. The board can generally give staff direction and ask staff to bring things back for formal action at a future board meeting or things of that nature. >> Okay. >> Did you hear that, Commissioner? >> All right. How about a request?
>> Okay. All right. Okay. How about a request? >> Yes. >> Okay. Can I make a request, sir? >> Yes. Yes. Can is that? >> Yes, sir. Abs. Absolutely. >> Okay. Understand? Okay. I move to direct staff to evaluate what steps would be required
to reset the general fund mill rate to a level that would generate revenue needed to address the county's infrastructure and other critical needs. The evaluation would identify these needs and include any analysis that potentially impact property owners. Staff should bring back
this to the board at a future meeting to discuss it. Yeah, >> that's absolutely direction that the board could provide staff at this workshop. >> Okay, good. Good motion. Is there a second? >> I thought we couldn't do a motion. >> Well, >> but we agree. >> I agree.
>> Do we do a motion, a second, and a vote on that? We're not going to take final action, but we're asking staff. >> You you can take a motion on directing staff to bring back. >> Okay, >> I will second it for consideration. >> So, there's a second to the motion. Uh, any discussion?
All those >> Can I Can I clarify? Yes. >> To to reset the millillage to to what are we talking about a critical funding need? >> Commissioner Goodson, did you >> Commissioner? You want to respond to that question? >> It would be to reset the It would be to
reset the millillage to handle the critical needs. >> Okay. Is that to exceed the charter cap? >> I don't think I'm hearing >> I mean >> to establish I'm hearing that it's direction for
staff to do an evaluation and analysis of where the message would need to be reset in order to fund critical needs and and then the commissioner listed off >> Yeah. >> things to be included in that analysis. >> Yeah. Yeah. with Morris what I'm the way
I'm here and understanding it address the critical needs we come back with categories or list of critical needs for you all and what the cost would be what the millage would be to generate the revenue to offset the cost
>> okay and also to clarify we're not voting even for a tenative millillage until July >> correct so you know you can you can decide that you know at the end of June for for July
meeting or you can give direction today to uh you know to start preparing those things but ultimately they're not voting for any of that until July. >> That's correct. This this wouldn't be action today. This would be just direction. Otherwise staff will prepare
a budget that is within the limits set forth in the charter. >> Yeah. So, we're going to have two budgets prepared for us. We're going to have staff staff is going to go in the direction of if you don't get a critical funding need, this is what fits within
the charter cap. And if you do get a critical funding need from the board, then this is this is the budget. Is that >> uh my understanding of the request was that we would be coming back to the board with an evaluation of what those
critical needs are and what that millillage would need to be set at. So um I think we would try to do that before we brought the proposed budget to the board in July and get direction additional direction at that time.
And Mr. Chair, I and I I apologize. I screwed up a little bit. You all asked for a third workshop. I mean, this may that's what we can target it, bring it back for. And we had penciled in. We haven't put anything on the calendar to ask you officially, but we could have a third budget workshop after the second meeting in April, the same day. You
know, you have your board meeting finish, you know, hopefully around noonish, come to come up here at 1:00. And I believe that's April 21st is that Tuesday. >> Yeah. Thank Would that give you time >> to to meet the the motion?
>> Yeah, because and we'll have to sit down with the county attorney's office and the budget office. What I'm picturing is something to bring back to you all to look at and you tell us yes or no to start proceeding with developing a final critical need so that way we can be that
would be presented to you with the budget in July. I mean, you know, so I I'm making commissioners. I say I say this so often, I'm making something up. So if we decide to, and I'm going to be silly, we decide that we want to build a fourth story on the Vieiera and we put it as a critical need and you and we
present you in April, you guys say, "No, I don't want that in the budget." But if we come back and say we need to fix $10 million of the elevators and you agree with that, then that's what we put in the budget. >> Well, I I do want to say, Commissioner, that is an extremely good motion because we've all been briefed by staff and it's
been difficult because of the need for direction. So I appreciate your motion. I think it's well thought out and I will support it >> to take a vote. >> Any discussion? All in >> We have a motion. Do we have a second? >> Second.
>> Second by Commissioner Atinson. Um all those in favor say I. I. Opposed. >> I >> Okay. Pardon me. All those all those opposed.
>> Is it Nay. >> Nay. >> So, it's a 4-1 vote with Commissioner Delaney voting against. Did I read that? I >> think so. >> Is that correct? >> That I heard. >> And we're going to have these options brought back to us in April. >> Yes. We're not committing to anything. These are just options.
>> So, we're agreeing to uh have a workshop now in April. >> Is that part of it? >> I'm fine with that. >> Yeah, I'm fine with it, too. But I mean, is that what we're going to do? Good point. I I'm I'm working a little bit on the fly. So what we'll bring back is
critical needs for you guys to decide on to you what would be a critical need. >> But even in the workshop where you know it's not a vote that's that's some direction. >> It it would be direction. Yes. >> And so that would be uh >> I have a question. >> Yes. Would
we be able because of the topic of this um workshop, would we possibly be able to do it um as a evening workshop so more people would be able to be available >> as far as the public goes?
>> Well, I don't know if this is intended to be a public hearing like a public hearing on the budget. This is a workshop. If we're calling this a workshop, we wouldn't be able to take a final action. >> Yeah, it would it would be a workshop. I I like I said, I'm doing this on the fly for you, Mr. Chair, but that we'd
present you a number of items that you could take a look at and then you would give us direction and then we go and develop the final resolution or whatever for critical need and present that is when we present you a budget in July. >> And we're talking about the second regular meeting. So that's a morning
meeting. So if >> first, >> right? >> Yeah. So, uh, if it were following that, I mean, I think just sort of naturally one or one or two o'clock. Um, >> I think >> by virtue of that, we're all here,
>> right? It's a normal meeting at 9:00 a.m. We have that meeting, maybe a lunch break and come back probably around >> like you said. I agree with that. I don't think we could I I wouldn't support doing it night. I think that would be a hardship. >> Yeah. >> And we're not going to take a formal action. It's it's a workshop.
It's time for us to consider. >> Okay. Yes, >> chair. >> One more thing. Um, I wanted to discuss the email that I sent out on Tuesday evening if we have the opportunity to do that. >> Absolutely. So, we voted on the workshop. Thank you, Commissioner Goodson. Um,
and um I do have a procedural question on that. So we we will would we advertise that as a part of the regular meeting that we'd phase into or do we need a time certain to the workshop?
>> I would call it a workshop. You know, attend your regular meeting and then come in to as a workshop. >> Okay. So >> that makes sense. >> Yeah. >> If we end up early, we can come in here earlier on the workshop. Okay. Uh yes, Commissioner. >> Thank you. So, probably everyone in here
saw the email that I sent out on Tuesday evening. Um, I wanted to explain it a little bit to my fellow commissioners, but also to staff. So, last year being new, I felt like I was drinking from a water hose, right? Trying to understand this budget. I don't feel like I had a
whole lot of input in it to be perfectly honest with you. So, staff did what staff does, which is make it balanced because we have to. I feel like I want to participate a little bit more in that this year to the
best of my ability. Anyway, so my office just went through and looked at some non-essential county services. All of these services matter to someone, multiple someone's. They matter to me. Um, but I think it's important that we look at what we can because we're not
talking about cutting the fat, right? That that's we're not cut we're talking about service cuts here. um because the only way to balance the budget is either to bring in more money or cut stuff. So, this is here because I wanted the
commissioners just to have a look at some of the things that maybe we don't have to do. I mean, Jim, you said took a haircut last year. Commissioner, you said um facing challenges. All of that is lovely language for we're in trouble
here. you know, we we all have a budget at home that we that we try to balance doing different things. So, while some of them seem mean, it's a couple comments I've heard. Um, yeah, these ones hurt. What I was hoping is that maybe we don't
discuss it right now, but it encourages us to go to staff and say, "Hey, is this foolish thing that that Kim brought up possible, or do I like it or don't I like it?" and get staff to weigh in in on it a little bit. While we probably
as a group might not want to put our names to these cuts because they are emotional, um maybe if we tell staff what we think, what we could support in full or in part that gives staff some
direction when we do ask you to start dealing with this budget. Right? If we have if you have commissioners who overlap in things that they would support reducing, it might help staff create some cuts that are needed. That's
what my email was meant to do. It was not to support getting rid of any of these things um wholly or in part. It was just an idea for us to start talking for real about what some of these cuts could look like. >> Okay. I think it was good input. Very
good input. Thank you. Okay, I think well we'll get to reports. We do we have a uh county m county manager report? >> Yeah. Yes, Mr. Chair, I do have one. Thank you. Um uh the email went out a little bit earlier today from Billy Prasad, the planning and development
director. Uh we've been invited to the LNG workshop. I'm calling it the LG workshop. It's an open house or workshop at the Canaveral Port Authority next uh Tuesday the 24th. We've been asked to uh be one of the presenters and Billy will be there representing us presenting and
you'll see the slides. They were sent to you and the slides were emphasizing the process it would take if an LG plant was built on the count if that became county land. Just want to point out it is not county land right now. It is port land. If somehow the port decided to sell it
to the folks to build an LNG plant, there's a long process they would have to go to to get it permitted or allowed in the county. Um so um Billy is going to explain that and part of the process is explain to the citizen that there will be a number of chances for the citizens to speak up or have public
input if that plant happen to be proposed in county land. So I just wanted to since I had since we just worked on it I had the chance to discuss it in public. I just want to make sure it's out there so that and so and I'm sure Billy would be very nice job representing us and explaining the process.
>> So I have a question on that. So I assume what that means is if that transfer were to become reality and becomes county and they wanted to put an LG plant, they would have to do things like comp plan amendments, zoning
requests. Is that kind of what we're >> Yes, sir. They would have to do a comp plan amendment. They'd have to do zoning and they would have to go through the site plan process and and meet our code. And the comprehensive plan amendment wouldn't be just a future land use map
amendment. They would also require a text amendment to the compound plan. >> Okay. >> It would not be an easy process. >> Yeah. >> All right. Any questions on that? Do we need a a vote? >> No. No. I just let you know that so that way you're aware. And I'm sorry. I took the it gave me a chance to speak a
little bit to the public on the floor of letting know that. Yeah. [snorts] >> Commissioner Goodson, your district. Are you okay with that? Yes, I am. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. Anything else?
>> All right. We will move to county attorney. >> No report, Mr. Chair. >> No report. Commission District 1. >> I um I just want to say thank you guys for uh letting me participate uh remotely today and I hope everybody has
a great day. >> Thank you. District two, >> no report. >> District three, >> no report. >> District four, I'll say something really quick. I think I've done this every
year. Bvard Zoo ranked as fifth best zoo in the nation in the USA Today 10 best readers choice award. So, congratulations to our zoo. It's a beautiful time of the year. If you get the chance, get out and
see the animals. Um it's it's a it's a wonderful thing to have uh one of the best zoos in the country right here in Bvard County. Congratulations to them. It is a phenomenal zoo. It's great. And I learned something. I was just there a
week or two ago. Um giraffes love to eat Brazilian peppers. I mean they love it. I watched them >> and they man they devour them. >> Yeah. I mean do we need to introduce
giraffes into Bvard's native habitat? >> Yeah. Thank Thank you, Commissioner. Um I have no report. >> So [snorts] I think >> Mr.
Was that >> Oh my gosh. District three. I'm sorry. I don't have any report. >> No report. Okay. How did I do that? I'm so sorry. Okay. I have no report. I think that concludes our business. If no objection, we will
adjourn the meeting. Thank you. >> The opinions expressed by any [music] member of the public during any period of public comment do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the board of county commissioners of Bvard County, Florida, [music] Space Coast Government Television, or the program sponsor and are solely those of the
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